Brother by Ania Ahlborn Page B

Misty Dawn loved that Stevie Nicks chick.
    â€œThat’s Barb Callahan.”
    Goose bumps.
    Snow White had, for a second time, pulled a magic trick. Instead of being behind the register, she was now at Michael’s right elbow.
    â€œYou know,” she said, responding to Michael’s silence, “Barb Callahan from J104?”
    Michael shook his head. His heart thudded so hard it felt as though it was ready to punch its way straight out of his chest.
    â€œDon’t you listen to the radio?” She gave him a smile.
    â€œNot really.” That was a lie. The name Barb Callahan sounded familiar. So did the station’s call sign. More than likely, it was one of Misty Dawn’s regular spots on the dial, but ­Michael was way too nervous to say any of that. His throat felt dry. His words sounded gravelly. He could smell that spearmint scent coming off Snow White in waves. She canted her head to the side, her cropped black hair exposing a long slope of neck. Grinning toward a crate of records, she filed one away into its rightful spot and shrugged.
    â€œYeah, me neither,” she said, her words colored with easy amusement. “But I tell Barb I do. Too much hippie-dippy crap for my taste. I’m pretty sure she still plays Simon and Garfunkel, which is just . . .” She pulled a face, like she’d tasted something bad. “But if I told Barb that, I’d never get her to leave.”
    Michael was afraid to look at her, partly because if he did, he’d be committing himself to the conversation. But he was also terrified that she’d look into his eyes and see him for what he really was. But he couldn’t not look at her. She was less than two feet away, so close that he wanted to reach out and touch her, if only to feel the warmth of her skin. He watched her from his peripheral vision. Her fingers walked along the spines of record sleeves. The way she rolled her neck, trying to loosen a sleep-strained muscle—it was tempting. Sexy.
    â€œYou, on the other hand.” She filed another record, then turned to face him fully. “You sure know how to make a girl feel interesting with all that talking you do.”
    Michael forced an unsure smile and pushed himself to meet her head-on. When he finally managed it, he truly saw her for the first time, and what he saw made his heart ache. She wasn’t pretty like Lucy. Lucy was more of a generic, everyday pretty rather than genuinely beautiful. Michael had seen that kind of pretty more times than he could count. Snow White was ethereal, as though she’d been plucked from the pages of a storybook. She was all eyes, and despite her black attire, he imagined her living in a tiny cottage tucked into the hills where she’d feed fawns and bluebirds by hand. Her face was framed by her short hair, the fringe of her wispy bangs cutting across a pale forehead. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, the heavy combat boots on her feet looking too heavy for her petite frame.
    â€œSee?” she asked. “I look a little freaky, but I’m not that bad. Probably why your Romeo of a brother likes Lucy a lot more than me.” She cast a glance at the storage room door with a smirk. “Isn’t that weird?” She looked back at Michael, eyebrows raised. Michael mimicked her, arching his own eyebrows in a questioning glance.
    â€œWeird?”
    â€œThat they’d just go back there like that,” she clarified. “I mean, would you do that?”
    Yes, he’d do that. If Snow White caught him by the hand and led him to that back room the way Lucy had led Rebel, he’d do it because he wouldn’t know how to say no. He’d do it because when he looked into her eyes, he saw magic. Maybe ­facing his fear and allowing their limbs to tangle together would cause some of that magic to rub off on him. Maybe drawing his hands across her bare skin would make him a better person. Perhaps it