Chapter Four

The sun had started bleeding into the living room hours ago. Trey had done his best to ignore it and keep sleeping; his little brother's sofa was the most comfortable thing he'd ever slept on. Even his bed before he went to prison hadn't felt that good. It was only once people started coming down the stairs and moving around that Trey finally opened his eyes and started getting up. A tightness had formed in his chest overnight and as soon as he sat up he began coughing.

"You sound kinda rough man." Ryan told his brother as he came down the stairs freshly showered.

"Yeah, that's my body telling me I need a cigarette." Trey yawned back as he stood up and stretched his tense muscles. He reached down and took his pack of cigarettes out of his shoe, where he'd put them last night before he'd fallen asleep. "I'm just gonna step outside for a minute." He told Ryan as he opened the sliding glass door that led to the back porch. As soon as he fired up his lighter, before he even took the first drag, Trey's body felt relief. His senses perked up and he could hear the tobacco crackling with each drag his took.

"You know smoking kills people."

Caught off guard Trey looked over to see Summer sunbathing on a chase lounge just a few feet away from him. He hadn't noticed her went he came outside, but then again he hadn't been looking either. Casually he looked down at her bikini-clad body, and then up at the sun, then back down to Summer again. "So does the sun." He dryly responded.

Summer reached up and slid her sunglasses down a bit, and cut her eyes towards him. She had expected him to shrug and continue smoking at her comment. What she hadn't expected was such a dry and almost mean response. "Guess you have a point," she met his eyes they were a hazy green with a coldness behind them. Something about it sent shivers through her.

"I know I do," he tore his eyes from hers, years of prison not allowing him to make eye contact with someone for too long.
A moment passed before she turned herself towards him, "I'm sorry for insulting you yesterday. I mean your clothes and stuff I didn't know that…"

He cut her sentence off not wanting to hear what he assumed would be her fake apology, "And had you known you still would have done it." His voice was harsh and raspy.

She felt her jaw slip down at bit at his words. Summer felt hurt and insulted by the way he'd just spoken to her. Not that he didn't have every right to be bitter and angry at the world, she got that, but he had no reason to talk to her that way. After all she was trying to be nice. "Look I'm not the bitch you seem to think I am," she bluntly told him.

"Really? Could have fooled me, the second you answered the door every word you said to me gave the impression bitch. So if you're not a bitch, then what are you?" Trey took a hard drag on his cigarette, then turned to Summer waiting for a response.

"I'm not a bitch, I'm just… protective."

"Protective?"

"Yeah, I'm very protective of the people I care about, and as much as I hate to admit this Chino's included in that circle." Trey gave her a half smile, one that reminded her of Ryan and the way he smiled at Marissa sometimes. "Look I'm sorry if I came off bitchy, or if I continue to come off as bitchy, it's just… Ryan gets a lot of people who show up here and want something. A picture, an interview, an autograph, money, and nine times out of ten he gives it to them. Unless someone gets to the door first, he's been through enough shit, he doesn't need more people in his life using him."

"You don't think I know that? I probably know a lot better than you do what he's been through, at least up to a point… I'm not here looking for a handout; I'm not here looking for anything except a chance to et to know my little brother again. A chance to… make up for what I did to him… Just a chance," his eyes bore into her, trying to breakdown whatever impression she had of him. Slowly he pulled them away and looked back out into the distance, "But then isn't that what everyone's looking for?"

Summer felt the desperation in his words, and she felt his pain as she watched his pained eyes staring out into the distance. The need to take his pain away flooded over her; she couldn't explain why she felt that need. And she sure as hell didn't understand it. They had nothing in common, and they had the complete wrong impressions of the other. There was no reason for them to be wasting their time even bothering to exchange words, but still they were. And now a silence had fallen between them, a silence with an undertone neither was willing to acknowledge. Trey finished the last drag of his cigarette. Summer watched as he leaned down and scrapped the embers on the bottom of his shoe before he pocketed the butt. No more words were spoken before Trey went inside, but his last words lingered in her mind, and once she heard the door slide shut she looked out into the same distance he'd been looking into moment before.

"And it is," with her voice barely at a whisper she answered his question.