I'd Kill You First: when bad meets bad

Chap. 18

KEENON:

I woke up to someone shaking me furiously, scaring me senseless as I yanked up in bed with a yell.

"Keenon!" Brody yelled in my face, the scent of liquor strong on his breath.

I rubbed my face and looked at my clock. 2:56 AM. "Yeah? What?"

"Go get my fucking sister!" he hollered, pointing out to the hallway.

"What?" I asked, trying to figure out what was going on while still in the process of waking up.

I got a harsh slap across the face as Brody gripped my shoulders and shook me. "Soda Pop, go get the bastard. You were supposed to sleep with her, not in here!"

I struggled to make sense of his words as I looked around my room and asked the only thing I could think of. "What's wrong?"

He huffed his tainted breath in my face and literally stomped his foot, swaying a little. "I might be drunk, but I'm not blind. Soda hasn't slept in two years because of damn dreams and generic insomnia, but she slept with you in that chair without screaming herself awake! I saw it! How could you leave her alone again? Go get her!"

"But- uh, where is she? What am I supposed to do with her?" I mumbled.

"She's downstairs in the building's cafe playing their piano like she always does. When she can't stand the dark anymore, she finds a piano and stays there all night," he rambled out in slurs.

Things began to click quickly in my head. That's why she never seemed to be here at night. She was downstairs.

"Well what am I supposed to do? She hates me, man!"

He gaped at me in disbelief. "No she doesn't, you idiot! She let you hug her, Keenon. She never lets anyone touch her at all, especially guys. Well, unless she's screwing them, but that's when she's high as fuck, or well, used to get high. She quit that a while back I guess-"

"Brody," I said, snapping my fingers in his face, "What do you want me to do?"

He looked quite exasperated with me. "Go down and get her! Take her back to her room and stay there with her, duh. I know you like her, I can tell. I'm a 'bad boy' too, and I know that soft look you get in your eyes when you see her. You-"

"I do not like her," I protested, but he held up his hand.

"Save it, man. Just go get the dumbass, huh? I tried to talk her into coming back up with me, but she's in a mood and won't! Help me! I can't even walk straight, so go take her to her bed, and don't come back in here because I'm stealing your room."

He shoved me out of my room without another word and slammed the door, leaving me standing in the hall in just my flannel pajama pants. I guess things could be worse. I mean, I just got ordered to take the prettiest girl I know to bed. I'm not protesting, especially if it's as Brody says and I can help her.

I grabbed a blanket from the basket in the living room and headed out the door, taking the stairs quickly, glad that even at night they left the occasional light on in the building for patrons who stayed out late. I was huffing a little when I finally reached the lobby.

I didn't have to look around for Soda, the beautiful music lead me right to her. She sat at the back of the dark, small cafe at the grand piano, fingers moving so fast and so elegantly across the keys that it was entrancing. Her hair was a ruffled mess of cascading waves down her back, but she looked so mesmerizingly beautiful in a large white t-shirt that hung off her shoulder and gray flannel pajama shorts, sitting up straight on the piano bench.