Page 34

LOGAN

I ’d shifted in my sleep and ended up pressed against Dean, his head tucked between my shoulder blades, completely unaware. I inhaled a shaky breath and held the monstrous feelings at bay, slipping out of his hold without waking him up.

I made it to the bathroom without breaking down, but the second the door clicked shut, I was hunched over the toilet, emptying my stomach in violent heaves. I tried to count myself down, but couldn’t get past seven before more nausea hit.

I collapsed against the wall ten minutes later, just wading through a waking nightmare. I wanted to be close to Dean so badly that even in sleep, I reached for him—but someone’s touch still sent rage spiraling through me. It was hard to imagine ever being okay to the point that I could be normal with him.

What are we?

I wanted to say nothing because I couldn’t even bring myself to lie next to him without having the nasty thoughts creep in. But I was trying, and until I could trust my own mind, trying was all I could offer him. I also wanted to say something, because the lines that had once been drawn were fading, and with every day close to Dean Tucker, I found myself closing the gap between us. I wanted to be something , but how did I do that without breaking both of us more than we already were? I couldn’t promise him that we, together , would fix anything. I had slept with people before, drunk and unbothered, but never…

I’d never crossed the line into intimacy while sober.

I wasn’t even sure I could bring myself to do it. But there had never been an urge to do it until Dean. I wanted to feel him, to be surrounded by him. Engulfed in him. And that fact alone made me sick to my stomach.

The door to the bathroom opened, and I reached out to push it closed again, but Dean slipped in, his eyes squinting from the light. "Your phone was ringing.”

Mom’s name flashed across the screen, and I groaned, setting the phone on the floor. Perfect.

I buckled down, ignoring the nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach and pushed off the floor to answer it. Dean stepped back, leaning against the counter to give me space. His blond curls were stuck to his forehead and he barely looked awake as I hit answer.

“Hey,” I said.

“ Where are you?” Mom asked. “You’re not in your room!”

“Yeah, Mom, I don’t live there anymore, remember?” I said with a low groan. “Why were you looking for me?”

“ You weren’t in your room, Joshua. I told you to stay in your room.” She repeated herself, and I could hear her banging around on the other end.

“Mom, you called me, do you remember why?” I asked her. Dean watched my every move as I sank to the side of the tub and ran my hand through my hair.

In her drugged-up state, she flip-flopped between past and present. In her mind, I was still ten years old some days, unable to make the connection to her timeline when she was so worked up. When she didn’t answer, I asked her again why she called, but that time she just hung up on me.

I tossed the phone on the bathroom floor and shut my eyes. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Dean, not at that moment. The judgment in his sea-glass eyes would eat through my defenses like acid.

“Is she okay?” He asked after a beat of silence. He stared at me like he wanted to ask if I was okay, but he knew that the answer was moot.

“She’s never okay,” I chuckled, a hollow, breathy sound that came out of the depths of my defeat. “Do you think I could borrow your keys? I can’t leave her like that.”

“Let me get dressed,” Dean said, with a shake of his head as he started out of the bathroom.

“Just give me your keys, Tuck.” I followed after him, the vomit taste still lingering in my mouth as we made our way back to the room.

He was digging in his closet when I got inside and shut the door behind me. "Tucker!” I hollered, but he didn’t listen. He only turned around as he tugged the hoodie down over his head.

“Get dressed,” he said, like it wasn’t an argument to begin with as he pushed his feet into a pair of sneakers.

“Just stop for a second,” I demanded, and he stopped fidgeting with his shoe laces to look up at me. “I don’t need to be babysat,” I said to him.

“You can fill the gas tank.” Dean offered me a soft smile and pissed me off. He was bargaining with me, trying to make it feel like this wasn’t a favor but an exchange.

“I don’t want to fill the tank, I want you to stop whatever the hell this is and just let me go deal with her quietly.” I slammed the door behind me.

"I can be quiet." Dean stood off the bed, his size doubling mine. "You aren’t doing this alone, so please stop arguing with me and let's go. We have practice this afternoon. We need to be back for it.”

I sighed, there was no way I was going to win the argument. He was set on helping me with my mom and as much as I hated the idea of bringing anyone back into that apartment. He continued to stare at me, waiting patiently for me to make up my mind. I shook my head, grabbed my hoodie and admitted defeat.

“Good.” He nodded and tossed a hat over his hair.

I knocked on the door, but she didn’t answer right away, so I started to pull out my keys. Dean leaned on the wall beside the frame, staring down at the dingy glass panes at the other end of the narrow space. His jaw was tight, and it was clear that he hated being here.

I wanted to say I hated bringing him here—but that would imply we were something, and I was still clinging to the facade that we weren’t.

Just as I went to shove the key in the lock, the door opened. My mom’s hair was messy and pulled into a thin bun at the back of her head. She looked like she hadn’t slept in weeks, dressed in a flimsy satin tank and ratty pajama pants that cut off above her skinny ankles.

“Where have you been?” She said, walking away from the door in a huff. She stumbled and knocked over a pile of magazines and cans that toppled to the floor.

I looked back at Dean as I wandered into the living room, but his eyes were on the door at the end of the hallway. I could barely bring myself to look at it without hearing the screams that echoed from inside. I swallowed down the anger and tried to focus on my mom, who was wound up and screaming.

“Calm down.” I put my hands out to stop her and when she touched me I suppressed the hiss that bubbled from me. “Sit down,” I instructed her and it took her a moment but eventually she listened and settled to the couch. “What is going on?”

Mom looked up from her lap with tears in her eyes, and it wasn’t something new. She typically liked to weaponize her sadness to get her way. I was ashamed to say it worked more often than not. I took a deep breath upon seeing her face, and tried to focus on her instead of Dean. He was standing off to the side, minding his business, but his presence gave me a new confidence that I hadn’t felt before. Almost like because I wasn’t alone with her, she couldn’t do anything nearly as bad as she used to. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t try—but now I had someone to fall back on if she did.

“I can’t pay rent, and I got fired,” she said in a repetition of mumbled words, over and over until I pieced it together enough to understand what she was saying.

“How did you get fired?” I asked her, the last I heard, she was working down on Fifteenth as a waitress. And I asked her, but I knew the answer before she even opened her mouth to explain. And, as expected, it was a string of excuses that didn’t make sense, and the reality was she got high, probably missed her shift and got fired the next time she actually did show up.

Mom avoided answering and instead turned her sights on me again. “You can pay the rent until I can get it covered, can’t you?” She asked.

“I don’t know, Mom,” I answered honestly. “Everything is a little tight right now, and paying rent wasn’t really exactly in the plans for this month.” I kept my voice low, just trying to avoid Dean hearing every single tidbit about my life as he found a space to stand that didn’t disturb anything.

“What do you mean you can’t?” She hissed. “You don’t want to take care of your mom anymore? Do you hate me now?” Her voice started to get louder, and there was very little I could do to stop her as she wound herself up again. “I knew you going to that school would screw everything up. They’re poisoning you. Soon you won’t even visit anymore.”

“Mom, it has nothing to do with that. I’m an adult. I went to school to get a better job so I could take care of you,” I snapped. The reality was I was just telling her what she wanted to hear, not the actual truth. I wanted out of here, as far away from her as possible.

“You did this to hurt me.” She shot up from her position, knocking me backwards and started to pace. “Is it because of them?” She whipped around and looked at me, her head was limp on her shoulders, and her body was trembling.

“Mom,” I tried to get her to calm down before she said something I had to explain, but I was too slow. The thought process was already completed, and I had no control over the situation.

“It’s your father, he’s in your head, he got under your skin!” She stepped forward and reached out to scratch me, but I was faster and stepped back from her.

“That’s enough, it has nothing to do with that. I don’t have the money to give you,” I attempted the explanation again but she wasn’t hearing anything I said anymore.

“It has everything to do with them! The Shores ruin everything they touch, you were ruined the day you were born!” She hissed and tried to lunge at me again. “Why don’t you just ask them for money? They’re swimming in it!”

Fuck.

“Mom,” I barked, louder than usual, and her whole body seized up at the demand. “Enough, there’s no money to give.”

“You aren’t my son,” she whispered. “You’re what they want you to be. You’ve fallen so far, such a disappointment. I should have known you’d grow up to be just like him. ” She started rambling again, retreating into the back rooms and slamming the door behind her.

I kept my back to Dean, knowing the minute I turned around, he would question everything that had just been brought up. My skin was crawling from her touch as I ran my hands over my face and tried to sort through my thoughts. She had outed me in front of Dean, and now there was no way around telling him the actual secrets. All this time, he’d thought it was just a bad home life—he never pieced together that Silas and I were half brothers, that Shore blood ran in my veins.

“Josh,” his voice was quiet but closer than I expected as I turned around to finally face him. I didn’t know why it was so hard to meet his eyes. I had never been ashamed up to that point, only angry and resentful. But with Dean, I was scared, embarrassed, maybe? Of who I was, guilt racked me for keeping it from him.

I expected him to start yelling or bombarding me with questions but his hand reached out and before he could touch me, he stopped himself. “She got you,” he murmured, and I looked down at the angry red scratches on my forearm. I hadn’t even felt her nails in my skin, too worried over what was being said.

“It’s fine.” I stepped back from him and swallowed tightly. She had done worse before. “About what she said…”

Dean shook his head.

“Not here.” He stepped aside to give me room to walk toward the door, guarding my back, even if that wasn’t his intention. I looked over my shoulder, feeling guilty for leaving her like that, but there wasn’t much more I could do for her right now. She was too worked up. She would just have to stay angry with me.