Jodee

Chapter 23 - Responsibility

The thing that Caleb doesn't understand though is that I always win.

I wasted no time in grabbing his arm and pushing him off of me. I spun to the side, now facing the wall so I could shove him just as hard against it as he did me. I used his strength that was previously holding me back to shove his arm painfully above his head, only one of my hands keeping his wrist in place.

"You'll never beat me, Cal," I growled in his ear, bristling with adrenaline.

My best friend and I rarely fist fight so if we did you bet it would be a damn good reason. Today, I don't know if there was a good reason, rather than both of our anger and tensions riding high.

Caleb glared at me, struggling against my wrist for a couple seconds before lifting his body off of the wall. I took the queue and released him, walking in the other direction to put some space between us. He understood the message. And my goal wasn't to hurt my honorary brother

"Fuck you." He muttered under his breath but I managed to hear it. Taking the high road I didn't respond, however. "Shit," Caleb panted, holding onto my desk while he adjusted his shirt so it wasn't so wrinkled from our collision. "We can't keep fucking fighting like this, Ace. We act like a bunch of fuckin' divorced parents!"

I grunted in a half laugh at my friend's assessment of our relationship at the moment.

But I could laugh all I wanted, the truth was he was right. We needed to get rid of this dumb dispute that has been lingering for the past couple of days. It wasn't right that Jodee was forced to come between us on multiple occasions as the impartial party.

From our childhood I was very aware of my sisters dislike and uncomfortableness around conflict and fighting. She did everything she possibly could to not stir up a fight between her and someone else. And was extremely uncomfortable when people were fighting or in a disagreement around her; whether that was active or underlying.

This whole thing with Caleb and I has got to stop. I know she notices too because Cal told me she's asked him what's going on between us a couple of times.

"Alright? So let's just agree: we're good, no grudges," Caleb spoke again, turning to look at me once he had caught his breath. "We're brothers, Ace, and this is just fuckin' stupid,"

"Okay." I agreed which was short for: I agree, I'm sorry.

"Okay." (I'm sorry) He added as well.

Everything fell into silence surrounding my best friend and I for the moment as we did everything to avoid each other's gazes.

"Drink?" I offered him.

"Fuck yes!" Caleb declared immediately.

I just nodded my head in a fast manner to show a bit of a laugh. Picking up the lighter bottle of whiskey than it was before I poured a good amount in two glasses. I stepped back and took a seat next to Caleb and he reached forward to grab his glass and take a huge gulp.

"Let's get back to the matter at hand," My best friend started. "No one knows you're even Jodee's guardian besides the people who have no clue who Cairo fucking Soltani is. And even if they did, they would never go to him. He's a fucking gang leader!"

I grunted, nodding my head.

He was kinda right. Kinda. I kept my private life very secret from the illegal life I live so no one really knew about Jodee unless they absolutely had to. She was on a need to know basis. And not many people needed to know. 

The only people that knew were those such as her teacher or friends and even those people hadn't really met me before. I'm not comfortable speaking around other people all that much so when someone has to be kind to a teacher or parent I send Caleb. It works out for both of us: he likes being in her life in the sense that he can put faces to her friends' names and things like that. And I just don't like talking to people, or dealing with them. I care about my sister, not everyone around her. And I'm more than willing to let her talk for hours about her friends and all of that stuff, I didn't need to actually meet them.