What It Looks Like

Chapter 3-1

Chapter 3

Then the voice laughed.

“Danny, let go!” Eli protested. The hands slackened, and he shook them off, only to be spun by the shoulder and bear-hugged from the front instead. “Jesus, and you call me a bender. Get off me before I catch something.”

Danny Hawkes, Rob’s effusive younger brother, beamed. It was all Danny did, in Eli’s experience. He had a huge, stupid smile, chin-length dark hair roughly twisted into the beginnings of dreadlocks, and calculating dark eyes.

“What’cha gonna catch that you reckon Rob ain’t got!” Danny jeered, and Eli called him a t**t and smacked him in the shoulder.

Danny simultaneously looked a lot like Rob, and nothing like him. All his features were recognisably Rob’s, but subtly shifted—the dark eyebrows were less severe, the mouth crooked up instead of down, the set of his shoulders slightly narrower and his build more wiry than purely muscular. He was the same height, and probably weighed a metric ton due to the fact that Eli knew perfectly well both Hawkes brothers were all muscle and bone. He wasn’t tattooed, as far as Eli knew, but metal glinted in his eyebrow and from the ring in the side of his nose.

It was when Danny moved—or talked, or laughed, or frowned—that he became Rob’s twin. Their mannerisms were near-identical. They had the same huffing way of laughing, where the noise emerged before the smile. They had the same way of smiling, ducking the head before letting the mouth move. They had the same way of stilling right before getting angry, that momentary freeze when a calculating stare would be levelled on the enemy.

And they lounged on Eli the same, Danny draping an arm across Eli’s shoulders and pressing his weight down, grinning at a still-startled Jenny. “Who’s the bird?” he asked. “Don’t tell me a pouf like you pulled a p***y?”

Jenny drew herself up. “I’m his sister,” she snarled.

“Oh right, yeah, same bitchface,” Danny snorted, and stepped back, shaking Eli’s shoulder. “What you doing, eh? Didn’t think to see you out ‘ere.”

“Same to you—shoplifting?”

“Working, y’berk,” Danny said, and smirked. “Though if you fancy a smoke, I got a bit here somewhere…”

“Explains the smell,” Eli said dryly. “And I don’t do weed, you know that.”

“Suit yoursel’. How about you, miss?”

Jenny’s answer was to give him a withering look.

Danny chortled.

“Ne’er mind, then.”

“You work?” Eli asked, trying to distract him. “Where?”

“Christmas job at the cinema,” Danny said, shrugging. “I owe Rob rent and weed money so figured I needed to go legit for a while.”

Eli rolled his eyes. Rob was an extremely casual dealer—if he had a bit extra, or was in need of a bit of cash, he sold weed. Danny, on the other hand, Eli was fairly sure was growing the damn stuff. He constantly smelled of it, and had way too much money for someone who had a different job every month.

“Speaking of our Rob, what’ve you done, eh, he was selling the last of his last night and said he weren’t gonna be buying any more!”

“Good,” Eli said. “I told him I don’t like the drugs.”

“It’s just weed, t’ain’t chang or—”

“I don’t care,” Eli said flatly. “I don’t want him smoking it.” Danny’s words warmed him though—because he’d mentioned it to Rob rather than tried to get him to quit proper. He hadn’t wanted to push his luck, or make Rob think only six months in that Eli was trying to change him. And it was just weed—Eli was more afraid Rob was rubbing shoulders with proper druggies, proper smackheads and the like, and would get drawn into it. Weed Eli could tolerate. Harder stuff…no.

Danny snorted again and cuffed Eli lightly around the head. “You’re a good influence, an’ that’s a bad influence. You’ll have him getting a proper job next, or doing some course!”

“I’d prefer it,” Eli admitted, and ducked the next cuff. “Sod off, you great oaf!”

“Watch it, midget, I could wipe the floor wi’ you.” Danny smirked.

“Nah, ‘cause then Rob’d kick your arse,” Eli mock-grumbled.

Danny’s face lit up in a laugh.

“Prob’ly right,” he admitted.

“What do you want, anyway?” Danny had seen him around plenty in the city centre—Danny was a noticeable guy, with the short dreads and the spliff-smell—and didn’t typically do much more than bellow Eli’s name and wave.

“Need you to stash this,” Danny said, producing a box from within his jacket.

Jenny audibly sucked in her breath.

“What is it?” Eli asked warily.

“Rob’s present,” Danny said, then rolled his eyes. “It’s legal, you t**t. Open it if you want. Only I’m s**t at wrapping stuff so tape it back together if you do. Guy’s like a f*****g bloodhound for s**t he ain’t meant to find, so I want it out the way, yeah?”

Eli shook it gingerly. It rattled. “What’s in it?”

“New watch,” Danny said, shrugging. “Like I said, look f’you want. Just keep it hidden.”

Eli nodded, shoving it in his backpack haphazardly.

“So,” Danny said, the ear-to-ear grin reappearing. “What you getting him, then? Something f*****g disgusting, I bet.”

“No, actually. Something he’ll enjoy for a bit longer than a half hour in his room.”

“Half an hour my arse, way he walks after you’re done with him!”

Jenny went a funny shade of pink.

Eli decided not to dignify Danny’s jeer with an answer, and showed him the T-shirt.

“Nice,” Danny said approvingly. “But give me a bird in a sexy nurse outfit any day.”

“The tragedy of being straight,” Eli quipped. Danny sniggered. Then—to Eli’s horror—he dropped the bomb.

“Still coming up to Scotland for Christmas, then? Rob’s been tellin’ our Stella all about you.”

Jenny stiffened. “What.” Her voice was like ice, and suddenly—where she had been lurking five or six feet away—she was right by Eli’s elbow.

Eli groaned.

“Eli’s coming to our Aunt Stella’s with us for Christmas,” Danny said cheerily, then side-eyed Eli suspiciously. “You are, right? Don’t you fuckin’ flake out on us, Bell.”

“Eli,” Jenny said.

“Yes,” Eli replied—to Danny. He avoided looking at his sister. “Yes, I’m still coming.” Danny’s face lit up, and he started chattering about how good it was going to be—and only then did Eli dare raise his eyes to his sister’s face.

His sister’s cold, shuttered face.

Because—well…he hadn’t actually told his family yet.