I drive until I pass three separate Denny’s and stop in their back parking lot. My hands remain on the wheel, and from my peripheral I see that my knuckles are bone white.

It’s Andy who breaks the silence. As he puts my car in park, he murmurs, “It’s okay, Mina. Turn off the car and we can call the police.”

I nod, though his words bounce around in my brain for a few seconds before I comply. For the first time since the apartment, I look at Davey in my rearview mirror. He’s chewing on the inside of his cheek, his eyes glassy and his eyebrows furrowed. Sighing, I turn off the car but leave the radio before taking my seatbelt off and turning to look at him. “Are you okay?” I ask softly.

It takes him a moment to nod at me. “I’m scared.”

I swallow hard and force a lie out, although the words are sour on my tongue. “You don’t need to be scared, lovebug. Someone broke into the apartment, but they weren’t there when I was checking it out. I just wanted to get out of there in case they came back.”

He looks at me like he’s trying to look through me, and for a moment I think he can. Finally he nods again and says, “Okay.”

I reach back and rub his knee, and he grabs my hand. I squeeze it and say, “I’m gonna’ call the police outside, okay? I’ll be right outside the car.”

Andy takes his seatbelt off and turns towards Davey. “Hey, maybe your sister will let us use her laptop so we can play Justice League while we’re waiting.”

I try to look like I’m excited for Davey’s sake and say, “Yeah! Here, hand me my bag.”

After setting them up, I get out of the car and walk a couple feet away and to the lamppost in the parking lot. Resting against its round concrete base, the first call I make is to Grandma. Davey can’t be apart of this mess.

“Hi, honey. What’s up?” she answers.

“I’m at a Denny’s off of Wilshire and Western, behind the Wiltern theater. I need you to come pick up Davey.”

“Mina, slow down. What happened?”

I sigh and bite my lip, looking at the car. Davey seems distracted, if not for my sake. I explain, “Grandma, Sloane broke into the apartment. She broke his bed, tore apart his clothes. She knows he’s here, and this is her warning. I need to call the police but I don’t want Davey to have any part of this. Be it because they’ll figure out I’m not his legal guardian or because they’ll ask him questions he has no answer to. I just need him out of here.”

There’s a pause before she says, “Okay. Give me about fifteen minutes.”

That means she’ll be here in ten. “Thank you. He doesn’t have any clothes, but until this is sorted out--”

“No worries, I had some stuff I just picked up for him. Call me as soon as you know what’s going on,” she replies.

“Okay, thank you. I love you.”

“I love you too. Be safe.”

I hang up and glance back at the car. Davey’s watching the laptop as it’s propped up on my dashboard, but I meet Andy’s gaze. He looks concerned; I can see it in the icy blues from here. I give him a little nod before sighing and looking at my phone, debating whether or not to call the police now and hope they’re late as they always are in LA.

Grandma shows up in ten minutes like I knew she would. I explain to Davey that the police are going to ask me a lot of questions and are going to want me back at the apartment. Because he doesn’t know what happened and I don’t want him to be worried, he’ll be spending the night with Grandma. He doesn’t protest, but his worry is almost palpable. Andy lets him keep the Justice League DVD so he can watch it when he gets to Grandma’s, and with a big hug and kiss on the head I let him go and they drive away.

When they’re gone, I almost collapse against my car. I cover my face with my hands as I contemplate my situation. How am I going to talk to the police and pretend I don’t know who did this or why? They’ll know it’s personal from all of the evidence, let alone the giant “S” on what remains of my bathroom mirror.

I suddenly feel large hands on my upper arms. Andy’s deep, calming voice murmurs, “It’s okay, Mina. You can relax now.”

I brush my hair out of my face and wipe away a stray tear. Crossing my arms, I try to compose myself. “Um, I guess I’ll drive us back to the apartment so you can get your car and go home. I just wanted to get Davey out of there.”

His hands gently rub my arms. “I think I’m gonna’ stay with you until at least the police clear your apartment. You don’t have to deal with this yourself.”

I look up at him and shake my head. “Andy, you don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t,” he says. “I just wanna’ make sure you’re okay.”

The sentiment hits me right in the chest. No one has ever really been here for me other than my grandmother, and even still I tried to do everything without her support. Letting out a tense breath, I bite my lip and accept the help. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Of course,” he murmurs. Despite my stance, his hands move to my waist and he pulls me in for a hug.

I don’t move for a moment, since the last boy who’s hugged me this way was an old college boyfriend. Slowly, I let myself embrace him too, curling my arms underneath his beneath his jacket and resting my cheek on his shoulder. He squeezes me in a manner of comfort, but I use it to pull away. No distractions.

“Um, let’s go,” I mumble.





The police don’t believe me at all when I tell them I’m as surprised as they are at the manner of attack. The “S” is definitely indicative of a crime of passion, but I try to explain it like maybe I have an unknown stalker and even fabricate a phone call that was silent but for breathing. Cliche, but it gets them off the path of Davey and Sloane.

They dust for prints and ask both me and Andy what we saw, but in the car ride over I asked Andy to leave Davey out of the conversation. When he questioned lying to the police, I told him that Davey is easily scared and that I don’t want the police inadvertently intimidating him. It’s a line of bullshit, but I seem to be good at that. He bought it with a look of skepticism.

After taking evidence and dusting for prints, which they find none, they leave. It’s ten o’clock at night, and now that the apartment is cleared I have to clean it up. Andy, being the most helpful and best samaritan God could made, sticks around and helps me clean up the bedroom. I tried to tell him he could leave, but he insisted. I tried to clean up Davey’s clothes before he could figure out that it was only his that were affected, but I know he must’ve seen them. Together, we put Davey’s and my bed back together, although one of the legs of my bed is completely broken and therefore is now leaning.

When we get to the bathroom, Andy offers to clean the counter while I sweep. We brush the glass into my plastic bathroom trashcan and I use my shitty thrift store bathroom to try and get the rest. Andy helps take down my shower curtains, since they’re of no use anymore. Once the bathroom is clear of danger, all that’s left is the piece of mirror on my wall with a large “S” that looms at me. I stare at it while Andy’s dumping the glass in the trash shoot, but I wait too long because he returns before I can wipe it off.

As I spray Windex on the glass, Andy leans against the doorframe. “Do you want to tell me the truth now?” he asks.

I freeze for the briefest of moments, but it’s enough to prove to Andy I lied. He sighs when he realizes it won’t be that easy. “Mina, I lied to the police for you. I don’t mind, but you need to tell me what’s going on. What trouble are you in?”

I try and remain rigid. “I’m telling you, Andy, I don’t know.”

His eyes rolling is almost audible. “Fine. Keep feeding me bullshit, Mina. I’m trying to help.”

I look down at the counter and sigh. I try to find the lie, but my mouth is tired of doing that today. Quietly, I admit, “The less you know the better. For both of our sakes.” I toss the damp papertowel in the sink and scoot past him, moving to the kitchen.

He’s on my heels. “What does that mean? What could possibly be that bad? Are you in the Witness Protection Program or something?”

I almost laugh as I walk into the kitchen. “No, Andy, but it’s just as serious.” Choosing my words carefully, I hit him with a line I’m sure he’s familiar with. “It’s not your cross to bear.”

His hand wraps around my arm and pulls me back, spinning me to face him. It’s almost rough, but the look of care in his eyes makes it soft. “Bullshit,” he says. “If this is about you, or especially Davey, it matters to me.”

The words he uses for Davey tugs at my tear ducts. I look away. “Andy, I don’t think you even want to know.”

“I do,” he negates. “So spill.”

His eyes are a hurricane, his irises almost the exact color of churning water. Next to the black hole that his pupils are, there’s no room for air.

With a deep breath, I speak. “I kidnapped my brother.”

The hurricane is immediately calmed, but in its place a steely tornado rages forward. His eyebrows furrow as he lets my arm go. “What?”

I look away and shrug, trying to hide my disappointment knowing he’s going to the police now. “Davey’s real name is Nathan. He’s my real brother, but my dad didn’t tell me about him until a few months ago. When I found him, he was in a house in New Mexico that reeked of cigarette smoke and had two adoptive parents that physically and probably sexually abused him, to the point that he ran away and called me before I left town. I took him and we ran here, and I’ve been taking care of him ever since. Sloane, his adopted mom, and probably her boyfriend are in town and I’m positive they’re the ones that raided the apartment. They know I took him. Why they haven’t called the police is beyond me, but I guess they’re handling it on their own. And only you and my Grandma know. So if you’re gonna’ call the police, you might as well do it now since they already know my address.”

When he doesn’t reply, I shake my head and turn around, taking a couple steps away and then leaning against the counter top.

Silence permeates the kitchen, and I don’t dare look at Andy but know he’s looking at me. When two minutes of complete silence passes I basically shout, “I don’t know what the fuck else I was supposed to do! When I met him, they wouldn’t even let him speak to me! I couldn’t just abandon him the way my parents abandoned me!”

Sobs wrack through my body now, and I hide my head in my hands. “I’m in way over my head, but I don’t know how to fix it! I can’t go to the police because legally I kidnapped him, and then they’re never going to believe me and--” A sob breaks the sentence off.

I’m startled as I feel Andy’s arms wrap around me again. This basically tells my body to open the floodgates, and I let the last couple months of tears I’ve been suppressing all flow. I sob and cry and sob and cry over and over again, but Andy’s hold doesn’t falter. Eventually, I wrap my arms around his neck and continue to cry, making his shirt wet with my tears. His arms move back to my waist and he holds me tight, and I realize that he isn’t going to abandon me.





When I wake up, my eyelashes are sticky. I rub them as I sit up, wondering why so much moisture was there to crust them up, but when I open my eyes I remember exactly why.

I’m on Davey’s bed, and Andy’s on mine but slipping off because of the broken leg. I can hear his deep breaths as he sleeps, but I know that it’ll only take a couple minutes for gravity to claim its victim and push him to the ground.

I stand quietly and walk to the bed, trying to gently help him scoot back up. Despite my efforts, Andy wakes up as I’m doing this, and because of his grogginess he falls down.

I’m apologizing immediately. “I’m so sorry!” I say, trying to get him back up.

His voice is thick with sleep when he mumbles “It’s okay, it’s okay” and something like “it happened a hundred times last night”. We’re both in the same clothes we wore last night, so I grab one of my dad’s old sleeveless softball shirts and hand it to Andy. “I don’t have any rockstar pants, but I’m sure you could use a new shirt since my tears have destroyed that one,” I say, trying to laugh. “You can, uh, use the bathroom in a minute to shower or whatever if you want.”

He yawns as he accepts it, and with that I go back to my closet and grab a fresh set of clothes for myself. After changing in the bathroom, I walk out to the kitchen, still littered with papers and food containers, and brush most of them aside so I can start a pot of coffee. I hear the sink running in my bathroom, and as the coffee pours out two cups I hear the toilet flush.

I’m pouring the second cup of coffee as he enters the room, and he’s pulling the softball shirt on as he does. I try to hide my obvious attraction to a hot boy’s chest as I hand him his coffee, asking, “Do you want cream or sugar?”

His voice is more alert, but still gravelly as he answers, “Uh, just some milk.”

I let him pour some milk and set the sugar out anyway, in case he wants it. I sit on the couch with my cup of black as he shuffles around, readying his coffee. Finally, he comes to the couch and sits beside me, taking a long sip.

Taking a slow sip, I try to find my words but he beats me to it. “I guess we should talk about last night, huh?” he asks.

I nod and don’t hold back. “I’ll answer anything you want.”

He turns more towards me and takes a sip as he tries to decide where to start. He settles on, “How come your dad didn’t tell you that you had a little brother until now?”

“He called and begged me to visit him. He’s in jail. He admitted to me then that I had a little brother that he had put up for adoption, and that he regretted never telling me. I guess the guilt was just eating him alive.” I don’t hide the sarcasm that tints my final sentence.

Andy rolls the words around to figure out his next question. “Well, um, if you don’t mind me asking, why is your dad in jail?”

I scoff, as the question to me seems hardly relevant. “He murdered two people in the drug trade. Swears he only killed one, but that’s not any better right? He’s been in and out for misdemeanors ever since I was a kid. This was his first felony, and probably not his last. I’ve left him to rot. He didn’t care for or support me, that was all my Grandma.” He starts to say he’s sorry, but I wave my hand at him as I take a sip. “It doesn’t matter. Next question.”

He clears his throat and takes another sip before continuing. “Where’s your guy’s mom? Couldn’t she--”

“Two different moms, both out of the picture.”

Andy swallows hard at my curt answer. I sigh and retry that sentence. “Neither of us have met our real mom. I guess technically Davey is my half-brother, but how much blood we share is irrelevant to me. He’s my brother, and that’s what matters.”

“Not even your grandmother could put in a plea to take custody?” he asks.

“I suppose she could,” I answer, “but I’ve probably fucked that all up. I took Davey because I knew he was being abused, and I wasn’t going to wait to figure out my legal options.”

He nods. “If I could ask, how did you know?”

I explain everything I did and thought after my dad told me. I tell him how it just started off with pure curiosity, and how one night I got a little tipsy and did some research to figure out where Davey was. Once I knew how close he was I couldn’t help myself; I had to meet him. Initially, I wasn’t thinking of taking him. I used the guise that Parker said he knew Sloane and that I was trying to get to the bottom of why he did what he did, but when I saw my little brother for the first time I just knew I had to get him out. I tell him about sneaking to his window and giving him my number, about how I stayed a couple days in hopes he’d call. I explained why and when he did, and that without hesitation I picked him up and took him to live with me. The rest is pretty self-explanatory, but I do reveal what Davey had told me about his history of sexual abuse and the bruises and scrapes he’d had when I found him.

When I’m done, our coffees are cold and nearly empty. Andy’s been listening intently the entire time, occasionally nodding or muttering a generic affirmation like “right” or “yeah”. He stays quiet for a minute after I finish, and a small boulder of anxiety settles into my stomach. What’s he going to think of me after all this?

Instead of calling me crazy and storming out, Andy asks, “So what now?”

I shake my head. “I have no idea. Now that Sloane knows he’s here, he can’t stay here. I guess I could stay at my grandma’s, but if she knows my name she can look up my grandmother and do the same thing to her house, or even worse if any of us are home. I can’t get out of my lease, I’ve already looked into that. Until November I can’t move and I can’t stay here.” I sigh and look into my empty glass, wondering if that last little drop will give me the answers I need.

After a brief pause, Andy says, “You guys should come stay with me.”

Immediately I look up at him. I’m at a loss for words, but I try to sputter out, “Andy, we couldn’t possibly.”

“Mina, if you’re worried about Sloane finding you guys at your grandmother’s, which is totally logical, the best place for you to stay is with me,” he states. “She doesn’t know me, nor does she know that you know me. I live like forty-five minutes away from here in Studio City, which is nowhere near where she’d be looking. I have a guest room that you and Davey can use.”

“That’s too much,” I mumble.

Andy almost scoffs as he sets his cup down on my coffee table. “I care about both of you, Mina. I’m not doing this to get into your pants, I want to help my friends out. Until you can figure out how to take custody of Davey, it’s the safest place to be.”

I’m in silence as his offer hangs in the air above me. Nobody has ever been so understanding or kind to me, particularly not after exposing my entire criminal record and dramatic backstory to them. Andy is so kind and so good. He’s offering us safety until I can figure things out.

“Andy, nobody’s ever been so nice to me before,” I admit quietly.

He considers this as he scans my face. “Please, Mina,” he murmurs. “I care a lot about Davey and about you. I want you two to be safe. Absolutely anything I can do to help you guys out, I will do without a second thought.”

I feel tears pricking at my vision. I sniffle and give him a weak smile as I mumble, “Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

He opens his arms, and I immediately dive into them and let out a couple happy tears as I hold him tight around his waist. He rests his chin on my shoulder and rubs my back. “Absolutely anything,” he repeats.

I pull away, nearly dumbfounded by the kindness he’s showing me. He pulls away too, but our bodies are still so close. As I meet his crystalline eyes, I can feel him exhale hot breath through his nose onto my upper lip. Subconsciously I’m aware that our fingers start tangling together. His little metal nose ring glints from the window in the kitchen, and I follow the columns of his Cupid’s bow to his full pink lips, which are just barely parted. My eyes flick back up to his, which immediately find mine.

“HE PLAYED THE MASH! HE PLAYED THE MOOONSTER MASH! THE MONSTER MASH!”

I pull away quickly as my phone loudly starts ringing from my room. Andy sort of shakes himself out of it, and I quickly apologize and hurry off the couch to grab my phone.

I catch it just before it finishes ringing. “Hello?”

It’s my Grandma on the other end. “Hi, honey. I didn’t hear from you last night so I wanted to make sure everything is okay.”

I let out a big sigh and look back at the doorway, almost expecting to see Andy in it. Shaking off the moment, I start explaining our predicament.

Notes

a THIRD update? In two days? Maybe I have a fever. I mean, I always have a fever for more cowbell, but this feels different!

What are you guys thinking? As always, an author loves hearing feedback, and while Pear and the anathema (who I've decided I'll call Anthem, since y'know, that's sort of close) give me my fix I'd love to get more! What can I say, I'm a true druggie.

~Niki X,,,,,,x