Page 24 of All That We Are Together

Axel’s mouth opened, but then he must have thought twice, so he closed it again while I bent over and wrote my university emailaddress on a napkin. Before I could turn around, he’d stood up and was grabbing my wrist. I shivered. His skin was still warm, his grip firm, resolute.

“Do you still have my number?”

“I erased it,” I admitted.

He wrote it down on another napkin that I tucked in the back pocket of my jeans. I didn’t tell him I knew his number by heart. I didn’t tell him how many times I’d wished I could erase it just like that, by pressing a button.

I didn’t look back as I left the café. I needed air. I needed to get away, to find myself.

27

Axel

I sat down on a stool and rested a hand on my brother’s shoulder, then shook him until he started to complain. I laughed as the bartender approached.

“Two rums?” I looked at Justin.

“Okay, but nothing too strong.”

“We’ve only got one brand,” the guy responded.

“Well…” Justin seemed hesitant.

“We’ll take two of those, then,” I cut him off.

The bartender turned around, and Justin nudged me with his elbow.

“Don’t order for me!” he complained.

“That’s what you get when you invite me out.”

“I just wanted to know how you were.” He grabbed his glass as soon as it was set down, took a sip, and grimaced. “It burns like fire!”

“Come on, show me you’re actually my brother.”

He smiled, shook his head, and clinked glasses with me. As we drank, he told me about the twins’ latest shenanigans and other,more boring things, like how he’d installed a new lock on his bedroom door so he and Emily could be intimate without interruptions. I stopped him when he was about to start describing their last session.

“Honestly, Justin, you don’t have to go into details.”

Over the past few years, my brother and I had grown closer, and almost without realizing it, we’d become the kind of friends who could meet up now and again and hang out. He was still too stiff for my taste, a little prying, and bad at most of the things I liked to do, but in his defense, putting up with me after what happened with Leah was no easy task, and he was the one person who went on doing it unconditionally even after I had the worst fight of my life with my parents at the unfortunate age of thirty.

With my father, getting through it had been easier, but Mom… I wasn’t sure she didn’t still hold it against me somehow. For months, she’d complained that shesimply couldn’t believe itand would cry about how after the deaths of Leah and Oliver’s parents, Douglas and Rose, our family was even more fragmented than before, and there would be no more family meals on Sunday or anything like that. Ironically, that was what made my parents pack their bags a few months later and leave on their first voyage. It had been a short one, an experiment, almost. But it was followed by many more, each longer than its predecessor. By now they were regular globetrotters.

“Another round,” I told the bartender, raising my glass.

“You don’t want to just share one?” Justin looked up, and my expression was enough for him to sigh in resignation.

“You know where our parents are?” I asked.

“In Panama, I think. They haven’t called you?”

“No.” I took a long sip.

“Mom says every time she tries to call you, your phone’s dead. Is it really that hard to keep it charged?”

“When you get in big brother mode, that tells me you haven’t drunk enough. And for your information, I’ve had my phone charged for several days now.” I took it out of my pants pocket. “See? Magic!”

“That’s a big achievement for you. What’s the cause?”