Please.”

Now his brother really looked at him. Gabriel never asked him for anything. Ever.

“Where do you need to go?”

Gabriel warred with telling the truth but Michael was more likely to say yes if he knew it was for school. “I’m picking up someone from my math class. We’re coming back here to study.”

“Try again.”

Gabriel sighed. “Really.” At Michael’s raised eyebrows, he emphasized, “Really. Why would I make that up?”

Michael studied him for an eternal minute. Then he closed the laptop. “Okay.”

Gabriel almost fell out of his chair. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.” Michael stood. “Let’s go.”

Wait a minute. “You’re not ”

“Driving? Yeah, I am. We’ll pick up this someone, I’ll bring you back here, and then I’ll go to Home Depot.”

This was some kind of punishment. Or retaliation. Had to be. “Look, if you’re just going to grill me about the fires ”

“No grilling. We can’t afford for something to happen to the truck.” Michael was already heading for the garage. “This is the best you’re going to get. Take it or leave it.”

Gabriel couldn’t believe he had to get a ride from his brother.

Christ, this was humiliating. They’d always had a car. He’d never needed to beg a ride to pick a girl up.

Especially to study.

He felt about thirteen. Maybe Michael would offer to take them for ice cream, after.

“Hey,” he said when they were halfway there. “I need you to do me a favor.”

“Another one?”

“Please don’t be mean to this girl.”

“Aha.” Michael glanced over. “I knew this had to be a girl.”

“Look . . . just . . . she’s not like that, okay?”

“So not only do I have to play chauffeur, but I have to be nice, too?” Michael’s voice was full of sarcasm, but it lacked the usual edge.

Gabriel didn’t trust this new niceness but if he snapped at Michael, his brother might abort the whole operation. “Maybe it would be best if you just didn’t talk to her at all.”

Michael fell silent for a while, and trees raced by. Finally, he said, “How bad is it?”

“How bad is what?”

“Math.”

“It’s fine,” Gabriel lied. “I just don’t want to fall behind.”

Michael glanced over. “You think you’ll be able to get back on the team?”

“Damn it.” Gabriel scowled. “I can’t believe Nick told you.”

“He didn’t. I’ve been waiting to see if you’d tell me yourself.”

Like that would ever happen. “Chris, then?”

Michael shook his head. “Your teacher called.”

“She what?”

“I don’t know why you guys are so surprised when the school calls me.”

Gabriel couldn’t believe this. “God, I hate her.”

Michael fell silent again, but this time it was weighted, like he wanted to say something. Gabriel wasn’t about to give him an excuse to lecture, so he kept his mouth shut and stared out the window.

“I used to hate it,” Michael finally said. “Your teachers would call me all the time. Especially in middle school. I mean, these were people who’d taught me, and four years later, they’re calling to ask me to control my little brothers. Every frigging day, another hassle. A fight. A missed assignment. Come in and sign this form, come down and fill out this paperwork. It used to make me nuts.”

Boo-hoo. Gabriel didn’t look away from the window.

He wondered if Michael was looking for an apology. He wasn’t getting one.

“By the time you and Nick hit freshman year, I thought it would settle down. But then I had middle school teachers and high school teachers calling me. I remember that October, I was trying to figure out how the hell to file a tax return for the business, and Vickers called me up to tell me Nick had gotten in a fight in the locker room.”

Vickers was the guidance counselor. Gabriel remembered that day, one of the few days Nick had actually been involved in a fight, when he wasn’t just taking the fall for Gabriel.

It wasn’t really a fight at all. Seth and Tyler had cornered Nick after gym class. They’d beaten the crap out of him.

Gabriel had switched places with Nick the next day. Seth and Tyler backed off after that.

He’d had no idea Vickers ever called the house.

“I hated that stupid cow when I went to school there,”

Michael said. “I used to think she was useless. So when she called up to whine about Nick, I went off on her. Told her I was sick of her and every other teacher always getting on my case, setting me up to fail. I completely lost it. I’m surprised she didn’t hang up on me.”

Michael hit the turn signal for Compass Pointe. “When I finally shut up, she said something I’ll never forget. She said, ‘We’re not setting you up to fail. We’re calling because we want to help you succeed.’”

Gabriel stared at him for a long moment, waiting, hoping there was more. But his brother didn’t say anything else.

Gabriel rolled his eyes and looked back out the window.

“That is the dumbest story I’ve ever heard.”

“All I’m saying is, I don’t think your teacher is trying to hassle you.”