There is something so picturesque about living here, and I know a lot of guys my age have no taste for the charm of a small town. Shit, most people would take one look at me and assume I wanted to be chasing tail in Los Angeles or New York.
Me, though? I’d rather be riding through back roads in the dark as the night air freezes my bones.
I hear my brother’s house before I see it, pulling down the mile long driveway until his bachelor pad comes into view. And by bachelor pad, I mean six-bedroom single family home complete with an infinity pool, guest house, and dirt bike track built into the backyard. His property is a teenage kid’s wet dream, funded and paid for using our parent’s money or his trust fund, and my brother acts like he’s just turned eighteen most of the time.
Tonight isn’t much different than any other night at Sinclair’s, other than the fact that I showed up for once. I never dare come over here during the season, knowing the kind of debauchery happening on these acres, and really don’t want to be here now. But I haven’t heard from my brother in a week, so I need to check in.
In our family unit, it’s just my parents, Sinclair, and me. He’s four years younger than I am, but at twenty-six has never truly held down a job for more than, oh, six weeks I want to say. Our father has given him every job opportunity within the Pistons organization, had friends pull strings to get him into record labels and PR positions. One year, he worked as a Wall Street trader for about three days. Then there was the week he pursued real estate in Miami. You name it, he’s been fired from it. Now, my brother simply lives off his trust fund, sleeps until three p.m., and then douses himself with alcohol until the early hours of the morning.
Normally, I don’t let it get to me, but he hasn’t been returning calls. Which means he could be even lower than he typically is. So I have to drag my ass out to one of his shit-show parties to see if he’s reached the bottom of the bottle yet.
“Yo, Walker!”
It’s dark as I walk up the driveway and lawn that are packed with cars, people littering out onto the lawn from the open front door. Some big bass rap song is blaring out of every window in the house, and Sinclair is lucky that his neighbors don’t live remotely close, because he’d be getting nightly visits from the cops.
Oh, who am I kidding? He either paid off or was friends with all the cops in town. Some of them are probably off duty in this house, partying right now.
Squinting through the dark, I see some burnout I went to high school with. I’m pretty sure he still lives in his mom’s basement in town, and I forget his name.
“Hey.” I raise a hand weakly, quickly walking past him.
I’m not here for a good time, I just need to find Sinclair and confirm that he isn’t drowning in self-pity … or some worse substance.
I make my way into the house which has been professionally decorated and staged with the most obnoxious of bachelor pad features. This includes a massive black leather sectional sofa that occupies the entire living room while facing a wall of at least six flat screens and more speakers than I can count; the place looks like a Best Buy.
Noise and bodies are everywhere, and I can’t believe my brother actually lives like this. I’m a social guy, I like company and a good beer with friends, but these people are virtual strangers. They’re invading his space, in most cases defiling it, and my own house is my chill out space.
“Ah, if it isn’t the golden boy, come to brace us all with his presence!” Sinclair slow claps as I enter the massive kitchen, and a bunch of his drunken idiot friends join in, whooping and hollering.
I sneer, holding up my hands like they’re all being ridiculous. “Just coming to check that you’re not lying in a ditch. You know, since you haven’t been returning my texts.”
“Aw, you worried about me? How sweet?” Sinclair’s dimples flash as he pats my cheek in a snarky manner.
I veer out of his reach. “What’re we celebrating tonight, then?”
My brother is wearing nothing but a bathing suit, even though it’s nearly Thanksgiving and about thirty degrees outside right now.
“Life, big bro. We’re partying that we’re here breathing. That the man hasn’t gotten us down.” He wraps an arm around my shoulder, and I smell the various alcohols on his breath.
“How very Ono and Lennon of you,” I grumble.
“Someone has to celebrate the love when there are those of you in the world so straight-laced.” He shrugs.
“As if anyone would call me straight-laced.” I roll my eyes.
In fact, most people who know me would say I’m the ultimate extrovert. Typically, I crave social company, and would rather be out enjoying the town than alone. I even enjoy those stuffy charity events the team makes us attend.
But compared to these people, to my brother? I look like a hermit.
“Are you … are you high?” I ask my brother, trying to check his pupils.
My hand steadies his face, and he slaps my fingers away aggressively. “Don’t come into my fucking house and question me. If you’re here for a good time, then stay. If not, feel free to get the fuck out. You’re ruining my vibe.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re twenty-six, not seventeen. Don’t say anything about your vibe.”
“I’d like to up your vibe.” Some blonde who was tripping all over herself in a red leather bikini, which looked extremely uncomfortable to swim in, trails a matching red fingernail up my arm.
I shrug her off. “Sin, what’s going on?”
I know Sinclair is a party boy, that he probably dabbled, but thinking about him getting into anything more hardcore than a little weed scares the shit out of me. My brother had demonstrated in the past that he has little to no self-control, and get him in the wrong group of people, I doubt there isn’t anything he wouldn’t try.
But from friends I’ve heard from around town, this month has been particularly crazy over on my brother’s property. Parties every single night, multiple noise violations, and someone said a girl nearly drowned last week. Something is up.
“Didn’t our dear old dad fill you in? I got fired. Again.” He holds up an entire bottle of tequila in salute and then begins swigging.
I scramble to pull it from his mouth, the liquid splashing on my arm. Great, now I’m going to smell like a bar.
“What do you mean? I didn’t realize he got you another job.” I shake my head in confusion.
“SportsNews is making a documentary about this season, calling it ‘Victory after Scandal’ or some shit. It’s going to play on all the networks. Dad got me hired as a production assistant. But the call times were too early, I missed a bunch of shoots. They fired me after a week and a half.”
His flippant attitude about a paying job ruining his bullshit schedule has anger flitting through my veins. I have no idea what is wrong with him, how he got to this place. Sure, Sin has some shit, and we are the kids of rich parents, but his utter lack of responsibility boggles me.
And before I can try to pull him into a private room, sober him up, or at least talk to him out of the earshot of a hundred people, my brother is running for the backyard.
The pool is lit up blue and I can make out the steam coming off of it, meaning he’s got the heat jacked up to the highest level. There are others in the pool, and as Sinclair sprints, I assume to jump in, a herd of drunken morons follow him.