Abigail Johnson - The First To Know

Ignoring the noise and the people milling around me, I zoned in on the three employees behind the counter.

Two I dismissed right off: a girl with gorgeous ombré teal hair and a guy with coal-black skin whom I heard her call Zere. The last guy wasn’t as easy to exclude. Instant nausea was my involuntary reaction at seeing him. He was cute. But he didn’t look anything like my dad, which helped settle my stomach. Not a single feature was familiar to me, and his olive coloring was the antithesis of Dad’s light skin and hair. He was also big, I’d guess a full foot taller than me, and he looked strong enough to crack a coconut with his bare hand. I drew closer to the counter only to discover that he wasn’t wearing a name tag. But the next second, it didn’t matter.

“McCormick!” the girl called, holding up a blender and bringing it down a little too hard on the back counter. “This thing is sticking again. I’m gonna chuck it.”

“No, you’re not. Let me see it.” He walked to his coworker and pried the blender from her reluctant hands. He rinsed it out with a handheld sprayer and fiddled with something on the bottom. “Here, look.”

The girl moved to his side, sweeping her teal fishtail braid over her shoulder.

“Someone’s been jamming it on the base and bent—”

“And of course you mean me, ’cause it couldn’t be Zere or your cousin or anyone else with half a brain. Fine.” She started to walk away with an expression on her face that made the next customer in line back away from the counter, but he stopped her with a hand on her back.

“I didn’t say you.”

She snorted.

His voice was calm, patient, completely at odds with his I-could-squish-you-like-a-bug physique. “Ariel, I’m not saying you. I’m saying someone, probably a few people. It’s an easy fix.” And he straightened whatever had been bent. With his hands. I was impressed from ten feet away; Ariel was right there and looked at him with disbelief. “See? No problem.”

I watched him show her how to twist the blender onto the base a few times. Her pinched expression smoothed as it clicked easily into place, and dissolved completely when the blender whirled to life. Still, all she said by way of gratitude was, “Huh.”

The conversation was too quiet, or the screaming monkeys were too loud—either way I couldn’t hear what they said after that, but I watched him. Brandon. Every fiber of my being said no, said there was no way this guy was related to me. He couldn’t be. I felt that confidence more keenly as he drew closer to me.

“Sorry about that. What can I get you?”

For the first time in my life, I had no words, nothing. I just stared at him until reality and the slight raising of his eyebrows at the extended silence reminded me that I couldn’t let myself stay silent. It was now or never. Somehow, I didn’t think I could come back here if I left without talking to him. And I definitely couldn’t go home and face Dad with this sword of doubt still dangling over me.

“I’m Dana.”

His brows didn’t smooth back, but they didn’t draw tighter either. “Hey, Dana. Ready to order?”

There wasn’t a single spark of recognition at my name. Now my brows furrowed. He’d typed it, told me where he worked and that I could drop by barely thirty minutes ago. There should have been some kind of recognition.

Behind him, Ariel walked past.

I extended a finger in the direction she’d gone. “I’m sorry, I thought I heard her call you McCormick earlier.”

The guy that I was suddenly convinced wasn’t Brandon nodded. “Yeah, she calls me and my cousin by our last name.”

My stomach twisted in two different directions. “What’s your first name?”

He wasn’t frowning at me anymore; he looked concerned. “Are you okay?”

“Low blood sugar.” I gave him the first excuse for my sudden pallor that I could think of. “I think I thought you were someone else.”

“I’m Chase,” he said.

I nodded and tried to smile. “My mistake.” I turned and left in a cacophony of monkey screams. The door didn’t shut all the way behind me. From inside, Ariel caught it and stuck her head out to talk to a guy sitting at the table outside.

“Break is up in ten. Also, your cousin just bent metal in front of me with one hand—one freaking hand. If that’s how he flirts, tell him it’s scary and that I get off at nine.” She paused, eyeing his hands. “Do you think you could...?” When he didn’t respond, she shook herself. “Forget it.”

I didn’t watch her leave, but the guy did with the kind of smile that said he’d be trying to bend metal with his hands in the very near future. The hairs on my arms stood on end as I watched him return his attention to his phone.

It wasn’t just the cleft chin or the sprinkling of red in his otherwise brown hair. It wasn’t the way his brow lifted higher on the left than the right in response to whatever he was reading on his phone, or the height he couldn’t conceal even sitting down. It was all of that and nothing. I knew him. Forty-seven percent shared DNA slammed into me, and I couldn’t find a breath to say even that tiny word of denial. I was twenty feet from my brother. My brother. He was my brother. I couldn’t doubt it for a single second more. Dad had had an affair. He’d cheated on Mom and had a kid—this kid—guy—the one who looked so much like Dad that I couldn’t blink, much less turn my head away from him.

I stopped beside his table, waiting for him to look up. “Brandon?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m Dana.”

Chapter 8

Brandon recovered from his initial confusion quickly, returning my bleak stare with a smile. “Oh, hey.” He stood up right away, considered extending his hand but moved his drink to his side of the table instead. “I didn’t realize you were going to come right away.” He indicated the chair across from him, but I couldn’t sit or even move. My skin prickled, waiting for him to see me and know, to make the connection the way I instantly had. But he didn’t. He sat there, still smiling Dad’s smile. “Like I said in the email, I don’t think I’ll be able to help your dad, but whatever you want to know.” He spread his hands. His smile started to slip the longer I stared at him. “Wow, I’m sorry. I guess this was kind of a big letdown.”

“Dennis Fields,” I said, my eyes unblinking. “We don’t know who his birth parents were, but that’s the name his first foster family gave him.”

Brandon slowly shook his head. “Doesn’t sound familiar.” He paused. “Are you okay? You look a little...”

I was shaking. I could feel the blood draining from my face, and there was a buzzing growing in my ears. I’d never fainted before in my life, but I knew I was seconds from blacking out. I gripped the back of the chair, locking my elbows to keep me upright.

“You wanna sit? I really think you should sit.” He moved to pull the chair out for me, and I lowered myself into it as he returned to his. Both our arms rose in tandem to rest on the metal bistro table. The movement was identical, and for a heartbeat, he froze too. Then he looked at my face, really looked at it. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

“Do you?” My blinking was now sporadic, and apart from my lips, my eyelids seemed to be the only part of me still capable of moving. I watched a pink flush creep up his neck, but then it stopped and started to recede.

“No, I guess not. I mean, how could I? Eighteen is a little young to be a grandfather.” He tried to laugh but saw how incapable I was of joining him and sobered. “I’m really sorry I’m not him.”

“It’s a mistake,” I said, my voice echoing in my head.

“Don’t worry about it,” Brandon said. “I’m sure those DNA places mess up all the time, right?”