Josie and Jack by Kelly Braffet

what else? This is all we ever do. Most couples go to movies. Most couples do things. Most couples see people. We sit in your living room and drink beer with your brother. I mean, I like him and all, don’t get me wrong, but”—his grip on my hands softened—“you’re the coolest girl I’ve ever met. If you’d lived next door to me my entire life, I’d still be crazy about you. Do you think I’d put up with this if I wasn’t?”
    I didn’t say anything.
    “If you weren’t here, I wouldn’t be here, either,” he said. His voice was quiet. “It’s all you.”
    We stared at each other for a minute. The light from the parlor window was reflected on his glasses, so I couldn’t see his eyes.
    Upstairs, the music stopped.
    On the porch, in the dim light from the windows, Kevin brought my hand up to his mouth and kissed it. Then he pulled on my arm, gently, so that I had to move toward him, and he kissed my mouth.
    “You have the most beautiful hair,” he said.
    In a matter of minutes we were back where we’d started, as if the whole tortured discussion had never happened. He took my hand and put it on his penis, hard inside his army pants. I moved my hand and his breath caught.
    When the front door opened, he was as close as the rickety porch swing would let him get to lying on top of me, one hand fumbling inside my jeans and the other deeply twined in my hair. I saw Jack’s shadow, cast in a square of yellow light on the ground, out of the corner of my eye. Kevin panicked and jerked away from me, but somehow his hand tangled itself in my hair and pulled. It hurt. I was startled. I shrieked.
    Jack moved so fast I barely saw him. He was just a silhouette, standing motionless in the doorway, and then he had Kevin by the shirt and bent backward over the porch railing.
    “Jack,” I said, and Jack hissed, “Did you hurt her? Did you hurt my sister, you scrawny high school fuck ?”
    “It was an accident!” Kevin cried. He was babbling. “I swear, man! I didn’t mean it!”
    “Jack,” I said again, louder. My scalp was throbbing a little, but the shriek had been more surprise than pain. “Let him go. I’m fine. I’m fine. ”
    Jack looked at me for a long moment. His hands were still holding double fistfuls of Kevin’s shirt. Kevin’s face was frozen in a mixture of embarrassment and fear. I was afraid he might cry.
    Then Jack let him go.
    To Kevin’s credit, he didn’t run, although he looked like he wanted to. His face was pale and his glasses had been knocked crooked. As he straightened his shirt, he said, “I didn’t mean to hurt her. You startled me, that’s all.” His voice was trembling.
    But Jack wasn’t even looking at Kevin. He was looking at me.
    “Go home,” he said.
    “Yeah, okay,” Kevin said, and then, “I’m sorry, man.” He stepped down off the porch, his black T-shirt quickly disappearing as he walked toward his father’s car, parked among the dark trees. The station wagon’s engine roared to life, and for a moment Jack and I were bathed in the brilliant white flash of its headlights. The look on my brother’s face was stony and frightening. Neither of us moved as the engine’s hum faded into the night.
    Until, incredibly, Jack began to laugh. “Well, that put the fear of God into him.” He sat down hard next to me. The porch swing bucked wildly.
    “I don’t think it’s God he’s worried about.”
    “Not my problem.” Jack gave me a critical look. “You could at least button up your shirt, Jo.”
    I did as he suggested. My hands were shaking slightly. “You scared him, Jack.”
    “A little fear will do him good,” he said. “Did he hurt you? Really?”
    “Not much. But he didn’t mean to hurt me at all. Couldn’t you figure that out?”
    He reached out and put a finger on the tip of my nose. I tried to ignore it. He kept it there.
    “Stop it,” I finally said.
    “You need to be careful, smaller sister,” he said. “Don’t give Monkey-boy anything