SECOND LIFE ANTIQUES #2
He set his hands on the counter, lifted them off, put them in his pockets. His eyes went to the front window, then back to me, then to the window again.
“Twenty-two.”
“Hundred?”
“Thousand.”
The number sat in the room between us for a second. I felt my chest tighten and I made myself keep my voice level.
“I don't have twenty-two thousand dollars, Remy.”
“You have the shop.”
“The shop isn't twenty-two thousand dollars. It's a building full of other people's furniture that I owe them finished work on, and you know that, because I've told you that, more than once, in this exact room.”
“You could take a loan against it.”
“No.”
“You didn't even think about it. You just said no.”
“Because the answer is no whether I think about it for a second or a year. I'm not putting a lien on the only thing I own so you can hand twenty-two thousand dollars to whoever you owe it to.”
His jaw tightened, and for the first time since he'd walked in, the smile was gone completely.
“I'm not asking you to think about it for a year, Nico. I'm asking you right now, because right now is when I need it. Not next month. Not when you've had time to make a spreadsheet about it.”
“I don't need a spreadsheet to tell you I don't have that kind of money sitting around. You know what I make. You've seen the books. You did my taxes for me two years running, before you stopped answering my calls in March.”
“Don't bring that up.”
“Why not? It's true.”
“Because it's not the same thing, and you know it's not. I am so tired of being the screwup in this family, Nico. I am so tired of it.”
His voice had climbed by the end of that, loud enough that I glanced past him at the front window, half expecting someone on the sidewalk to slow down and look in.
“I never said you were the screwup.”
“You don't have to say it. You just stand there being right about everything and I show up asking for help one time—”
“One time? Remy, this is the fourth time in two years.”
My hand came down flat on the counter, harder than I meant it to, and the sound of it made both of us go still for a second.
“Because I need help. That's what that means.
It means I need help more than once. That's not a character flaw, that's just—” He stopped, dragged a hand through his hair, and when he spoke again his voice had dropped, though it hadn't calmed.
“You think I want to be standing in your shop asking my brother for money like I'm twelve years old. You think I like this?”
“I don't know what you like anymore. I don't know anything about your life except that you show up here every few months needing money for a reason you won't explain.”
“Because I can't explain it.”
“That's not an answer, that's a wall. Tell me who you owe.”
“I told you, I can't—”
“You keep saying can't as if it's out of your control, and I don't think it is. I think it's a choice you're making not to tell me, and I want to know why.”
“Because if I tell you, you're in it too. You think I want you anywhere near these people? You think I came here because I want my brother, who fixes chairs for old ladies for a living, mixed up in this?” His hands came out of his pockets, and this time they didn't go back in — one of them caught the edge of the paper bag on the counter and knocked it onto the floor, and neither of us moved to pick it up.
“I came here because you're the only person in my life with actual money, and I hate that.
I hate that I'm standing here resenting you a little for having your life together, because you shouldn't have to be the guy who bails me out again, and I shouldn't have to be the guy asking, and here we are doing it anyway, because that's apparently what we do now.”
I let that sit for a second before I answered, because I could feel my own voice wanting to go somewhere I'd regret, and I didn't want to get there.
“I am not giving you twenty-two thousand dollars without knowing what it's for.”
“Then I guess you're not giving it to me.”
“Remy—”
“No, that's fine. That's your answer. I get it.” He crouched, picked the bag up off the floor with more force than the bag needed, and set it back on the counter like he was daring it to fall again.
“You get the shop and the cat and the whole calm little life you built, and I get to go figure this out on my own, the way I've figured out everything on my own since I was about fourteen. So. Cool. That tracks.”
“That's not fair.”
“None of this is fair, Nico. You think this is the version of asking you for money that I wanted? You think I like knowing that if you say no, I'm—” He stopped. His hand went to his throat, fast, and his mouth kept moving without any sound coming out of it at all.
I watched the anger drop out of his face all at once, and what replaced it was closer to what I used to see in him as a kid, on the nights our father's key turned in the lock a beat too hard.
“Remy.”
He shook his head once and pressed the back of his hand against his mouth, silent.
“Who is it? Tell me his name.”
He tried. I watched him try — his throat worked, his eyes went wet and furious at once — and no sound came out of him.
“I can't.” His voice, when it came back, was smaller than anything he'd said since he walked in.
“Remy, that isn't how being scared works. Being scared doesn't stop your throat from making a sound.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“Then explain it to me.”
“I can't explain that either.” He laughed, one short unhappy sound with no real humor in it. “You think I haven't tried? I've been trying to explain it since Tuesday.”
I closed my eyes for a second, because I needed the second, and then I opened them again.
“I don't have the money, Remy. That's true whether or not I believe you. And I'm not putting the shop up for a debt I don't understand, to a man whose name you can't say out loud. You have to give me more than that.”
“There isn't more. There's just three days. He said three days. He said if I get it to him in three days, that's it, we're done, and if I don't—” He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to.
“If you don't, what happens?”
“I don't know exactly. I don't want to know exactly.”
I knew he was lying but I let it go.
“I love you,” I said, finally, and I meant it, and it didn't fix anything, and I think we both already knew it wasn't going to.
“I'm not giving you twenty-two thousand dollars I don't have, for a debt you won't explain, to a man whose name you can't say.
I can't. Even if I wanted to, I don't have it.”
Whatever had been open in his face a second ago shut.
“Right,” he said. “Right, of course. Okay.”
“Remy—”
“No, you're right. You've got the shop. You've got your life put together. That's good, Nico, that's genuinely good, I'm glad one of us managed it.” He picked the bag up off the counter, held it a second, and set it back down. “Tell Evie I said bye.”
He didn't wait for me to answer. He walked out, and the bell over the door rang harder than it needed to and kept swinging after he was gone.
I stood at the counter with my hand flat against the wood, feeling the cold of it under my palm, until the bell stopped moving.
Behind me, quiet, Evie said, “Nico.”
I didn't turn around. “Yeah.”
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
“Give me a minute.”
“Yeah.”
Three days wasn't a lot of time to find out what kind of man could stop my brother's throat from working just by being talked about, from somewhere across a city I'd lived in my whole life. I didn't know yet that I was about to spend most of those three days finding out anyway.
Behind me, up on the curtain rod, Drake made a low, disapproving sound.
“Yeah,” I said, without turning around. “I know. Me too.”