Harper:I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable.
August:Not any more uncomfortable than celebrating opening season in my boxers.
I sent back a face covering emoji.
Harper:Great so, no pants for you again this weekend?
August:I plan to be fully clothed. You?
I laughed.
Harper:Shame. I mean same.
I face-palmed myself in real life after hitting send on that one. And counted every painful second until he responded.
August:Good. See you then.
“What the hell are we going to do?” I snapped at my brother on the drive to Staten Island.
“You’re being paranoid, he doesn’t have a clue.”
“You don’t know dad as well as I do.” It was true. If there was one thing my father was good at and I’d like to think I inherited from him, was being able to tell when someone was full of it
My father was also the only other one who knew that I stood in for Troy when the scouts came early senior year for the draft. He’d looked the other way since I had my own plans after college and had already lined up an internship on Wall Street.
We both played in college, but I never planned on making it my life. Not the way Troy did.
For Troy, he had nothing else.
For me, I couldn’t decide between numerous things I wanted to do.
He hadn’t asked. But Troy knew he wasn’t good enough for the draft. I was.
When we hit traffic, I put the car in park, knowing we wouldn’t be moving on this bridge anytime soon.
“What about Harper?” I mumbled.
Troy raised a brow at me. “That depends, anything I should know?”
“Yes,” I answered simply and tossed him this week’s issue of Brooklyn Lines magazine. “Turn to page four.”
He flipped to it. “Yeah, I saw this, amazing article right? Good sketch too. When’d they get that?” He rubbed his chin.
“That’shersketch. Harper drew it,” I told him, impatience eating at me.
“Are you sure? It doesn’t say—”
“I know, damnit. Just…if it comes up, you, Troy, know thatshedid that. It’s not credited to her, and I don’t know why, but it’s hers.”
Troy raised a brow. “What’s going on with you two?”
I put the car in drive and started moving. “Nothing.”
He shrugged and chuckled, “Well listen, I don’t typically like to finish what others started, but let me know if you want her off your hands—”
“You keep your hands off her. Understood?”
He jerked. “Or what?”
