“I was afraid you wouldn’t come.” He won’t meet my gaze, but it’s the raw admission of the boy I left behind. I can’t touch him. He’s still as far away as he’s ever been, small and empty behind the plastic screen. But his voice. His voice is real.
“I came.” Did I come because I was alone and out of options? Or because I love my brother, even after all the shit? I think of Gia and Lyot, waiting in a hotel room when I haven’t even sent a single response. Is that what love is? Showing up even when it seems hopeless? Does it still count when it feels more like running away?
I tell him the lawyer is pushing for rehab, six months inpatient, in place of jail or probation. I tell him I think he should try it, and he starts to cry.
“I’m sorry I’m so broken,” he whispers into the black impersonal handset.
I’m sorry too.But I’m not sure I believe in broken anymore.
“We’re not broken,” I tell him. “But we’ve both been making really shitty choices for a long time. We need to start making better ones.”
I tell him I’ll see him again soon, and that I’ll be at his sentencing. I tell him I love him. And then I leave to go find my better choices.
I should call first and give them some warning, but I am theirfucking sadistafter all. Feeling reckless, I blow another forty dollars on an actual taxi, the kind that still takes cash. The driver drops me at a basic two-star off the 101, and I stand outside for ten minutes, scrolling through the messages I’ve already read a hundred times. Lyot’s—pissed, and by turns scathing and pleading. Gia’s—tentative at first, growing sad and worried. And her final message:
Days Inn on Bernal. Rm. 218. We’re gonna try to get some sleep. Please call.
I have no idea what I’m walking into, but my legs carry me through the lobby and up the stairs, and I don’t stop to think anymore. I knock on the door and wait for my future to answer.
43
Gale
Lyot opens the door.
He looks like shit, his dark curls sticking up in all directions and shadows of exhaustion under his eyes.
He looks beautiful.
I take in Gia behind him, sitting on the unmade bed, radiant as ever in a rumpled cami top and a messy bun, the sheets tangled around her crossed legs. They’re staring at me like I’m a mirage, and I start to smile, because they are both so blazingly, immediatelyreal.
The next thing I know, Lyot is grabbing my arm and slamming me into the wall. I have enough reflex to keep my face from connecting with the tacky wallpaper, and then his whole body is pressed against my back, pinning me. With my head turned to the side, I find Gia watching us curiously.
Maybe smiling was a bad idea.
Maybe I deserve this, but when no one says anything, I decide I’ve had enough. Sure, I came here to apologize, but at least I can do it facing them like a man. Lyot might be taller than me, but I have two years and twenty pounds of muscle on him.As soon as I coil to push back, however, he sinks his fucking teeth into the back of my neck like a goddamn animal, frying all my circuits. I open my mouth, but before my brain can piece together anything to say, he’s growling in my ear.
“Don’t fucking push me, asshole. All I want to do right now is fuck you until you can’t feel your legs so you can never run away from us again.”
A tremor runs through my body, relief and anticipation and a hint of fear.
“Okay, pretty boy. But maybe you should let me apologize to Smalls about the rest of it first?”
He vibrates against me, but he lets me go, and I walk to Gia. A thousand images fly through my mind as I look down at her upturned face. I want to put my hands in her hair and invade her mouth. I want to bruise her cupid lips with my cock. I want to spread her out and run my tongue over every curve and freckle, and then fuck her hard into the mess of sheets.
I want everything.
She reads me like she always does, the flush rising from her breasts, but her eyes narrow and she opens her mouth, so I do the only possible thing. I fall to my knees at the edge of the bed and grovel.
“I’m an asshole and an idiot. And I’m so,sosorry, Smalls.” I lay my open palms between us and wait for her to take me back.
“Did that hurt?” She tilts her head, studying me.
“Easiest words I’ve ever said. And I fucking meant them. Please let me mean them.”
She lays her fingers over mine.
“I’m sorry too,” she says.
