Page 23 of Cueball & Double-Z (Alpha’s Rejects #5)

The ice storm had come and was long gone; the once crystal world had melted away as we eased into late February.

What was supposed to be a total of six days ended up being six weeks.

There was no sign of Cueball… Ugh, it was hard to remember to call him Marco.

I preferred his nickname because it was so cute, just like him.

There was no sign of Marco sending us back out there on the streets.

I wasn’t about to upset the apple cart, so I said shit about staying.

If and when he tried to get us to leave, then I’d fight to stay.

I loved it here. Marco was a sexy, grumpy teddy bear.

It was a fun challenge pulling smiles out of him.

Even Gio was looking better, more at ease, bringing me back to happier times when he’d been relaxed and smiled all the time.

He’d been playful, too. It reminded me of how much I adored Gio and how beautiful he was.

All I wanted was to see him happy again, and he was getting there.

Marco and Gio were working today, but I had the day off.

Tomorrow, I’d have to go in before the lunch rush.

It wasn’t like I had a full-time job, but maybe one day I’d find something.

While I was comfortable not speaking, except with my hands, I sometimes wished I could talk.

I wasn’t stupid. Being mute, whether it was selectively or not, made things harder for everyone around me, such as communicating how I felt or finding a decent job.

Ezra was sweet and all, but it wasn’t like I could have a career making sandwiches.

For the past several days, I used the large mirror over the old, worn dresser in our bedroom and put it on the floor.

Then I’d sit cross-legged and watch myself speak.

Or I tried to anyway. Whenever I did let out a word, it had, for the most part, been spontaneous—a reaction.

If I thought about it too much, my throat felt like it would constrict, or like it forgot how to form words.

Then the anxiety I fought so hard against would build and build until my hands shook, my heart raced, and I struggled to breathe.

Sometimes it was easier not to fight it.

I stared at myself in the mirror. My hair had recently been cut professionally instead of Gio doing it. I really liked it. I looked like a fucking rock star, if rock stars were short and skinny. The barber said it was a shag cut. I fingered the textured fringe before dropping my hands on my lap.

My shoulders were squared but relaxed, and I cracked my neck.

Okay, here goes .

I opened my mouth and tried to produce a sound. Any sound. It wasn’t hard to grunt or make noises from my throat, but again, I generally wasn’t thinking too hard about it. It just happened.

Can Gio and I live with you permanently, Marco ?

I love you, Gio .

God, Gio needed to hear those words from me. He’d been doing better lately, but he still had his moments. If he heard my words, I was sure it would make him so happy. And I still felt like I was in limbo here, not quite belonging until Marco gave us the green light to stay permanently.

The words were floating in my head, but as I sat there, working my throat, there was this weird disconnect. My throat refused to cooperate with my brain, like it was suddenly paralyzed by a massive lump in my throat. The harder I tried, the more anxious I grew.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and tried again despite my heart rate increasing and the sweat building along my back and in my pits.

I opened my eyes again and formed the words on my lips.

I love you, Gio .

Nothing.

Nothing, nothing, nothing !

I growled out my frustration and slammed my fists on my thighs.

Despite the anger at myself, there was an upside.

Before, when I tried to talk, it would bring me back to that day in the car.

The anxiety had been so strong that I’d wanted to crawl into a hole for the rest of my life.

But this time, there was none of that. That was a good thing, right?

The anxiety was there, but I wasn’t back in that car, trapped, watching our parents die.

It helped that Gio and Marco never forced me to talk, to use my words.

They accepted me just as I was. That right there was why I wanted them.

I wanted them both. To have the three of us love each other, care about each other…

to be something special. We were all connected, and I wanted to be connected romantically and sexually.

Ever since my first fantasy about the two men taking me, fucking me, making love to me, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it. The more I did, the more I wanted it. But I hadn’t said a word, afraid of their reaction.

With another attempt at talking and an agitated grunt, I told myself to fuck it.

I’d try again later. It was more for me than for them, anyway.

I wanted them to hear my voice, but I wanted to hear my voice more.

Besides, it was time to start dinner. A late dinner.

Marco would be volunteering tonight, and Gio would be working late.

But they should be home roughly at the same time.

Before I started cooking, I nosed around Marco’s apartment for a radio or something, looking in closets and cabinets.

The last place I looked, not daring to go into his bedroom when he wasn’t there, was the front coat closet.

I had to get a chair to stand on to reach the top shelf, and there it was—an adorably small boombox tucked away.

Fuck, I missed listening to music .

I reached further back on the shelf, looking for the cord, when I touched something hard.

I pulled it out and found a framed photo.

When I looked at it, I gasped, and my heart did a weird skipping thing before I dropped it.

I stepped off the chair, bent down to pick it back up, and took a close look at it.

There were clearly two men in the image, surrounded by a worn, stained wood frame, and the glass plate missing.

One was a handsome man, smaller than the one beside him.

He wasn’t just attractive; he was beautiful.

Bright. Vibrant. He had tousled dark brown hair, with kind brown eyes.

His smile was wide and honest. His face was covered with a splash of freckles, like Gio’s.

He looked genuinely happy. The two men had their hands clasped together, resting on a table from a restaurant, judging by the used napkins, tablecloth, and empty plates.

It was the man next to him who was alarming to look at.

His face was completely scratched out, like violently scratched out.

All you could tell about him was that he also had dark brown hair, but it had waves, almost curly.

The man was also much larger than the smiling one.

All my instincts told me he was Marco—my Cueball—before he’d shaved his head. It was the body, so much like his now.

I ran my finger over the scratched-out face, feeling the textured frustration and self-loathing oozing from it. That was some serious self-hatred right there.

My eyes watered for Marco, despite the disturbing image. That was pure pain. If it had been about hatred of the other man, that face would have been the one Marco tried to erase.

Who was that man to him? Clearly, someone he loved. What happened to him? To them? Were they married and divorced? Was it bitter? But that wouldn’t explain Marco scratching out his own face.

I stood back on the chair and returned the picture to the high shelf as a tear slid down my face. I fucking ached for Marco. That was one of the most painful things I’d seen in a long time. Was that why he was so closed off? We knew so little about him.

I reached farther back and found the cord, pulling it down. After hopping off the chair, I put it back and headed toward the kitchen, where I plugged the little radio into the socket on the wall. I played with the antenna until I found a rock station .

‘ You Get What You Give ’ by New Radicals was playing. I shook my ass and mouthed the words as I danced around to open the fridge and pull out the bag of pre-washed lettuce, a yellow pepper, a cucumber, and a bottle of Italian dressing.

I washed the vegetables, then diced them slowly, as I was no magician in the kitchen, my head bobbing to a new tune.

The last thing I needed was to chop off a finger.

Dicing was strangely therapeutic because it was mind-numbingly boring to me, taking away my residual anxiety and sadness from the photo and my failure to speak.

Once I had all the vegetables chopped, I mixed them with the lettuce into a large bowl I’d found under the counter. Then I shoved the bowl into the fridge to chill, not pouring dressing over it yet, so it didn’t get soggy.

Next, I sautéed some ground beef and added a bit of taco seasoning and garlic powder. When it was thoroughly cooked, I let it simmer with a little water while I grated the cheddar cheese.

That was another reason I didn’t want to go back to living in the car. Cooking. I wasn’t the best cook, but I liked it so much better than having to eat store-bought crap or fast food every day. It always upset my stomach.

Gio and I needed a place to make a home again. It’d been fine for a while until he lost his last two jobs, and I struggled to find one. Marco would just have to let us stay. We could pay him back. It was why I tried hard to help keep it clean and make dinner when I wasn’t working.