Giving in to a flicker of humor, 2-Stroke lifted one finger in a rude gesture, and Dean chuckled. There was a short pause, then Dean said, his tone mild, “When you’re up to it, we need to clean out the house. Flora died two weeks ago. I didn’t tell you because I’m pretty sure you didn’t care, and you had more pressing matters to handle.”
2-Stroke held his brother’s gaze for a moment, then closed his eyes and exhaled heavily. He had no response to Flora’s passing. She hated his guts for killing her husband, the only man she’d ever loved. He supposed that was something. “No, I don’t care that my stepmother died. I should, but I don’t.”
After a long pause, Dean said quietly, “Well, she must have had a change of heart because she left the house and assets to both of us. There’s a letter she wrote to us regarding Riley.”
“She has no right—”
“Hang on, Neo. We both know who she was, a hard-drinking, hard-talking biker chick, but something broke inside her when both Riley and Dad were killed. She only drank more to dull the pain.”
2-Stroke closed his eyes, working on putting all his anger, resentment, and hate where it belonged. In the past. He wasn’t sure if it was a result of his newfound discovery that he mattered in this life, but he could find some compassion for Flora, albeit small. She had mattered, too. To Pierce, to Riley and to Dean. She had doted on Riley, and she had lost a son. He met his brother’s thoughtful expression. “You’re right. She lost a son. I can feel sorry for her there.”
“There you go, bro,” he said quietly, then tapped 2-Stroke’s plate. “Tacos down the hatch.”
Another week passed and 2-Stroke took it easy, watching TV, reading, and beating his brother’s ass at Call of Duty. His brother’s place was a two-bedroom apartment, but he kept it neat as a pin. It was a side effect of being in the Navy with their motto of keeping everything shipshape.
After a game of Call of Duty where…yeah…he won again, Dean said, “Hey, I want to go somewhere and want you to come with me.”
“All right,” 2-Stroke said, bored out of his mind. “Let’s go.
When they pulled up to the cemetery, 2-Stroke looked at his brother and sighed. “You could have given me a warning.”
“I didn’t want a lame-ass excuse or an argument.”
“No argument,” 2-Stroke said as he got out of the truck. He looked across the expanse of the peaceful place. He knew exactly where the headstone was. Closing the truck door, he started walking. The last time he’d been here was dark and sorrowful, but now he walked with purpose and a lighter burden. Some deaths were just out of his hands, he could accept that now. He would save the ones he could, mourn the loss of the ones he couldn’t, and move on. Not to compartmentalize those deaths, but to really let them go.
He stopped in front of the gravestone. Riley James Teller. Riley would have turned twenty-one in a month. He set his hand on the headstone remembering that kid who had been bright, funny, inquisitive, and full of life.
“He had such a capacity to love,” Dean said. “I miss him like hell every day. Maybe someday I can forgive myself for not being there for you when you needed me so much.”
“My heart is clear of any animosity toward you, Pierce, Flora…I need to let go and to move on.”
Dean reached out and they hugged for a long time as the wind picked up and 2-Stroke could almost hear the tinkling sound of his younger brother’s laughter.
Later he separated from his brother and went to his mom’s headstone. He knelt there for a long time, silently remembering, silently thanking her for being in his life, for shaping him into the man he had become. With the warmth of her love deep inside him, he rose. Family was what he made it. He and Dean were brothers, and they would both put the past to rest. It was the only way forward.
“My God, the woman was a packrat,” 2-Stroke said as he took in the house. There were antiques everywhere, enough that she could have opened a shop. They would all have to be researched, catalogued, and sold.
Then they went to the treasure trove that was the garage. Vintage bikes of every make and model filled the area along with a 1967 Mustang that still looked as pristine and tricked out as the day Pierce had restored it.
Pierce Teller had been a master mechanic, the kind that could be called a motorcycle whisperer. Dean had inherited his gift. “Why don’t you open up a motorcycle shop?” 2-Stroke suggested. “With the proceeds from all this stuff and the house, it should be enough of a down payment.”
Dean chuckled. “You looking out for me, bro?”
He was thankful that all that shit between them was now resolved. It was good to just be with his brother, talking about mundane things and trash-talking over a video game.
“What are brothers for?” he said with a grin.
Dean came up to him and wrapped his arm around his neck and squeezed. “Let’s get to cataloging all this stuff. I’ll start naming stuff off since you don’t have a clue, and you run the laptop.”
“Deal. They spent days working on the antiques first. There were so many of them, they decided to send out a mass email to antique dealers in the city for them to come and make offers. He and Dean knew what each piece should go for. But there wasn’t a minute or hour that passed that he didn’t long to see Chry. Their texts had been sparse as they both recovered. He didn’t tell her he was in LA, needing some time with his brother and working through all their family stuff. But the pressure was building, and although he didn’t want to see her prematurely, he was aching to make contact with her in so many ways.
They had a mass turnout on the day of the sale, selling everything and making a tidy profit from it.
In the living room, when he went to lift a heavy planter for a customer, he noticed a broken piece of floor and something peeking out from underneath. Frowning, he carried the planter to the guy’s truck, then came back into the almost empty house. While Dean was finishing up the last-minute sales, 2-Stroke knelt on the floor and pulled at the edge of the object he’d seen. He dragged out a crisp, dusty, one-hundred-dollar bill.
Shocked, he realized that there were more. He got a hammer and used the pronged end to pull up the wood plank. His breath caught. There were neat stacks of one-hundred-dollar bills bound together with elastic bands. He pulled up more floor and his jaw dropped. More money.
By the time he got to the middle of the room, he realized that the whole of the living room area beneath the floor was full of those bundles.
“Dean!” 2-Stroke called.
“Wha—” His brother’s jaw dropped open and his shocked eyes met 2-Stroke’s. “What the fuck?”
“I don’t know.”
“How much do you think is here?” Striker asked, bending down and grabbing one of the bundles.
“Millions?”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “Millions. What the hell was our father into? And where did all this money come from?”
17
The sun had barely cleared the horizon, but already Chry was restless. Not a moment passed that she didn’t think of Neo. Their texts had been so polite, and she had to wonder if he was having second thoughts about them. She paused in brushing her hair, the sick feeling of apprehension stirring within her. Closing her eyes, she tried to will away the awful sensation. They had built such a solid bond. He would come see her when he could.