Page 7

SEVEN

EASTON

Long after the last red and orange smears had washed away, I stood in the shower. Hot water poured down my body, and steam filled my lungs with every inhale.

My palms pressed against the tiled wall, and the water splashed against my head, trickling down my shoulders, chest, stomach, and back.

Although the pain wasn’t that bad, part of me wished they’d finished what they’d started. Even waking up this morning, I had discovered that the dominant feeling in me was disappointment.

I turned the water off and stepped out of the shower. The cuts on my face could have been worse. I’d worked up an image of a swollen eye, a bruised cheek, and a split lip and eyebrow, but the truth wasn’t so bad. Sure, my lip was cut and angry red, but Jace had cleaned the rest of my wounds well. They looked more like scratches already. My left eye was fine now that no blood crusted the eyelids shut. The bruises on my body were nasty, but they were only marginally worse than some I’d gotten playing hockey. Most importantly, my ankle didn’t hurt.

My vanity would survive now that I knew my career wasn’t erased from my future. And not just my career but my college tuition and my life away from Mom and Dad.

I put my clothes on, wincing slightly as I pushed my arms through the short sleeves of my T-shirt and pulled it over my head. I would be better by tomorrow. I would do the drills even if it ripped me in half. Maybe they had taken every shred of safety from me last night, but I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of showing it.

I collected my stained and sweaty clothes from the floor and the bloodied towel. When I stepped out of the bathroom, the apartment was quiet and empty. I looked from the living room to the open doors of my bedroom and the spare one. He wasn’t here.

My heart clenched with tension, anxiety rising like a tingling, crawling colony of ants moving up my legs, torso, and neck. He would be back. Now that he was inside, I doubted I would just get rid of him on Sunday. I wouldn’t want to throw him out, except that every steel-like gaze he shot me filled me with unease.

I didn’t think I could live with it for long.

My bedroom was a mess. Bending over and clenching my teeth, I stripped the linens off the bed. Dirt, blood, iodine. I shoved them into a basket and carried them out. I picked up my key from the small shoe dresser by the front door and noticed the other set of keys was missing. He had made himself at home here. It was a matter of moments before he occupied the spare bedroom and began the barrage of leverage against me. Oh, he had that power. I wasn’t fooling myself. He could leave it hanging over my head until I buckled under the pressure.

I carried my dirty laundry down the street to the laundromat, looking over my shoulder in broad daylight every time I thought I heard footsteps. The streets were busy with traffic, although few pedestrians occupied the sidewalks. On my short journey to the laundromat, I spotted a middle-aged woman walking a small dog, an elderly man leading two little children toward the park, and countless cars stuck in a jam. Some drivers and passengers glanced at me as I passed them, but none called for me to stop. It was, after all, morning.

I hurried a little, although I doubted I knew what I was hurrying away from. When I slipped into the small store full of washers and dryers, I stuffed my laundry into the nearest empty one. Inside, a middle-aged man was unloading a dryer, and chills ran down my spine. He was well-built, his bare arms muscled and large. He didn’t acknowledge me as I filled the washer with coins and hurried out.

My day took on an air of terror. Throughout it, I seemed to be capable of scaring myself with little more than fantasies. Enemies lurked from every corner, waiting to finish sending the message in case it hadn’t been delivered loud and clear last night.

I bought groceries in the small supermarket near my building. I looked out the kitchen window while cooking. I paced the living room, occasionally looking through the spyhole, only to see Mrs. Johnson leaving her apartment or returning from her shopping with bags of groceries. I didn’t eat much, losing my appetite as soon as my plate was in front of me. Later, I went to move my laundry from the washer into the dryer, fighting the urge to run back to the apartment.

I strolled around the block, my fists clenched to prevent trembling.

All of this for one attempted kiss. All of this because I couldn’t see the clear line between flirtation and simply existing.

I returned to my apartment, closed the door, leaned against it, and squeezed my eyes shut. Kyle’s face appeared before me exactly as it had been two months ago. He had black eyebrows sitting low above his eyes, giving him that bad-boy look that reminded me of Jace. The swagger, too, was familiar. And when he walked around the apartment in those tiny shorts like he had something to prove, my heart would climb into my throat. Time after time, he’d done it. He would stand by the window, lean against the windowsill, put a hand on his chiseled abs, and feel himself casually while talking to me about something entirely different.

He must have seen how red I turned in moments like that.

So, when we had a few beers at the end of our sophomore year, TV playing something long forgotten in the background, both of us sinking into the couch and spreading casually, it was like a bed of dead, dry leaves waiting for the match to fall.

I supplied the spark that would burn my life, my heart, my soul.

After Kyle brushed his knee against mine, bare skin touching bare skin, it was an invitation to my attention. I looked at him, his teeth closing around his lower lip. He lifted his eyebrows playfully and looked at me. “What?” he asked, his voice rising a little higher.

He had a hand on his crotch, a thing he seemingly did without thinking. The outline of his cock was more than a little visible. He was one of those guys who walked around with a semi-hard-on without even noticing it, always touching himself, adjusting, running his hand over it.

I knew the impulse. There wasn’t a guy who didn’t know what it felt like. But I had always resisted it. It was crude, immature, and totally inappropriate, but it turned me on when guys did it. I hated how easily I fell for it and how quickly I thought it could have something to do with me.

My gaze dropped to his cock, the bulge growing.

Kyle snorted. “What are you doing?”

“Huh?” My mouth was dry as fuck. My heartbeat filled my ears. My cock stirred as possibilities opened up before me.

“What’s with the horny eyes?” Kyle asked, cocking a corner of his mouth into a smirk. And when I snapped my mouth shut, he moved an inch closer to me. “Did you ever jerk off with a guy?”

Panic flooded me. “No.”

But Kyle pressed his hand harder against his bulge. “It’s fun.” He looked at the TV. He was as cool and casual as ever while I flipped through the channels. The one that lit up the screen was not the sort of channel I thought they had anymore, but when I looked at it, the confusion only grew more terrible. Was this part of some kind of fantasy? Were we supposed to pretend like this turned us on? A hairy, beefy guy was doing unspeakable things to a very bouncy woman on the screen. Kyle’s voice was crackling when he said, “Perfect.”

He started moving his hand along his bulge without any hesitation. His gaze was on the screen, eyes glassy and unfocused, his jaw clenched hard. He touched himself before my eyes, almost like I wasn’t even there.

But I was, and he knew. “What are you waiting for?”

I took the remote and turned off the TV. I had been longing for a moment like this since we’d moved in together. I didn’t want to ruin it with some crazy fantasy. We could role-play later if he wanted. Now, I wanted it to be true.

“Why did you do that?” Kyle asked, stopping his hand’s increasingly quick motions. The shadows cast by a distant lamp were deep and feathered.

“That’s not how I want it,” I said.

Kyle looked at me with a frown. He swallowed, lips parting.

I worked up my courage, bringing it from zero to a hundred in one breath of air that filled my lungs. My hand fell on his thigh, and I leaned in. This is how I want it , I thought, my nose coming close to his.

I didn’t know what it was that I felt. It appeared like an incredible wave of relief. Perhaps a wave of longing. It slammed into me. I needed a moment to realize that it wasn’t an internal sensation at all. Kyle’s hands pushed me away. “What the fuck, dude?”

My ears rang. Wasn’t this how it should have gone? Wasn’t my suave gesture of turning off the TV and turning my attention to him the right thing to do? I wanted him. Didn’t he see that? I didn’t want some girl’s tits filling the screen so we could pretend we weren’t into each other.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he demanded, the push turning to shove, my back slamming against the couch. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you a perve or something? Jesus, fuck.” He got up. “I’m not a homo, you sick fuck.”

“No, Kyle, wait,” I said, my mind catching up with the situation. Yet, I was out of options. I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t meant anything by leaning in to kiss him.

“Get away from me,” Kyle said with disgust as he rounded the coffee table and steered clear of me.

“Hold on, it’s not…” What? I wondered. It’s not what you think? As if. We both knew what this had been. Embarrassment brimmed within me, filling me so far that it felt like I would shatter.

“I know what it is,” Kyle spat. The hatred and disgust in his eyes cut me deeper than any words he could have used. Not only did I embarrass myself by making a move and getting the worst possible reaction, but I had misjudged him entirely. The reality shifted around me. Everything I had so carefully built, everything I believed, every line between reality and fantasy that I had wiped out of existence, they cracked, drawing borders with barbed wire and showing me where the line was.

My world was a much grimmer place than I had believed.

For so long, I had thought there was another gay athlete on my team. Couldn’t we be like those damned Titans who had gotten everything? They’d stolen our trophies right from under our noses, then paraded on the ice with little rainbow flags.

I had to watch it, and I had to watch my teammates wrinkle their noses at the sight of Caden Jones and Beckett Partridge slapping each other’s asses for every point they scored.

I’d hoped that, maybe, if I were just lucky enough, there would be another one like me on the team.

I opened my eyes and exhaled a long breath of air. The room was growing dark. My laundry would soon be dry. Jace wasn’t back yet, which was the only mercy in my wretched life. But I would have to see him soon. I would have to hold onto the memory of Kyle when I did. Because it was the same fucking thing.

Jace was a tease. He saw through me like I was made of glass. He saw into my most devastating and dangerous urges, and he pressed those buttons to entertain himself. He would gladly leave me ripped to shreds for a laugh, even if it meant dragging all my dirty secrets out of me just to throw them back in my face.

I left the apartment and picked up my laundry, returned, replaced my bedsheets, and ate the cold food I had made earlier. Jace unlocked the front door and entered with his casual swagger and fuck-hungry gaze. It was so hard to stay reminded that I had fallen victim to a thirsty gaze like that not so long ago.

Not again , I swore to myself as Jace lifted an eyebrow. “How’s it going?” he asked.

I said nothing. My gaze was on the black TV screen, my reflection a murky blotch of light in the center of it. The night had come, and my drills were just twelve hours away. Twelve hours until I had to get on the underground line, ride a train, get out, and walk to the campus. Twelve hours until I had to look Kyle in the eyes and show how little it bothered me that he’d had me beaten up.

Jace strolled over to the couch, sat down, lifted a booted foot on the coffee table, and lit a cigarette. With its glowing, burning tip, he pointed at the table. “You should get an ashtray for guests here.”

“I don’t allow smoking inside,” I muttered.

He snorted and inhaled a deep lungful of smoke, then blew it around. As he turned his head to me, his breath and the cigarette smoke washed over me. My nerves tingled with a strange sort of anxiety.

He didn’t say it, but the smoke spelled it out for him. Enforce your rules, then .

But fighting Jace was not something I had the strength to do.

He tapped his cigarette against an empty pack, ash falling inside. “How are you feeling?”

“Other than missing my dignity?” I asked. “Peachy.”

Jace grabbed my wrist and held it, tugging once before I turned my gaze to his dark chestnut eyes. They were so clear and sharp that I found myself unable to look away. “That’s one thing they can’t take away from you, Easton.”

We stared into each other’s eyes. I wanted to believe him, but I couldn’t stop wondering why he would want to make me feel any better. Wretched was just the way Jace had always liked me. “I’m not so sure,” I said.

“I am.” He wouldn’t let go of my wrist. “I’ve been there. You need to hold on to yourself and not let them question it.”

“Jace,” I said, still so out of practice using his name. It felt all wrong. It was another guy’s lips that had last spoken it, and seven years had passed. Jace’s name had never been mentioned in our house again. I’d known better than to ask about him. “It’s not so easy.”

“I know,” he said. “What helps is getting back at them.”

I jerked my hand free of his grip. “I’m not doing that.”

“You don’t need to lift a finger,” Jace said, his voice low and dark. Had he been talking about me, I would have felt threatened.

“Don’t.” I got up and walked away from him. In the fridge, a six-pack sat since last month. After Kyle had left, I’d gone on a rampage of hooking up with toxic men who were fond of beer and scared of commitment. I’d indulged in every fantasy any of them had had, letting them play out their kinks on me without ever leaving a name or giving me a kiss afterward.

Beer couldn’t go bad so soon, so I returned to the living room with two cans. Jace accepted with an amused smile. “I’m surprised,” he said.

“I doubt you can afford your own,” I said and regretted it at once. I didn’t want to get back at Kyle or his brutes, but I was quick to take out my frustration on Jace. Maybe his willingness to resort to violence made me do it. Was he any better than the guys in balaclavas just because he was supposedly on my side?

Jace grinned and shook his head, the sting only adding to his evening’s entertainment. He pulled a hand out of a pocket and tossed a small bundle of dollar bills on the table. “Is this enough for rent and food?”

“I don’t want your money,” I said. The bills were crumpled and creased, but they looked real. Tens, twenties, fifties, a couple of hundreds in the mix.

“I earned it,” Jace said. “Fair and square.”

“It doesn’t matter to me,” I said. And I didn’t want to know the details.

Jace inhaled, held his breath, and then blew it out slowly. “Easton, I’m grateful to you. Having a place to crash—an actual, non-mobile, brick-and-mortar place—is a luxury. And if I can repay the favor, I will.”

I thought about it long and hard. I didn’t want to find myself signing a deal with the devil. I didn’t want to be tricked into owing him. Even now, I could feel that his leverage was not too far. If I let him any closer, I would practically surrender myself to him. No. I didn’t want him to hunt after anyone for me.

Besides, did I really want us to get beyond this awkward, distant phase? Did I want us to get to know each other any better than this? It was a dangerous path.

“Just make sure Dad doesn’t find you here next week,” I said.

Jace tipped his can and drank the beer. I did the same. It was sour and bitter, nothing that I would enjoy, but after the first can, the bristling edge around me faded away.

It felt like all my muscles had been cramped for days, and drinking beer relaxed them, untied the knots, and massaged them into softness. Something lifted even though I hated myself for drinking. Not that I was the type to make that a habit—or did everyone think that?—but I was going to be a pro hockey player. I was going to play for the NHL. I couldn’t afford to risk it all for something as nasty as this sour piss in a can.

“So, hockey,” Jace said.

“What about it?” I asked a tad too defensively.

Jace shrugged. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“Had what in me?” I asked, crushing the can in my hand.

The sound drew his gaze, but it flicked back to my eyes. “It’s nice to see you leading a team.”

I leaned back and looked at the dead TV screen again. Now, we were both reflecting against its shiny surface. I appeared much stiffer than Jace, who sprawled on the couch like he’d spent his whole life there. “Why do I feel like you’re backhanding me somehow?”

“Maybe because you expect it?” Jace proposed. “I’m just saying it like it is. You didn’t exactly have the makings of a leader back in the day.”

I looked at him straight in the eyes. “Let’s not talk about the past.” It was a place I had left a long time ago, and I didn’t want to go back.

“Why not?” Jace asked. “Plenty to find there.”

“You know why,” I said in a tone cold enough to settle the matter.

Jace cracked a smile and sighed contentedly. “Suit yourself, Captain.”

We sat in silence for a little while, Jace refusing to look for a topic other than the past. Later, when I went to bed, Jace remained in the living room. I heard him in the shower; I heard him in the kitchen. Dishes clinked when he prepared some food for himself. He sang while showering in a surprisingly clear tenor, much smoother and cleaner than his speaking voice.

When Jace retreated into his room— the spare room, not Jace’s—music slowly came through two doors. I had gone to bed a long time ago, but sleep wouldn’t come. Jace’s track was quickly followed by the distinct smell of weed, the melody of a winding, twisting road, and the electric guitar pierced the air as it entered the mix. Pink Floyd filled the silence. It was so unsurprisingly fitting that I rolled my eyes.

At some point, I drifted asleep, and the morning alarm arrived far too quickly. The anxiety that had left when the beer had filled my belly was back. Today was the day.

I got up, showered, ate, and left the apartment. Jace’s keys were already gone by then, and I wondered what he was up to.

As I descended the escalator into the Chicago underground, darkness and anxiety closed in on me. The sound of trains arriving and departing, screeching as they came to a halt, flooded my ears. My heart pounded as I saw enemies in every shadow and scowls on every face.

Every little nook seemed ideal for attackers to hide there.

I inhaled a deep breath of air and walked on. There was a sliver of peace I couldn’t let go. Somewhere, somehow, he was probably watching. For whatever reason, my once-upon-a-time brother was watching out for me.