beater, then wrote checks to my brother every month.
And then things went from bad to worse. This time the meeting was just Paul and I at a bar. He was clearly sloshed. While I was paying for their insurance, Paul explained, he was using credit cards to buy the supplemental instead. And his idea of a second job had been online gambling with the money I’d contributed. He’d wanted to flip a quick profit. When he looked at me with broken eyes, I realized that my big brother had made a massive error in judgment.
When I asked him how much he’d lost, he told me that he was two grand in the hole. That wasn’t counting the credit cards. It was like I could feel fate wrapping her hands around my neck. He was miserable and sorry and, well…destroyed.
My whole life, Paul was the strong one. I went to him for advice so many times. And now he was off the rails. Maybe the grief and worry had driven him insane. Not that I blamed him. Shit, I’d even contemplated robbing a bank when I found out that Lexa’s best shot at survival was a treatment that was expensive and far away.
Traveling to New York every weekend, the car services, airline tickets, hotels – the expense was crazy.
Between the car services, airline tickets, and hotels? It was crazy.
But things went from worse to absolute shit, because Paul had paid for the treatment up front. When I questioned him how—with a maxed-out credit card and gambling debts—he’d managed it, he confessed that he found a shady loan company. They’d given him seventy thousand dollars.
He cried for a little while after revealing the amount.
“What would you pay to save your little girl’s life?” In between sobs he told me the insane interest rate. And that he’d been unable to scrape together even a single payment to them. I couldn’t fight with him. We had to do something.
And then he told me he had a plane ticket to Europe to meet with the owners of the company. Now he had no idea what to do. I didn’t have time to even see if I could borrow the money legit, because the plane to Europe left in the morning.
I took his ticket. I took his passport. The men in our family are like carbon copies of each other. I took his ID. I took my brother’s place on that plane.
He was my brother. I had to protect him. And more importantly, I had to save Lexa.
So, I was here to hopefully meet a dangerous dude to plead my case in this fancy hotel. I did not fit in at all. I was here to beg for empathy. To hope that these men would understand that teachers don’t make a lot of money. That I would pay back my brother’s bill. Somehow. Even if I had to work three jobs.
I’d been instructed to sit in a lounge chair on the beach and wait. I sludged over to a white one that was sort of next to a woman. The sand flooded my Crocs.
I'd met my brother in the bar after going on a bike ride. I stole his identity when he went to the bathroom. I always just wore my Crocs to drive my car home from my favorite trail, because my bike shoes had clips to snap into the pedals of my mountain bike. I’d had no time to change. Or go home. Or feed my fish. I was wearing a yellow bike jersey and bike shorts. And Crocs. I got on the plane as I was. It didn’t matter. Until it did.
I was obviously out of my element. This private beach was clearly frequented by rich people. Designer labels seemed to be on everything.
I flopped down in the lounge chair, leaving my Crocs in the sand. They were going to call me. Both Manda and Paul and the loan sharks. I kept my phone gripped in my left hand even though I had the volume up. I didn’t want to miss a thing, and the sun was interfering with my screen. I knew it would vibrate if I had a message. I looked around. The woman one chair over shifted and I noticed she was completely topless.
My dick and my man brain were immediately happy. My rational brain realized that it was probably creepy for her to have me sit so close. I started to apologize then stopped because I didn’t speak the