Page 68 of The Best Shot

“Those Nutella stick things.”

“Okay.”

He straightened and went back to the pump.

I stepped into the heat.

It was easier to buy chips than explain my brother.

He was at the register.

I knew before I processed his face, my body recognizing the shape of him first. The stiff set of his shoulders, the hard line of his mouth. Then my eyes caught up.

Shaun.

The old disgust was already waiting on his face, polished from use.

I gave him nothing. Not a flinch or a word.

I went to the cooler and opened the door, buying myself a few seconds in the cold wash of air. Two waters, then the snacks, because Hale had asked for Nutella sticks and because wandering gave me something to do besides stand there and be his sister.

I counted possibilities instead of breathing. A customer could walk in. His phone could ring. Someone could come through the back. The pump could click off and Hale could decide I was taking too long.

None of it happened.

I brought everything to the counter and fixed my attention just past his left ear.

“You’re bold. I’ll say that,” he said.

I lifted a brow, but left the gauntlet where he’d thrown it.

He scanned the first water. “Coming in here like shit’s normal when you got my wife locked up in your house.”

“She’s got keys, Shaun.”

“And she would be back home if it wasn’t for you.”

“That’s not on me.”

“Nothing ever is.” He leaned forward. “Except things go to shit when you get involved.”

My pulse hit my throat and stayed there. “I’m not the reason CeeCee left you, Shaun.”

“Like you weren’t the reason Dad left?”

I flinched. He’d always blamed me for that, as if I’d packed the suitcase myself and waved goodbye from the porch.

He came closer, red threading through the white of his eye. On the outside, I was flat. Controlled. Bored. Inside, I was thirteen again. Sixteen. Nineteen.

Once, he’d been the kind of big brother who counted out allowance change at corner-store counters and bought one snack for both of us. Whatever I wanted, he’d call it his favorite too, then break it in half and give me the bigger piece.

Some days I was half sure I’d made that boy up.

The door chimed.

Shaun’s gaze flicked over my shoulder.

I felt Hale before I heard him.