Dear Brother, You Loved Me Too Late novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Spare Room

Angie moves into her friend's apartment and her friend's brother gives up his bed. Her friend asks if she loves her stepbrother, and Angie refuses to tell him she is dying.

The Lund apartment was on the second floor of a brick building, with a radiator that clanked.

Dixon Lund carried her suitcase up the stairs, though she only had a gym bag and he knew it.

"Rule one," he said at the top. "Nobody is allowed to say sorry for the mess. It's a three-person apartment with two people who work shifts. The mess has seniority."

"Rule two," Clover said from behind them. "Dixon sleeps on the couch. No arguing."

"I wasn't going to argue."

"You were building up to it."

"I was going to argue a little."

He opened the door of the smaller bedroom.

The bed was made with clean sheets, and a second quilt was folded at the foot.

On the nightstand sat a glass of water, a lamp with a paper shade, and a small plastic bottle of antacids.

"I changed the sheets this morning," Dixon said. "Clo texted me at nine. I came straight from the shift."

"You don't have to give me your bed."

"I'm thirty minutes from work, and I fall asleep in my truck half the time anyway. The couch is fine. Please take the bed."

She looked at him.

He was twenty-five, with short brown hair and a tired, steady face.

He did not look at her the way strangers looked at sick people.

He looked at her like she was a person who happened to need a blanket.

"Okay," she said. "Thank you."

"There. Was that so hard?"

"Yes."

He grinned, and the whole room felt warmer.

Dinner was grilled cheese, because Clover had made a vow and was keeping it.

Dixon burned the first batch and said it was a deliberate artisan char.

Clover told a story about a customer who paid for a milkshake with a coupon for a different milkshake.

She did all the voices.

Angie laughed so hard she had to put the sandwich down and hold her stomach.

It hurt, and she kept laughing anyway.

At the sink afterward, Dixon said quietly, "How much of that is pain?"

"Some."

"Let me know when it's more than some. I can't give you anything strong, but I know who can."

"You're a paramedic."

"I'm a guy who has done a lot of nights in the back of an ambulance. I'm not going to hover. I just want you to know the door's open."

"Okay."

"Okay."

He dried a glass and set it in the rack.

He didn't say anything else about it, and she was grateful.

Later, when Dixon had gone down to move his truck, Clover sat on the end of Angie's bed with her knees pulled up.

"Tell Colin," she said.

"No."

"Angie."

"I'm not telling him."

"He said the worst thing a person can say, and now you're dying. If he finds out after, he will never recover from it. I'm not saying he deserves a break. I'm saying he'll wreck himself."

"Good."

"You don't mean that."

Angie looked at the lamp.

"I don't know what I mean," she said. "I want to tell him and I can't. If I walk into his office with that letter, he'll look at me differently from that second on. He'll be nice. He'll bring soup. He'll cry. It will be about the cancer."

"So?"

"I've waited thirteen years for him to be kind to me for no reason. I'd like to know, just once, whether he would."

"Is this about the kindness?" Clover said. "Or are you in love with your brother?"

Angie did not answer fast enough.

"Step," she said at last. "No blood, nothing. And he can't stand me."

"Those aren't opposites."

"I'm nineteen and I'm dying, Clo. It's not a good time to be stupid about a man."

"That isn't fair to him."

"No," Angie said. "It isn't."

Clover did not argue, which meant she had decided to come back to it later.

She bent and kissed the top of Angie's head, hard, like she was stamping it.

"I love you, you stubborn goat," she said. "Sleep."

Angie lay awake until the radiator clanked itself quiet.

At three in the morning, the pain woke her.

It was low and sharp.

She curled on her side and counted slowly, the way the doctor had told her.

A soft knock came at the door.

"I heard you move," Dixon said through the wood. "I'm not coming in. Can I leave something outside?"

She hesitated.

Then she said, "Yes."

When she opened the door, there was a hot water bottle in a knitted cover on the floor.

Beside it sat a glass of water and a folded note in blocky capitals.

TAKE ONE OF THESE IF IT'S BAD. I'M HERE. NO QUESTIONS.

Under it sat one white tablet from her own prescription bottle, set out in a tissue.

She stood in the dark hallway holding all of it against her chest.

From the couch in the front room, Dixon said, in a low voice, "What day is it?"

"What?"

"Your dad said Friday at five, right? Clo told me. You're going back for your things."

"It's three in the morning. So it's already Friday."

"Then I'm coming with you."

"Dixon, no. It's my family."

"Then I'll park across the street and stay in the truck." He sounded patient. "You won't even know I'm there."

She almost smiled in the dark.

"You'll be so obvious."

"I'll wear a hat."

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend