[MD2, Kate’s house, 3:45PM]

Dillon felt miserable. Maybe getting drunk last night hadn’t been such a good idea. He’d felt kind of queasy all day and his head was still throbbing. To make matters worse, Justin was not going to let him forget about it any time soon.

On the up side, he had gotten some good advice from Beth. Not that he couldn’t have thought of it on his own. Eventually. But the logic of it was so simple, so obvious, that it had escaped him until she brought it up.

"Your mom’s out of town, right," she had said. "So if she’s not around to tell you not to, why don’t you just call your dad and talk to him."

Of course, deciding to do it was one thing. Actually picking up the phone and making the call was another. He might find out things he really didn’t want to know. The truth was, no matter what he found out, it was going to be something he didn’t want to know, and that was the problem. If his father didn’t want any contact with him, that was bad. But if he did, and Kate had been preventing it, that was just as bad and maybe even a little bit worse.

He pondered all of this while rummaging in the refrigerator for something that didn’t sound too nauseating, finally locating some peanut butter and deciding that he might be able to keep that down, at least for a while. He made a sandwich while he made his decision. He had the house to himself for the time being, since Justin was at basketball practice. If he was going to make that phone call, he might as well get it over.

He took his sandwich into the living room and sat down next to the phone. The main number for the J. Edgar Hoover Building was on speed dial, in case of an emergency. All he had to do was pick up the phone and hit one little button. Simple enough. He took a bite of his sandwich.

What would he say? It wasn’t like he was calling a total stranger. The man, after all, was his father. But he might as well be a total stranger, for all that Dillon knew about him.

*****

[6:30PM]

To put things in the best possible light, Justin had had a rotten day. From the time he woke up to face Dillon, lousy attitude still in tact and with a hangover thrown into the bargain, he’d had the feeling that just maybe it would be best not to bother getting out of bed. But he had, and that had been his first mistake. He’d gotten into a fight with Emily during the morning break which was just before his geometry class, so naturally, his mind hadn’t been on the test he had attempted to study for last night. All he could do now was hope he hadn’t failed. If he did, he’d be off the team until he got his grades back up, and the coach was already ragging on him pretty bad. Pretty bad? That was an understatement.

Now he was standing on the front porch, dribbling his basketball and staring at the dark windows in the fading evening light and dreading going inside. No lights on. No one home? If Dillon had gone out again, he would.. What? Beat the crap out of him? What would that accomplish? What he would have to do was get his mother involved in the situation. For all his noble thoughts the previous evening, he just didn’t see any other option. Something was definitely going on, and whatever it was, he certainly didn’t know how to handle it. He slid the key into the lock and opened the door.

"Anyone home," Justin called out. He got no reply from the dark shadow on the couch. "Dillon, man? What’s up?" He flipped on a light.

Dillon turned and glared at him silently. Justin froze. There was something in that look that he didn’t like. He’d always seen Dillon was nothing more than a little twerp, sort of a parasite, but in an endearing sort of way. Wimpy and geeky would be the adjectives he would use to describe him. Not at the moment, though. At the moment, Justin couldn’t deny to himself that he was a little bit afraid of his brother.

"What’re you staring at," Dillon asked.

"Hey, nothing, man," Justin said. "Wanna order a pizza for dinner?"

Dillon continued to glare, got up and headed for the door. As he passed Justin, he slapped the basketball his brother was still holding out of his hands. As the he left, slamming the door behind him, the ball crashed into the hallway mirror, knocking it off the wall. It fell to the floor and shattered while Justin looked on in shock.

*****

[Beth’s house, 7:15PM]

"So, you took my advice," Beth asked.

Dillon nodded. They were laying on the grass on the front lawn of the house, looking up at the dark sky. "Yup," he said.

"You talked to him?"

"Nope."

Beth waited a while for him to say something more, then asked, "Well, what happened?"

"I talked to his office. He’s out of town. Miami."

Beth frowned. "Miami? Didn’t you say that your mother.."

"Yup."

"So that means they’re together?"

"Two plus two, Beth."

"Whoa."

"Yup."

"So, are you going to confront her when she gets back?"

Dillon shrugged. "Let’s go somewhere. There’s gotta be a party going on somewhere in town tonight, doesn’t there?"


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