Coffee, Grit, and my Dad's Best Shoes 2.1

And here's the second chapter! This scene is a lot shorter than the previous ones, but I really didn't know how to continue it, so whatevs, it'll stay like that. Also, note that Brazil is, for whatever reason, a lot more difficult to write than Parker is. Mostly, I'm just worried that his voice will be stiffer or choppier to read. Thanks in advance!

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Chapter 2

Brazil

"Did he upset you?"

It was the first thing out of anyone's mouth after he'd left. Nicky had moved to sit by my legs, hand on my knee, eyes plastered to the wall. It took me a few seconds too long to process that the words had come from her mouth, and that the question had been directed at me, and that I should probably have answered faster than I did.

"No," I said, finally. Firmly. "He upset me more when he wasn't here." I settled back, gaze drifting from Nicky to Michael. From Michael to the wilting flowers on the dresser that was leaning on the far wall.

I listened to Nicky sigh. "I still think he's just trying to suck up," she muttered, drumming her fingers against my knee- the good one, thank God. Not that it was difficult to tell. The giant cast on the left sort of gave me away.

I flinched a little, in any case. "Nicky..." I didn't understand her. She was the one person in the world that I had a hard time reading. The one person whose ability to hang onto anger astounded me. Honestly, it's probably why I liked her so much- if you couldn't understand it, befriend it and shower it in affections and wonder. I just wished that Parker didn't have to juggle the hostility.

"What?" I looked back at her, frowning at her scowl, not particularly caring if she saw it or not. "Braz, he left you in a freaking ambush. At least one of those bruises should've been meant for him."

I felt my shoulders tensing and let my throat constrict. Even if words had been possible at that point, I wouldn't have been able to dig any out and order them into a coherent string. I wasn't angry with her; I wasn't even that frustrated. I just couldn't get over the things that Parker's face would've been doing if he could've heard what Nicky was saying. Unbeknownst to most, he was as sensitive as I was.

"Okay." It was the first thing Michael had said since Parker had headed out. I was just glad that at least one of us could still buck up and say what was on our mind. Nicky was afraid of upsetting me, and I was too tired to discuss the issue with her, anyway. So Michael sighed, rubbed his forehead, and stuffed both hands into his pockets. "Nicky, you should've seen the guy yesterday. Seriously, you're so not the only one who was still pissed at him. He walked in and I kinda wanted to sock him so hard his head fell off his white-ass shoulders."

I winced. "Am I really the only one that didn't want to kill the poor man?"

I got a, "Yes," from Nicky and a simultaneous, "Probably," from Michael.

The former stood, the latter sat back down in his chair and kept going. "But I've never seen the guy that vulnerable. Like, it took the entirety of two minutes before I was feeling bad for hating him. He's sorry, Nicks. And he's beating himself up about this plenty without one of us going at him, too."

I licked my lips during the moment of silence, folding and unfolding the seam of my sheet, just for something to do with my fingers. "I still don't see what the big deal is." I waited until I could feel both pairs of eyes drilling into either side of my head. "He made a mistake. So what? It's... guys, it's just high school drama. We don't need to turn him into the villainous cheer captain in some crappy high school movie written for forth graders."

"You got beat up, Braz!" Nicky was pacing before I could blink, storming the length of the room in either direction twice, and then plodding to the dresser to scowl at the flowers.

Michael rubbed his forehead. Again. "He healed. Three years ago. He survived, and Parker survived, and the perpetrators were accordingly punished for their sins, and now Parker's sorry and Braz is forgiving him. I dunno, Nicks. That's good enough for me. I mean, we weren't the ones who got beat up. If the kid who actually got railed can forgive and forget, I kinda figure that we can, too." His hands met his knees with a loud slapping noise. "Now. I so didn't fly here from the fucking Yukon to bitch about Parker. Can we play Uno and talk about dolphins or something?"

I smiled gratefully and nodded, reaching for the pack of cards that was on the nightstand, perched rather happily on top of the book Parker'd given me yesterday. Michael had been our mediator since we were thirteen, and apparently, moving to a figurative No Man's Land hadn't changed that.

"Stop staring at those flowers, Nicky," Michael said. "The more you glower at them, the deader they're gonna get. We'll buy him new ones." He slipped from the chair to dig the tray out from under the bed and set it on my lap, adjusting it just so before I started dealing out the cards.

Nicky sighed, striding over to fall into her chair. "You're both going to lose again, I hope you realize." She picked up her pile. "The only person I've lost against thus far is Francis."

Michael laughed. "Intimidating. You've been championed by a nine year old girl."

"She's a Liu," Nicky shot back. "She-Lius are all like, natural cards masters or something." She tipped her head in my direction. "The he-Lius are less so."

A snort from Michael. "Mrs. Liu hasn't beaten you, yet. Doesn't she count as a she-Liu?" He nodded at me. "I vote Braz takes first turn and we move counter-clockwise. I hate going last."

I raised an eyebrow at him, but there was a groggy smile tugging at my lips nonetheless. "That's considerate of you, Michael." I looked back at the tray and cleared my throat. Had I been a couple shades lighter, I was sure that my blush would've been visible. "Also, the parental unit she-Liu has beaten me, so. Yeah, the she-Lius are all cards masters, I guess."

"Told you," Nicky muttered, a victorious smirk playing her lips. Michael blew a raspberry at her, and I chuckled past a growing knot of pain in my chest.

We'd only been playing for a few seconds before Michael chimed in with a,"So. Dolphins. Like, what's up with them?"