Page 71 of Guitars and Cages

“I wanted to, but I was working late with Angus on a big order, and by the time we finished I was wiped. I crashed as soon as I got in my apartment, didn’t even bother with dinner.”

“Damn, must have been some order.”

“It was; now stop changing the subject.”

I chuckled and picked at my jeans. “Okay, so, my brother Cole came home, which was great, ’cause I hadn’t seen him in years, but then he saw Alexia and all hell broke loose. Long story short, Cole and I don’t live over the bar anymore; we moved into that building over there.” I pointed down the street.

“The red one?”

“Nah, the gray one next to it.”

“Damn, you might as well have moved back in here.”

“Yeah, no shit, we actually thought about it.”

“I thought everything was okay between you and Alexia. I mean, when we talked in the waiting room at the hospital, she was relieved that you’d talked to her and wanted her to stay in the city.”

“I don’t have a problem with her, Cole does. I figured if he took off on his own he wouldn’t come back, so I went with him.”

“Dude, you guys didn’t move that far from the bar.”

I sighed. “Yet. He wanted us to go to California, but I found this cat in an alley and took her to the vet ’cause she was pretty hurt, and she had to have her back legs set, so I was supposed to pick her up today, only she had a chip, and the vet found her owner and they took her home. Cole agreed to get the apartment so we could stay until the cat healed. Now that there’s no cat to bring home, I don’t know if he’s gonna want to leave at the end of the month we paid rent for, or if he’ll keep on looking for a place to open a gym.”

“So, do you want to go to California?”

I shook my head. “Not really. I’ve seen California.”

“Then don’t go.”

“It’s not that simple. We’ve been on the road together before, but years ago he asked me to go to Mexico with him and I turned him down. I’ve only seen him twice since then, until now. As pissed off as he is over Alexia, if I don’t go, I might not ever see him again at all.”

“And what about Alexia? Aren’t you choosing one sibling over another?”

“Yeah, and that’s not even the worst part.”

“Okay, so what is?”

“We just found out Morgan might be our dad. Me and Alexia want to have DNA testing done, find out for sure. My old man is an asshole; having it turn out Morgan is my old man would be awesome. It would suck to find out he is and then have to leave.”

“But you don’t have to leave, Asher. Sounds to me like you’re letting what might happen with Cole make your choices for you.”

“I know. But I was closest to Cole out of all my brothers because we liked the same things and we weren’t that far apart in age. I’ve missed him. It used to be that he was the only person I could talk to that even understood me.”

“How about now?”

I turned to look at him, puzzled. “Huh?”

“You said he used to be the only person who understood you, not that heisthe only person who understands you. What changed?”

“Too much that I can’t ever tell him.”

“And yet you’re living with him and planning to follow him to California if he goes. That’s not too healthy, Asher.”

“Yeah, well, not much in my life is.”

“Then maybe it’s time for a change. You should think about it. Now, I’m starving. You wanna go get some hoagies or something?”

My stomach chose that moment to rumble and remind me that I had been so focused on setting things up for Ghost, I’d forgotten to eat breakfast.