HOLD by Cora Brent Page B

joke.  College, life, love, all of it. 
    Apparently this Erin girl saw through her boyfriend’s brother as well.  She scowled.
    “Yeah, right,” she scoffed.  “ASU requires better than a D average and a legend of delinquency.” 
    “Why Erin,” answered Stone, holding a hand up over his heart in a gesture of offense, “I thought we’d finally learned to get along.” 
    Erin was more of a spitfire than she first appeared.  She dropped Conway’s arm and set her hands on her hips, glaring at Stone. 
    “We’d get along much better if you’d quit dragging Con into your bullshit.” 
    “What?” Stone sputtered.  “What the hell are you talking about?  I don’t drag Con into jack shit, sweetheart.  Your golden boy can manage his own life, no matter how much time you waste trying to convince him otherwise.”
    “Hey,” Con interrupted.  He shot his brother a harsh look.  “Knock it off, Stone.  You don’t mean it.” 
    “I don’t mean it,” Stone echoed although I wasn’t at all sure what he meant.  He obviously had a few personality issues to work out. 
    “Okay, that’s enough tension,” Chase scolded.  “Everyone in the truck, including you, Erin.  Since you just live next door to the guys, we’ll drop you off.” 
    He climbed into the back cab and shut the door, ending any argument anyone might have. 
    Stone rolled his eyes and hopped in the other side.  Cord opened his candy bar and headed to the passenger seat.  The happy couple opted to sit in the back bed, Con lifting Erin gently up even though she was probably capable of getting in there herself. 
    It was a quick drive over to The Hills.  When we parked in front of a simple ranch-style house, Stone opened the door.  I thought he was going to take off without saying a word but he suddenly leaned back into the seat and sighed. 
    “Thanks for getting my brother out of there,” he said tersely and exited the truck.   It was a weird thing to say.  Not thanks for getting ‘us’ out of there.  Could be that he felt like he deserved to be in there for whatever role he’d played in the Gnome’s auto misfortunes.  Maybe Con had just gone along with his brother because that’s what brothers do.  
    I watched Stone in the rearview mirror as he jammed his hands in his pockets and patiently waited while his brother took forever and a day to extricate himself and his girlfriend from the back. 
    Suddenly Con came around to my window, Erin in tow. 
    “My brother’s not really good at gratitude but believe me, we’re both glad you showed up.” 
    “Not a problem, man,” said Cord. 
    “You get those grades up,” Chase called from the backseat.  “Next thing I want to hear about you is that you’re heading up to Tempe.” 
    “I will,” Con promised and slung an arm around Erin’s waist. 
    I leaned out of the truck a few inches to get his attention.  “Stay out of trouble,” I told him.  “Don’t do anything that you can’t undo.  That goes for you too,” I called to Stone who was still rooted to the same spot on the sidewalk.  “I know you heard me.” 
    “I heard you,” called Stone and even in the darkness I could tell he had at least half a cocky smile on his face. 
    As I pulled away from the curb and gave one final wave to the boys, I heard the identical sighs of my own brothers and knew at that moment we were all of the same mind. 
    We wanted things to work out for those two kids, wanted them to shake off whatever demons led them to do dumb shit like steal cars, fuck around, blow off school. 
    We hoped they’d step back from the ledge that straddled the good world and the bad. 

CHAPTER NINE
    CHASE
     
      There wasn’t much conversation on the drive home.  We were relaxed, just enjoying the comfort of each other’s company.  When we reached the east valley I asked if there was any interest in going for a cup of coffee but Cord yawned and said he’d already texted Saylor that she