Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76807 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76807 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
It was dated just a few months ago.
Strange timing, but maybe he was just trying to get his affairs in order. You start to think about that shit when you hit a certain age.
I flipped through some more shit—the proof of paying off his car, the account numbers for his bills—that kind of crap.
But there in the back, print even messier than usual, was what seemed like a hastily written note.
Brooks -
Take care of Cali for me.
- Clay
That was it.
His true final wish.
For me to take care of Cali.
His little sister.
Memories flashed across my mind.
Caliana had been eight years younger than us, all long limbs and warm brown skin, always following Clay around like a shadow. I mean, she didn’t have much of a choice. Her parents were working, and Clay was who was in charge of her after school after their grandparents died and couldn’t lend a hand anymore.
Most of my memories of her were from when we were teens, and she was still eight or ten. Hanging around, soaking up everything we were saying.
And to us, as much as we tried to be patient with her, she’d just been… kind of annoying. We wanted to be chasing girls and shit like that, but you couldn’t run game when you had a little girl trailing behind you, saying embarrassing shit, or asking uncomfortable questions.
By the time we were twenty, though, Cali was old enough to be left on her own, so I didn’t really see her much anymore.
Thing was, though, before she turned eighteen, Clay and Cali lost both of their parents. Making Clay her legal guardian.
So, once again, she was back on my radar, though I wasn’t sure I saw her much at all until the night of her eighteenth birthday. When she’d decided she was grown and could stay out all night without saying a word to Clay. Leading to the two of us hitting the streets, looking all over for her.
Finally finding she’d somehow gotten herself a fake ID and gotten into a fucking bar.
Walking in, it was like I saw her for the first time.
I dunno what it was.
Because she wasn’t a kid.
Because she was dressed grown for the first time.
Whatever it was, I wasn’t just seeing her, I was noticing her.
All that skinny that I’d known her for had rounded out a bit, making that gold sequined club dress she had on hug her around her hips and ass, showing off some shapely legs. At the time, her hair had been crazy long and pulled into rope twists around her pretty square face, dominated by big, almost black eyes, plump lips, and a straight nose that tilted up ever so slightly at the tip.
“Fuck, she’s fucking wasted,” Clay had grumbled as he’d followed my line of vision to find his sister. Sitting on the bar. A halo of interested men around her.
I hadn’t even noticed until he’d mentioned it. But, yeah, her eyes had been bleary, her smile a little loopy.
Clay had charged over toward her, yanking men out of the way, then lifting Cali off of the bar, too drunk to realize her brother was pissed off.
Clay had all but carried her outside, leaving her with me as he went to get the car. Where she’d hung all over me, telling me how she liked me better than the guys at the bar.
And I tried not to notice how she wiggled against me, how her breath was warm on my neck.
Because she was drunk.
Because she’d just barely turned eighteen.
Because she was my best friend’s baby sister.
I stayed clear of her as much as I could after that, not liking that there was even a spark of interest in my body.
I shrugged it off after a while, telling myself that it was nothing, that I’d just been young and, well, horny. That feeling of a twinge of desire around Cali was simply because I hadn’t gotten laid in a while.
Eventually, Clay and I fell out of touch.
And, honestly, I kind of forgot Caliana existed.
Now, though, seeing her name there in Clay’s print, knowing he wanted me to look out for her now that he was gone, memories of her started flooding back to me.
Little flashes of seeing her coming and going from Clay’s place when I was there to hang. Catching sight of her in a store somewhere.
I wondered if she still smelled like vanilla and roses.
“Fuck,” I hissed, shaking my head at the direction of my thoughts.
It didn’t matter what she smelled like.
Or what she looked like.
She was Clay’s sister.
Now Clay was gone.
And she had to be like my little sister.
I didn’t even know where the fuck to look for her, though. I never crossed her path anymore, leaving me wondering if she’d moved out of Navesink Bank when she’d gotten her own place.