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TWO

JACE

I slipped away from the pole and stepped out of the pool of light the lamp above it cast on the cracked sidewalk.

Got you , I thought as I swaggered after my little brother.

“We’re not brothers!” His red face, tearstained eyes, and shaggy blond hair still lived rent-free in my mind. “You will never be my brother.”

And I wasn’t going to be, but few things were as priceless as making that boy’s eyes pop with rage. I would lift a little pebble and toss it at him anyway. “Brothers fight. It’s only natural.”

“Stop calling me that,” he would scream and storm off.

Naturally, being adopted by the same people who were denied a biological child because some god somewhere understood how poorly fit they were for parenting had not been an ideal situation for either of us. It had been worse for me, though.

I strolled down the street and followed him. He looked different, but it was Easton, alright. His hair was no longer blond but brown, and he wasn’t scrawny and underfed like he had been when our parents— his parents—brought him home. He still pouted, though.

Easton’s shoulders were broad and stiff as he trod ahead, legs stretching, eating up the ground between himself and the run-down shack he lived in. Not that I got to judge other people’s homes. Ivan’s trailer had seemed like Four Seasons when I got there. Everything was better than sleeping on a bench, and I’d done enough of that to last me a lifetime.

My former brother unlocked the old door of an even older building, slipped inside, and shut the door behind himself. Not that it mattered. I wasn’t going to follow him inside anyway. But I stood in the shadow, my back pressed against the wall of the building across the street from Easton. While I waited, I fumbled through my pockets and found my cigarettes. I put one between my teeth and lit a match, then drew a deep breath of blessed relief as the smoke filled my lungs.

The light on the top landing’s corner apartment came on. A silhouette crossed the space behind the curtain, briefly casting a shadow in the well-built shape of Easton Harper.

Got you , I thought again as I exhaled a cloud of bluish smoke, holding my gaze on the warm light coming from his apartment for a moment longer.

Back at the park, Ivan was sulking. He rolled his eyes when he saw me. On the ground, Ax held his stomach, grunting in pain, while DJ nursed a bad bruise on his cheek. DJ was still on his feet, though, which meant…

“Here’s your fucking money,” Ivan said, handing me ten bucks.

“How noble of you,” I said, taking the bill and slipping it into my pocket together with my matches, cigarettes, and a phone with a cracked screen. That and the charger and a small backpack of rags were all my worldly possessions, although I sometimes considered reducing them down to a wooden bowl to drink water out of. Old Diogenes may have been onto something.

“How the fuck does a scrappy dumbass like you know who Diogenes is?” Ivan had asked me once when I’d told him the same joke. He had a point there, but he didn’t understand that I was also a curious dumbass. No college would have taken me in—and I would hardly put up with four years of that shit anyway—but I knew things. I could pick a lock blindfolded and talk about Napoleon’s failed conquest of Egypt without a fancy degree.

“Let’s go back,” Ivan said. “We’ve got a long ride, and all you did was check the fucker out. It’s not right, man, dragging me all the way here for nothing.”

“It’s your girl who’s putting me back out on the street,” I said, my voice soft and low, always dark.

“Yeah, yeah,” Ivan, who had heard it before, said as he waved his hand dismissively. We got into his trash can on wheels, leaving Ax and DJ to make up however the hell they wanted, and drove off in a cloud of exhaust fumes.

Ivan’s trailer was in a fixed spot, surrounded by identical trailers that could only be distinguished by the kind of underwear drying on the line in front. Ivan’s were worn boxers, the kind a dominant toxic top would wear without batting an eye.

Georgia lied to her parents about dropping out, and they were about to pack her on the plane and see her off to another semester in Chicago, none to the wiser about Georgia’s no-good boyfriend and his friends. That meant Ivan had no room for a scrappy dumbass to trip over in the trailer. “Love ya, man, but you gotta go,” he’d told me this morning.

“I figured you loved me,” I’d replied, stretching my lips into a grin. “But alas, it wasn’t meant to be.”

“You’re weird,” Ivan said after shaking his head.

That I was. A guy couldn’t fight the world and himself at the same time. It had been an instant decision, just after the fire, to accept myself and fight the rest of the sorry lot that used up the oxygen on this blue marble. You had to have your priorities straight.

Ivan’s bucket trembled and shivered all the way from the fancy neighborhood where my once-upon-a-time parents had placed Easton to the trailer park. “You’re giving me a ride tomorrow, or should I hitch?”

“Ain’t no hitching while I’m here, brother,” Ivan said.

“Good,” I said, not exactly hiding the note of irony. “Lucky are those who have friends to fall onto.”

“You’re yapping, Jace,” Ivan said.

“You know it, brother.”

We slammed the doors to keep them shut after getting out of the car, and Ivan unlocked the door of the trailer. It barely hung on the creaking hinges, often feeling like a reinforced cardboard flap rather than a door, and we walked in.

The minifridge was stocked with the essentials. Cheap six-packs occupied two shelves, and leftover Chinese takeaway fought for its life in one corner, still not going over. It was a good day.

Ivan and I carried a six-pack out to the porch . Mismatched lawn chairs waited for us in the small grassy spot before the trailer, and we sat down for the last evening of beer and stargazing. Not much else you could do.

“And if it fails?” Ivan asked.

I sucked my teeth confidently. “Wrong question, buddy.”

“And when it fails?” Ivan corrected himself.

I clicked my fingers. “There you go.” Drawing a deep breath of air, I looked at the starry sky. “It’s almost guaranteed, but I have a few aces up my sleeve. I’ve been in worse spots.”

“Worse than having nowhere to go?” Ivan, who was an accomplished businessman and with a housing situation solved in his own view, looked at me like I had just told him I was from Mars.

What he didn’t understand was that I had come to Chicago a year ago. What little cash I’d had on me went down the drain of youth hostels where booze, drugs, and sex were worth every penny. But the cold and sobering fall on the streets of the city had jump-started something in me. I couldn’t go on like that forever. A transcending experience fueled by rare sorts of mushrooms was a nice enough plan for a cozy night in, but the costs were ever so slightly higher than what I was willing to pay. After all, I wasn’t on anything hard enough or delicious enough to want to give my life for it.

My life was all I had. It wasn’t much, but it was mine.

“He’ll let me crash,” I assured Ivan. “He owes me.”

Ivan was silent for a long time. He sipped his beer and frowned as thoughts churned in that pretty head of his. “I wouldn’t say this to just anyone,” he started slowly. “But I could hook you up with work, Jace.”

“We’ll see,” I said, making sure there was a hint of gratitude in my tone. I wasn’t exactly eager to be in Ivan’s line of work. He was the mule wrangler—or so I called him—and answered to mean guys. The trouble with that was that I couldn’t keep a straight face around mean guys. “Too smart for your own good, smart-ass,” Ivan had said once. I didn’t know my place, and everyone thought they needed to teach me.

“Move products for me, Jace,” Ivan pressed.

I waved my hand. “I can’t, man. Too much paperwork. Who keeps track of inventory? Who makes sure the deliveries are on time?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ivan said grimly. “You’re lucky you can cook, or you’d be out on your ass for that.”

“I always thought I should have been born a housewife.” I lit a cigarette and inhaled a lungful of smoke. Relief washed over me instantly.

“You keep saying shit like that,” Ivan said, not accusingly. “Someday, someone’s gonna think you’re baiting a fight.”

I looked at him and cocked an eyebrow.

Ivan hesitated, then looked at me with something like a smile under his hawkish nose. It looked eerie on his lips, but I appreciated it. “And if they do, call me. Nobody’s messing around with my boys.”

“You’re a good guy, Ivan,” I said and oddly meant it. He’d done shitty things to people who messed with him, and he ensured the flow of various substances of questionable origin, but he had a code he lived by. You didn’t cross him, and you didn’t cross those he protected. It didn’t matter what the color of my skin was or my country of origin or the fact I liked to suck a good dick when the opportunity presented itself. Ivan the Terrible was very much an honorable criminal. “Ivan, the Not So Bad After All.”

My friend let out a low laugh that would have sent chills down your spine if he’d done it while angry with you.

We retreated after finishing the six-pack, and I whipped up a dinner for us both. Afterward, Ivan crashed in the semi-secluded bedroom, and I folded the table in the so-called living room, taking down the back pillows off the built-in sofa to give me space to sleep. My feet hung off the edge, but it was better than cold, hard concrete in any way you sliced it.

The following morning, Georgia arrived. She was a brown-haired beauty with a smile that melted your heart. Ivan had picked her up from the airport while I tidied up the place as much as it could be tidied up. Georgia gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek, and I slung my backpack over one shoulder. “I kept your spot warm,” I said, winking as I gestured at Ivan’s bed.

“You wish,” Ivan said.

I didn’t. He was handsome, alright, but he wasn’t my type. I liked them pouty and sulky and needy. I liked them flustered, annoyed with me, fists clenched, and eyes furious.

I wondered if that was who I would find today.