6. Jordan

SIX

You could have fucking admitted it, I told myself as I stormed down the stairs. It wouldn't have hurt me. It wouldn't have even been suspicious. I had searched the house for candles and wine to set the mood. I had no secret plan. Well, not one that I believed would lead anywhere for real, at least. I had only wanted to put some effort into our dinner and maybe, if the stars aligned, have a nice evening with him. For once. I was a dog chasing a car. I kept trying, but I knew I had nowhere to go if I ever got behind the wheel. I wouldn't let it happen, but I had to flirt with that disaster.

Why had I lied? It had only soured my mood to feel like that lie had been necessary. God forbid I took a risk once in my life. God forbid I allowed even a sliver of a possibility for him to suspect I felt anything other than what I showed.

My heart thundered in my chest, echos filling my ears and head. It pounded and carried a headache with its drumming.

I crashed on the sofa and stared at the TV's black screen. I was in no mood to play anything. But I was too upset to lie in my bed and hope to fall asleep.

I didn't realize I was chewing on my lower lip until I tasted the metallic flavor of blood on my tongue. It stung when I released it, but I knew I deserved it. I had lashed out for no good reason. He was sloppy, sure, but I had lived with that for years. And his sloppiness had never stopped me from wanting him. In fact, it might have contributed.

I'd been on this destructive path for long enough to notice some patterns. Like when Asher was particularly childish or even bratty, the urge to shut him up with my lips against his was the strongest. When he misbehaved the most, resisting the temptation was the hardest. In some fucked up corner of my mind, I discovered a sliver of a belief that my physical attraction to him was a legitimate form of punishment. I dismissed that irrational thought and banished it from most of my consciousness, but its traces never fully vanished.

Why else would I be so hung up on the one single person on this planet I couldn't have?

Couldn't or shouldn't?I had been asking myself that question for too long. And I didn't want to answer it. Insisting to myself that I couldn't have him was all the difference between us being a makeshift family and me losing all control and taking him. Clouded by this hopeless attraction, I sometimes wondered if he would welcome it.

And if should and shouldn't was all that stood in the way, I wondered if I was strong enough to stop myself. That was an all too easy obstacle to overcome. For years, I had been a hair's width from dropping the pretense of decency and going after him. The reminders that it was not possible — he'll be disgusted by it; he will tell; he hates you already; what will your dad say? — was all that stopped me.

The house was deafeningly quiet now that I was down here alone. There weren't other houses for miles around us. There wasn't another soul nearby.

Why should he be disgusted? We weren't related. Not really. Even with our parents being married, I had kept my distance since the very first time we met. I couldn't be a brother to him when he made me feel all this raging, boiling heat. I couldn't be his friend when his very presence left me flustered and bumbling.

And he wouldn't tell anyone. For all his childish actions, I knew he wasn't stupid. He wouldn't want to cause discord in the family.

I dismantled the myths in my head, one after another, but there was no way to deny that he hated me. As to what he would say to any sort of an advance, I had no idea. It was a thing you only knew after the fact. And there would be nothing for as long as he had a reason to resent me.

That's something you can start fixing now. And I knew that my voice of reason was right. I might not be able to wave a magic wand and make him like me, but I could apologize for being so agitated about the damned bathroom floor. So what if it was wet? I wasn't made of sugar. It took more to melt me than a little puddle of water.

I balled my fists and got up. My steps were heavy and determined. I marched to his door, just next to mine, and paused for a moment. There was some shuffling on the other side. I could hear occasional inhales and exhales, but it was all too muffled to make any sense.

Realizing that I was stalling, I knocked. It was a tad harsher than I had wished, but it did the job.

"Fuck," he hissed as if to himself. Great. You annoyed him already. "What is it?"

His feet thumped against the hardwood floor. The shifting and the movements of something in the room lasted a few hurried moments. "Can we talk?" I asked.

The shushing sounds ceased and he crossed the room, his bare feet slapping against the floor. He turned the key in the lock, then pulled the door a hand's width ajar. "About what?"

"Can you let me in?" I asked. I thought I was being polite, but the look on his face was somewhere between frustrated and horrified. I didn't mean to intrude. I only wanted to apologize.

Asher opened the door a little wider, but most of his body was behind it, and only his head and one side of his torso were visible. The silver beams of moonlight fell through the window, softened by the thin white drapes.

My stepbrother's voice was strangled and forced when he said, "I guess." He reluctantly moved away from the door and let me enter.

As I stepped inside, I switched the light on. The air was stuffy and hot but not unpleasant. It carried a faint scent of sweat and musk. I wouldn't have said anything if it wasn't for Asher's flushed face. He was red and almost shiny with perspiration. "Why don't you have the AC on?" I asked.

"Don't need it." He turned his back to me and faced the window.

I meant to gather my thoughts, but Asher drew my attention when he shifted his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other. His hips adjusted and leveled and he stuffed his hands deep inside his pockets. His shirt was untucked and crooked. The hair on the back of his head was messy and standing in all sorts of directions like he had been scratching it hard or rubbing it against the pillow. My gaze flew to his pillow and the vague dent in the shape of Asher's head. "Were you sleeping already?" My pride was stung a little by the idea that he could have fallen asleep after the confrontation. Such things left me upset and awake for hours. Countless times, I had gone to bed and stared at the ceiling in the dark, waiting for the bruises on my heart to mildly heal before I could drift asleep.

Maybe it simply didn't matter to him. Maybe he had put me out of his mind the moment we parted.

"I wasn't," he said dryly. Without facing me, Asher walked to the bed and grabbed the pillow playfully. He fluffed it idly as if to do anything but look at me, plopped onto the edge of the bed, and hugged the pillow.

Was I so intimidating that he instinctively held a shield against me? I couldn't fathom that. I'd never hurt him. In fact, I had kept my distance for years to avoid hurting him. And even if that wasn't the entire truth, it was a huge part of it. The rest…well, I had to protect myself, too.

My mouth was dry as I watched his slender fingers sink into the pillow, his torso leaning a little forward, the pillow partially folded in his lap. "Look, I didn't mean to be a dick."

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I lifted my walls in anticipation of Asher snorting, rolling his eyes, and saying something to challenge me. Instead, he lifted his gaze to meet mine, held it, and then nodded. "It's cool. I should have mopped the floor." A memory of a pout still remained on his lips.

"Nah," I said lamely and sat next to him. He scooted away from me, his knees pointing in the opposite direction. I knew enough non-verbal cues to read that one, but I was already sitting, so he would have to suffer through it. "It's just water, Ash. I made a big deal out of nothing. I don't know why I keep doing it."

The strangled breath he took stopped me. I waited in silence. Slowly, it dawned on me that I had never called him that. We had kept each other at arm's length since day one. Eileen sometimes called him Ash, and I'd heard Phoenix use the nickname in passing, but I had never felt like we were close enough.

We certainly weren't close enough for it tonight, but I hoped he saw it as a gesture of goodwill rather than me being presumptuous.

"It's all good," Asher said shortly.

When I looked at his face, I realized how tense he still was. His eyes were glassy and his cheeks pink. A few locks of his rich honey-brown hair were dark with sweat and sticking to his forehead. His jaw was clenched, his neck tense, and his shoulders stiff. As I looked down, I spotted that his shirt wasn't correctly buttoned. That hadn't been the case during dinner.

He'd dressed in a hurry.

After I had knocked.

Fuck. Me.Panic spiked in me. The embers that were never truly out roared to life inside of me. A million images of Asher, sweaty and in the middle of ecstasy, arching his back, working his fist up and down his length, crossed my mind. I couldn't banish them from my head.

I cleared my throat and realized that my muscles were knotting with tension. "Anyway…that's all I wanted to say…I mean…" I looked everywhere but at him. My mumbling, stumbling tongue betrayed me. "…I didn't mean to…you know…" And then I said the worst thing possible. "Interrupt whatever you were…" Asher flung his head around to face me. Sparks were flying from his eyes, nostrils flaring. "Not that there's anything to interrupt. But in case you wanted to, I dunno, sleep, maybe."

The redness in his cheeks only intensified with each stupid word that left my lips. "Get out," he said tightly.

"Right." But I couldn't get my legs to work. Panic sent my heart into overload. My palms were slick and I rubbed them against my knees. I resolutely did not let myself think about it, although the clues were everywhere. Hell, even the tissue box was on the nightstand. I spotted it and then looked in the opposite direction, but my mind kept swirling. The pillow in his lap. The hesitation when opening the door. The sweat on his brow. The musk in the air. I had chosen the worst possible time to apologize. "I should go. Yeah. Okay. Um, goodnight."

"Goodnight." The word ripped from him more in embarrassment than in anger. He flung it at me as I jumped up from the bed and all but ran from his room.

I slipped into my room before I knew where I was and then released a long breath of air. Of all the fucking times I could have done this, I just had to catch him pleasuring himself. Like the tension between us wasn't palpable already, I just had to sit inches away from him while his pulse was still fast and his crotch on goddamn fire.

And now that I had an entire wall separating us, I let it all sink in. The exact instant when I realized what was up was like a road forking in two directions. One was a path to doom, and I'd had the most delicious urge, for one instant only, to take it. To leap in and put my hand on him. To offer to help with what I had interrupted. To take care of him in more ways than he could imagine. I could do such wonderful things to him; he would lose his mind. He would forget about this clusterfuck that we called family. He wouldn't regret a single second of it.

But even as these things crossed my mind, I knew it was my dick talking. There were no assurances in this dangerous game. I played with fire. The only wise thing to do was to keep it in my pants. And to lock up my heart tighter than ever. It was the solitary confinement of the soul but for the greater good.

I did a good job not bringing him into my fantasies often. There had been times, especially when I had been with someone for a night, that Asher's lithe and athletic body would show itself in my mind, almost like a trick, just as I would near my climax. And I had to admit, there had been times when I had brought him to the forefront of my mind intentionally, only to taste the bitter guilt for days. I wasn't completely free of sin, but I rationed it.

I crossed my room and opened the balcony door, then stepped out. The air was cooler and fresher than I had expected. It was nothing like being stuck in the city at the height of summer. The forest surrounded our house and summers held the same kind of magic as they had when I was just a boy.

Inhaling deeply, I looked up at the big, full moon and leaned against the protective railing. My stepbrother's room was dark again, but that was as far as I was willing to look.

The strenuous relationship I had with Asher didn't reflect most of my feelings. In fact, Asher Sullivan and I had clashed on everything pretty much since the moment we had met, but that didn't change the fact that I saw something beautiful in him. I saw him as someone who needed every ounce of protection I could offer.

It was just unlucky that whatever protection I attempted translated into a lecture in his view.

I didn't know how to fix that. I didn't know if I should.

The only thing I knew for sure was that going after him was the opposite of protecting him. Sadly, the biggest threat to Asher was the abundance of attraction and longing I carried for him. If I let that run unchecked, we would both be screwed.

I bit my lip. A nasty, vile sliver of jealousy was like an oily stain on my soul. Who are you thinking about? Who is in front of your eyes to make you so flustered and red? Who gets you to sweat and lose your breath, Ash?

I pushed myself back and turned on my heels before the devil dragged me over to Asher's door. This balcony was a constant temptation.

Sleep eluded me. Even almost naked and with the AC pumping cold air into the room, I found myself tossing, turning, and sweating. It was like a fever that burned from deep within me.

I never should have come here alone with Asher. I'd underestimated how badly I would want him. This entire year, I'd managed to keep myself in check. Then again, there were a bunch of guys living with us and more than enough college students looking to hang out for a night. I could get my mind off Asher whenever I wanted back at Northwood. But to be alone with him so deep in the woods, that even God was blind to us, was a whole different level of danger.

The moment the night surrendered and the sun's rays lit the eastern sky with its golden rays, I got up. The few hours of sleep I'd had were restless and filled with weird dreams. Not an image remained of them in my memory, but I carried a sense of guilt when I walked into the bathroom and washed the sweat of the night away.

I was quiet as I wiped myself dry and dressed, but waking Asher up wasn't my biggest fear. Facing him was. I was no wiser this morning, so I tiptoed to the kitchen and made myself a fruit salad with the things Chuck had dropped off at Dad's request. I added just a teaspoon of honey to sweeten my breakfast, then sat at the kitchen island and ate quietly.

Seeing him was inevitable, but I wanted to postpone it for as long as possible. I had interrupted something private. And if that wasn't bad enough, I made a total fool out of us both by freaking out. I should have ignored the clues, but my heart had sped too much, and my face was about to combust in flames, so I stumbled through my words and made it abundantly clear that I knew exactly what he had been doing. And that it spooked me.

God dammit.

I left my empty bowl on the counter and walked around, waiting until a more decent hour to call my best friend. And when I calculated that it was alright to call him in his time zone since he was an hour ahead, I walked in front of the house for a breath of fresh air.

Beckett picked up after a couple of rings.

"I didn't wake you, did I?" I asked.

"Nah," he said sleepily. "I've been up for a few hours."

"Where are you? At the hospital?" I asked.

Beckett cleared his throat. "No. Uncle Nate's apartment, actually."

"How is he? Did you see him?" I pressed on with the questions before I could control myself.

Beckett inhaled through his nose. "Not the best, to be honest. Mentally, I mean. He's very bitter. But can you blame him? His career is as good as done."

I couldn't recall his exact age, but Nate was Beckett's father's younger brother. He might have been thirty-seven or -eight. I doubted he'd blown out forty candles. And even so, he was pushing it with how long he could keep playing professionally. Most hockey players in the NHL retired in their thirties, although it wasn't unheard of that players played a game or a few after turning forty. I also knew that Nate had been flirting with the idea of retiring for some time, especially because the press had suspected it was his time and the questions about his retirement plans had been steadily increasing in the past two years. I had watched it happen in real-time with Beckett. "And his injury? Aside from hockey, will he be alright?"

"He will. As good as you can hope, I guess," Beckett replied in an exhausted voice. I hated that he was stuck in this position. If there was only something I could do to help…

"And you?" I asked.

Beckett was silent for a moment. His voice sounded better, more refreshed when he replied, "I've got Caden with me." That meant everything was fine. Caden would know how to handle Beckett's moods in these stressful times and how to keep him focused on the positives. The two had had a bumpy ride early on, but their relationship had blossomed into something as strong as steel. "How are things there? Where are you, even?"

I snorted. "I'm holed up with Asher at the lake house."

"Just the two of you?" Beckett asked, mock concerned. "Hide the knives, buddy."

"Ah, I think I'll be fine," I said. "I don't want to keep you, Beck. I just wanted to check in and see if you needed anything."

He thanked me although I did nothing at all to help him. A few idle words later, I decided he was better off taking a nap before the hospital visit and then returned inside.

I washed the bowl and the fork, then unloaded the clean dishes from the dishwasher. While lost in my thoughts, I didn't hear his footsteps. Turning around, I froze. Asher stood still in the kitchen, watching me. His lips were slightly parted, his eyes big, and his hair messy from sleeping. He was easily the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, but I pursed my lips before grunting a good morning. My throat was dry all of a sudden. It helped me none that Asher had decided to come down in his briefs and nothing else whatsoever.

"Sorry I scared you," he muttered. "I thought you were still sleeping."

I decided not to point out it was already half past seven. "Coffee?"

"Mm." He lingered a moment longer. His torso was all etched with definition. His abs led down with a pronounced V line that hid inside his small underwear. I didn't look any lower, although I knew his legs were practically hairless and his thighs strong. I knew his calves were just as defined as the rest of him but also as lithe. He combined his slenderness and his definition like Adonis. Asher rolled his round shoulders, his chest stretching, and turned away. "I'll get dressed."

Don't, I thought. "Sure," I murmured instead.

I didn't breathe. I didn't even blink. The back panel of his black briefs was pulled slightly toward the middle and the seams of the leg openings were lifted over his smooth, round ass. It wasn't anything wild, but that inch of flesh I rarely saw was enough to make my brain spin and my heart pound out of my chest.

The small of his back was dented between the long extended muscles and the thick curve of his ass. The one-inch waistband with the brand name's silver lettering hung low on his hips, giving me a lot to daydream about. But it was the strength and broadness of his upper back that truly took my breath away. He had gone from a small and slender twink to a serious athlete in the years since I'd met him. It was hard to erase the old image of him and accept that he had transformed so much.

Perhaps it wasn't only his body that I still saw that way. Perhaps I truly ignored the fact that he had matured. My advice and so-called lectures wouldn't be welcome if I spoke to him like he was an irresponsible child.

Asher disappeared around the corner and I heard his thumping footsteps up the stairs and then down again. He returned with a pair of shorts hanging low from his waist and a T-shirt that he was just pulling over his head. It gave me one last look at his tight abdomen before he let the T-shirt drop. His arms were my next fascination now that the rest of him was covered. His bulging biceps couldn't match mine, but they didn't need to. His beauty wasn't in brute force and raw strength.

I poured two mugs full of freshly brewed coffee and pushed one to him. "A peace offering," I said softly, although that was a hard thing to pull off in my voice. It was naturally rough.

"Truce it is," Asher said with a nod.

We lifted our mugs simultaneously and brought them to our lips. My gaze darted from the rim of my mug to Asher and I found him looking at me. The brilliant mossy green of his eyes held my gaze for a heartbeat and then another.

I swallowed my sip and looked down as I set my mug on the island's counter. "I think we should start over."

Asher thought about it for a time. "If that means you're redoing last night's pasta, I vote in favor."

"If that's what you want to do, I'm sure I can whip it up again." If he was teasing me, it flew over my head. I decided that reading too much into it was most of our problems. "But I was thinking something more along the lines of trying from the beginning. All the way back."

To his credit, Asher didn't laugh at me. He didn't roll his eyes or tell me to find another pet project. All of those things had already crossed my mind. I had prepared myself for a heartless response and a miscommunication. "Go on."

I licked my lips and drummed the fingertips of my left hand against the counter. "We keep starting off the wrong way, Asher. Since I met you, we've been one wrong word away from a fight. I'm tired of always fighting. And I'm tired of looking like the know-it-all asshole you think I am. We're here now, as close to heaven as it gets, and we're wasting our breath on bickering."

Asher pouted for a moment. It was hard not to crack a smile at that. Nothing made me want to kiss him as much as his bratty pouts. "Why do I feel like you're calling me out?"

I snorted. "I'm really not. Can you listen to me for a hot minute?"

"I'm fucking with you," he said and shook his head. "I hear you. We're not a great match, but why let that ruin our summer, huh?"

I sucked my teeth softly and bought a moment of time to think by drinking coffee. Then, I exhaled and shrugged. "It's more than that. We could actually have a good time here. Who knows how long we'll be alone. Besides, we're heading for another year of sharing the house at Northwood, playing on the same team, and spending holidays with our parents. You know what would be good? If we weren't out for blood all the damn time. And it's my fault as much as it is yours."

He narrowed his eyes almost playfully. It was like he wanted to see if he could provoke me. He didn't want to know what he was provoking with those expressions.

"Let's not keep a scoreboard. Or let's reset it and keep a new score," I suggested.

Asher was quiet for a minute. When he looked at me again, he seemed genuinely curious. "What brought that on?"

"I dunno," I said. I can't stand having all these crazy, wild feelings for you and only ever showing you contempt. "I figured we might get along if we stopped resurrecting all the old fights."

"Okay," Asher said simply. "Eye for an eye, but from zero." He chuckled, and I realized he was kidding. It was hard to keep up. When his laughter died down, he avoided my eyes and looked at his coffee instead. It took him a long time before he spoke again and he shifted awkwardly more than once in that silence. "And about last night…" His voice was tight again.

I forced out a chuckle even though the mere mention of it made my dick stir. "We're all human. It was just bad timing."

Asher shook his head while staring at his coffee, his lips stretching into a wickedly handsome smile of disbelief. "Right. Let's not talk about that, then."

I would have tapped his shoulder then and said something light and fun, but the fire in me burned so brightly that I didn't dare risk grazing his skin with mine. I would explode like dynamite. I would burst into flames.

We laughed together and I pulled back a pace. It was as good as things could get. I wasn't going to risk this little truce by immediately discussing the fact that he had masturbated exactly four minutes after having a fight with me. And I absolutely wouldn't let myself think about it, either. If he had gotten over our fight so quickly that he could get hard, undress, and sweat all over, I didn't want to think that it showed how little importance he assigned to me.

For just one day, I wanted to try something I had never allowed myself to try before.

I wanted us to be friends.