Cameron Casey and Annabeth Taylor are about to find out just how deep a burn can hurt you. Together, they're being trained to take over the family business. Neither of them want the lives their fathers have planned out and they realize that sometim...
"You're the brother I never asked for." —Travis Miller
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Cameron Casey. Thirteen years old.
I held the piece of paper in my hand. It had been folded twice to fit in the envelope neatly.
Dear Mr. Cameron Casey, You are hereby summoned...
I'd read it dozens of times already. It wasn't changing. I placed it down on the table and tried to smooth over the corner edges with my thumb, straightening it all back out. I folded the paper the opposite way of how it had been folded originally, trying in vain to get it to look as untouched as possible. Like maybe a computer spit it out by accident, like a spam email.
As I continued trying to flatten out the paper to erase any evidence a human being actually sent this, I heard soft footsteps approach. My eyes burned on the signature in bright, blue ink at the bottom of the page.
I placed my forearm over the ink stubbornly so it disappeared.
Two hard pats hit my back before a strong hand clutched onto my shoulder. The strong scent of cigar smoke filled the air but I knew he wasn't smoking. The scent just clung to him like death.
The paper was swiped out from under my arm and he read over it, mumbling random words under his breath but I knew he'd already read it. I'm sure he was the one that opened the letter and placed it neatly in front of my spot at the table, out in the open for everyone to see it.
I kept my eyes on the table right where the letter had disappeared from.
His grip tightened on my shoulder, pressing directly onto a bruise I had received from last night's training session but I knew better by now than to show it affected me. I ran over every encounter with him since last night in my head, trying to remember if he knew I had gotten hit on my shoulder or not. I couldn't recall babying it or even massaging it in front of him last night.
"We'll work this out," my dad said gruffly.
"Okay." My head stayed down.
"Don't worry," he assured, squeezing too hard to be casual on my shoulder.
I clenched my toes as subtly as I could to keep the pain from showing. One of the guys I'd been boxing with last night must have told him. I made a list of them in my head, keeping the mental note to know who to stay away from for the next few days if they were going to spill the beans to my dad. It was hard to ever keep anything from my dad because he has dozens of guys around him telling him of my every move. Once I saw there was a leak, I tried to avoid it. While my dad knew of the boxing session last night, he wasn't a fan of when I got hit and not in the way most parents would have been.
He folded the paper back on itself and dropped it down on the table. I quickly took to straightening it back out, giving myself something to do. I glanced up out of the corner of my eye as my dad walked over to one of the pantries across the kitchen. The clinking of glass echoed around the quiet room. Usually, it was full of people which meant he'd probably sent everyone away just to have a two second conversation with me.
