Chapter Four

Cali

Clay had left a note for Brooks?

The friend he hadn't seen or spoken to in years?

No.

That didn't make any sense.

"Yeah, the super called me when he found the folder with his final wishes," Brooks said as I stood there staring at him.

"No," I said, shaking my head.

"Yes. He left you his accounts and shit, but he wanted me to clean out his place. And there was a handwritten note to take care of you."

"That must have been old paperwork," I insisted.

"The paperwork was dated, sweetheart," he said, trying to soften the blow of his words.

"That makes no sense," I insisted.

"Maybe he left a note for you in the documents with the lawyers," Brooks said, shrugging. "Explaining it all."

"I want to see it," I said, still not willing to believe that Brooks, of all people, got a personal note. And I got nothing.

"Okay. I was on my way back to the apartment anyway," he said. "You can come with me."

"Is this a situation where I need to tag along with my shiv? Or can I go back and grind on the hot guy with the nose ring some more?"

"I'll be fine," I told her.

Sure, Brooks was now sporting a biker cut with a one-percenter badge. Which told me he was, objectively, a dangerous man.

But this was the same Brooks who'd once picked me up off the sidewalk out front of our houses, carried me inside, and bandaged my bloodied knees. The same Brooks who, years later, intimidated any guy of an inappropriate age who dared to try to look at or talk to me.

I had to believe I was as safe with him as I could be. Especially if he was, in fact, right, and Clay had asked him to take care of me.

My heart, the battered, beaten-down thing it was, ached enough for me to press my hand there.

"You're sure? I don't mind stabbing a man," Sage offered, sounding a little too cheerful about it.

"I'm sure. Go get your man. Are you going to be able to get back in the club?"

"Oh, the girls will make sure of it," she said, waving toward her chest.

"Of course they will," I agreed.

"You," Sage said, stabbing a red fingernail at Brooks, "if a single hair on her head is out of place, I know where to find you. My sister hangs out at your club all the time."

With that, she turned and walked off toward the bouncer.

"I'm parked around the corner," Brooks said, waving in the direction.

"I'm not riding on a bike with you," I said.

I mean, fine, riding on a bike was actually on my bucket list. But something inside of me said that wrapping my legs and arms around Brooks was just not a good idea.

Sure, those feelings I had for him were long buried. But there was no guarantee that the needy girl I used to be wouldn't rear her horny head if I got all up close and personal with him like that.

"No, I took Clay's car," he said, making me stiffen.

"That's not funny."

"What isn't?" he asked, brows pinching.

"Clay wrecked his car," I said, folding my arms over my chest, like I could block the feelings from creeping in. As if they weren't already a part of me.

Brooks was silent for a moment, his gaze slipping to the side, giving me a view of his stupidly handsome profile.

I hated that he still looked so good. Better, honestly. Men and their annoying ability to only look better with age.

He'd always had a chiseled jaw, but it had been sharpened over the years. His body that had always been fit when he was younger had filled out a little more, packing on muscle and some width and breadth to his chest.

And he now had a short, very neat beard.

Otherwise, he was the same Brooks.

Tall.

Dark skin.

Gorgeous brown eyes.

Short black hair, but he had a better barber these days who gave him a sexy fade.

He was wearing a simple outfit of dark wash jeans, a white tee, and his cut. But it was really working for him.

"I don't know what to say, Cal. He had a second car, I guess. Had the keys in the bowl and the title in the folder."

"Oh," I said, a strange, uncomfortable sensation snaking up my spine. But I had no idea what it meant, so I tried to ignore it as I gave him a nod, then followed him as he led me around the corner to a car that was parked on the street.

"What's up?" he asked when I didn't immediately follow him to the passenger door he opened for me.

"This is Clay's car?" I asked, eyeing the beater with the scratched driver's door and the paint job that was fading across the hood.

There was no way.

Clay wasn't exactly materialistic per se, but he cared about the condition of the things he did own. He was the kind of man who washed and waxed his cars constantly. Who would never be seen out with dirty shoes. Who carefully polished his jewelry before he put it on.

Everything about this car was wrong.

The feeling only intensified as I forced myself to slip inside, finding the floorboard caked in crumbs and dried mud clumps. There was a distinct cigarette smell inside as well, making my nose crinkle.

Clay didn't smoke.

We had a grandfather who died from emphysema.

He would never pick up a cigarette.

A joint? Maybe. On occasion. But nothing else.

Not wanting to be stuck in the car with Brooks in complete silence, I reached over to turn the volume up, finding classical music seeping out from the speakers.

Classical?

Clay?

This was getting stranger by the moment.

Brooks slid into the driver's seat and turned over the engine.

And we rode in painfully uncomfortable silence back across town.

"You good?" Brooks asked as I climbed out of the car and stared up at Clay's building, not sure I could go inside. Maybe if I'd have nutted up and done so before, I wouldn't be trapped in this awkward situation with Brooks.

"Yeah," I lied, refusing to look at him as I did so, just falling into step with him.

He was struggling with his bags, and I was just bitter enough with him that I didn't offer to help. Not even after he dropped everything twice before we made it to the door.

My belly was in knots as I waited for Brooks to unlock the door.

"You coming in?" he asked, his voice a bit lower, like he understood my struggle.

But how could he?

He didn't give a fuck about Clay anymore.

But my brother had been the only family I had left in the world.

Going into his apartment, and seeing him all over, was going to wreck me.

And the last person I wanted to be around when that happened was Brooks.

"Yep," I said, popping the p harder than necessary as I forced my legs to move inside.

Where I was met with a familiar scent.

The lingering smell of Clay's cologne… and lemon cleaner.

After his funeral, I'd driven myself to the store to stock up on new cleaning products because all of mine had been lemon as well. Now, I was someone with a cabinet full of pine cleaners that made my nose wrinkle each time I used them.

The inside wasn't how I remembered it the weekend before his death. Some of the furniture was already moved out. Boxes and stuffed bags were strewn all over.

"This is his folder," Brooks said, grabbing it off the mess of a desk, and bringing it over to me.

I took it, sinking down onto the couch to place it on my legs, so I could flip it open and look through it.

He hadn't been lying.

There were pages and pages of documents about his final wishes, his will, and, yes, even the ownership papers for the beater of a car we'd ridden here.

Then, sure enough, there were two pages addressed referencing Brooks. One that told whoever found the documents to contact him to clean out the apartment. And, at the end, a note asking him to look after me.

He was also right about everything being dated.

Everything was less than a year old.

But… why?

It wasn't like Clay had been old. Or had to worry about a bunch of relatives fighting over his things when he was gone.

It was almost as if Clay had sensed his time was coming to an end.

If it weren't for the fact that I heard my own clock ticking louder each passing day, I would think that was crazy. Maybe I wasn't the only one starting to feel like there was a curse on our family, and that our time was coming up.

"I think he wanted to save you from having to do this part," Brooks said after I was done reading, just sitting there staring at my brother's handwriting.

I glanced up, and Brooks waved around at the boxes and bags.

"Yeah," I agreed, feeling that vacuous hole start in my chest, sucking me into the darkness.

"Can I ask you something, Cali?" Brooks asked, voice softer than I'd ever heard it, making my gaze lift, seeing a mix of confusion and pain on his handsome face.

"Okay…"

"You said he wrecked his car," he said. "Is that how… was that how he died?"

Even just that word made my stomach clench.

"Yes."

I'd been sitting at my desk at work when my phone kept vibrating in my drawer.

We weren't supposed to use them at work, so I'd snuck off to the bathroom with it, answering the unfamiliar number. Where a woman calmly informed me that my brother had been in an accident. And that he hadn't made it.

I guess I'd been in shock.

Because the next thing I knew, I was on the floor, and Sage was pushing the door open, slamming into my leg, and squeezing in with me, seeming to read on my face that something horrible had happened.

"Who?" she'd asked, seeming to know that only a death could knock a person's legs out from under them.

"Clay."

His name had sobbed out of me, but the tears refused to come. Not even as Sage held me and assured me that everything was going to be alright. As she drove me to the hospital. Then after, as she handed me one of her anxiety rescue pills, and sat with me until I passed out.

I was still painfully numb the next few days as I planned a funeral, as I informed his employer and the friend or two he had been close with.

Each day, I expected for the well of grief to open up, to pull me in, to drown me in it.

I loved my brother more than anything in the world. He'd been my everything.

I didn't understand how it was possible that I'd been functioning, that I wasn't curled up in bed sobbing my heart out.

"Fuck," Brooks said, collapsing back against the wall, having the same issue with his legs that I'd had when I'd first gotten the news. "He didn't suffer, did he?" Brooks asked, voice raw, and it raked its claws across me too.

"No. It was… instant. That's what they told me."

"That's good," Brooks said, speaking to himself. Then, "He was it, wasn't he?"

"What?"

"He was the only family you had left," Brooks said, his words a sucker punch to my aching heart.

"Yes."

That was the reason I'd been hearing my clock.

It had started ticking about a year before. When my aunt had committed suicide after her son had passed away from a freak bout of severe pneumonia. Just a year after her husband had passed from complications from surgery.

The year before that, it had been our cousin.

Before that, our uncle.

My mother.

Father.

Grandparents.

Every single member of my family had died. Each of them well before their ‘time.' No one in my family, as far back as I could find, had lived past sixty. Most barely made it to forty.

Clay had only been thirty-five.

The week after his funeral, that clock that had been a constant, irritating ticking had become so loud that it was impossible to ignore it anymore.

If family history had anything to say about it, my time left wasn't long. And all I'd done was squander every single year I'd been alive.

I'd made a deal with myself one night alone in my apartment.

In Clay's memory, I was going to stop wasting my time left here. I was going to do everything I'd been putting off for years. I was going to actually start living.

If I wasn't going to make it to old age, at least I could enjoy every single moment I had left here.

Hence the trampoline park, the drag show, the club.

That was stuff I never would have done before Clay's passing. I would have just kept on hanging in at night, rotting in bed while scrolling my phone endlessly, only really going out to get lunch or dinner with Sage or my brother.

"I have family albums and some personal items in boxes," Brooks said. "Shit I figured you'd want to keep. If you're not ready, I'm gonna throw some things in it. I will get you a key, so you can go through shit when you are ready."

"Okay," I said, head starting to spin.

It was too much.

Being here.

Smelling him.

Seeing the ghost of him all around.

"I… I can't do this," I declared, shooting up, and rushing toward the door before he could even say anything.

I was down the elevator, out the front door, and halfway down the block when Brooks caught up with me.

"Caliana, wait," he called.

But I didn't wait.

I kept walking, using my phone to try to find a ride-share nearby to get me out of here, out of my own mind. Maybe back to the club with Sage. To get lost in the music and the liquor. To be anywhere but in my memories.

"Cali, what the fuck?" he asked, grabbing my elbow, pulling me to a stop, then moving in front of me. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" he asked, squinting at me like he didn't even recognize me anymore.

"Leave me alone, Brooks," I said, voice sounding suddenly so tired. I felt it in my bones.

"I can't," he reminded me.

"Oh, for god's sake," I scoffed, shaking my head. "You haven't seen Clay in years, and you're acting like you are honor-bound to watch me now that he's gone?"

"He wanted—"

"And he's not here anymore!" I snapped, voice dangerously close to yelling.

I had to get out of here.

I was losing it.

And if there was one person I didn't want to have a panic attack in front of, it was Brooks.

"Cali…"

"I don't need a babysitter, Brooks. I've been managing on my own. I will continue to manage on my own. I don't need you. Leave me the hell alone."

With that, I whipped past him, rushing down the block.

I waited until I was around the corner to lean back against the wall of a building and start gasping for air.

He didn't chase after me.

And as I lost my shit and waited on my ride, I tried to pretend that I was happy about that fact.

Even if some needy, stupid, girlish part of me wished he had.

Not that it mattered.

I wasn't going to see him again anyway.