Page 39 of Her Brother's Keeper
“No, I’m saying girls are different than boys on how they handle things, but the way your sister deals with shi-stuff, yeah, I think she’s better than most guys I know at handling things.”
“Yeah, she kind of is,” Sage agreed, “I’ll totally deny it if you tell her I told you so, though.”
“My lips are sealed, man.”
“You know you’re not so bad,” he said and I laughed.
“You’re not so bad yourself, you just got a lot going on like your sister.”
“Not as much. I’m more of a pain in her –” I gave him a look and he gave me one right back, “ass than I should be.”
“You got an outlaw’s spirit, kid. I can respect that.”
He frowned, “Thanks, I think.”
“You’re welcome,” I said to assure him I’d meant it as a compliment.
“What are we watching first?” he asked.
“Your choice.”
“Batman.”
“Ahh, a DC kind of kid?”
“Not really, Batman is really the only one worth anything out of all of them. Marvel just does comics better.”
“Finally, some common ground,” I muttered and pulled the CD holder out of my coat sleeve. I had it loaded with dvds and Blu-Rays of every superhero movie I could scrounge when this thing had been set up. I’d borrowed heavily out of the club’s library and left post-it notes in every one of the cases on the shelves stating who had the disc if anyone came looking for it.
“We going early 90’s Batman movies first or getting right to the good stuff and the Christopher Nolan directed stuff?”
“Dark Knightall the way,” Sage said.
“My man!”
We were almost all of the way through the third film when Maren came in the front door. Sage and I were chillin’ on the couch in the midst of the wreckage of our popcorn fight and when Maren saw it, she wilted a little more around the edges which looked frayed as it was. I pushed myself to my feet and pulled her over murmuring, “Don’t worry about the mess, I’ll clean it up.”
I pulled her down onto the center cushion and against me, and before five minutes had elapsed on screen, she was breathing deeply and evenly against me; fast asleep.
“Told you,” Sage said simply and I nodded. I think it was a mark of how worried he was about his sister that he was behaving so well for her lately. I was pretty sure, that when Maren was feeling stronger and the outside threat was neutralized, he’d go back to being one serious pain in the ass, but I think the state she was in scared him. He wasn’t entirely alone in that regard. I made it a point, right then and there, to take care of this little problem before she had to go back to school tomorrow.
We went through the last ofThe Dark Knighttrilogy and were into the secondIron Manmovie when Maren finally stirred. She pushed off of me, and swept some of the loose tendrils of hair off her face, scrubbing it with her hands and pressing her fingertips into her eyes.
“What time is it?” she asked and Sage answered her.
“Almost time to go to bed.”
“Oh, jeez, I’m so sorry, Nox!” She bit her bottom lip and it was everything not to say fuck it and pull her mouth against mine so I could suck on it for her.
“It’s not a problem. If you’re tired, you’re tired,” I told her with a shrug. I wished I could tell her how good it’d felt to just hold her, warm and close against me, but Sage was here and we were all in this holding pattern of truce that I didn’t exactly want to ruin.
“Why don’t you guys go on and get ready for bed, while I clean up our mess down here,” I suggested. Maren nodded tiredly and Sage looked over his sister. I could tell he wanted to protest, but instead, he impressed me with a compromise.
“If you promise to come back some night this week and watchThe Avengerswith me, I won’t argue right now.”
Maren stilled and looked at her brother like it was an invasion of the body snatchers or some shit. “I’ll totally do it if only to spare your sister some grief,” I said. Sage held out his fist and I bumped it with my own.
“Thanks, guys. Although why do I feel like this is some axis of evil coming together and that later I’m going to regret not being more suspicious?”
