Excerpt from the novel

T= ethered

Steve’s brother Nick is sitting on a l= ounge chair by the pool and I decide to make my way over to him. This isn’t something I wou= ld normally do. I know this as= I walk across the patio and toward the pool. Suddenly he seems so interesting= out on the lounge chair all alone, a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, j= eans and a bare chest, his mud-caked cowboy boots by his side.

“This is fun, isn’t it?” I= say to him as I sit in the yellow plastic lounge chair across from him, caref= ul not to spill my drink. I= 217;m not using a cheery voice, but a sarcastic voice. I mean the sarcasm with all my h= eart.

Nick tips the cap up off his eyes. He looks surprised to see itR= 17;s me. Nick is Steve’s o= lder brother, the pre-ordained slacker in the family. Everybody’s pain-in-the-ass. According = to Beth he doesn’t care about anyone but himself. “Just wasting his life away,” she once grumbled. “Going nowhere, but you’d think nowhere was a big, damn deal.” Nick usually attends Beth and Steve’s functions, but he never really participates. I often wonder why he bothers at= all.

“Why do you bother?” I ask him a= fter a large swallow of margarita.

Nick pulls himself up, his stomach muscles tightening in the effort, then lowers his bare feet onto the cement slab under his chair. He picks u= p his beer bottle from the cement and it makes a delicate scraping sound. He holds it near the top, two fi= ngers and a thumb. He drinks and = then eyes me up.

I’m wearing a red t-shirt with a flag = waving across the front of it and jean shorts.&= nbsp; My legs have goose bumps on them, down to the slouchy socks. I pull my knees up under my chin= and wrap my arms around my legs, keeping a good angle on my dwindling drink.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> “You know, my drink is dwindling,” I say.

“No, Cal, your drink is gone. My drink is dwindling.” Nick takes a long drink from his bottle. “Now my drink is gone.” He takes the glass from my hand = and heads for the patio.

“Are you sure you don’t want som= ething to eat?” my mother asks him as he takes a scoop of icy margarita fr= om the silver bucket and drops it into my empty orange glass.

“No thanks. It interferes with the effects o= f the alcohol.” My mother l= ooks at him and forces a smile, hoping he’s making a joke, afraid that he’s not.

“Nick can never be serious about anyth= ing, can you Nick?” JoR= 17;s voice is rich but scratchy, like music from an accordion.

Nick opens the cooler under the window and p= ulls out a beer. “I’m always serious.” He d= oes this clicking noise with his mouth and looks at his mother. “That’s the real pro= blem, isn’t it, Jo?”

Nick’s mother blinks her eyes a few ti= mes, but the gentle smile stays on her face.&= nbsp; “You wouldn’t know a real problem if it slapped you ac= ross the face.”

“All right, all right,̶= 1; Steve says, clapping his hands as if to sanitize away any garbage remains. “Get me a be= er while you’re in there,” he tells Nick. Nick pulls another bottle out of= the ice filled cooler and tosses it at his brother. Steve catches it, then heads ove= r to the driveway where his softball buddies are taking turns being loud.

I watch Nick as he walks back toward the pool. He’s taller than Steve, but not much. His pre= sence is in his shoulders. He doesn’t flinch walking across the patio and through the grass in his bare feet. He steps a bit o= n the bottom of his jeans. His ba= seball cap is on backwards now. Ni= ck hands me the margarita and takes his lounge chair position again. “I just realized how much I prefer dreary days. You get= to be the only person in the pool.”

“You’re not in the pool.”<= /p>

“But if I were, I’d be alone.= 221;

“Is that a hint?” I ask, not car= ing if it is, but just curious. “Just curious,” I say.

“I’m not real proficient at hinting,” he says. “I’m more of a bulldozer when it comes to words.”= ;

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