By the time I returned to the house, my father had received an update that, like Knox’s, Tackle’s injuries were not believed to be life-threatening. Also like Knox, he’d been airlifted to the hospital.
I could no more show my relief than I’d been able to reveal my devastation. No one—not a single living soul—knew my true feelings for my older brother’s best friend. Not even the man himself—even though I’d secretly loved him for years.
I was eleven and he was fourteen the day his parents dragged him over to our house a few days after we’d moved in.
Mrs. Sorenson was the head of the neighborhood welcoming committee, and given my brother and her son were the same age, Tackle had been recruited to “show my brother around.”
“It’s too bad they don’t have a daughter your age,” my mother had said that day. I was glad they didn’t. Given I couldn’t take my eyes off Landry, I likely would’ve ignored her and been scolded for it.
I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling of the room that had been mine for most of my life. It hadn’t changed much in the last fifteen years, other than the size of the bed. Four years ago, the twin had been upgraded to a queen when my mother announced she wanted to turn it into a guest room once I moved out. Since I still lived at home and commuted to my job in Boston, my room had remained mine.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t get a place of my own; I could afford to, even with the sky-high prices of rentals in Boston. But if I did, the few times I had the opportunity to see Tackle would become nonexistent.
I glanced at the clock when the smells of my mother’s traditional Venezuelan breakfast wafted up the stairs and into my room. She didn’t make perico and arepas very often. Usually only for special occasions or when she believed one or all of us needed comfort food.
Today I welcomed the eggs scrambled with onions, tomatoes, and butter that she’d season with coriander and annatto powder. My mother would heap the perico on top of the arepas, which were round cornmeal cakes that looked similar to English muffins but tasted nothing like them.
It was my brother’s favorite breakfast. I wondered if she made it in honor of his homecoming, even though he wouldn’t be with us until later tonight to eat it.
“The Sorensons will be flying to Washington with us,” my mother said as I washed the breakfast dishes and she put them away.
“Was there any doubt they would?”
She shrugged. I knew she found the Sorensons cold at times, but then they probably found her over-the-top emotional. Just because they weren’t as effusive as she was didn’t mean they weren’t as excited to see their son as we were to see Knox. Or that I was.
I took my time getting ready, wanting to strike a balance between looking my best and not overdoing it. After settling on a pair of jeans, black sweater, and military-style boots, I braided my long blonde hair and put on a minimal amount of makeup, knowing that the minute I saw my brother and his best friend, I’d dissolve into tears.
“Are you okay?” my mother asked as we got in the car to drive to the airport.
“I’m fine. Why?”
“You seem nervous.”
I shrugged. “I’m anxious.”
By the time we arrived at the terminal in Washington, DC, my anxiety had increased to the point I was literally shaking.
“Mija, I’m worried about you,” my mother said, attempting to hold my hand.
“We all handle stress in our own way. Maybe the reality of almost losing my only brother is just now hitting me.”
“But he’s fine, mija.”
“I’ll feel better when I see him with my own eyes.”
“That’s them,” said my dad, pointing to a plane taxiing in our direction. When I glanced over at Tackle’s parents, my eyes met Alice’s. She smiled, almost as if she knew I was looking forward to seeing her son as much as my brother.
A crew was waiting to roll a stairway over to the plane after it came to a stop. When the cabin door opened, a man I recognized but wasn’t my brother or Tackle, was the first person to step off. His name was Razor Sharp, and he was one of the owners of the company Knox worked for. When he was almost to the bottom stair, an ambulance drove up and parked. Razor walked over to it at the same time I saw my brother come out the door.
“There he is!” squealed my mother. “¡Gracias a Dios!”
As I’d anticipated, my eyes filled with tears. He looked a little worse for wear, but not like he’d lived through a plane crash. I gasped when, moments later, Tackle joined him.
He was as battered and bruised as Knox, but he was as beautiful as I’d ever seen him.
He’d grown from a boy to a man in the fifteen years I’d known him. His shoulders were broader, his neck thicker, his arms and legs visibly sculpted even under his clothes and at a distance. One of my favorite things about him was how quickly and easily he smiled—like he was now. Even if he weren’t wearing sunglasses, I wouldn’t be able to tell who in our huddled group had caught his eye, but in my fantasies, his gaze belonged solely to me.
They’d told us not to, but my mother raced forward to hug my brother anyway. I looked up at my father. As always, the look on his face as he watched her conveyed his love. Like me, his eyes filled with tears as we watched her embrace my brother.
She motioned for us to come closer, and we did. My father hugged Knox while Tackle’s father did the same to his son. Over his dad’s shoulder, my eyes met the man’s I’d loved for as long as I could remember.
I could conjure endless silly fantasies about what his
