16. Cole

I’m not a vulnerable person. Even when I was a kid and I watched havoc rain down on my life every single hour, I held myself together.

Letting someone else into my headspace when it’s like a wrecked fucking battlefield with debris and blood and horror, is not something I can do. Even when I was all for being with Allie, I couldn’t let her in. She still doesn’t know much about my past. Just the little tidbits I’ve shared when I was drunk and needed someone to talk to. There’s never been a reason to tell the people around me. Mom knows, and she’s the only person who needs to know. She witnessed most of it, after all.

She told Blaise’s dad, who most definitely told his son, maybe as a heads up on having a fucked-up stepbrother, going on the words he threw at me at the cabin. I need to lower my walls down and let people in.

Why? What good does that do to let others see my different shades of messy bullshit? For them to know everything my own piece-of-shit father did to me?

The thought alone has my leg itchy, making me shift uncomfortably in my seat while I drive us home from the airport in the middle of the night.

Blaise is the passenger for once – he usually sits in the back – and Mia is asleep in the backseat, with a blanket wrapped around her that her ever-loving boyfriend threw over her. He cares about her, that much is obvious, and it fucking annoys me. And it annoys me that it annoys me.

I want to break his hands when he touches her. When he kisses her, I’ll know it’s the same set of lips that softly brushed mine before I took too long to pull back and got the fuck away from him.

My fingers tighten on the wheel when he glances over his shoulder to check on her, then sighs and slouches in the seat. His eyes go to his phone screen, lighting up the contours of his face, and when he flicks his eyes to me, I quickly look away.

Sebastian Paul plays on the radio, filling the intense, awkward silence – but it isn’t drowning out the fucking thoughts in my head. The voices. The taunting. The fucking⁠—

“Did Allie really steal your sweater?”

I glance at him. “Yeah,” I reply, rapidly tapping my forefinger on the wheel. “She sprayed her perfume all over my clothes too.”

He flattens his lips in an attempt to stop himself from laughing, and I shake my head, rolling my eyes as I give the road my attention.

“Stop talking to me like we’re friends,” I say. “What goes on between me and Allie has nothing to do with you.”

“I asked if she stole your sweater. Calm the fuck down.”

Maybe if I crash, he’ll die, and I’ll be free of him.

I stare at the possibilities, all the trees I pass by, the signposts that’ll tear the car in half if I smash into them fast enough.

A few minutes later, he talks again. “She’s kinda nuts, ain’t she?”

I feel my right eye twitch.

Another minute. “She must be nuts if she put up with you for two years.”

He laughs at my lack of a response, my eyes flicking to him, my gaze on his smiling mouth. He has a dimple, and it’s a deep one too. Why have I never noticed that before? He stops laughing, leans his head back, closes his eyes with his throat elongated.

My mouth starts to water, and I gulp and watch the road, speeding up a little as I increase the volume of the song.

The atmosphere feels like it’s shifting. I hate him, he hates me, but something is different. We had a truce, of sorts, but it was awkward for me to pretend. Sure, it was good to be normal for a day, but we aren’t normal.

Stepbrothers aren’t supposed to know what their cocks feel like in each other’s palms. It’s not normal for me to know how tight Blaise’s throat strangled my cock when he⁠—

I shift position before Blaise notices me getting hard over a stupid memory of him kneeling before me.

It reminds me of the two times I wore my mask and could be the real me, the version I want to be, and I’m smashed with a bag of jealousy. Because he doesn’t know it was me – who else has he been fucking around with?

After what’s happened between us on this trip, the obvious shift that’s confusing the shit out of me, will he still engage with the unidentified man?

“I need to get gas,” I say into the silence, turning off the freeway.

When we reach home and climb out of the car, I try not to look at Blaise wrapping his arms around Mia, trying to heat her up while I open the trunk for our things. She buries her head into his chest, and I narrow my eyes, watching him kiss the top of her head, his eyes dragging to me.

I look away quickly, toss all the luggage on the ground, and light a cigarette. My phone has been going nuts for the past hour. The group chat. And I have a message from Samson and Keith.

Samson: J is pissed. He got kicked off the team!!

Keith: Woah, dude, really? Blaise is replacing him? You need to fix this.

There are multiple messages from my friends going in on me, telling me to deal with him and make sure he’s not physically able to play. They want me to beat him up, make him disappear, or threaten him.

I exhale a cloud of smoke as I glance up at Blaise. He’s already looking at me while Mia holds his hand and sways into him, half asleep.

I should give him the heads up.

Or at least tell him I’ll deal with it.

Shutting off my screen, I pocket my phone, puffing the rest of my smoke until my mom and stepdad pull up in the driveway.

Mom stops me and places a hand on my cheek. “Are you okay? You look tired, sweetheart.”

I pull away from her touch. “I’m fine.”

I hate when people touch me. Mom knows this.

Her lips press together and she turns away, shaking her head when she reaches Blaise’s dad. He glares over at me, like I’m some sort of problem, and whispers something back to her.

Why do I put up with this shit?

I’m twenty. I’m old enough to move out and live my life.

But then I’d have no money, and I’m nearly done with college. So fucking close, and I can get the fuck away from here for good and not feel like I’m a delinquent or a burden.

“You’re not fine,” Blaise mutters under his breath as Mia grabs her bags. “Walls, Cole. You need to bring them down.”

“And you need to mind your fucking business.”

His gaze searches me, his brows furrowing at my snappy tone, before he too, shakes his head and walks away from me.

Mia grins at him at the entrance to the home I hate, and I turn away when he leans down to kiss her.

There’s a gasp as soon as I walk through the door. Mom is covering her mouth and Blaise is dropping his bag on the floor and pushing Mia behind him.

Everything is destroyed. As if someone barged in here with bats and wrecked it all. The sofa looks like it’s been ripped with a blade, and there’re gashes down all the walls.

I frown and walk farther in, dodging Mom trying to grab my arm.

“Call the cops,” I hear my stepdad say.

“Who would do this?” Mom cries.

Their voices fade as I make my way through the debris, seeing the kitchen demolished, the hallway splashed with red paint. Mom’s nurse bag is emptied on the dining table, her pills crushed.

I take two steps at a time, stopping at the top when I see it’s untouched up here. The rooms are fine. My room is fine. Only downstairs.

I hurry back down when I hear my mom sobbing, Blaise’s dad on the phone to someone, and his insufferable son is still protecting Mia like someone is going to jump out and shoot at us.

“The house is clear upstairs.”

“Do you think it was Malcolm?” Mom asks, mascara down her eyes, then she gasps again and rushes to the back window. “The family portraits are burned in the yard!”

Blaise sighs with a low chuckle. “This is messy.”

My head snaps to him. “Do you think this is fucking funny?”

“Don’t you two dare start arguing right now,” Blaise’s dad warns. “I don’t think it was Malcolm.”

Swallowing, my eyes are on my mom as she worries her bottom lip and looks around the destroyed room. “Can you think of anyone else who would do this?” she asks.

“I broke up with Allie,” I tell her, shrugging. “She might’ve went crazy and⁠—”

“I thought you said she had to go home for college assignments?” she interrupts, her brows knitting together. “You broke up with Allie?”

I stare at her, knowing she’s just caught me out on a lie. But then I remember I’m fucking twenty and don’t need to be schooled like a goddamn teenager.

“We weren’t getting along. You can’t force me to stay in a relationship with her, Mom.”

Blaise’s dad tuts and shakes his head. “Typical. Are you even surprised, Rachel?”

I turn away from them and storm out the room, not taking a breath until I reach the top of the steps. My hands fist, and I wish I could punch Blaise’s dad hard enough he becomes unrecognizable.

Blaise is following me. I can feel and hear his footsteps behind me. “Cole.”

“Fuck off.”

He grabs my shoulder, but I shrug him off and try to get to my room. My head is all over the place, a devil on my shoulder whispering shit that isn’t true, and I think I might be sick.

I’m dizzy, and my chest feels tight.

“It might not have been your dad. You don’t need to be scared.”

I spin around, and he crashes into me, only staying on his feet when I snatch his throat and shove him into the wall beside my door. “What part of fuck off do you not understand? What are you doing?”

“He’s not going to get you.”

Grinding my teeth, my eyes burn as much as the pain in my chest. “You don’t know that. And even if he does, it has nothing to do with you.” I let go of him and stand back. “Stay in your lane, Blaise. You don’t fucking belong in mine. Stop touching me. Stop coming near me. If you do it again, I’ll choke you.”

I slam the bedroom door behind me, leaving him in the hallway, my vision blurring even more. My eyes zero in on my bed, and the inner child in me screams to hide.

Sliding under the bed, I try to control my breathing as I close my eyes. He’s not here; my dad isn’t coming for me.

He won’t.

I feel a tingling sensation at my toes and fingertips, and I screw my eyes shut tighter and try to stop hyperventilating at the thought of him barging into my room and dragging me from under my bed.

He’ll hurt me.

He’ll hurt Mom.

I need to stay quiet.

If I stay silent, and not move, or cry, he won’t know I’m here. My leg aches, and I hold my side. Memories are ruining me.

My phone buzzes, pulling me from my panic momentarily when I realize it’s my burner phone. I pull it out and see the screen.

Blaise: I’m home now.

My eyes glaze over with rage. How fucking dare he fuck around with me on the trip, then hop back into this shit?

He can’t fuck around with me, with my head, then expect to go home and move on to this masked man who degrades him, makes him run and submit.

My chest tightens, but in a different way. My anger is there, but it’s forming into spiteful jealousy, and I stop hyperventilating like I’m about to pass out.

I crush my teeth together as I type back a location and time, knowing fine fucking well I won’t be meeting him there.