2. Nina
2
NINA
Nina
I tied the knot tighter on my server’s apron. Glaring up at my “older” brother, I clenched my teeth and took out my frustration on the length of maroon.
“Ricky,” I started.
“No.” He shook his head, sending his longish brown hair flopping over his brow again. “Don’t use that tone with me, Nina.”
I sighed, trying to find some rare, hidden reserves of patience. I had none. “Ricky, don’t be a dumbass.”
“Stop scolding me,” he volleyed back, proving we were world-class bickerers. I bet lots of siblings fought, but none of them had to deal with a moron like my brother.
“I’m not scolding you. I’m telling you to go home.”
He rolled his eyes and snatched a biscuit off a tray that passed by.
Tessa, my best friend, swatted at his hand. “Don’t get caught taking food on the clock.”
With a full mouth, he grinned at her. “I’m not on the clock. You are.”
Tessa and I weren’t only friends. We worked together, too. She was the sister I never had, and I could count on her to have my back in educating my brother.
“Yeah.” She flicked her finger back and forth to indicate both of us dressed in our Hound and Tea uniforms, ready to spend hours on our feet all night, waitressing at the steakhouse. “ We are on the clock. Because we have jobs.”
“And because we have a job and have an iota of financial common sense,” I said as I jabbed my finger at his chest, “you should listen to us!”
He groaned.
“Going upstairs to gamble is not common sense,” Tessa said louder.
We only had so much time on our break back here. I supposed I was “lucky” that Ricky had stopped in here on his way upstairs to the private gambling rooms that were totally illegal. Dad seldom visited, but when he did, it was time for the “boys” to hang out, and they did so up there. I’d never spent a minute on the second floor of my workplace, and I never wanted to.
“It’s all about luck, Tessa,” Ricky cajoled, like he was such a charming, suave guy. He wasn’t.
“No, it’s not.” I crossed my arms. “You’ve already burned through all the money Dad left us in his will?—”
“He left it to me, Sis.” He flicked a finger at my brow. “Not you. He left it to me.”
I smacked the palm of my hand on his brow, resulting in his wince. “No. He left it to us , but because you’re older, you were supposed to divide it between us.”
“Well, I’ll make it all back.” He smiled like the idiot he was, always confident that things would magically just turn around in life. I used to think it was a delusion. A defense mechanism. We were raised by our old, cranky grandmother while our dad was off in the military, and she was horrible with making or keeping money. Our mother ran off after I was born, and Dad cared more about being present for the army than he ever was with us. Ricky and I hadn’t grown up with the best background, and I guessed that his inclination to take risks and gamble was a product of that.
“Ricky,” Tessa said in an exasperated tone, “you were in debt before your dad passed away. Now you’re only in deeper debt, losing everything he left you.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “And you know half of that was for Nina. What makes you think your so-called luck will improve tonight?”
I covered my face with my hand. “Don’t encourage him.”
“I’m not. I’m merely pointing out that he’s not going to be lucky. Ever!”
He chuckled. “Prepare to eat your words, girls.”
I thrust my fists down at my sides. “We won’t! It’s not a matter of luck. It’s about odds. The statistics of it!”
“Like you’d know,” he scoffed. “All you do is read and act like a loser homebody.” He buffed his nails on the front of his shirt. “Don’t worry about it. I got this handled. I got an idea that’ll make it all back.”
I don’t even want to know. “An idea,” I deadpanned.
“Yeah.” He smiled wider, smug and stupid. “And it’s genius.”
“You? A genius?” Tessa mocked.
He frowned. “Hey.”
“Ricky, do not go up there and gamble another penny.” I sidestepped to block him from leaving the cramped small corner of the Hound and Tea’s breakroom in the back of the kitchen. Tessa noticed that I was physically trying to deter him from going up the stairs.
“There are other ways to get back on solid ground,” she advised.
He hardened his face into a scowl. “Oh, yeah? You speaking from experience?”
I dropped my jaw. “Shut up.” That was uncalled for, tossing her circumstances in her face like that.
“What?” Ricky shrugged, feigning innocence. “It’s true. She’s just as poor as we’ve ever been—before or after Dad leaving us any money.”
I gritted my teeth, wondering how this guy could share any genes with me. He was an imbecile. “It doesn’t matter. You can’t hold that against her.”
Tessa held her hand up to quiet me down. “I don’t care. He can say whatever he wants. It doesn’t change the fact that I—that we—know what we’re talking about. Going up there to gamble is not the answer.”
I nodded, grateful for my friend. “Exactly.”
Ricky wasn’t impressed. “Oh, so we’re supposed to do what, then? Wait ten more years for you to waitress to make back a fraction of what I happened to lose?”
“ Happened to lose ?” I fumed, stepping into his personal space and ready to punch him. “Nothing happened . It’s not some natural disaster that struck. You chose to gamble. You made the decision to throw it all away. Every penny you’ve touched, you’ve thrown it away in the name of fucking luck!”
He rolled his eyes, standing up straight. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand that you are clueless, Ricky. Completely clueless, and you will never learn. You should’ve let me take over the account once it was cleared.”
He was quick to shake his head. “What? No. I’m the man of the family now.”
I laughed. It began as a light chuckle, morphed into a harder giggle, and ended as a hysterical cackle. “You’ve never been the man of the family. You’ve never tried to keep a job for more than a month, and you squander away everything I make while trying to take care of you!”
“Then I’ll pay you back tonight,” he bit out. “Trust me.”
I grunted a dry laugh. “I can’t. There is no way I can trust you.”
Leaning in closer, he towered over me and tried to use his height to intimidate me. “Too bad. You’re gonna have to learn how to trust me tonight.”
“Ricky, just go home, all right?” Tessa pushed his shoulder to get him out of my face. “Go home, have a beer, and take a nap or something. Just stay out of those gambling rooms.”
He reared back and stuck his hands on his hips. “You’re never going to get it. Both of you. You’re always going to think you can tell me what to do. That you’re in charge of any decisions around here.”
“I should be!” I shouted and didn’t care who heard. “I should be in charge of all the decisions about our future.”
“Too late,” he snapped.
“Nina? Tessa?” our supervisor hollered from further in the kitchen. “Get to work! Your shift started five minutes ago.”
Ricky smirked and clapped his hands twice. “Chop, chop, girls. Go work your asses off. Slave away for pathetic change while I go and make a fortune.” He turned and sauntered away toward the stairs.
I stayed there, glowering at his back until he disappeared.
Tessa sighed and nudged my arm. “Come on. Let’s get to it.”
“I hate him,” I muttered, meaning it yet not.
“Okay, but there’s no point in trying to beat common sense into him.” She tilted her head for me to go in with her.
She was right. Ricky was a lost cause. Hopeless. All that I could do was secure my tips somewhere he wouldn’t find them and use them. The entirety of what Dad left us was gone, and I saw no way any supposedly genius idea of his would bring him out of severe debt and have him come out on top.
All through my shift, I thought of little else. Of how much I loathed my brother, how ironic it was that he was the older one of the two of us and therefore able to impact my cut of what was left to me, and how terrible it was of him to help himself to what was owed to me.
Guilt snuck in too. I despised myself for these circumstances because I truly did love him as a sibling. He was family, all the family I had left now. When Ricky and I visited Dad at the veteran’s hospice, Dad made me promise to look after him, fully aware until his last breath that Ricky wasn’t the brightest guy out there.
But how can I look after him when he takes and loses every penny we’ve had?
“It’ll get better,” Tessa advised vaguely when we had a moment to clear tables later.
“I don’t see how.”
“I know how.”
I shot her a dubious glance.
“You could find a sugar daddy. Or marry some rich, old dude for money.” She smiled widely, teasing.
“I’m not selling myself like that.”
She giggled, stacking up plates the busboy was too lazy to get. “Why not?”
“Trade in my independence and dignity to what, suck old, sagging balls for an income?”
Her face scrunched as she laughed harder. “I think you’re describing prostitution now.”
I shrugged, wishing I could feel lighthearted enough to join in on her laughter. “You should consider it yourself.” I arched a brow, watching her grimace.
“To avoid your parents pushing you to marry Elliot.”
She mocked a gag. “Please. Don’t even mention his name.”
Her reaction to that name was always the same. I never understood the semantics of it, but since Tessa was a teenager, it seemed that her parents had gotten it into their heads that Tessa would have to marry the son of their friends. “They can’t actually expect you to see that through, right?”
Her shoulders lifted and fell in a shrug. “I prefer not to think about it.”
I shook my head, tidying up the things to bring back to the dishwasher. “You’re talking nonsense, anyway. Marrying a rich old man?” I stuck my tongue out. “No thanks. I can’t say that the idea of marriage appeals at all.”
Smiling wider, she joined me on the trip to the kitchen. “You got that right. I’m not in a rush to have any man tell me what to do or make decisions for me.”
Lucky you don’t have a brother like mine, then.
I nodded at her. “Who needs men, huh?”
“Not us,” she cheered, infusing as much pep as she could into her voice.