Page 25 of Stick Around
Billy
“Bro.”Nikki waved his hand in front of Billy’s face. “Earth to fuckin’ Billy.”
Billy scowled and slapped Nikki’s hand away from him. “What?”
“Are you paying any attention to this shit?” He tapped the papers spread out over the break table.
“Yes,” Billy snapped back.
Nikki lifted an eyebrow and scanned Billy from his face down to his left leg, which was bouncing up and down, his boot ticking against the metal chair leg.
“Christ, Nik. Can you quit eyeballing me? What’s your problem?”
Nikki slouched against his chair and scoffed. “Me? You’re the one with the problem. You’ve been sitting here jittering like you drank three pots of coffee this morning. Is it this bank shit?” He pushed a stack of paperwork across the table.
Billy huffed and hung his head in his hands.No, it’s not the bank shit. Well, yeah, it is the bank shit. And Grace and the baby. And Brian. It’s my whole fucking life crumbling around me.
“Whatever.” Nikki’s voice softened. “You don’t have to talk about it. But you need to get your head around this shit because we don’t have a lot of time to deal with it. If we want to buy this shop and help the girls out with the estate stuff, then we need to get it done.”
Billy nodded. “I know.”
He lifted his head and straightened his back. “I gotta tell you something.”
Nikki narrowed his eyes.
“And for now, you gotta keep this shit locked up tight. I mean it, Nikki, you can’t tell anyone.” He stretched his arms over his head before bending his elbows and clasping his hands together behind his head. “So, the night Brian died, something else happened that I didn’t tell you about.
“After everything went down at the hospital, I was not doing good. I couldn’t go home and… I don’t know. I was fucked up. For some reason, I went to the Campbells’ place.”
Nikki furrowed his brow. “Like Noah and Grace’s parents?”
Billy nodded. “Yeah.”
“Okay? Why? Didn’t you say Noah got a condo or apartment or some shit?”
“Yeah, he did. I went to see Grace.”
Billy watched the confusion on Nikki’s face fade.
“One thing led to another.”
Nikki smirked. “Yeah, I’ll bet it did.”
“And then… it happened again a couple of times since then.” He cracked his knuckles. “Grace is pregnant.”
Nikki’s eyes sprung open. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah.”
They both leaned back in their chairs and crossed their arms over their chests, Nikki a slightly younger, slightly smaller mirror image of his big brother.
“So, are you guys, like, together now?”
Billy shrugged. “I asked her to marry me, but she said no.”
The metal legs of Nikki’s chair scraped against the concrete floor as he scooted closer to the table. “Wait a minute. You proposed to her? When?”
“She came over to tell me she was pregnant. She was worried about what her parents would say and shit. Worried they’d kick her out or whatever. So I said it didn’t matter because we’d just get married and live at my place.”
