Reckless Hearts. Sean Olin

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      “It’s okay, I gu—”

      Cutting him off, Nathaniel went on. “It used to be mine. That dresser? Mine. That bed? Mine. That bookshelf? Mine. I guess what’s mine is yours now, though, brother. Enjoy it.”

      This was news to Jake. “They gave me your room?” he said, wincing at the burn as the rum hit his throat.

      He felt a tug of guilt over having taken Nathaniel’s room, though Nathaniel didn’t seem all that upset about it. He just kept on poking around in the boxes, lifting things out to study them and then putting them back.

      “Fuck it. That’s what happens when you don’t come home for two years.”

      Every new detail Jake learned about this guy led to a hundred more questions. “Two years. Wow. That’s a long time. You didn’t come home once?”

      Nathaniel threw him a look as if to say, Isn’t it obvious? “You’ll see,” he said. “Once you know Cameron like I do, you won’t be asking questions like that.” He peered at the screen of Jake’s computer. “Who’s this?”

      Jake blushed. He felt exposed, like just having Elena’s profile open like this was a betrayal of the secrets of his heart. Instead of answering, he said, “Did something happen between the two of you?”

      “You’re hilarious,” Nathaniel said. He took the flask back and downed a large shot of rum. “He’s my father. Is that not enough?” He went back to studying Elena’s profile. “Electra. And that makes you Jaybird.”

      Jake could tell that he shouldn’t push the topic too hard, but he had to ask. “Why aren’t there any photos of you anywhere? I mean, I didn’t even know you existed. That’s sort of weird.”

      “Ask Cameron, not me.” Nathaniel pulled up a box and sat in front of Jake. “Let’s talk about Electra. She’s obviously much more interesting to you than the ongoing saga of Nathaniel and Cameron. That song you’re writing for her is pretty sweet. But eventually you’re going to have to come clean with her.”

      Just the thought of telling Elena how he felt made Jake’s heart swell until it almost cracked in half. Immediately defensive, he said, “She’s my friend, that’s all.”

      “She’s your friend whose pants you want to get into. Unless you’re lying to yourself, too.” Taking another nip from his flask, Nathaniel stared at Jake like he was trying to break him. “I don’t think that’s true, though. ‘Don’t hate me for loving you’? You know exactly how you feel.”

      Jake didn’t know what to say. Nathaniel was right, of course, but he didn’t seem to understand how sensitive and complicated the situation was.

      “I know how it goes, man. I’ve been there,” Nathaniel said.

      “Have you?” Jake said shyly.

      Nathaniel smirked knowingly. “Here’s the thing.” He handed Jake the flask again. “Drink up.” As Jake forced himself to swallow down a little bit more of the rum, Nathaniel laid it out for him. “You can go on following her around forever, making puppy-dog eyes, knotting yourself up inside, dying a little bit every time she mentions some other guy, but you’ll never get what you want that way. You’ve gotta make your move. That’s the only play.”

      Maybe it was the rum or maybe it was the fact that they were in this intimate space that had once been Nathaniel’s and was now Jake’s, or maybe it was just that Nathaniel seemed so much more self-confident and successful at life than Jake, but Jake felt like he could trust him, like he had something to learn from his new stepbrother. “If I never make a move, she can never reject me,” he said, admitting his deepest fear.

      “So let her reject you. Then get on with your life,” Nathaniel said. “There’s a lot of fish in the sea.”

      Jake knew he was right, but that didn’t make the truth hurt any less. He nervously picked out the few bars he’d written of his new song.

      “There you go,” Nathaniel said. “Sing your heart song. And stick with me. I won’t steer you wrong, brother.”

       6

      By the next day, Elena’s new Jake-less reality had begun to sink in. She sat on the tile floor in the living room, cradled in a misshapen pink-and-yellow polka-dot chair pillow that just barely fit in the space next to the tree, tooling around on her computer to distract herself from her sister’s television program and, hopefully, escape the funk she’d fallen into since Jake had moved away.

      The show today was Hoarders—even worse than Storage Wars.

      As Elena bounced back and forth among BuzzFeed and Twitter and her own AnAmerica page, which was still racking up likes and comments now, three days after she’d posted her latest animation, she couldn’t help but track the gist of what was happening on the show. A woman in her forties who rescued cats to com-fort herself from all the ways she couldn’t rescue herself is confronted by her worried parents after they discover that the house she lives in is so overrun that she’s now sleeping in her garage.

      The thought that Elena was supposed to find this entertaining disgusted her, but she wasn’t about to say anything to her sister. Nina loved it. She sucked on a giant candy cane and periodically popped it out of her mouth to click her tongue at the outrages the show paraded across the screen, shaking her head, bugging her eyes at Elena.

      “Ay-yi-yi-yi!” she said.

      Elena smiled in recognition and checked her AnAmerica page. A new comment popped up. Some guy going by the handle Harlow. “You’re the best artist on this site,” he said.

      A grin broke across her face. She didn’t get compliments like this all the time, and it felt good to be singled out. She wondered who this Harlow guy was.

      “Flattery will get you everywhere,” she said.

      “Love the way you reference those seventies posters of big-eyed children.”

      She was surprised to see that he had caught the reference. She hadn’t realized that anyone but her even knew those posters existed. Commenting back, she said, “Big-eyed kids. Good catch. So sad and yet so sweet. Thanks for the shout-out.”

      “These people!” said Nina, gawking at the TV. “How do they live with themselves?”

      Elena didn’t know where to begin answering this question. She looked at the nest of cast-off clothing Nina had strewn around herself, the glass-topped coffee table Nina had crammed with food like a buffet table from hell: takeout tacos, three more candy canes, Diet Pepsi, Cheez-Its, and the pineapple she’d been craving nonstop lately. Elena could see the seeds of a Hoarders episode taking root right here in her own house.

      She wanted to say, Nina, look at yourself before you start judging other people. Think about what you’re doing to your unborn child. But this was just too mean. She knew that her sister was in real discomfort today. She’d thrown up all morning. Her ankles were so swollen that she couldn’t even fit socks over them. Feeling bad for her, Elena had made a promise СКАЧАТЬ