Page 6 of Burning Demons (Burning Torments #1)

Chapter 6

Wren

Why was he laughing so hard?

I stopped at the first place on the list without an answer to that. I had figured it’d be easier to head to the farthest place and work my way home. That way, I’d get a long, uninterrupted trip to mull over my thoughts. Tate had other ideas and couldn’t shut up for long.

Jesus, it seemed as if everything he did or said led me into a corner. A corner I wasn’t sure how to get out of or if I wanted to. His every word or question had been a trap I fell into face-first. Either he was calling me out for being country or making me more confused. Had he been flirting? I couldn’t tell. No one ever had before, that I knew of, and definitely not a guy.

Tate jumped from the truck like his ass was on fire and lit up a smoke before the truck door closed behind him. His first inhale came with a little moan that had my dick twitching in interest. Seriously, smoking was not hot, but try telling that to my hormone-rattled mind. His slim fingers holding the cigarette, his lips closing around the tip … Oh, fuck.

“I-I’ll be inside.” I pointed to the office supply store in the strip mall beside us. Momma taught elementary kids, and with the new school year getting closer, she was readying everything for arts and crafts and for the kids who couldn’t afford stuff most of us took for granted.

Tate caught up to me before I was halfway through the list, smelling like burnt tea, and I hated that I didn’t hate it.

“Here you are,” he said, and I made some kinda grunting acknowledgment in return. He didn’t seem to mind because nothing seemed to faze him.

He followed me from aisle to aisle, touching things here and there, drawing my attention with each item. When I placed something in the basket, he’d come over and inspect it too. I just didn’t get him. This shit wasn’t that fascinating, yet he made it seem so, and for whatever reason, he made me think it was too. Like seeing him get all excited and interested like a puppy over the stupidest of shit made me go all puppy too.

I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face by the time I turned toward the checkout line. Customers and store employees followed us with their eyes. People staring at me wasn’t anything new, but a lot of them stared at Tate. I couldn’t really fault their interest. Tate was something else, but that didn’t mean I liked them looking. He was mine to stare at so openly like that.

No. Fuck. Tate was mine, err, no, my stepbrother, not mine mine. Jesus, I couldn’t think straight around him.

There were a couple more errands on Momma’s list before we headed to the last one, the fun one. Each stop was more of the same. Tate smoked. I gawked before I could help it. People watched him, then me, then him again. Finally, we got back in the truck and turned toward home. I wasn’t much for the bigger towns, and as soon as we were swallowed up with trees and farms, the tension in my shoulders loosened.

“Where are you taking me now, Big Country?” Tate asked when I turned off the county road onto a rough paved street that fell off with a huge dip into a dirt road.

“Don’t call me that.” I didn’t need him reminding me I was big. The world took care of that.

“Why? It fits.”

And him saying it made my balls tingle, but that was not important. “I’m not big. Everyone else is small.”

Tate chuckled, and I found myself grinning, yet again.

“Not denying you’re country, though.”

“Nah.” My smile stayed in place as I took a left and drove under an iron archway.

The butcher shop we were headed to next was nothing more than a trailer parked in front of an old shed. The entrance to the property was a lot nicer and misleading.

Joey’s was kind of a catch-all business. He butchered cows and pigs, chopping them into usable pieces, but he also did some ironwork and was a good handyman. Every few months, Sam ordered a ton of meat we ate on for a while. Thick, peppered bacon, ribs, brisket, steaks, chops, tenderloin, butt, and shoulder, all wrapped in brown paper and ready for the freezer.

“What the fuck?” Tate whispered when we stopped near the front door.

I laughed. “Looks like a nightmare, right?”

Over the door and dressed in Christmas lights was a pig’s smiling face made of iron. Two red eyes blinked on and off, making it all the creepier. Butchering animals was a bloody business, and Joey got such a kick out of it. He played it up, even though only the locals knew about the place and were well aware he was the nicest bubba you’d ever meet.

I parked and made to get out, but Tate didn’t move.

“You wanna stay in the truck?” When he only stared at the trailer, I added, “Alone?”

That got him moving. He scrambled out of the truck and was glued to my side as we took the steps to the door. He didn’t even stop to smoke and looked about as scared shitless as I figured he’d be. An odd pleasure coursed through me, though, with him so close, terrified, and using me as protection. Even if he didn’t see it that way, I sure did. Shoulders back, head high, then ducking to get through the doorway, I stepped inside to the tinkle of a frighteningly friendly bell over our heads.

The inside of the trailer had been gutted and lined with deep freezers, the storefront to the shed where everything gory actually took place.

Tate jumped and gripped my arm for all of one second when the back door banged open. He dropped his hand so fast I might have imagined the touch if it weren’t for the phantom press of his fingers haunting my arm.

A hulking form strolled in with a bloody leather apron over his red-splattered, T-shirt-clad shoulders. Around thirty, I guessed, Joey was a second-generation butcher. He’d taken over the family business instead of going to college, but who needed more schooling with natural skills like his. It didn’t seem so by judging this place, but Joey was a wealthy man.

“Hey, Wren! What’s up, my man?” He gripped my forearm in a bruising hold. Joey was a big boy like me. He wasn’t fat either, just chipped out from hard work instead of working out. Before I could answer him, he cocked his head and stared at Tate. “Who’s the pretty boy?”

Why couldn’t I say shit like that and it come out as not-gay-at-all?

“Joey, this is Tate, Sam’s son.”

“Oh, no shit?” Joey grinned and stuck out a fist to Tate.

“Hey,” Tate said softly and bumped Joey’s knuckles with his own, to my surprise. He’d been trembling in fear, but the pretty boy could fake it. What else did he fake? Had he been fucking with me with those winks and the maybe-maybe-not flirting?

Joey nodded at Tate and stepped closer to a brown freezer. “I’ve got Sam’s order all ready. He called this morning and said you’d be coming by.”

The three of us got the heavy pieces in paper bags and hauled them out with bags of ice to the coolers in the back of my truck. Tate managed just fine with the load in his arms despite his slim build.

The trip home was surprisingly silent. Tate sat subdued and didn’t comment on the long trip, the countryside, or the butcher shop. By the time we rolled into town, I missed his jabbing words and took my eyes off the road way more than was safe or necessary to check on him.

“You okay, man?” I finally asked.

“Uh, yeah,” he said when all signs pointed to no. “This place is so different.” He glanced at me at the same time one of my many glances landed on him. He forced a twitch of his lips that wasn’t quite a smile and didn’t reach his eyes. “Don’t get all worried for me. It’s nothing that a cigarette and a shower won’t fix.”

I rolled my eyes and turned my attention back to the road. I supposed if he could joke, he was okay enough.

Momma came out and helped us carry everything to the freezer in the garage. Then, I handed her the bags with her school supplies.

“Thanks, sweetie. Did you two get to know one another better?” she asked.

I glanced around before answering her, figuring Tate was close by, but he wasn’t.

“Yeah, I suppose so.” At Momma’s scowl, I said, “ Yes, ma’am .”

“Try to think how you’d feel having everything uprooted and moving off to someplace you knew nothin’ about.”

“Why is he here? Is somethin’ wrong with him?”

“Wrong with him? What do you mean?” Momma turned and headed inside before I could catch her expression.

“I dunno. He’s just different,” I said as I followed her into the kitchen.

“He grew up in a very different environment, Wren. Just keep an open mind.”

Oh, I was. Very open, too open. One second, I wanted to strangle him, and another, I wanted to bite his ear and taste his damn nipples. If that wasn’t open, then I didn’t know what would be.

I didn’t want to like Tate Decker, but he was making it hard not to. As unusual as he was to everyone else I’d ever known, he had this sort of charm that made me relax around him, like we were old friends. But I didn’t want to relax. I’d kept a strict hold on myself for all these years, never allowing my inner workings out for others to see. Tate seemed hell-bent on tugging my loose threads without realizing what he was doing, and that could be dangerous.

Coming out in this town was a bad idea, and doing so for my stepbrother? Even worse. No one would give two shits we weren’t actually related. All they’d see was two brothers fucking each other, even if that weren’t the case at all. This town didn’t have much to jump all over, but you gave them something juicy like that, and we’d be chased out of town in a heartbeat.

“I’m just finishing up sandwiches if you’re ready for lunch,” Momma said.

I leaned a hip against the counter as she slapped bread to fixin’s. The house was quiet around us. I didn’t know where Tate had rushed off to, but a cigarette was probably involved. God, I hoped he wasn’t smoking in the shower. I forced my nosey ass to stay right there in the kitchen and not check to see what he was up to. I didn’t care. I didn’t care. I didn’t …

God, yes, I did.

The second Momma turned to me, plate in hand with a sandwich on top, I grabbed it, stuffed half of it in my mouth, and mumbled where I was going. I had to get out of here. I couldn’t stay in the house with Tate right now. I didn’t even want to look at him for a few hours to cool my jets a bit.

By the time I’d made it to the school’s practice fields, the sandwich was long gone. Coach’s eyes lit up when he saw me walking toward where he stood on the sidelines as the football team finished practice. The team started about a month before the school year began to be ready for the season.

“Here to change your mind and make me a happy man?” Coach asked.

“No, sir. Just checking out the team before my workout.”

Coach eyed my arms, then down to my feet. “Why are you bulking up, Wilkerson, if not for my football team?”

“Thinking about being a firefighter.” One of many possibilities I thought about.

He nodded and turned back to the players. “You’d make a good ’un.”

Everyone said the same thing, and it made sense because of what happened to me so many years ago. It was natural to idolize the men who’d helped me, who’d rescued me, and wanna become just like them. That would be an admirable reason for it and one I let them believe.

The real reason was much more selfish, and I was ashamed to even admit it to myself. I could hide in that uniform and under that helmet. Maybe I could bury the insecurities forever. Stay in the closet, and no one would ever question that I wasn’t a big, strong, capable, straight man. I could bury the real me in that uniform, whenever I figured out who the hell that was.

Hours later, my nerve endings were popping, and the high from an intense workout put me in a much better mood. Sam was home by the time I got there, so I headed straight for him on the patio.

“Thanks for running by Joey’s on your way home today.”

“No big deal.” I shrugged.

“What did Tate think of the place?” Sam asked with a wicked grin.

I snorted. “Scared shitless.”

Sam belted out a laugh. “I wish I could’ve been there. I thought about asking Joey to greet you holding a bloody pig head.”

“Oh my God! You should have.”

Both of us were doubled over laughing when Tate came outside. He gave us a curious look that turned a bit sad for some reason before he ducked his head and closed the back door. I excused myself for a much-needed shower.

Tate blinked and opened his mouth as if he might say something as we crossed each other on the stairs. He didn’t, so I didn’t.

I rushed through the house, grabbed fresh clothes, and shot off a text to Sienna before heading for the bathroom.

Me: Can you believe I’m looking forward to school starting?

By the time I was out, she’d hit me back.

Sienna: Life sucking that bad?

Me: Sorta.

Sienna: Talk to Dr. Sienna.

Me: It’s my stepbro, doc. I can’t figure him out, and it’s driving me crazy.

Sienna: Why’s he need figuring out?

Me: You’ll see.

Sienna: You keep saying that. Snap a pic and send it to me.

Me: No! Too obvious.

Sienna: Hmm. Well, I can’t help you then.

Me: No one can help me.

Sienna: Why aren’t you prez of the drama club?

Me: Because we don’t have a drama club, stupid.

Sienna: Don’t call me stupid, stupid!

Me: You’re asking for it, little girl.

Sienna: Don’t make me kick your ass, film it, and post it.

I snickered to myself and sat down to get some cello playing in before supper. I started with well-practiced pieces to get my hands warm, then moved on to the Vivaldi Concerto I’d been trying to perfect for what felt like ever. It wasn’t one we’d play at school, much too hard for that level, but I liked the challenge, and I liked hearing my progress.

And maybe it was my imagination, but I’d swear I got a little further into it today before having to start over.

During supper that evening, Sam mentioned going fishing this weekend. Tate looked about as thrilled for it as I’d expected. Momma and Sam went swimming, and this time, Tate sat out. We lounged back in the chairs, laughing when Momma and Sam got into a legit pool fight, but didn’t say much to each other.

Our folks called it a night a little later. We stayed.

The sun’s light was only dark purple stains in the sky when Tate lit up.

“Been dying for that, have you?”

Tate snorted. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

I settled in with my head pointed to the slowly appearing stars, elbows on the chair’s arms, and let my legs stretch far and wide with my clasped hands over my abs. “How long you been doin’ that?”

“Smoking?”

“Yeah.”

“Few years.”

I had my eyes closed but sensed the shrug in his tone.

“Few years? You’re only eighteen,” I said.

“So?” His voice was strained, as if he took a deep hit with the word. Smoking was a gross habit, but hearing him talk on an inhale and through the smoke as he exhaled shot unexpected pulses to my nuts.

“Your momma smoke?”

“No, my grandmother did. I lived with her until I was seven. She used to say it calmed her nerves.”

“Does it?”

“Don’t really know, Country Boy.”

I rolled my head in his direction. He stared at the tiny ember at the end. The glow made sparkles shimmer in his eyes. My curiosity where he was concerned knew no bounds, but I didn’t like this melancholy mood of his.

“What did you get up to in New York, City Boy?”

“Nothing wrong with being a city boy.”

“Nothin’ wrong with being a country boy either.”

“Except everything,” he shot back.

I blew out a breath that puffed my cheeks. It’d be easier to get over this fixation on him if he were a dick. Except I didn’t want him to be a dick, did I? Those tidy boxes on the shelves in my mind where I kept my secrets started to rattle. I didn’t need any more complicated things in my life, yet here I was, reaching for another.

“What’s the deal with you and Sam?” I asked.

“What’s the deal with you and your dad?”

“Are you gonna answer everything with a question?”

“Are you?”

“God, you’re annoying.” He didn’t answer that, so I tried—again. “My daddy died when I was ten.”

“Sorry, man.”

“Yeah,” I snorted.

“My mother is a bitch and— And shit happened. Things with Dad got a little distant, so now I’m figuring it out.” After a drag from his cigarette, he added, “Good enough, Country Boy?”

Not in the least. “Wren. My name’s Wren .”

“That short for something?”

“No.”

Silence surrounded us, and the longer it went on, the harder it became to think of something else to say. There were plenty of questions that came to mind. What was his last school like? Did New York really stink like some people said? What on earth made him buy those purple jeans he wore yesterday? But I didn’t ask any of them. I didn’t want him to think I saw him as an attraction at the zoo.

“It’s quiet out here.”

Finally. I sighed at the opener. “Pretty noisy in the big city?”

Tate snorted. “Yeah, it can be.”

“The cicadas can get pretty loud here, but they aren’t so bad this year.”

Tate stood and stretched. “The what?” he asked, but sound wasn’t making sense when my mind snagged on the pale strip of skin right above his jeans.

He snapped his fingers in front of my face.

“Cicadas,” I all but yelled. “Uh, that bug you hear in the heat of the afternoon?”

“Um, okay.” He chuckled. The sound curled inside me and ratcheted the temperature from warm to steamy.

“Think you can make it out here?” I asked, desperately trying to take the focus off me and what he just caught me doing.

“Don’t see why not. I blend, do what’s needed to survive.”

“Whatever.” I surged to my feet, ready to hide the shame of getting caught staring by shutting myself in my room. “Don’t burn the place down, smokey.”

Tate followed because of course he wouldn’t let me slither away alone.

“Smokey, the bear? I like that.”

“You would,” I grumbled.

His body heat pulsed behind me to the point of distraction as I took the porch steps and prayed I didn’t bust it in front of him. I was just about to tell him not to let the screen snap closed, but he already had it in hand, so it sprang back in silence. The two of us padded down the hall and up the stairs. My heart raced for a second as if I were sneaking a boy into my room. Then reality hit when I stopped at my door and Tate stepped closer to his . Tate lived here now. He’d always be within reach and just out of it too. My very own torture device.

“Good night, Country Boy.”

“Fuck you, City Boy.”

Tate snickered, and I wanted to slam my door in his face but didn’t. Nothing got under his skin, and I hated that. I wanted under his skin. I wanted him fucked-up in the head like I was, even if it wasn’t for the same reasons.