Meet Me Here by Bryan Bliss Read Free Book Online

out of our accomplishment, but I can’t properly explain my feelings about the bridge.At least not without giving away everything. I hit the sign with my knuckle lightly.
    “This is pretty badass,” I say.
    She raises her eyebrows and nods, leading us down the rest of the stairs until we reach the lobby. As soon as we are off the stairs, a white light cuts through the darkness. It animates the dark lobby, bringing life to the shadows. Dust floats across the room lazily, an entire invisible world. And then a voice comes from outside, amplified by a speaker.
    “I know you’re in there. So come on out.”
    Mallory looks at the faded warnings written on the sign and then at me. “Damn. They weren’t kidding about the fifteenth floor.” She squints into the light, holding her hand above her eyes. Past the light I can see the outlines of a police car. The officer stands behind the cruiser’s door, the mic pressed to his lips.
    “C’mon now. I can see you through the glass.”
    “I say we hide,” Mallory says dramatically. “We could live inside the Grover forever. They’d never find us.”
    This is the way she always played, like we’d never get caught, no matter the scheme. She was always fantastical, and I was there to force us back to reality. Rightnow I wish I believed we could disappear inside this hotel and nobody would come looking. But a police officer is about as real as it gets. I can already see the newspaper tomorrow morning: LOCAL HERO’S BROTHER BARRICADES SELF IN ABANDONED HOTEL .
    When I start for the front door, Mallory doesn’t look disappointed or even surprised. “Just hold up a second,” she says as she carefully works the metal sign beneath the back of her shirt. As soon as she’s finished, she looks over her left, then right shoulder and gives me a thumbs-up.
    The officer studies our licenses and then our faces before he says, “What were you two doing in there?”
    “We just graduated,” Mallory says, acting as if she’s not hiding a sign under her shirt.
    The officer seems tired, like he’s heard this reason too many times tonight. He gives our IDs one more glance before handing Mallory’s back to her. When I reach for mine, he pulls it back.
    “Bennett. Like the kid from the papers? The soldier?”
    “That’s my brother,” I say, taking my license from him.
    “And you’re going, too, right? I read that somewhere.”
    When Jake got back, a reporter came to the housewanting to do another story. Like every other time before, Dad made Jake wear the dress blues. And of course the reporter ate it up. When he found out Dad was a bona fide hero, too, first on the ground in Desert Storm just days after Jake was born, not to mention me, headed in the same direction once I graduated, he got out a second notebook and spent the whole afternoon prying into every nook of our life. That Sunday Dad bought every copy at the gas station, smiling like we’d won the lottery.
    Back then I still wanted to go. I would’ve killed for Jake to tell me his stories, the kind Dad had told at the dinner table when we were growing up. Stories about being a part of something bigger and greater than yourself. About bravery and sacrifice. Jake lived it, just like Dad. Maybe more so. Because when he got injured saving those two soldiers, there wasn’t a question about his claim to the title hero. And all I wanted was for him to impart even the smallest bit of truth, of wisdom to me.
    “I ship tomorrow,” I say.
    He reaches for my hand, which is another thing people started doing once that article came out, pumping it up and down like I’m running for office.
    “God bless you, son. If I was younger, I would’ve enlisted myself a few years back.” He smiles, pulling me closer and forcing eye contact. “You give ’em hell for me, all right?”
    “Yes, sir,” I say.
    He makes me promise him that we’ll stay away from the Grover and gives me one last clap on the shoulder. As he drives away, Mallory