The Only Brother by Caias Ward Read Free Book Online Page B

familiar, but at least coming from him, it didn’t sound like someone was assuming they knew what was best for me. It seemed more like, ‘hey, you could do this, and it could be good for you’.
    Dr Wright seemed happy with my response. ‘And then,’ he said, ‘you won’t have such a hole in your life where you feel that solid relationship with your family should have been. You’ll have connections to other people, and you’ll fill up that hole you think is there. It won’t be easy at first, but give it time. Think you can do that?’
    ‘Yeah, I can try that.’
    And after all, I thought to myself, if something came of it, it would make for smoother times until I finally came to leave this place for good.

CHAPTER 6
The boys
    ‘This lady only had the dog outside the shop for, like, ten minutes, like,’ Trevor said, slamming the pool cue into the cue ball like thunder. The rest of the balls scattered over the pool table in his basement, two stripes rolling into two holes. Trevor’s mate Bobby, lanky and lean compared to Trevor’s thick wrists and bandy arms and legs, walked around the table, trying to spot any shots he would have in solids, through the bottom of his pint glass.
    ‘She comes out of the shop,’ Trevor lined up the three ball to a side pocket, ‘and she finds someone has drawn all over the thing. This little short-haired corgi with the sillyshort legs, all written over with, like, “slag”, “Sunderland Rules”, and anarchy symbols. Woman dead-out faints and a vicar ends up having to wake her up, like.’
    I watched the three ball rattle into the side pocket from the table I’m sitting at, drinking my own beer.
    Trevor has a nice setup here; his dad won some money in a workplace safety lawsuit so they’d moved here from Newcastle a few years ago. His dad spent a lot of his time on holiday, picking up women half his age, so Trevor ended up having the run of the house rent-free. Trevor worked as a mechanic and did odd jobs on the side when he wasn’t getting hassled by the police for ‘antisocial behaviour’.
    ‘I mean,
I
might be antisocial according to the
law
, like,’ Trevor pondered as he looked at me, ‘but this dog’s never done nothing to nobody except wait for that lady to come out of that shop.’
    I nodded, sketching on my computer tablet. Even with Trevor distracting me withhis uniquely Geordie wisdom, I still get more work done there than at home. And I’d shut my phone off a half-hour earlier, after the fifth call from home.
    ‘But no, like,’ Trevor spat out, ‘those alcopop-crazed, happy-slapping hoodies…’
    ‘Stupid chavs,’ Bobby added.
    ‘Right!’ Trevor yelled, cracking his pool cue down on the edge of his pool table. ‘Those stupid chavs have to mess with a damn dog that didn’t do a thing to them.’
    Trevor finished his pint, the second one in the twenty minutes we’d been there. Say what the law might about Trevor, he really didn’t mess with anyone who didn’t deserve all they got.
    ‘Wish we could just go to the pub,’ Bobby muttered.
    ‘Well, we can’t go to the pub, Bobby,’ Trevor hissed. ‘Besides the fact that Andrew can’t get any work done at the pub, mysolicitor said that if I violate my latest ASBO they are going to put my face on the back of a bus and might even lock me up…’
    ‘So what’s the ASBO for this time?’ I asked.
    ‘Cracked a few too many glasses with a pool cue,’ Trevor sank his shoulders. ‘So I’m not allowed to consume more than two glasses of alcohol in any establishment with a pool or billiards table.’
    ‘Don’t forget,’ Bobby chimed in as he pulled a pint from the keg tap in the basement bar, ‘you’re not allowed to transport a woman in the front seat of your car, either.’
    ‘Well, like, thank you
Crown Court Judge
Bobby,’ Trevor said, jabbing Bobby with the pool cue before lining up his next shot. He was off this time, the five ball bouncing around the corner.
    ‘Not my fault I’m