The Arms of Brothers - Book Two of the Speed of Light Series
Note: This novel has been significantly revised. It is not compatible with earlier versions (copyrights prior to 2022) of Book 3, Footsteps of Men.
“Stark.” “Surprising.” “Heart wrenching.”
Alpha males don’t go quietly into the night.
Get ready for the beat down.
Although he is a badass whose word is law, a chance encounter, a jar of spare change and a little green man are about to rock Dylan’s rock-solid world. No cops. No F.B.I. are Brian’s demands when he commits his first felony. Randy has worked hard to remove douche from his name, but now he’s gained a dangerous enemy. Stewart may have stood against the breeze but a wind he never predicted is about to blow. He’s always been mouthy, but William 2.0 has become a royal pain in everyone’s...
Two road trips intended to be a party on wheels get real serious real quick when monster egos get checked by the random events of life. Their last summer together will either bond four friends for life or tear them apart forever. Unlikely relationships make their points, but leave their marks.
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CHAPTER ONE
Moments in the Sun
_Dylan_
Randy’s pass spins straight-as-an-arrow against a deep blue summer sky. Of course I’ve got it. It slaps into my hands. I cock back, step forward and pass to Brian. Freemont’s field is empty this Friday afternoon. Me, Brian, and Randy are passing the ball around in a giant triangle.
For Brian and me, this will be our last day on this turf. Next week will be finals and then we’re gone, graduated, flung headfirst into what everyone says is real life. I’m not much for sentiment, but even I’m feeling a little heartsick for days past – glory days that I know will never come again.
I’ve been watching Brian since we met at jock corner after last bell. He didn’t want to do this. But I drug him out here regardless and nabbed Randy along the way. I needed this one last time, and Brian, whether he will admit it or not, needs this one last time as well. He’s smiling, trying his best to talk shit and laugh, but I can tell it hurts. This field was supposed to be just the start of his glory days, an initiation for college ball, a steppingstone to the pros. Freemont’s stadium gates will be locked this weekend, the facility, locker rooms and showers getting their annual cleaning and maintenance. Since I still run the world and today was our last chance to do this, we’re doing this.
We’re keeping it lite. Randy and I have a little game going, biding our time between passes, then without warning, making a dash for the endzone the instant that ball touches our hands. Touchdown. Unless I can tag Randy or he can tag me. Brian’s not running today because a sudden sprint could rip his knee apart and we’re saving it for an epic backpacking trip. I, however, made a run a few minutes ago and smoked ol’ Randy pretty good. Round and round the ball goes, then just to have a little fun, when the pigskin slaps into my hands, I make like I’m gonna tuck it and go for another run. Randy’s already about to sprint, but I pull back, step forward and simply pass to Brian. Randy smiles, nods and points at me. I smile and point back. He’s gonna go for it next catch. I can feel it.
Brian catches, cocks back, steps forward, then launches. Brian’s passing arm is as good as it ever was. His injured one is fair. The ball is sailing – but not on target. Brian can put a football in a Dixie cup at this range, so it isn’t just that his aim went awry. Randy’s running to make a reception that will put him closer to the sideline, further away from me, and in position for a straight shot to the goalposts.
“Hey,” I yell – too late because it’s already on.
Top speed.
In spite of their collusion, I’m looking to intercept Randy around fifteen yards out. He’s hugging the sideline. I’m going diagonal. I know I’m faster but he just shifted into a gear I’ve never seen before.
We’re wearing school clothes. With one week left of school that means shorts, sneakers, and tees. I’m about to make contact when all of a sudden Randy hits the brakes and cuts left behind me. He knows I’m too top heavy to turn that quick in sneakers. He’s making a beeline for the endzone while I’m still turning. When did he learn to run like that? And there he goes, over the line.
As he slows to a standstill, even winded, ol’ Randy is laughing his ass off at me. When I look over at Brian, he is too. I trot toward Randy, my hand raised for a high-five. “Outstanding.” He slaps my hand.
“Thank you,” he says between breaths and looks back at me with laughing eyes that are squinted a little defensively. He’s afraid one of my famous chest swats is coming – which it should be. Since all I can really feel is respect for the way he smoked me, I pull my backhand into position like he’s gonna get it, then laugh some more.
“Hey, did you see that ball take off on me?” Brian asks through guilty laughter as he jogs up to us.
“Oh. It took off on you?” I raise my eyebrows.
“Yeah, it just slipped out of my hand and…”
That’s when I take a couple steps forward and swat Brian instead. My backhand to the chest would knock the wind out of a mere mortal – or possibly even kill one – but Brian’s still laughing and trying to smack me back. Our scuffle lasts about five seconds because neither of us really needs to prove anything.
“Man, today was fun,” Randy says, then pulls out his phone, checks the time, looks at me, and raises his eyebrows.
“Yeah,” I sigh, then repeat what he’s been saying for the past fifteen minutes. “I know. You need to get to work.” We all start walking toward the gate. “But hey, if you run like that in tryouts, you’ll not only make the team this fall, you’ll make it into the record books.”
This is when Randy turns half around as we’re walking and looks up at the announcer’s box. When his eyes come back to Brian and me, his jaw is set. He smiles with tightly closed lips and nods unconvincingly. Bri and I turn and look up at the box. Even if we’re too far away to make out a face, we all know that figure that’s been standing in the window the entire time we’ve been tossing the ball is Coach.
“Motherfucker should have flipped on the P.A. and congratulated you on that last run,” I grouse.
“Hey.” Brian takes hold of Randy’s shoulder. “Don’t sweat Coach. If you do good in tryouts, he’ll put you on the team.”
Randy repeats his tight lip smile, nods, then glances at me with his, that’s never gonna happen look. I blow out a breath and roll my eyes. Randy is my boy, but there is only so much I can do. And come next season, I will be a thousand miles away, immersed in Marine boot camp and there will be nothing I can do.
But Randy’s glory days are not the reason for coming out here. I clamp my hand on Brian’s shoulder. “You gonna be all right, bud?”
Now it’s Brian’s turn to give me a tight lip smile. He thinks about it a moment, then lifts one shoulder.
“I get it,” I assure him, then stop, turn him back toward the stadium and wrap my arm fully around his shoulders. The field and stands spread out before us. I know he can hear the crowd cheering, see the lights blazing, feel the excitement and rush. I can too. Then Randy sighs impatiently.
“Guys. I need to get going. I’ve got to be at work in like fifteen minutes.”
I angle my head like I do when I’m getting irritated, shift my eyes to Brian and find him smiling. “I’m fine dude,” Brian assures me. Then the jackass ducks out from under my arm, backhands me in the chest hard enough to make me grunt, and takes off running.
_Randy_
That was a gutsy move. Even I wouldn’t have tried that. But that doesn’t stop me from laughing and chasing after Dylan – who – if anyone knows Dylan – is right on Brian’s ass. Brian’s still laughing – that is until Dyl nabs him about twenty feet shy of reaching his car. As much as I’d love to watch the destruction, I dig keys out of my pocket and head for my rusty, oil-burning, Ford F-150 that was hot off the assembly line right about the time my parents were born.
I unlock, then open the door which tings from metal hitting metal due to a lovely crease that runs across the fender and door. That is followed by a gawd awful screech – due to me not oiling the damn thing. Brian’s still putting up a pretty good fight when I start my Ford and clunk it into gear. I honk, Brian looks over, and Dylan nails him – hard. “Oh God,” I laugh to myself and cringe. Brian looks like a crumpled piece of paper and Dylan’s laughing so hard he’s doubled over. As Dylan would say: good times, good times.
On the seat beside me lays the delivery driver uniform I’ll be putting on in a few minutes. M.V.P. Pizza. Although my shoulders fill it out nicely, that jersey and cap will transform me, Randall James Davis, from stud to football parody – instantly. And to complete the image, I have to stick a magnetic illuminated neon orange football on my roof and plug it into my cigarette lighter. But I grit my teeth and do it because tips from a good Friday evening can net out at over two hundred dollars – plus wages.
My truck rattles as I bounce over the curb and pull up beside another delivery vehicle with a stack of pizzas resting on the hood. I pucker my lips, come to a stop, leave the truck running and open my door – clunk, screech.
“You know the drill,” the other driver says.
I pull off my sweaty tee. Pull on my M.V.P. jersey. Slap the stupid, neon, glowing football on the roof of my truck and step forward.
“The Heights?” I confirm.
He nods. The Heights is an enclave of preposterous wealth maintained by miserly cheapness. That hundred fifty-dollar order will be lucky to score a five-dollar tip. Therefore rock, paper, scissors will decide who gets stuck with this one. “Cheap bastards,” I comment, then place my closed fist in the palm of my other hand. Three thumps later his scissors cuts my paper.
I curse under my breath and grab the damn stack of pizzas. “This goes to the guest house, not the main house. Do not go to the main house or they’ll complain to the manager,” he advises.
My sneer is to thank him for waiting for me to drive up and then screwing me over first thing.
I didn’t realize that Versailles had a second palace in our humble corner of the world – but here it is. Holy shit. How do people justify living like this? I’m gawking at the main house when I enter the driveway that looks more like a cul-de-sac than a driveway. That is when I stop breathing. “Shit.”
I recognize every one of the dozen jacked up trucks and muscle cars here. A glimpse of Tyler Jackson’s black and yellow bumble bee truck parked deep inside the cluster of Detroit steel confirms my worst fear. This is Tyler Jackson’s place. Tyler Jackson, if you will recall, was Brian’s back-up quarterback back in the day. Then when Brian went out for the season – and I think we all know who’s responsible for that – Tyler became The Man. Tyler is the leader of the jocks – and jocks – all jocks – as we know – absolutely loathe Randy Davis. It is only by Dylan’s wing of protection that I have lived as long as I have.
I roll to a stop, put my truck in park and turn off the ignition. My mouth just went dry but my palms are already sweating. Since it is a gorgeous late afternoon, I might be delivering to the guest house, but six jocks leaning against their trucks drinking beer and soda just turned my way and are twisting to look over or around their cabs.
Not only is their recognition immediate, but their shouts of – um – let’s call it unrestrained glee – are actually louder than music blaring from the guest house open door. I’m taking and releasing long, slow breaths as I open my door – clunk, screech – and step out. I pretend not to notice the quickly forming crowd of jocks and cheerleaders encircling me, lean in the cab and pull the stack of pizzas from the seat. Just as I turn to face the wall of hatred and loathing, the music cuts and Tyler Jackson steps through.
His gloating smile as he looks me up and down is nothing compared to the sarcasm in his tone. “M. V. P. Well isn’t that special?” He looks me up and down again. “So, Davis, when did you get voted M. V. P.?” Since every one of these jocks live and breathe with their noses stuck up Tyler’s ass, their laughter turns my face redder than it already is.
I clear my throat. Although I am thinking of a location I’d like to put them, I ask, “Where can I put these for you?”
Tyler’s flat-out laughing when he steps aside and extends his arm toward the guest house. I take and release another long, slow breath and walk past him. I feel like the Pied Piper of morons when every single guy and girl follows me and Tyler into the guest house. With all eyes on me and in dead silence, I remove each and every pizza from its keep warm bag and restack them neatly on the kitchen island.
After tucking the empty bags under my arm I turn to Tyler. “I see on the receipt that this was all paid for by credit card.” I want to crawl out of here, but the credit receipt didn’t include a tip. Instead of holding out my hand, palm up, I opt for a direct, unflinching stare right into Tyler’s mocking eyes. He stares back blankly, then smiles. “Oh my God! Are you seriously waiting for a tip, Davis?”
The jocks laugh – but apparently not loud enough as Tyler shouts, “Guys, he’s waiting for a tip!” Their guffaws ramp to a level that guarantees my absolute mortification.
Then Tyler steps beside me, warmly wraps his arm around my shoulders and begins to escort me to the door. He’s speaking directly into my ear when he says, “I’ve got a tip for you, Davis. Don’t even think about trying out for the team next season.”
When we get to the door, he removes his arm and faces me. “Oh and uh, I heard Dylan is signing with the Marines this summer and going bye-bye.” Ty’s gloating smile now has an edge to it and hatred sparkles in his eyes. “I am personally looking forward to that day – for a couple reasons.” He lightly touches my chest with each word as he repeats, “Looking. Forward. To. It.”
Normally I would have decked him already, but I’m on the clock and I need this job.
His parting pat on my shoulder is enough to propel me out the door – but when I don’t budge, his head pulls back. “Just curious, Tyler, what exactly did I ever do to you?”
His head pulls back and he looks genuinely stunned. I guess backtalk wasn’t in his paradigm. It takes him a moment. “Are you getting in my face, Davis?”
“Not at all. Just curious.”
He’s starting to turn a healthy shade of – what does Stew call it – oh yeah – pissed the fuck off.
“Maybe we could get together for coffee sometime and talk it out,” I suggest, then lightly touch his chest with my finger, smile, and step outside.
Author’s note:
I thought I was finally done writing the entire story of Brian, Dylan, Randy, Stewart and William when I completed the book that is now titled The Hands of Enemies. I went to bed that night feeling relieved that I’d finally completed a novel that I’d begun some 25 years earlier. Then over the next couple days I found myself wondering what would have happened to the characters after that Thanksgiving dinner. I also discovered that I had become friends with the characters. I naturally wanted to know how their lives were going to work out and felt a little cheated.
Anyway, the guys kept prodding me with “what ifs” and “how abouts” until I realized that they would never leave me alone until I’d finished their story. I said, “Shit!” out loud and sat down to write. Since the first book had been so intense, I wondered who the characters might be if they weren’t cussing and fighting and trying to kill each other. Don’t think me vindictive about having to write another entire book, but I wanted to see their more human and vulnerable side that they’d prefer no one know about, so that’s what I did.
They had made a lot of changes in the first book, but I suspected they maybe hadn’t gone as deep as they needed to. Book two starts out funny and light-hearted in a lot of ways. You may find yourself thinking that the series has lost its focus, but every little thing is going to matter as the story progresses and takes a few tragic turns. It’s definitely a study of growth that comes as we experience the random events of life. I have found that we don’t really move forward in life until we go backward and fix the little nagging flaws of character that we’d rather overlook.
