Page 3 of The Other Brother

“Oh God, Harvey, that’s bad. Even for you.”

Harvey walks off grinning.

My phone informs me that Mitchell, my Uber driver, will pick me up in two minutes in a Toyota Prius.

Right, time to get outside.

The night is icy with a sharp wind. I shrug into my jacket.

Cody’s standing there in a T-shirt with beer down the front. He begins to shiver. Shit. He probably brought a jacket with him, but there’s no way I’m hunting it down now.

He sloshes up against me as we stand on the curb. I’m not sure if it’s for balance or warmth. I’ve never been this close to Cody before. His body is firm against mine, the hard planes of muscles causing me to swallow. Cody is an athlete, a New Zealand age-group tennis representative, among his many other talents. His muscles are well earned.

But appreciating them is a worse idea than a Brussels sprout sandwich. Of all the people on the planet, Cody’s reasonably high on the list of people I shouldn’t be lusting after.

Our ride pulls up, and I’m relieved to put distance between us. Cody gets in first and fumbles with his seat belt. I lean across and snap him in.

“He okay?” Mitchell turns and eyes us suspiciously.

“He’s fine.”

“He throws up, you’re paying for it,” Mitchell says.

“He won’t throw up,” I promise.

I lean across to Cody. “Don’t throw up,” I instruct under my breath.

He obeys me until we pull up outside his house and climb out of the Uber, but two steps later he’s puking in the gutter.

“Good timing.”

“Shit.” He wipes the back of his mouth with his hand and sinks down onto the edge of the sidewalk.

I tug on his arm. “Come on. We’ve got to get you inside.”

I eye the porch of his house with trepidation. I’ve heard way too many stories about how strict his parents are. Sneaking him inside will be a fun mission.

We make it up the stairs to the porch without incident.

“Where are your keys?” I whisper.

“They’re in…” He attempts to pat down his pockets, but he’s got none. I take a wild leap of logic and guess his keys are in his jacket. Back at Jamie’s house.

“I’m just taking a break…” He leans his head against the porch railing and closes his eyes.

Awesome. My night just gets better and better.

In desperation, I dial Kate. She’s down in Wellington, the other end of the North Island, but at least she’ll give me advice on the best way to handle this.

“Hey, Rhino, what’s up?”

I loathe Kate’s nickname for me, but I know that if I protest, she’ll just double down on it. Although Mel and Kate are my half-sisters, they’ve never been halfhearted in their hassling of me. And despite them now technically being adults, with Kate twenty-three and Mel twenty-one, we haven’t moved on from our habit of mocking each other ruthlessly at any opportunity.

“Yeah, I’ve got a bit of a situation here,” I tell her. “I was at a party, and Cody was there, and he’s totally out of it, and I thought I should get him home, but now I’m at his house and—”

“Cody’s drunk?” she interrupts.

“Um… yeah.”