"Right," he scoffed, tossing his apple core into the trash. "Me and all the twelve year olds. No, asshole, the quarry."
The quarry was up the creek a ways. They'd taken out a bunch of rock along time ago, leaving a canyon where no canyon had business being. I hadn't seen it in years.
He had a pretty nasty cut on his eye that I had just cleaned up for him. There was no way he should be putting on a helmet and racing over uneven terrain and I had half a mind to tell him exactly that. Until I remembered it wasn't my decision. "I'll come," I told him.
Gabe regarded me. I couldn't read anything in his gaze other than detached interest, but I supposed that was better than open contempt. "You want to ride dirt bikes with me?" he asked.
I crossed my arms over my chest. "If you'll remember, they were Christmas gifts for all of us."
Gabe laughed. "I'm not still riding the ones we got as teenagers, idiot. I've got my own machine. Dad let's me store it here."
I found myself grabbing my leather jacket and following him out into the frozen yard. He strode without looking back at me, but I would tell by the set of his shoulders that he felt me there behind him.
It wasn't often that I was following him. The last time had been when I was chasing him the night he caught his ex-girlfriend cheating with our manager.
I wondered if he was remembering that too.
The small shed was unlocked. Gabe stalked inside and pulled a tarp off some kind of slick, high powered machine. I walked over, whistling. "That's your dirt bike? It looked like a rocket."
"Rides like one too," he said, boasting.
"You do this often?"
"What, ride? Yeah. Every damn day."
I glanced at my brother. Sometimes Gabe went all blurry on me, like he was vibrating with his need to go out and chase that next high. I wondered how much of it was Gabe's nature and how much was the remnants of his broken heart. Two years and as far as I knew, he hadn't dated anyone.
"So how has it been?" I asked. "Being home?"
He shrugged. "Fine. Boring."
"And your show?" Gabe had a reality show on the ESPN satellite channel where he did extreme sports and wild, stupid stunts. It was called, appropriately, 'King of Pain.'
He looked proud. "They're talking about a second season."
"You want to do it?"
A little ghost of a smile. "It's fun."
I shook my head. "You're a madman."
Gabe grinned. The first real, genuine smile in years, and I clenched my fists to keep from pointing that out. I felt like I was walking a tightrope. One small slip-up and it would be all over. "I don't tell mom what we do," he said with a wicked gleam in his eyes. "She already agreed never to watch it."
A slight fizzle of connection burned between us as I said, "Smart move." We were two brothers hiding a secret to spare their mother heartache. It felt....
Normal.
"So you're all set then," I said, "But who knows what kind of shape my old bike is in?"
"Dad wouldn't let it fall apart. You know that."
"True." I followed him over to another shed - honestly they seemed to pop up like mushrooms overnight - and saw that he was right. Underneath its tarp, my electric blue dirt bike looked smaller than I remembered but otherwise in perfect repair. "Got any gas?" I asked Gabe.
"Up on the shelf."
I unscrewed the cap, trying to remember the last time I had done something like this. Something that could potentially get my hands dirty.
It had been a while.
I sort of missed it.
I grabbed my old helmet off the neatly organized pegboard and strapped it on. "Ready?" I asked Gabe.
"These aren't street legal."
"Had that ever stopped you?"
"No," he said immediately. "But I thought it might stop you."
I grinned. "What's the point of being a King Brother if we can't get away with murder?"
"Oh it's murder now? Who are we killing?" he chuckled, strapping on his helmet and wincing as it settled over his cut.
I took a chance. "How about Bennett?"
Gabe went stiff and still. The silence stretched out seemingly forever and I was ready to open my mouth and tell him. Tell him he was wrong, that I knew why he was angry but he'd made a mistake, ask if we could start over again, when Gabe let out a sound that could have been an exhale but just as likely could have been a laugh. I shut my mouth on the words before they could tumble out of me and fuck everything up.
"Let's ride," was all he said. But it felt like something had loosened between us.
Chapter Fifteen
Jonah
Gabe moved like the bike was an extension of himself, going way too fast. I hung back a little, letting him pull ahead.
He needed to go fast. I needed to know I was doing everything right. That was why we'd done so well as the King Brothers, him pushing us forward, me tying up the loose ends.
Fuck me, I missed it.
Maybe that's why my music wasn't coming? I gripped the handlebars a little tighter, wondering what he'd say if I asked him to help me write. Would he be a dick about it? He'd been a dick about everything else.
We reached the quarry and Gabe spun around, sending up a shower of pebbles. A few riders were already zipping around and sputtered over to size us up, two teenagers by the looks of them.
"What up, G?" they said to my brother, giving him the kind of worshipful glance I was used to seeing in twelve year old girls. "You gonna do some tricks?"
My brother shook his head. "I'm just here to ride."
They looked disappointed, then looked over at me. "That you, Finn?" the one in the orange helmet asked, excited again.
Gabe chuckled. "Nah man. That's Jonah."
The two of them cackled in a way I definitely didn't like. "Jonah?" Orange helmet wheezed. "No way! I thought you said he'd never risk get his pretty face messed up."
Gabe looked at me, instantly wary. Our relationship was a tight knot of hurt and righteous anger, but in the past hour we'd both made the first passes at starting to untangle it. He didn't want to fuck this up.
Neither did I. "Oooh," I sing-songed. "That's a nice burn."
He grinned and another loop of the knot uncoiled, loosening. "Well it's true," he said. "I definitely never thought you'd risk your face. Although I don't think I'd ever called it pretty."
I shoved him with my shoulder. "Are we going to ride or are you going to keep talking?"
"What, you don't want me taking your job?" he shot right back.
I swallowed. What Ruby said was still softly echoing in my head. It was time to sort this out, once and for all. "Gabe, you know I fired Bennett right away, right?"
The teenagers, sensing impending drama, sped away as fast as they could.
Gabe stiffened, but said nothing.. Which I supposed was progress. I took another deep breath. "You all split," I explained. "I was the only one that wanted to keep working. So he caught me up in breach of contract and that's why he was still hanging around." I looked at my brother. "He was just collecting a paycheck off my dime, but I never let him touch a single thing that had to do with my career. And as soon as I could, I paid out the nose to get out of it that contract. Hired these fancy lawyers and everything."