Country Living

Information (Rose)

I walk into the police station and I see my oldest brother Bradley walk out of his office and give me a hug.

“What brings my little baby sister to see me?

I smile up at him. Standing six foot four he towers over me but he knows that I can cut him down to size. “Hi Brad. I’m going to need a ride home tonight.”

He folds his arms over his chest grinning “What makes you think that I’m going to give you a ride? What happened to your car?”

“Well on the way home from school I hit a deer. It was towed to Jeff’s old shop. Don’t get me started on the new owner,” I say as I roll my eyes. “Anyway the insurance person is supposed to come sometime tomorrow to see if it's totaled or not.”

He motions me into his office and I follow him. His office consists of a bookshelf and cabinets along the side wall. There’s a wooden desk with a chair behind it and two chairs in front of it. He likes the older detective movies so he has his desk arranged in a similar form. I take a seat on the side of the desk where there aren’t a whole lot of papers. 

Brad sits in his chair and asks “How bad is your car?”

“It’s ok, nothing that can’t be fixed. If the agent decides to total it I can use my parts car to fix most of the issues and save the money. If not then I’ll probably just do the same.”

 He nods ok then he gathers his things to leave. I unfortunately have a feeling that he’s going to ask about Brandon in the car when he knows I can’t get away from the question, but it’ll be good to vent. 

We head out to Brad’s 1997 Ford truck that has also seen better days. We head out of town and he asks “What did Brandon do to earn the wrath of Rose?”

I shift in my seat to get a little more comfortable. ”Well let’s start off with the fact that he left me sitting on the side of the road for over three hours before he came and picked me and the car up. He said that he got caught up in a “project” when I called him at six. However, I didn’t know that “projects” had a high pitched giggle. Then he tells me that I cannot work on my car at the shop. He obviously didn’t go through the filing cabinets to find that legal paper that Jeff drew up eight years ago saying that I could work in the shop if I needed to.”

Brad glances at me “You do know that Brandon is Jeff’s grandson, right?”

“No, I didn’t. But that still doesn’t excuse him for being late.” 

He just smiles and continues driving. It doesn’t matter if Brandon is Jeff’s grandson or not he needs to be accountable for his actions. He is going to lose customers if he keeps it up.

“Do you think that you could give me a ride to school in the morning?”

Brad sarcastically says “Now what kind of brother would I be if I didn't take my little sister to school in the morning.” 

“A boring one” I say as I roll my eyes.

 We get to my place and he drops me off waving. I head inside ready to go to bed, it has already been a long day, but first I think I’ll soak in the tub for a little bit. 

My house is a small two story house that has four bedrooms. I picked it because my brothers like to crash here with their friends instead of driving home after drinking and hanging out. This way they are all safe. Also, I won’t wake up to half naked men strewn all over, which, don’t get me wrong, is something nice to look at but these are their friends so that’s going to have to pass. 

I go inside and drop by bags on the kitchen table and head up to my room. It has its own bathroom with a jacuzzi tub. I’ve been slowly updating the house first with the kitchen then my bathroom. It’s not quite done with the sink but my tub works.

Once the tub is full I get in and start the jets. I start thinking about getting a hold of Jeff. I grab my phone that is on the floor and call Jeff. It’s about seven thirty in Arizona so I’m not waking him.

The phone rings and Jeff picks up “So I hear that you’ve been giving Brandon a hard time. What did he actually do?”

He already went and complained to his grandfather about me. Pathetic. “So Brandon already told you that he was three hours late in picking me up. Did he tell you what his project was?”

“No but I’m sure that you’re going to tell me.” I can picture him smirking thinking it’s something car related. I really hate to burst his bubble. 

“He was having s*x with one of my students who is barely of age.”

The line was silent for a while before he said “I will definitely be having a talk with him in the morning. So how bad is your car?”

Relaxing back in the tub “It’s nothing that I can’t fix. I don’t think that they’re going to total it but if they are I will probably save the money and use the parts car to fix it. How’s your family doing?”, I ask knowing how much he likes to talk about them and what new adventures they’re up to. 

He talks about John, Laura’s youngest, who is going into first grade and how he doesn’t like having homework no matter if it’s fun or not. I smile at that because he doesn’t know when he’s older he’s going to miss that fun homework. My mind wanders back to Brandon, why have I never heard about him?

I wait till he’s done talking about Jack, Laura’s oldest, before I say anything. “Jeff why have I never heard anything about Brandon?”

“He is my oldest son Micheal’s boy. Micheal had gotten a girl pregnant in highschool. When her family found out they moved and he was told to never contact them. When Brandon turned eighteen he sought out Micheal and the rest of us and wanted to be a part of our family. We all decided to keep it under wraps for a while but never really got around to telling everyone. I’m surprised Brad never told you, they’ve been friends for a while now.” 

“He did today but he didn't say that they’re friends. He was probably just protecting me from another guy in his mind. One day he’ll stop his older brother's routine.” Hopefully. It’s not that I don’t like knowing that they’ll have my back, but it’s when they scare off every guy in a thirty mile radius. I didn’t date until I was in college and now I only date in the summer if I’m lucky.

“One day they’ll notice that you’re a bright young lady who can take care of herself. I’ll talk to you later. It looks like John needs help with his homework. Bye.”

I say bye and hang up. The water is still warm so I soak in it a little more before I completely wash up. I get out of the tub and dry off. I head into my room tomorrow is a new day and Brad will pick me up in the morning early.