Page 20

Rafael

Rowan knew how to throw a rager. Theo said the guys on the team and hot chicks from their school would be at the party. It seemed like a hell of a lot more than that. Every single room was wall-to-wall people. This wasn’t a house party; it was a house festival. It was like the Lollapalooza of house parties.

It felt good to get out. Cody’s house was like an homage to Antiques Roadshow. Jill had filled that place with more useless bullshit than you could imagine. I wasn’t used to warm, homey clutter. I grew up in cold, sterile wealth, which was the vibe Rowan’s pad was giving off. It felt familiar.

I sauntered onto the patio because the music inside was deafening. My ears needed a break.

Theo sat in the Jacuzzi with three girls surrounding him. “Rafael! Get naked and dip into this clam chowder with me, fucker!”

That is the most disgusting thing anyone has ever said. “I’m good, big guy! Have fun.”

“Come on, you pussy! Asher is being a bitch and Cody is no fun!”

Hmm, where is my uptight little good boy, anyway?

I scanned the scene, looking for Cody. No dice. I walked back inside to take a piss and passed a giant, homemade “off-limits” sign taped to the door. If I knew Cody, he was diligently avoiding having fun. The chances of his being in the one room where he could be completely alone were about ninety-nine percent.

I tore down the sign and opened the French doors leading to their conservatory.

Okay, you know someone has money when they have an actual fucking conservatory. Even the rich dicks in Connecticut didn’t have this shit.

I was met with a vast array of flora. The steamy windows blurred the revelry outside, and the air smelled delicious.

As predicted, Cody sat alone, reading what appeared to be a book about plants.

Good God, this kid . “Cody! What the fuck are you doing in here?”

He jumped out of his seat, slamming the book as he did. “Nothing. I was just…I needed…”

“You don’t like parties,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

He looked at the ground and shook his head.

“Why?” I asked.

He looked up at me, his eyes big and vulnerable. No matter where Cody went, the light found him. The glaring lights illuminating the patio shimmered through the foggy windows, forming a halo of light surrounding his entire body.

“They’re just not my thing,” he replied.

“Why?” I asked again.

He rolled his eyes and protested as I closed the distance between us. “I don’t know, I just don’t—”

I snatched him by the chin and pulled him in. “Be a good boy, and tell me why. The real reason.”

Cody’s breath hitched. His hands rose and wrapped around my wrists. I thought he’d pull away, but he didn’t. He just pressed his hands against mine, holding them in place.

“I don’t want to be like him.”

I had no idea what he was talking about. I cocked my head and asked, “Who?”

His cheeks flushed as he forced out the words. “My dad. My real dad. I don’t want to turn into him. He was a drunk, and he ruined our lives.”

I didn’t know much about Cody’s life before Hank because I was too busy hating him. I could tell he was revealing something important to me. Something that would give me insight into the little ball of nerves that my stepbrother had become. Color me intrigued. “What happened?”

Cody fidgeted with his shirt, yanking the bottom as he rocked on his feet. “He was a drunk. Gambled away everything we owned and left us with nothing. We lost our house. Everything. So, yeah, I don’t want to be like that, and I’m afraid if I start drinking, I won’t stop. Like him.”

His eyes looked up at me, and, in that moment, he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. With the light cascading around him and his brown eyes big and vulnerable, I nearly kissed him.

Something snapped in me when he said that. A sudden understanding washed over me as I looked at a boy who had to deal with too much too soon.

They lost everything? His dad abandoned them?

I stared into his eyes and said, “You are not him, Cody. You could never be like that. You’re too good.”

That one shocked him. I could see in his face that he didn’t know how to take it. I’d spewed too much venom at Cody for him to take anything I said as genuine, but I truly meant it.

“You don’t have to drink,” I told him. “You can just hang out—dance around and have fun, you know?”

He shook his head. “I hate being the only sober one. Drunk people are annoying when you’re sober.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. He had a point—not that I knew what that felt like. I was usually the drunkest one at the party. I realized that I’d only had a couple of shots at Asher’s. I wasn’t about to drink the swill in that punch bowl of poison in the kitchen and hadn’t sipped my rum in a hot minute.

“I’ll stop drinking for the rest of the night if you come out and have fun.”

His eyes grew the size of two full moons. “What?”

I shrugged it off because I didn’t want to make a big deal out of me being nice for a change. Don’t get used to it, Golden Boy. “I’m basically sober. Those shots at Asher’s did nothing to me. I’ll stop drinking now, and you won’t be the only sober person here.”

Cody’s look of bafflement made me chuckle. To be quite honest, I was shocking myself with this newfound generosity, but something about parents fucking up their kids got to me.

I wonder why that is?

He didn’t deserve to be alone, reading about fucking horticulture, while the assholes outside were having the time of their lives.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked.

Why was I doing it? Ugh, feelings. I didn’t like them, and didn’t care to talk about them. My habit in life was to cover them up with sardonic wit and illegal substances.

So, I leaned closer to him and whispered, “Because I wanna see you shake your big delicious ass on the dance floor.”

That one got him. His guffaw filled the room, bouncing off the glass enclosure. I grabbed him by the arm, “Let’s go,” and yanked him back into the house.

***

The party was in full force. Rowan’s living room felt like a fucking rave. Not a soul in the house wasn’t completely wrecked, except for Cody and me. I had to hand it to him, the boy had moves, and, yes, his ass looked amazing as he bounced it around when cheesy rap songs from the nineties came on. He looked like he was in heaven. I knew he would. The fucking boy scout needed to let loose. He needed to be a teenager for a change.

He needed to be bent over Rowan’s pool table with me railing him from behind.

Shit. I wasn’t even drunk, and I could barely stop myself from grabbing the back of Cody’s head and smashing his lips into mine. That wasn’t a good idea for the current environment, but I couldn’t stop looking at him. Every so often, I caught him glancing at me. He’d look away quickly, his cheeks turning the color of the plastic red cups everyone held. I hated how much I loved his face when he got embarrassed. The flush of his cheeks was my kryptonite.

I needed a distraction. I couldn’t kiss Cody in front of the hockey team.

Fuck the idea of two dudes kissing, I didn’t care if people gave a shit about my sexuality. But we were stepbrothers. That’s scandalous, no matter how you cut it.

A girl who’d been eyeing me sauntered over, and I wrapped my arm around her.

She turned around and pressed her ass against my dick. I thrust into her as I kissed her shoulder.

She looked back and said, “Mmm, you keep doing that, and we might need to find an empty bedroom.”

“Oh, yeah?” I turned her to face me, kissed her between her neck and shoulder, and slowly worked my way up. She let out a soft mewl, and I knew I had her.

She gripped the sides of my face and said, “Kiss me.”

Our lips connected, we kissed like we were suffocating, and the only air was in each other’s mouths. I could feel people taking notice.

Good. I needed to keep cool. Cody was making me gush like a fucking goon, and I needed to pump the breaks before I did something stupid.

The kissing finished, and I saw Cody rushing into the kitchen.

Aw, fuck .

Cody

So, that’s what it was all about. Rafael didn’t care about me—he wanted to show me who had the power. He did something he knew would make my heart swell, and then stuck a knife in it by making out with someone else.

He played me like a goddamn fool. Rafael knew precisely how to behave to make me let my guard down. He had to have known how good it would feel to have someone sober at the party with me—someone who understood.

I loved having fun with Rafael. That’s all I wanted. We were acting like idiots and goofing off. We seemed like friends, but occasionally, we’d look at each other, knowing that we had a secret that was ours. My heart could barely fit in my chest. I loved feeling that way with Rafael. I loved feeling like I belonged, and he was by my side, cheering me on rather than being awful and cruel.

Then, he started kissing that girl. It crushed me. The sting of his cruelty was tearing me to pieces. I wanted to jump into the pool and drown. It would have been better than Rafael ripping my heart out and putting it in a blender.

“Hi.”

I looked over and a guy I’d never seen stood by the punch bowl. He wore a backwards Red Sox cap and a loose-fitting black button-down shirt, completely open, with a beater underneath. My eyes caught the chain around his neck, then trailed down to see the chest hair escaping from the top of his shirt.

His green eyes surveyed me, and he bit his lower lip.

“H-hi,” I responded.

“You alright? You looked kind of upset there.”

I shook my head, trying to snap myself back into the present moment and away from my misery spiral. “I am, yeah—I’m just tired. Dancing too much, I guess.”

He nodded and smiled. “Yeah, I saw you in there. You’ve got some moves, babe.”

Babe?

I tried to laugh, but it came out as a snort, and I hated that I did it immediately. “I don’t even know what I was doing there. I don’t usually party.”

“Same. I’m DD tonight. I came with my friends, but I can’t find them. I think they found people to hook up with. Upstairs is like a full-blown orgy right now.”

I couldn’t deny how incredibly sexy it was knowing he was sober, too. “I’m DD too.”

He laughed. “So, that was you dancing completely sober?”

God, I must have looked like such an idiot. I rubbed my neck, my face no doubt blushing from my embarrassment. “Yeah, I was sober. Considering what a fool I was in there, I know it’s shocking.”

“Not at all,” he corrected. “It’s way sexier seeing someone who can let loose like that without booze. You seem like a lot of fun.”

Sexy? Oh wow. Am I…am I getting hit on?

“I’m from Dobbs Ferry,” he added. “You live around here?”

I nodded and he said, “Look, I don’t know you, and you might not be into this, so, if you’re not, please just take it as the compliment I’d like it to be and not some thing , but you’re really cute.”

Holy shit, I am getting hit on!

I must have swallowed a hundred butterflies before the party, because they decided to take flight in my stomach at that moment.

Rafael who? He wanted to make me jealous? He wanted to show me he was in charge by dragging me through his fucking games?

Well, fuck that douchebag and his games and his toxic personality. Who needed it when a gorgeous guy called you cute?

“You’re really cute, too,” I added.

“Yeah?”

“Mmhmm.”

He bit his lower lip again, a move I grew increasingly fond of. He had a sexy lower lip too—I wanted to bite on it.

Fuck, I’m turning into such a dick slut. I didn’t even know I was into dicks three weeks ago.

My sexuality had never been a thing I’d thought about. I liked girls because that’s what you did, you know? But, when I experienced the joy of having a dick in my mouth, I realized I had a lot more of myself to explore.

Speaking of dicks in my mouth.

“Wanna head out and talk? I’m not really a party guy anyway.” I knew I was being forward, but I was extremely attracted to this man. I also wanted to forget the asshole in the next room.

He smirked, and I nearly died. “I was actually gonna ask if you wanted to go for a drive and get some fresh air.”

Apparently, I had a thing for bad boys with baseball caps because I was about to bolt to the front door with…wow, didn’t even get his name.

“I’m into that. I’m Cody, by the way.”

“Ross.”

Mmm, okay, Ross. I liked that. “Your friends will be okay?”

He shrugged and said, “I have no idea where they are, but they have my number if they need me.”

I wanted to leave, and I wanted Ross to take me. I’d played it safe all my life.

It was time for me to have a little fun.

“Okay. Let’s get out of here.”