She gave him narrowed eyes. “Yeah.”

“Your son was arrested again two days ago,” he went on.

Mom turned to me. “Is this about Mick?”

“Of course it’s about Mick. It’s always about Mick,” Rob answered for me.

“I don’t under—” Mom began.

But Rob threw a long arm out my way, finger pointed, and he exploded, “You don’t understand? She didn’t make that boy!”

Mom turned fully to Rob and shouted back, “Don’t shout at me!”

“Jesus Christ, you’re a piece of work,” he clipped.

“Fuck you, Rob. You wanna talk about a piece of work? I bet that brunette you’re boning is a piece of fucking work,” Mom shot back.

“Oh no, your girl is not showin’ at our door first thing in the morning looking freaked right the fuck out and you use whatever you can grab hold of to continue to shirk responsibility for that fuckwit son you raised,” he retorted.

“Do not talk about Mick that way!” Mom yelled.

Rob turned to me.

“Why are you here, sweetheart?” he asked.

“I—” I started.

“Listen, Evie, Mick’s a big boy and he’s made his own decisions for a long time,” Mom cut me off to say. “They’re not on me.”

“And they’re not on Evie either,” Rob declared.

She rounded on him and snapped, “This is family business, Rob,” making me wince because those words were regrettably familiar.

“You don’t got my ring on your finger?” Rob asked.

“It isn’t worth dick,” Mom fired back.

Rob assumed an expression like she’d slapped him then opened his mouth.

“Stop it!” I shrieked, and they both turned to me.

Mom looked infuriated, and not just at Rob, at me.

If someone was going to be shrieking, she liked it to be her.

Rob looked even more concerned, mostly because I was a crier, not a shrieker, and he’d been around for five years, so he knew that.

Mom tried to assume a Mom Tone.

“Calm down, Evan.”

No way I could calm down.

I was in a mess not of my own making.

And maybe the nicest guy I’d ever met walked out my door last night because I’d been a raving bitch for the purpose of him doing just that to save him from the likes of this.

“Mick gave my number to some shady guy who’s making me guard a bag of meth and coke and oxy, waiting for instructions, and if I don’t keep that stuff safe, something is going to happen to Mick,” I informed them.

Mom’s face paled.

Rob bellowed, “Fuck!”

“Why are you here?” Mom blurted, her entire demeanor now panicked, and my body jolted as if I’d been sucker punched.

Rob slowly turned to Mom, his face a mask of fury.

He thought better of whatever he might have said because he then looked back to me.

“Call the cops,” he ordered.

“Don’t!” Mom cried, and Rob’s head ticked in shock. “Just do what they tell you, Evan,” she commanded me.

“Mom—” I began.

“Carol, have you lost your mind?” Rob asked.

“No,” she snapped at him. “Mick wouldn’t put Evie in danger.” She again looked to me. “Just do what they say, it’ll be done, and Mick will be safe.”

Mick will be safe?

“Mom, I’m in possession of a grocery bag filled with narcotics,” I said. “Because of Mick.”

“Call the cops, Evie,” Rob urged.

“Do not call the cops, Evan,” Mom clipped. “Mick trusts you to handle this. Just handle it.”

“I cannot believe what I’m fuckin’ hearing,” Rob declared, scowling at my mother.

“Stay out of it,” Mom returned.

“Mom—”

“You know your brother,” she said to me. “If this was problematic, he wouldn’t lay it on you.”

“I’m in possession of a grocery bag filled with drugs!” I exclaimed.

“Just stay cool and handle it,” she retorted.

“Time to go shopping, baby,” Rob said with supreme sarcasm. “Get yourself a new outfit so you can be all dolled up when they present you with your Mother of the Year award.”

Mom’s frame went into attack mode. I knew this since I’d seen it a million times.

And then she attacked.

“I will, love of my life,” she snarled, “and right after that, we’ll pick up your Husband of the Year award. That is, if you can tear yourself away from screwing everything that moves.”

“I have not stepped out on you since Alice,” he growled.

“Do not say that woman’s name in my house!” Mom screeched.

And there we were.

“Right then, this is all about you,” Rob returned.

“You can’t just snap your fingers,” Mom lifted a hand and did just that, “and trust again, Rob.”

“Tell me about it, Carol.”

I didn’t have time to stick around for the show.

I’d seen it often enough, anyway.

And I wasn’t that big of a fan.

So I turned around, walked out the door, headed to my car and was mildly surprised when Rob came jogging out into the chill in his bare feet and pajamas, calling, “Evie!”

I stopped at the door of my car and watched his approach as my mother stood in the door to their home and screamed, “Rob! We were not done talking!”

Rob ignored her, rounded my hood and stopped in front of me.

“I’ll call off work, go with you to the station. Be with you when you turn those drugs over to the police and report this,” he offered.

I stared up at him, and it wasn’t mild surprise he’d left Mom’s scene to see to me.

It was shock.

“And what about Mick?” I asked.

His voice grew gentle when he replied, “Sweetheart, I think the time is now that you need to stop asking yourself that question.”

I had a feeling he was right.

This wasn’t posting bail, something Mick always paid back.

Eventually.

And this wasn’t helping Mick move when his latest girlfriend kicked him out, an event where Mick always did something nice in return, even if he could just afford a twenty-dollar gift card to Anthropologie.

Or this wasn’t Mick borrowing my car when his broke down.

Or Mick begging me to talk Smithie into letting him be a bouncer (something Smithie didn’t do because he didn’t hire anyone with a record if they hadn’t been clean without any charges for less than six months, but Smithie, being Smithie, even though the effort was futile, ran a check on him anyway in an attempt to help me out).

So as annoying as all this was with Mick, and how over it I thought I was getting, it was just a part of being Mick’s sister.

Now, Rob was right.

I should stop asking myself that question.

The problem was, now, I sensed Mick was in serious trouble.

And if I didn’t look out for him, it’d be on me if that trouble landed on him.

And I didn’t know if I could live with that.

“Evan, really, your best course of action with this is to give that shit to the cops and let them sort it out,” Rob pressed.