Everyone Thinks I'm Thirsting Over My Own Brother novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Pack the Cat

Cal tells her about Dean and Haley at the marina; she finds Haley in her robe at the condo, takes the quilt and the cat, and learns Dean has posted that her brother has been so supportive.

I got into the truck and held my hands between my knees to stop them shaking.

Cal turned the heat up before he started the engine.

"In March I went down to the marina to check the dock lines," he said. "It was after eleven."

"Dean's Audi was parked behind the boat shed."

"I walked over to ask if someone had a flat."

He kept his eyes on the road.

"Haley was in the passenger seat, Clarissa. She had her hands in his hair."

I stared at the dashboard.

"You saw them in March," I said.

"Yes."

"It's September."

"I went to the bank the next morning and told Dean to tell you himself or I would."

"What did he say?"

"He said it was over and he'd handle it. He asked me to give him until June."

"June came," I said.

"June came, and the invitations went out."

"And you let them."

He pulled over on the shoulder, put the truck in park and turned to face me.

His left eyebrow had a scar through it from the day he fell off our swing set at twelve, and it went tight now.

"I told myself it was ending," he said. "I told myself if I said it, you'd think it was me."

"Think what was you?"

"Jealous," he said.

He said the word to the steering wheel.

I laughed, and it came out wrong.

"Everyone in that room thinks I want my brother," I said. "You were scared they'd think the same about you."

"Not about me. About you."

"You had six months, Cal."

"I know."

"You could have knocked on my door any night of those six months."

"I know."

He did not defend himself, and I wanted him to, because then I could have shouted.

I looked out at the black water between the pines.

"Take me to the condo," I said. "I'm not leaving the cat with him."

The condo was on the north shore, in a new building Dean's bank had financed.

His Audi was in its spot, and so was Haley's little white Jeep.

Cal turned the engine off.

"I'm coming up."

"No. You'll stand there with your hands in your pockets, and I'll end up looking after you."

"Then I'm waiting here with the window down."

My key still worked.

The lights were low, and music was playing from the speaker I had picked out for Dean's birthday.

Haley was in the kitchen in my grey robe.

It was the robe with the coffee stain on the left cuff.

Her hair was wet, and she was pouring a glass of the wine I had bought for after the wedding.

She saw me and did not drop anything.

"Clare," she said. "Oh, honey. I didn't think you'd come back tonight."

"I'm sure you didn't."

"I was only borrowing it. My dress is at the club."

"Keep the robe," I said.

Dean came out of the bedroom with his tie loose and no jacket.

"This is what I was afraid of," he said. "You're not thinking clearly."

"I'm thinking clearly enough to know why her Jeep is in your spot."

Haley's hand went to the collar of my robe.

"Don't be vulgar," Dean said. "You've just embarrassed my mother in front of the whole club."

"Your mother had her speech ready before I did."

He opened his mouth to answer, and I took the quilt off the back of the sofa.

It was my grandmother's wedding quilt, blue and yellow, and my mother had mailed it from Arizona when I got engaged.

Pretzel was asleep on top of it, a grey cat with one white foot.

I picked up both together.

"That's my cat," Dean said.

"You hated him," I said. "You called him a rug that bites."

"He's mine in the lease."

"Then show the lease to the cat."

I walked out with the quilt held to my chest and the cat complaining into the wool.

Nobody followed me.

Cal was standing beside the truck with the passenger door open.

He took the quilt from me without a word and laid it across the seat, and then he held out his arms for the cat.

Pretzel went into them and started to purr.

I got in, and I finally started crying, hard and ugly.

Cal did not touch me.

He drove with one hand and held the cat in the other, and he let me.

At the stop sign at the end of the lake road my phone buzzed on my knee.

It was a notification from the Pine Lake Neighbors group.

Dean had posted a photo of the two of us in the truck's headlights, taken from the condo window.

"Praying for Clarissa tonight," the caption read. "Her brother has been so supportive."

It already had four hundred likes.

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