Page 7 of Maybe (Mis-shapes #1)

Miraculously, he obeyed, although it was more of a dance than a walk.

In any other circumstances, I would have found his elegant form weaving along the cobbled path towards wherever the hell I’d left my car charming.

However, after insulting my mother and trashing my dad’s memorial service, I’d run out of fucks to give.

“Right, we’re here. Get in the bloody car.”

I pressed the key fob, and the lights of my car flashed in a welcome response. Ezra snorted. “Fuck me, is that thing yours?”

Nonplussed, I opened the door of my perfectly serviceable electric VW Golf. “No, I’ve opened some random university lecturer’s car. Of course it’s fucking mine. Just get in.”

He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Isaac, babe. Forget I said I hate you; you’re fucking adorable.

Anyone ever tell you that? Look at you. A gazillion in the bank and not spending any of it on a flash car?

A bit like having Jonathan Bailey in your bed and sleeping on the sofa.

If you had even half a scrotum, that’s not going to happen. ”

Fuck, so perhaps he was gay? A question for another day. I didn’t even know who Jonathan Bailey was—a famous hot male celeb, I assumed.

“Ezra? It’s been a hella long fucking week and, honestly? I’m at the end of my rope. You still live in London?”

He nodded. “In between trips to my sprawling villa in the Tuscan hills and the yacht anchored in Antibes, yeah.”

Twat. “Great.” I pointed up the road. “Then home is about sixty miles that way.” Slinging a thumb over my shoulder in the opposite direction, I added, “And Oxford train station is about a mile that way. Feel free to start walking. Get yourself a ticket to Marylebone, board the train, and find yourself a cramped seat. Sober up, maybe make love to some soggy chicken McNuggets before you pass out. Alternatively, you can stop ridiculing my car, get in, and have a free lift. The choice is yours.”

We climbed in—or, rather I climbed in and Ezra sort of fell in, still sniggering.

What a fucking day. Taking a second to collect myself, I braced on the steering wheel, letting my eyes drift closed.

My teenage memories didn’t include an Ezra like this, and I wasn’t sure what to do with him.

The Ezra of my childish dreams had been acid-tongued, but kind and indulgent.

Funny and tolerant. Like a big brother should be.

He’d ruffled my hair whenever he had to leave, and promised he’d be back soon, with new, better songs.

He hadn’t slagged off my mode of transport, which, at that point in time had been a skateboard.

Nor pressed randomly at the buttons on the dash.

“FYI, the VW ID.5 is the best of the mid-range electric cars,” I informed him tiredly. “It does around a hundred miles without a need for recharge.”

I should have kept my trap shut. “The best of the mid-range? That’s like saying, oh good I’ve got crabs, the best of the sexually transmitted diseases .

” Ezra cackled again. “Free life advice: if you’re gonna have a car too small to get laid in, at least make sure it gets you laid as soon as you get out. ”

For a very pissed person, Ezra was irritatingly sharp-witted.

Sharper than me after enduring my father’s memorial service, at any rate.

Securing my seatbelt, I jabbed the start button.

With a muted, unsatisfying click, my perfectly serviceable mid- range electric car hummed to life.

“At least I’m not wearing a shirt dotted with flamingos in central Oxford in January.

And, while I’m at it, here’s some free life advice back.

Do not arrive blind drunk at our father’s memorial service, insult the guests, then proposition the widow.

My mother , aka your fucking stepmother. ”

He shrugged, unfazed. “Janice can stand up for herself. And I wanted to make an entrance. This shirt fit the bill. Six quid from the middle of Lidl.” He plucked at the front, now stained with lager dribbles. “Bargain.”

“Well in that case, many congratulations. Mission accomplished.”

“Does a rich kid like you even know what Lidl is, Isaac? It’s one of those cheap supermarkets for people without fucking mansion flats in Chiswick and reversionary trusts and a gazillion quid in the bank.

You should go sometime, take your mum. It would be a real eye-opener. They have this aisle down the mid–”

“Of course I know what Lidl is.” I had a good mind to boot him out the car. “What the fuck, Ezra? What just happened back there?”

Staring straight ahead, Ezra rested his head back, his mouth a thin line. “I told you—I wanted to make an entrance. And anyhow, I didn’t do it for me.”

“Well, you certainly didn’t do it for me, either. Or the twins and my mother.”

Grief, anger, and hatred were a miserable triad, one the Emergency Department was all too familiar with.

Road traffic accidents, attempted suicides, fatal infarcts.

Shocked husbands, wives, children, friends.

Stricken relatives lashing out at paramedics, the nurses, the doctors, security staff.

Was Ezra grieving? And if so, what? His past, his father, the loss of his family?

The siblings he never saw grow into adults?

Or was he simply really fucking livid about the money?

He yawned widely, digging around in his jeans pocket. “Can I smoke in the car?”

“No. Absolutely not. What do you mean? What are you talking about? Who… who did you do it for?”

Cracking open the window a couple of inches, he lit a cigarette, puffing smoke in the vague direction of the gap. All out of arguments, I let it go. “Forget it,” he mumbled around the filter. “Forget I ever said anything. Just fucking drive this pile of shit back to London.”

Halfway along a slow moving A40, Ezra fell asleep, sensual lips parted and audaciously long eyelashes resting on his equally audacious cheek bones.

A picture of pure innocence. As we rounded a bend, the hand nearest to me, resting in his lap, slipped off to land on the console between us, obstructing several overengineered controls.

Picking it up in mine, I held it a moment, cool and dry, before reluctantly replacing it in his lap. Bloody idiot.

With every stop-start of traffic, Ezra’s lax head banged against the window, so I drove more carefully. I adjusted the aircon, too, nudging up the car temperature. Hawaiian shirts weren’t known for their thermal properties.

Christ, it really was the most hideous design, one half bright orange and covered in spiky yellow pineapples, the other lime green and boasting fluorescent pink flamingos.

Did Hawaii even have flamingos? I permitted myself a smile, remembering the horror on Mrs Mustard’s face.

Ed and Saffy would be gutted they missed it.

Very few things in life were as rewarding as the upper-middle classes publicly skewered. My father would have detested it.

Which was kind of Ezra’s point.

He woke with a start as the car bumped across the ramps leading down to my building’s underground carpark, his head banging especially hard against the unforgiving glass. Minor retribution, seeing as he’d behaved so abominably. With a bleary yawn, he rubbed at his face.

“Where are we?”

“My place. Chiswick. Funnily enough, I wasn’t sure where to drop you off, seeing as you disappeared over a decade ago without a forwarding address.”

“Didn’t think anyone would care.” He sat up. “So, you thought you’d bring me here to rub my nose in it?”

Twat . “Yes Ezra, that’s exactly what I thought. Nothing to do with avoiding leaving you blind drunk and freezing on a street corner. Or to seize an opportunity to talk to you about what’s happened and see if I can help. Nope, this is about showing you what you’re missing and gloating.”

“He always liked you the most, anyway. As much as he liked any of us.”

“Well, if your performance tonight was anything to go by, then justifiably.” God, I sounded snotty. Sometimes, I opened my mouth, and my mother came out.

He threw me a sly grin. “Are you telling me off, little brother?”

“Well… yes. And so what if I am? Somebody needs to.”

Ezra belched, although at least he had the decency to raise his hand to his mouth. “Save it. I’ve already had enough to last me a lifetime, thanks to that fucking piece of shit.”

His gaze turned to the window, not that there was much to see out, except for a cream painted concrete wall. Like a blank canvas, itching to be graffitied. Learn to fly. Fly away. “He was vile to me too,” I said. “Just in a different way.”

“Boo hoo.”

Not in a hurry to get out, he reached for his fags again. I sighed pointedly.

“Don’t be a dick, Isaac. You got the fucking flat and a whole load of dosh.” With a fag poking between his lips, he patted the dashboard. “More than enough to buy something better than this heap of crap.”

Really? Were we doing this now, in the car? “And I’ve said I’ll happily give you some of it. The flat, too, if you like. Mi casa es tu casa, or whatever the bloody saying is.”

God, I felt weary. Nothing good ever came of arguing with drunk people.

Even less fun when the booze wore off and they turned grumpy.

Every time Ezra opened his mouth, I wanted to reach for a sharp implement.

“I’m not sure he liked any of us, Ez. Even my mother.

Or cared. Henry Fitz-Henry was about himself and about winning.

” I rubbed my throbbing temples. “Listen, are you coming inside or not? I’ll make you a coffee. ”

Still a little unsteady, he clambered out of the car and sniffed the air like a dog getting his bearings. He must have been cold; I wore a suit jacket and was still keen to get inside.

“Ez. I had nothing to do with that will, and you know it. The solicitor hadn’t known it was coming either. He wouldn’t have worked so hard to track you down, otherwise.”

He huffed in disbelief, drumming on the roof of my car.

“Honestly,” I added. “I want you to have some of the cash. I’m going to speak to my mother, and to the solicitor. Ed and Saffy have already said yes. It’s not okay. So we need to put things right. And… and I want you to believe I mean it.”

He lit his cigarette, eyes shuttering closed as he blew out a long string of smoke.

“I do. You wouldn’t be part of something like that on purpose.

I was the stupid fucking idiot, to have turned up at that solicitor’s office, hoping.

.. whatever.” He patted the car roof again.

“Don’t forget to plug this thing in. A whole hundred miles. Wow. See you around, Isaac Fitz-Henry.”

And with that, he sauntered toward the garage entrance, throwing me a careless, backwards wave.

“What the hell?” I called after him in stunned disbelief. “Is that it? After ten years? Don’t we, like, need to exchange numbers or something?”

Halting, he slowly swung around on his heel.

“So we can meet up and rake over the good old days? Because you know something, Isaac? They weren’t that good for me.

” His eyes roamed around the half empty parking lot.

“Anyway. I know where to find you, should I ever require a lift back from a fucked-up memorial service in a mid-range electric car. See you later—alligator.”

Though I blushed scarlet, I wanted to keep him here, keep the conversation going. Something told me I wouldn’t see him again for a while, maybe never. Learn to fly. Fly away. I forced a laugh. “God, I can’t believe you remembered I used to say that.”

A brief, sad smile stole across his face. “I remember everything about you, Isaac Fitz-Henry. You were the only reason to come home from school.”

So why did you leave me? “I find that very hard to believe. I was a nerdy dork.”

He barked a laugh. “Yeah, maybe. But you were my nerdy dork. My baby bro. Someone had to show you the error of your ways.” He gesticulated towards the car.

“But you don’t need to be anymore. The big man’s dead.

You’re free to fuck things up for the first time in your life.

Buy a Porsche, drive too fast, try not to crash it.

Do some blow. You’re young and rich, Isaac. Start living.”

Sudden, raw panic engulfed me. “Stay in touch, Ez? Please? Just… once in a while, so I know you’re alive?”

He shrugged, muttering something under his breath.

“What?” I shouted, still falling for it. Still falling for him.

“I said maybe,” he sang back.