And there we were.
“Right then, this is all about you,” Rob returned.
“You can’t just snap your fingers,” Mom lifted a hand and did just that, “and trust again, Rob.”
“Tell me about it, Carol.”
I didn’t have time to stick around for the show.
I’d seen it often enough, anyway.
And I wasn’t that big of a fan.
So I turned around, walked out the door, headed to my car and was mildly surprised when Rob came jogging out into the chill in his bare feet and pajamas, calling, “Evie!”
I stopped at the door of my car and watched his approach as my mother stood in the door to their home and screamed, “Rob! We were not done talking!”
Rob ignored her, rounded my hood and stopped in front of me.
“I’ll call off work, go with you to the station. Be with you when you turn those drugs over to the police and report this,” he offered.
I stared up at him, and it wasn’t mild surprise he’d left Mom’s scene to see to me.
It was shock.
“And what about Mick?” I asked.
His voice grew gentle when he replied, “Sweetheart, I think the time is now that you need to stop asking yourself that question.”
I had a feeling he was right.
This wasn’t posting bail, something Mick always paid back.
Eventually.
And this wasn’t helping Mick move when his latest girlfriend kicked him out, an event where Mick always did something nice in return, even if he could just afford a twenty-dollar gift card to Anthropologie.
Or this wasn’t Mick borrowing my car when his broke down.
Or Mick begging me to talk Smithie into letting him be a bouncer (something Smithie didn’t do because he didn’t hire anyone with a record if they hadn’t been clean without any charges for less than six months, but Smithie, being Smithie, even though the effort was futile, ran a check on him anyway in an attempt to help me out).
So as annoying as all this was with Mick, and how over it I thought I was getting, it was just a part of being Mick’s sister.
Now, Rob was right.
I should stop asking myself that question.
The problem was, now, I sensed Mick was in serious trouble.
And if I didn’t look out for him, it’d be on me if that trouble landed on him.
And I didn’t know if I could live with that.
“Evan, really, your best course of action with this is to give that shit to the cops and let them sort it out,” Rob pressed.
“I’ll think about it,” I mumbled.
“Please, I’m beggin’ you, do that,” he said, and I blinked up at him at the earnest tone of his voice. “And anytime, day, night, I’m at work, whatever, if you want me with you when you make the right decision, I’m there.”
Well…
Wow.
“Thanks, Rob,” I whispered.
“You take too much on, Evie,” he whispered back. “I lose sleep over you.”
He did?
Oh God.
I was gonna cry.
I had no idea.
“I’ll…think” was all I could say.
He nodded.
He then turned and started to round my car but stopped at my front bumper.
“I love her,” he said.
I didn’t move, even to speak.
“I know it isn’t healthy, not for either of us, the way we treat each other, but I can’t walk away, can’t cut her loose, even though the good we had turned bad, because I love her,” he declared.
“I can’t really talk to you about this right now,” I told him.
Or ever.
“I know. I just want you not to have to think about one more thing. It’s fucked up, but it’s what we got, it’s the way we are, we both choose to stay, and it’s not yours to take on. You with me?”
That was as bizarre as it was sweet.
I nodded.
“Do right, Evie,” he bid.
He had conflicting ideas as to what Mick thought was right.
But between Rob and Mag, that was two votes for the cops.
Rob jogged to the sidewalk and stood there in his pajamas while I got in my car and drove away.
And there it was.
My limited option exhausted.
I wouldn’t go to my sister because I didn’t want her embroiled in this.
And I couldn’t go to my dad because there was no way he was up this early, and I could knock on his door until my knuckles were bloody and he wouldn’t get up.
What he probably would do when he found out was be furious at Mick but not be much help otherwise.
I didn’t even know what I expected from Mom and Rob.
Maybe just not being alone in this.
I sorta had Rob.
But Mom was…
Mom.
I was halfway home when I got a call.
It was Charlie, my other boss.
I stripped four nights a week, Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Twelve additional hours a week (that sometimes stretched to more like twenty, if Charlie was in a bind), I filled in on-call, site-support work for Charlie at his company, Computer Raiders, a tech support business.