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After a few seconds, Eli asks, “You love my sister?”
“Yes,” Bodhi answers without a second’s hesitation.
“Good. Then you resolve that shit for her. Otherwise, you drown in your own bullshit and take her down with you, and that I won’t stand for. I feel your pain, but pain, much like happiness, comes and goes. Let it in, feel it, and then release it.”
I sit there, soaking in the wise word of my older brother, not remembering a time he sounded so profound.
“Thanks… I needed to hear that,” Bodhi says, sniffling before he clears his throat to continue with the story.
Bodhi may have lost his brother, but watching them now and seeing how much that conversation meant to Bodhi… I wouldn’t mind sharing my brother with him.
I continue telling him about the racing, Mateo interfering everywhere, and the eviction warning.
“I planned to win some money at the race in Monterra to pay off some of the bills,” I tell him.
“Monterra?” He looks at me like I’m out of my mind.
“Yes, I know. The road is too dangerous. Bit late for that,” I say, rolling my eyes and waving my cast in front of me.
“We’ll get to that in a minute,” he says, pointing at my cast. “Where in Monterra were you?”
“Red Rock Heights,” I answer.
“The salt quarry,” Bodhi says at the same time.
“Jesus, Keaton,” Eli hisses, shaking his head and reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “That whole place is owned by the Castillo family.”
I sit forward, lowering my voice.
“Wait, you know about them?”
He just shakes his head. “Of course I do. Why do you think I’m in here?”
I honestly wasn’t sure. Other than the fact that Mateo framed him, I never really understood what his motivation for doing so may have been.
“That’s part of the reason we’re here,” Bodhi says.
He tells him about that night when Mateo and I raced, and I watch as my brother took it all in. The horror in his eyes, even if his face didn’t mirror it.
“I was pissed off that he thought he could get away with that shit, and even though Keaton didn’t want me to get involved, I figured I’d give him a taste of his own medicine.”
“How?” Eli asks.
“Called in and reported my car as stolen,” Bodhi says with a shrug.
Then, for the first time since he sat down at this table, my brother smiles. It isn’t one that reaches his eyes, or even a lighthearted one, but one that says he definitely approves of Bodhi’s retaliations.
“Talk about poetic justice,” Eli says.
“That’s what I said,” Bodhi chuckles.
I elbow him in the side, but secretly I love that these two are getting along. It means a lot to me that Eli approves of him. Especially since our dad isn’t around to give his blessing.
“It was a stupid thing to do, though,” bodhi says, sighing as he looks over my face.
“Why?”
“Mateo may have gotten arrested and taken in for questioning, but some of his little buddies thought they’d take it upon themselves to run your sister off the road up at the Heights,” Bodhi says, and I watch Eli’s eyes go black.
