Page 13 of Mixed Signals
“You’re supposed to open the store.” I nudge him with my foot and he swats at my ankle. I kind of expect him to snap his teeth at me, too. He’s always the worst when he’s hungover. “And I have to get to school. Let’s go.”
“I am ten—” He turns slightly and squints at the clock above the microwave. “—I am twelve minutes late. I own the store. This is my right.”
“People are worried.”
“Darlene doesn’t count as people. The old bat.”
I snicker. She is an old bat. “I’ll tell her you said that if you don’t get your ass in gear.”
He glares at me and slips his glasses on. “It’s nothing I haven’t said to her face. The only reason she knows the store isn’t open yet is because she shows up every Monday and sits in the back and reads all of the saucy parts of my paranormal romance novels without paying for them. I caught her taking pictures on her phone a few weeks ago.” He sits up with a huff. “It is not out of the goodness of her heart, I promise you.”
“Either way, I need to get to school.” And panic about my life choices and the bargains I make with pretty women in the passenger seat of my car. Not scoop him off the floor. “I’ll drop you on my way.”
“Isn’t it summer? Why are these kids in school?”
“Summer school, Alex.”
He gives me a baleful look, hunched over in a half-standing version of the fetal position. “There is a seventy-five percent chance I’ll throw up in your car.”
I blow out a sigh. “I’ll roll down the window.”
“Fair enough.” He pushes up to his knees and dry heaves into his fist. “Dios. I think I might die today.”
I frown. “How are you still this hungover?”
“Luis, Aaron, Charlie and Sofia stayed over the whole weekend. Tio Benjamín, too. There was tequila involved.” He squints. “I think.”
“Ah.”
Alex shudders as he unrolls himself to his full height, hands braced on his hips. “You didn’t see Benjamín when you came in?”
“I didn’t.”
I’m surprised he wasn’t in the bushes when I pulled up. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Alex frowns. “I could have sworn he was still here.”
My mother’s youngest brother never misses a celebration and never forgets to bring the tequila. I’m not interested enough to solve the mystery as to where he’s disappeared to this time, already annoyed with having to stop by in the first place.
I promised Layla I’d see her today. I don’t want to start out … whatever this is … with a broken promise.
Alex finally manages to pick himself up off the floor and begin a slow, creeping shuffle to the front door. He’s halfway down the hallway when he trips on something and tumbles head first into the wall. A picture of us from when we were kids rattles in the frame as he catches himself.
A pained moan floats out from the coat closet. We both look down. Two legs stick out from a crack in the door. I don’t know how I missed them when I first came in.
“Leave me here to die,” warbles Charlie’s voice from inside.
Alex laughs and wedges the door open further. He tosses his bottle of Gatorade inside without bothering to look where it might land. There’s a thud, another groan, and the two legs laying out into the middle of the hallway shift slightly.
“Stay as long as you’d like but lock up when you leave, yeah?”
There’s silence for half a second. “I’m eating all of the leftovers in the fridge before I go,” Charlie grumbles.
Alex rolls his eyes. “I assumed you would.”
Neither of us care to hear his response. We make our way to my Jeep, Alex’s walk more of a stagger than anything coordinated and purposeful. The third time I check my watch, he grunts at me and slides into the passenger seat like his entire body might combust at any moment. Given the pale color of his usually dark skin and the sweat beading at his temples, it’s likely.
I offer him the empty pastry box Layla was messing with the other night.
