The First To Know. Abigail Johnson

him, Ariel walked past.

      I extended a finger in the direction she’d gone. “I’m sorry, I thought I heard her call you McCormick earlier.”

      The guy that I was suddenly convinced wasn’t Brandon nodded. “Yeah, she calls me and my cousin by our last name.”

      My stomach twisted in two different directions. “What’s your first name?”

      He wasn’t frowning at me anymore; he looked concerned. “Are you okay?”

      “Low blood sugar.” I gave him the first excuse for my sudden pallor that I could think of. “I think I thought you were someone else.”

      “I’m Chase,” he said.

      I nodded and tried to smile. “My mistake.” I turned and left in a cacophony of monkey screams. The door didn’t shut all the way behind me. From inside, Ariel caught it and stuck her head out to talk to a guy sitting at the table outside.

      “Break is up in ten. Also, your cousin just bent metal in front of me with one hand—one freaking hand. If that’s how he flirts, tell him it’s scary and that I get off at nine.” She paused, eyeing his hands. “Do you think you could...?” When he didn’t respond, she shook herself. “Forget it.”

      I didn’t watch her leave, but the guy did with the kind of smile that said he’d be trying to bend metal with his hands in the very near future. The hairs on my arms stood on end as I watched him return his attention to his phone.

      It wasn’t just the cleft chin or the sprinkling of red in his otherwise brown hair. It wasn’t the way his brow lifted higher on the left than the right in response to whatever he was reading on his phone, or the height he couldn’t conceal even sitting down. It was all of that and nothing. I knew him. Forty-seven percent shared DNA slammed into me, and I couldn’t find a breath to say even that tiny word of denial. I was twenty feet from my brother. My brother. He was my brother. I couldn’t doubt it for a single second more. Dad had had an affair. He’d cheated on Mom and had a kid—this kid—guy—the one who looked so much like Dad that I couldn’t blink, much less turn my head away from him.

      I stopped beside his table, waiting for him to look up. “Brandon?”

      “Yeah?”

      “I’m Dana.”

       Chapter 8

      Brandon recovered from his initial confusion quickly, returning my bleak stare with a smile. “Oh, hey.” He stood up right away, considered extending his hand but moved his drink to his side of the table instead. “I didn’t realize you were going to come right away.” He indicated the chair across from him, but I couldn’t sit or even move. My skin prickled, waiting for him to see me and know, to make the connection the way I instantly had. But he didn’t. He sat there, still smiling Dad’s smile. “Like I said in the email, I don’t think I’ll be able to help your dad, but whatever you want to know.” He spread his hands. His smile started to slip the longer I stared at him. “Wow, I’m sorry. I guess this was kind of a big letdown.”

      “Dennis Fields,” I said, my eyes unblinking. “We don’t know who his birth parents were, but that’s the name his first foster family gave him.”

      Brandon slowly shook his head. “Doesn’t sound familiar.” He paused. “Are you okay? You look a little...”

      I was shaking. I could feel the blood draining from my face, and there was a buzzing growing in my ears. I’d never fainted before in my life, but I knew I was seconds from blacking out. I gripped the back of the chair, locking my elbows to keep me upright.

      “You wanna sit? I really think you should sit.” He moved to pull the chair out for me, and I lowered myself into it as he returned to his. Both our arms rose in tandem to rest on the metal bistro table. The movement was identical, and for a heartbeat, he froze too. Then he looked at my face, really looked at it. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

      “Do you?” My blinking was now sporadic, and apart from my lips, my eyelids seemed to be the only part of me still capable of moving. I watched a pink flush creep up his neck, but then it stopped and started to recede.

      “No, I guess not. I mean, how could I? Eighteen is a little young to be a grandfather.” He tried to laugh but saw how incapable I was of joining him and sobered. “I’m really sorry I’m not him.”

      “It’s a mistake,” I said, my voice echoing in my head.

      “Don’t worry about it,” Brandon said. “I’m sure those DNA places mess up all the time, right?”

      Right. A screwup. A mistake, that’s all. Earlier I’d been confident I’d reach the same conclusion as soon as I saw Brandon—it was why I’d rushed over. But I knew—I knew—even if he didn’t, that there was no mistaking who he was.

      Sitting, I was still shaking, but the dizzy light-headedness was dissipating. “I needed you to be someone else,” I whispered. “I don’t know what to do.” It felt like a huge confession to be making, especially to him.

      “Well, hey, you’re welcome to take a look at my family tree, but honestly, I know you won’t find anything. The McCormick line is extremely well documented.”

      But you’re not a McCormick, I thought. You’re a Fields, just like me. My hands covered my mouth, but they couldn’t contain the sudden full-body sob that choked free. Brandon drew back in his chair, as far as it would let him, but I couldn’t stop, and when Brandon came around to pat me on the back in an awkward gesture, I cried harder.

      “I’m sorry,” I said, leaning away from his touch. I needed to leave, to get away from him and everything that reminded me of Dad. I pushed back my chair and stood.

      “Don’t give up, okay? Just ’cause I’m a dead end, doesn’t mean the next one will be. I’m sure you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

      “I don’t want to find anything else.” The words tore out of me, my throat trying to choke them back along with the sobs I was holding in. Brandon was right in front of me, and something made him move back, frowning just a little. His gaze moved slowly across my face. Taking in the slightly squared jaw and full bottom lip, the dark hair that sparked copper in the fading sunlight, just like his. And it stopped. In that moment, I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to see the connection or not. If he saw it, I wouldn’t be alone—and I had never felt more alone in my life—but then he’d feel like me too, stripped and cored and irrevocably severed from the thing that made me me: my family. It was gone—worse, it had never been.

      I looked back at Brandon, not seeing the knife that cut me or the cliff I’d been hurled from. I saw my brother. I had no concept of what that word meant; I only knew instinctively that I didn’t want to hurt him.

      He backed up again, swallowing. “You—”

      I broke the stare, brought my gaze down to where he’d inadvertently kicked over my bag, spilling its contents everywhere. I dropped to my knees, grabbing keys and sunglasses, reaching for a tube of lip balm that was rolling away. Brandon knelt too, but he wasn’t handing me an errant pack of gum. The top of the paper I’d stuffed inside had unfolded, the DNA Detective logo clearly visible. “Don’t!” But it was too late. Brandon was already pulling it free from my bag, his eyes scanning. And then they stopped.

      His name. Forty-seven percent shared DNA. Relationship prediction: father or son. It took half a second, and he could never go back, never not know. I felt just as alone watching him, seeing the page tremble in his hands, except worse, because I was the reason he knew.

      “What is this?” he asked, but he knew. The way he’d looked at me... His eyes rose to meet mine. His lips kept pressing together, opening for a breath, then closing again when I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to say it, to make it more real than it already was. “You said grandfather.” His eyes were