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EIGHT

JACE

Another day went by, and I found myself a step closer to being back on the street. No matter. It was future Jace’s problem. Jace of the present was busy with bigger and better things than figuring out what to do in forty-eight hours. My immediate concern was adding butter to the mushrooms now that they had let out all the water.

Easton refused my money. I didn’t ask if he did so because he was worried about its origin or out of the goodness of his little heart, but I didn’t like owing people favors. Not even if the people in question were something like family.

I made myself chuckle.

Easton and I had never been anything more than two strangers crammed together into the same house. Our adoptive parents didn’t so much as double down after succeeding with one boy as they were disappointed and wanted a redo. Growing up, I had not been the most obedient of kids—and hell, telling me to turn right was the fastest way to see me swinging left, even to this day—so the Harpers wrinkled their noses, rolled their eyes, and adopted a sweet, timid boy to make up for the failure that I had always been.

I’d always known my days were numbered in that house.

I shook the ash off the tip of my cigarette, stuck it between my teeth, and lifted the pan off the gas stove. Mushrooms sizzled as I shook the pan and returned it to the stovetop. A few cloves of crushed garlic went in to get cozy with the mushrooms.

“What’s going on?” Easton called from the living room. He walked into the kitchen, a frown creasing his brow. He wore a pair of gray sweatpants and a sleeveless T-shirt that bared his muscled arms in a tantalizingly generous way. A duffel was hanging from his right shoulder.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” I said as I took the cigarette out of my mouth.

Easton looked at me in horror. “Put something on, for Christ’s sake.”

“I’m wearing an apron,” I said, stirring the mushrooms automatically and turning to Easton. I also had my underwear on, but I didn’t think Easton would appreciate hearing that.

“Where are your clothes?” Easton sighed.

I told him that I’d dropped some of it off to wash and that I very well wasn’t going to risk staining the only hoodie and pants that I still had.

Easton closed his eyes. “Is that even sanitary?”

I shrugged. “If it bothers you, order takeout.”

He scoffed and carried his duffel into his bedroom. He was gone for a few minutes while I prepared the rice and added white wine. When he appeared in the living room, he sat in the armchair rather than the couch where he usually crashed. From the chair, he had a nearly full view of the kitchen.

He thought he was being sneaky. All he did was annoy me. He’d been like this when we were teens, too. He could never stand to be around me if I undressed. Not after a shower, not by the pool, not on the lake. He would get all flustered, complain, and try to get me to put something on. It wasn’t like I was strolling around naked. But it made Easton blush, even if all I did was sunbathe. And when I refused, he would sulk at a distance, his gaze locked onto me like he could murder me with the power of his thoughts.

I finished cooking, put the food on plates, added some garnish, and carried the two plates into the living room. I set them on the coffee table while Easton looked away as if he hadn’t been feasting his eyes on my back and ass for the last ten minutes.

Before sitting down, I untied the apron and took it off. His gaze flicked to my torso as I lifted my pants from the couch. He wasn’t subtle at all. Those big, green eyes dragged over my stomach, lifted to my chest, scanned my tattoos, and dropped to my feet with a short rest stop on my crotch. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Can’t you read?” I asked, turning away from him to pick up my hoodie. The tattoo over the middle of my torso read, Son of God . I was fond of sacrilege.

“Ha-ha.” He leaned back, not expressing any further interest in my tattoos or my food. He was like that, my Easton. He needed to be goaded into eating his food.

I crashed on the couch and picked up my plate. “I made this for both of us.”

“Why?” Easton asked.

I grinned to myself and lifted a spoonful of creamy mushroom risotto with crispy pancetta and a sprinkle of basil. “Consider it my subtle commentary on your sad student diet.”

He shot me a deadpan look and lifted his plate. “Jace, you really don’t need to do me any more favors.”

“You don’t want to owe me,” I pointed out. “Fair enough. You never know when I might call in an old debt.”

Easton bit his lip hard and stared at the plate. He seemed hypnotized by what he saw or what he heard for a few heartbeats, then shook his head. “Whatever,” he said. “Dad will be here on Monday.”

And I would be gone if I knew what was good for me. “Dad,” I said, my voice so full of contempt that I almost didn’t recognize it. “After…” I trailed off, staring at Easton until he looked into my eyes. “Was he still the same to you?”

Easton looked at his plate and began eating. He chewed slowly, his eyes never leaving the sprinkling of basil on the risotto.

“He wasn’t, was he?” I pressed, losing my appetite. And I’d worked so hard to make this tasty. “See, I figured he would turn on you eventually. I wasn’t there to get all the blame.”

“Jace,” Easton said softly.

“What kind of a man is that?” I asked, setting my plate on the coffee table, no longer hungry. My stomach turned. “He’s a spineless slug, Easton. A bully. I’d love to see him try again. He wouldn’t last a goddamn second.”

Easton looked at me, his nose wrinkled and his eyes narrowed. His upper lip lifted in anger, and the tension made his muscles swell. He looked like he took good care to remain seated.

Kevin Harper couldn’t have children, although Ruthie wanted them so badly that she’d insisted on adoption. But neither of them knew the simplest truth of all. Loving a child that bore none of your genetic material required you not to be a selfish piece of shit. If you only loved that which was the extension of yourself, was that unconditional? It sounded pretty damn conditional to me. For Kevin and Ruthie, the learning of that lesson was slow going. They assumed that they’d simply picked the wrong kid. It couldn’t have been their fault that they’d brought home a boy so unlovable that their lives were almost ruined. Years went by, five of them to be exact, and the boy never earned their love, so they tried again.

“I guess, in comparison, you were such a nice improvement,” I said, my anger cooling off a little. “Finally, a kid that listened. They didn’t know, huh? They had no idea what it was like to grow up in a home with countless little orphans. If you don’t stay quiet and listen, you don’t last too long.”

Easton stared at his plate, no longer eating.

“But you take me out of the equation, and all that’s left is the same vast emptiness in their little hearts,” I mused. My words were making Easton’s cheeks turn red. I couldn’t rein them in. I couldn’t stop them. “Once a bully, always a bully.”

“And what were you in all of this?” Easton snapped, his head lifting furiously and his gaze meeting mine. “Just an innocent little kid, huh? Never did anything wrong in your whole life.” He scoffed and shook his head. “You were an ass from the moment I walked into that house.”

“Like you would have been any different,” I said. “Besides, you never gave me any reason to like you, Easton.”

“At least I didn’t torment you,” he spat back.

I barked out a laugh. “Didn’t? What planet are you on, for fuck’s sake? You tormented me every day we spent together. That whole last year, I couldn’t fucking think straight.”

Easton’s fury reached the point of boiling over. “Are you kidding me? You want to talk about the last year?”

“Why not? I remember every moment,” I said, my voice dropping to a dark monotone.

“No, Jace,” he said, taking control of his tone. “I’m done living in the past. It’s over. It’s behind us. You should get out of it, too.”

I picked up my plate and forced some food down my throat. It was a seriously good dish, but my enjoyment of it was dampened by the conversation. No matter. I ate my risotto and watched Easton lick his plate clean. Once he was finished, he got up with the plate in one hand. “Where did you learn to cook like this?” he asked.

I took his question as an offering of the olive branch. “Had to earn favors,” I said, cracking a smile. “It’s easier letting a friend stay at your place if he can whip up a nice meal.”

“Well,” Easton said and hesitated. He looked like he was about to say something nice to me, but the words were stuck in his throat. He simply nodded and then carried his plate into the kitchen.

I lit a cigarette and walked over to the window, opening it and leaning out to watch the passersby walking up and down the street. Part of me wanted to stay here and face the man who had once been my adoptive father. An infinitely more annoying part of me wished to stay here against all of Easton’s wishes just so I could watch him pout and flare whenever I struck a nerve. I wanted to see him flustered and flushed whenever I undressed, to see him get all worked up when I stood too close to him. I knew what he felt deep down and what he wanted. I wasn’t stupid; I knew what it was like to be slowly undressed by someone’s hungry gaze.

Over the years, I had stayed with friends and strangers, and a few of those had levied certain debts on me. Sometimes, cooking a meal wasn’t enough to earn a night under their roof. Sometimes, I needed to leave in the night because they misunderstood me. Oh, I liked sex. It was clear to everyone who laid their eyes on me that I liked it. Call it big dick energy or whatever else you want, but people picked up on it, and I knew that.

The trouble with people was that they somehow imagined I would give myself to just about anyone for the simple reason of liking sex.

But when Easton peeled off layers of my clothes with those sad, mossy eyes, it was a pleasure. It was as much a pleasure as laying my gaze on him and dreaming up a moment when he took the edge of his T-shirt, lifted it over his head, and looked into my eyes as if to dare me to step closer.

He still irked me to hell. He still had that incredible pull, the kind a mouse must have toward a cat. I wanted to be near him, to toy with him, to bring him to his knees.

I squeezed my eyes shut and let these thoughts pass through me.

I didn’t have too much time left before we needed to renegotiate our little agreement.