Page 32

Rafael

Sue’s A-frame cabin in the Catskills looked like a relic from the 1970s, and the interior confirmed as much. The old, wooden paneling that covered the walls looked weathered with time, and the bright orange linoleum floor had big patches missing. Even the sofa, also a disgusting orange and brown color, looked about thirty years old. The entire place was like a time capsule. Thank God there was a shitty window AC unit.

It also had one fucking bedroom. One. Bedroom. This bitch. She knew what she was doing. I threw my bag on the ground and sat on the sofa, scrubbing my hands over my face. “Does this thing pull out at least?”

She didn’t even look at me while she said, “Nope.”

“Great. I’ll be sending you my chiropractor bill,” I told her. That one got a look from Cody, so I added, “I’m sleeping here.”

His eyes widened, and the flush on his cheeks turned a dark red. Yes, I knew what he wanted. He wanted me in that bed with him. He wanted this to be our big reconciliation trip, but it wasn’t fucking happening.

“I’m going to grab food from the local grocery store. I’ll be back in thirty.”

Sue left and the two of us just stared at each other before Cody asked, “Are you going to be a huge dick the whole time?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I would say most likely.”

Cody’s face confused me. I expected hurt or indignation, but, instead, he just cocked a brow and nodded before grabbing his bag and making his way to the tiny bedroom upstairs.

I kicked off my shoes and lay down on the sofa. If this were going to be my bed for the next week, I would need to get used to it.

With my Yankees cap over my face, I made up my mind to have a nice nap in this boiling, hot cabin that was muggier than my nutsack after a game.

Just as I was about to fall into the lovely embrace of a peaceful slumber, Cody came barreling down the stairs, jolting me awake. A spraying sound piqued my interest, so I lifted my cap to see that little fucker wearing a bright red speedo and spraying his body with sun lotion.

Did he get his fuck-me-trunks in a pack of thirty or something?

He looked at me and said, “Get my back.”

“You’re doing this on purpose. It’s childish,” I replied.

“No, getting sun poisoning because I’m too nervous to ask you to get my back is childish. You refusing to do it because you think this is some game is just shitty. If you won’t talk to me, I will enjoy myself outside. The last thing I want to do is sit in this hot cabin.”

Brat. Such a fucking brat.

I mumbled some sort of shitty retort then rose to my feet. I snatched the lotion from the wannabe porn star, and the scent of it smacked me right in the face.

“What the fuck is this smell?” I asked.

“Banana,” Cody replied.

Banana. Tease. I’ll give you a fuckin’ banana, bitch.

“You would,” I muttered.

“Fuck off,” he spat out.

Oh, you little brat. I’m gonna tie you up and fuck you so rough and hard you won’t be able to s—

No! Fuck. I needed to control myself. I couldn’t fall into Cody’s booty trap. He looked fucking amazing in that red speedo, and he knew it. The globes of his ass peeked out the top of his swimming suit. My mouth started watering, and the impulse to fall to my knees and gnaw on that ass was palpable.

The cabin’s heat made me lightheaded, and the light shining through the window glistened off Cody’s lathered skin. The smell of banana permeated the space and it made me want to whip out my cock and slide it into his perfect ass hiding under that obscene speedo.

“You done yet?” he snapped.

I shook my head, re-orienting myself to reality having fallen into a fantasy where Cody was tied to a tree, blindfolded, and I was nailing him into the trunk like a fucking wood pecker.

“Yeah…” I replied.

“Good.” He snatched the towel he’d brought from the bedroom and went outside. Draping it on the grass, he lay on his stomach, basking in the sun on his beautiful back.

Brat.

Sue walked in a moment later. “All right! This should get you boys through the week.” She set several brown paper bags filled with groceries on the little wooden table. “I’ll let you put those away.” She said.

Jesus. Anything else you need me to do, ma’am?

She stood across from me with her arms folded over her chest. “Gimme your duffle.” She demanded.

“What? Why?” I asked.

She huffed a breath, and I swear to God, smoke from the nine thousand Virginia Slims she chain-smoked in the car shot out of her nose. Her eyes trailed the cabin. She spotted my black duffle on the ground and made a beeline for it.

I tried to outrun her, but she was closer and snatched it. She opened the zipper and started rummaging through it.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I shouted. “This is my bag. That’s my shit. Get off it.”

Sue took out the bottle of Smirnoff I had in there. “Don’t,” I begged. “Don’t fucking take that or I swear to God I’ll do something. I’ll tear this place apart—light it on fire and burn it to the ground.”

“Be my guest. Just know that if you harm a hair on his head, I’ll kill you. Slowly. Painfully. And just as you’re about to die, I’ll revive you and slowly kill you all over again. I’ll do it for days, Rafael. I don’t give a shit about this place. It reminds me of one of my many shitty ex-husbands. But just know that if anything, and I mean anything, happens to him, you will not last long in this world.” Her voice seeped into my skin, making me shiver. Her breath was a combination of smoke and Juicy Fruit gum. It was a terrifying aroma.

Sue smiled, her smoke-stained teeth glistening in the sun shining through the dirty cabin windows. “You’re not getting drunk during this week. You’re going to deal with whatever the fuck is happening sober. End of discussion.”

With that, she turned around, Smirnoff in hand, and left the cabin. A moment later, she came back in, “Oh, and don’t even think about trying to get more. Good luck getting cell reception out here. You’ll need to use the landline if you want to make any calls, and I already told my nosy neighbor from across the way to keep an eye on you. She’s old and bored, and you two ain’t too shabby to look at, so I know she’ll be quite invested in the goings on here. Cody knows my number, in case you need me. You won’t have a car either.” She winked at me then added, “Good luck, kiddo.” ?

Cody

The burger patties sizzled in the hot skillet. Sue bought the kind of food you’d expect at a camping trip. Aside from breakfast, every meal planned for the rest of the week would come on a bun. There were even ingredients for s’mores. It was cute, but my goal was to make things far less G-rated.

Rafael hadn’t moved from the sofa in hours. I baked in the blazing hot sun, waiting for him to grab a towel and lie beside me. He didn’t.

When I finally needed a break and came back inside, Rafael told me that Sue had taken his booze.

That was the last thing he said to me before he took a nap on the couch. He looked furious. I’m not sure if I would have encouraged Sue to do that. Was it the right thing to do? Absolutely. Rafael was on his way to becoming a major alcoholic if someone didn’t intervene, but I wasn’t sure that ripping the band-aid off and letting him detox in the middle of the woods was the right approach.

The cabin had no microwave, so I baked the fries in the oven. I didn’t know if Rafael liked tomatoes, but I did, so I sliced one up as I monitored the burgers. The produce up here was always great. It came from nearby farms, and I loved feeling the crisp lettuce—

“Jesus fuck, Cody!”

Rafael woke up to find me completely naked aside from my apron. Did I forget to mention that detail? Whoops.

“I’m done.” Rafael hopped to his feet and paced about the room. “I’m done playing these fucking games. Go upstairs and put some clothes on.”

I continued carefully slicing the tomato as I replied, “I’m on vacation, and if I want to cook naked, then I will.”

Rafael approached. I didn’t turn around, but I could feel his presence looming over me. “No. No, you’re not doing this to relax or whatever the fuck reason you’re giving me. You’re doing this on purpose—to torture me.”

I turned around with the tomato slices on a plate and handed them to Rafael. “Put those on the table.”

He looked at it like he’d never seen a fucking tomato before. “What?” he asked.

“I’m making dinner. Do something useful instead of bitching and moaning for once in your life.”

Rafael’s eyes widened, and his jaw clenched.

Good. I wanted to piss him off. Pissed off Rafael was better than a Rafael resigned to a life of solitude and sadness. I’d get him good and mad and he’d bend me over this counter and fuck me through the wall.

I continued my assault on his dignity, “And you’ve got some fucking nerve assuming this is all for you. Maybe I like cooking naked. Maybe I just like being naked.”

Rafael tossed the plate on the table, causing a racket. “I’m not stupid, Cody. This is because of me.”

“Again, there’s that ego.”

He whipped his hands out to his sides and asked, “Why are you never naked at home if you’re such a staunch nudist?”

“Maybe I never had the opportunity with Hank and Mom around. It’s not exactly normal walking around naked in front of Mom and her new husband.”

“Oh,” he folded his arms over his chest and added, “and it’s completely normal to do that around your stepbrother?”

“I don’t know. Is it normal pressing your foot into your stepbrother’s dick while your parents sit on either side of you at the dinner table?”

The scowl he gave me could have frozen hell. “You’re such a brat,” he retorted.

“And you’re such a dick,” I spat back.

Those piercing blue eyes narrowed, and he clenched his hands into fists. “Put on some clothes, Cody.”

I turned off the heat under the burgers and closed the distance between us. “Make me,” I whispered.

Rafael looked like steam was about to shoot from his ears. I loved it when he got mad. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You want me to get rough with you, huh?”

“You sure talk a big game for someone who lost the last fight we had.”

“What?” His voice bellowed, echoing off the wooden paneling. “I didn’t fucking lose. You lost.”

“Like, hell, I lost. You know I whooped your ass.”

Rafael grabbed me by the arms and hissed, “Take off this fucking apron.”

I looked him dead in the eyes and whispered back, “Make. Me.”

An animalistic snarl left his mouth as he grabbed me by the hair and dragged me up the stairs. He tossed me on the bed and roared, “You better have brought lube.”

I reached into the bedside drawer, pulled out the bottle, and set it on the nightstand.

“Good boy,” he mused, and damn if I didn’t get hard the minute he said those two words.

I ripped off the apron and was on all fours in a flash. I positioned the pillow to bite into it when he owned me.

He slid his shirt over his head and tossed it to the ground. His pants and underwear hit the floor, and he started crawling toward me. I turned to grab the lube to hand it to him, and when I did, he didn’t take it.

He looked at it, then at me. Our eyes met, and he shook his head. “I’m going for a walk.”

My breath hitched, and a chill traveled down my back. “What?”

Rafael stood at the foot of the bed, putting his clothes back on. “I’m not playing your game.”

My eyes burned, and that cold chill morphed into hot humiliation. “Rafael. If you do this, you will hurt me so much that I don’t know if I’ll be able to come back from it.”

He paused and looked at the floor. His body shifted, and I thought he might change his mind, but he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “It would hurt worse later.”

Then he walked downstairs.

Time stopped. The shock and rage that wrestled within put me in such a state that I couldn’t feel anything. Numbness took over.

I pulled the sheets up to cover my naked body.

I didn’t cry. No, I wouldn’t do that. I wasn’t going to shed one more tear for that heartless son of a bitch.

That was it—the last straw. If his goal was to push me away, he succeeded.

The numbness sank deep into my soul as I pressed my head to the pillow.

I told myself to sleep. Tomorrow, I’d train myself to extinguish whatever feelings I’d developed for him. In time, I’d feel nothing for him. He’d mean nothing to me.

And he’ll regret it.