Ruined By My Stepbrother novel · Chapter 9 of 32

Chapter 9: Glenn's Money

The porch went quiet except for the grill hissing.

My mother looked at me.

Barrett looked at me.

Glenn looked at all of us, still beaming, waiting for somebody to clap.

I put my coffee mug down very gently.

Dane had taken my recipes, my cooks and my Friday night.

Now he had my stepfather's retirement money too.

"That's nice, Glenn," I said.

Barrett's hand closed on my knee under the table, once, hard.

Then he let go and stood up.

"Dad, help me with the grill."

"The grill's fine."

"Dad."

Glenn followed him down the porch steps, confused and cheerful.

My mother and I carried the plates into the kitchen.

She ran the water and didn't say anything for a while.

Then she said, "Dane," very quietly, like the name was a dead mouse on her clean floor.

"Don't, Mom. Not today."

"Did Glenn know?"

"He didn't know me three years ago. He doesn't know Dane's mine."

"Was yours," she said.

The kitchen window over the sink was open, and the grill was right under it.

I could hear every word.

"He did what?" Glenn said.

"He hired her cooks out from under her," Barrett said. "And fired them a week later."

"Who told you that?"

"She did. Her cooks did."

Glenn laughed, not unkindly.

"Son. That's business. Cooks go where the money is. I signed a kid away from Roman Catholic once for a better scholarship."

"That's not the same."

"A man with investors and a hundred and twenty seats doesn't sit around plotting about a little place across the street. He's got payroll."

"Dad, he did it on purpose."

"You always think somebody did it on purpose. It's your job. Everything's a scandal with you guys."

Barrett was quiet.

I waited for him to say the rest.

The tip email, the date, the scallops, D.C.

He didn't.

"Let's just leave it," Glenn said. "Don't ruin your stepmother's first Sunday."

My mother turned off the water.

"Your stepbrother's a good man," she said to me.

I dried a plate so hard it squeaked.

That night, after service, I drove to Columbia Avenue at twelve-thirty with the football key in my fist.

The big house was dark.

I went down the side yard in the shadows, past the hydrangeas, to the carriage house out back.

I didn't knock.

I unlocked the door and walked in.

Barrett was sitting on the edge of the bed in the lamplight, still in his kitchen T-shirt, with a laptop on his knees.

He shut it.

"Glenn gave you that key to keep an eye on me," he said.

"I'm keeping an eye on you. Why didn't you tell him?"

"I did tell him."

"You told him half. You didn't show him the email."

"If I show him that email, I have to tell him where it went. And what I did with it."

"You wrote a one-star review because my ex asked you to. Tell him that."

"I wrote it because I ate a bad meal." He stood up. "I didn't know it was bad for a reason."

"So tell him the reason!"

"Keep your voice down."

"It's my mother's house!"

"It's my father's house, and they're asleep forty feet away."

I was right in front of him now.

I didn't remember crossing the room.

"You'd rather let him keep his money in that man," I said, "than tell your daddy you got played."

His jaw went tight.

"Yes. Tonight, I would."

"Why?"

"Because he tells your mother. She asks why I'm really on your line. Then she asks why I know how you take your coffee."

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