Chapter 23

23

Troy

Atlas brings out something wicked in me.

Well, that’s not exactly true. It’s already there, lurking in my mind, and for some reason, when he’s around—or when I think about him—this wicked Troy comes out to play.

It’s the Troy who can’t stop thinking about marking him. About kissing him. About opening him up.

When he jerked me off in the bar, my head was spinning, my nerves on edge. Someone would catch us, I was sure of it. But with his hand stroking my cock, his eyes locked on mine, and the promise of getting to soak him again, it was more than I could bear. And fuck if being in public didn’t make it that much hotter.

“You owe me.”

Yes, I do, and now I can’t stop thinking about all the naughty ways I want to pay him back, even as we have our dinner date with Mom and Glen.

I pick at the spaghetti risotto, thinking how nice it’ll be to stop by McDonald’s with Atlas when we’re finished here.

The conversation is pretty typical. Glen drones on about work—some merger his company’s working on. And Mom asks about school. Atlas has been talking about how we hung at a bar together last night, and I keep waiting for him to say, “Oh, and I jerked off your son, Ellie. Got his cum all over me because he’s a messy boy.” But the closest he gets is, “And who gave you that pretty mark on your neck?”—a subject I’m relieved Glen and Mom don’t want to get into.

But outside of the expected shit-giving, Atlas is being good. At least, as good as can be expected from Atlas. And Glen has set a world record in not saying something douchey to his son, but of course, I know life well enough to know when it’s about to kick you in the balls.

“Madison sure didn’t have your talent in the kitchen,” Glen says as he savors some sauce on his fork.

Mom’s eyes go wide at how inappropriate that comment was. Glen must know it too since he looks casually to his son. It’s like a fucked-up loyalty test, and I can’t imagine why he’d do that since he knows it’s not a test Atlas has any interest in passing.

“I’m sure she had her own set of skills,” Mom says. Always the desperate peacekeeper.

“You’re too nice. She knew that wasn’t something she was good at. She wouldn’t mind.”

Atlas’s face is beet red now, and I’m amazed he’s had enough self-restraint not to say anything, when he finally says, “Mom loved cooking. You know that.”

“Just because you love a thing doesn’t mean you’re great at it.”

Why is this conversation happening? How do I stop this full-speed train from flying off the edge of a cliff?

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything,” Glen says, like he can just erase his comment, which I’m sure only came up because he wanted to plant it into Atlas’s mind…for what reason, I can’t even imagine.

Atlas starts like he’s going to say something, but then bites his tongue. His chair screeches against the floor as he hops to his feet and bolts. I figure he might just bolt out the door, but I hear him heading upstairs.

“I have some cookie-dough ice cream in the freezer if you want that for dessert,” Mom says, pretending that fucking mess didn’t just happen.

But no amount of my favorite ice cream is going to keep me from giving Glen dagger eyes. Glen notices, and says, “He’s too sensitive for how long it’s been. Just histrionics.”

Fucking prick. This is a new low, even for him.

The first weekend Atlas has been in a good mood being here in…forever, and it’s like Glen just wanted to fuck with him to bring him back down.

“I’m gonna go check on him,” I say, pushing my untouched plate away, and get up from my seat. “Think I’m done with my dinner anyway.”

Now I’m being a bit of an ass since I barely bothered to make my plate look like I’d eaten anything.

“Don’t cave to his tantrums,” Glen says, and he goes on, but I’m not listening. I head upstairs and knock on Atlas’s door.

No response. Big surprise.

I knock again. “Hey, A. It’s just me,” I say, as though it could be anyone else. Not like Glen was going to come up here to check on him.

“I just need a minute.”

I rattle the knob. “Come on. Let me in,” I plead. I figure he’ll tell me to fuck off, but I don’t want to leave him alone. Not after what happened downstairs.

There’s a click before the knob turns, and Atlas opens up, then immediately walks away from the door.

I head inside, closing and locking the door behind me.

“A…”

“Save your breath, Troy. There’s nothing you can say that would make what he just said better.”

“I’m surprised you even stayed after that. If my mom had been that much of an ass, I would probably be halfway back to campus.”

He sits on the edge of his bed, balling his hands into fists. “I nearly did. Hell, you know I don’t even want to come here most weekends, but…”

He can’t seem to finish his thought. I approach his bed and sit beside him, resting my hand on his thigh, stroking my thumb across it.

“Come on. It’s just me, A. Talk to me.”

His gaze shifts to me. I know his face. That frown. The tension in his jaw. I see all the pain he’s trying to mask behind his rage at Glen.

“She would’ve wanted me to figure this out with him,” he confesses. “Which is so fucked up because if the situation were reversed, Glen wouldn’t have cared what I thought about Mom, but I know, even after everything he put her through, that’s what she would have wanted. After all these years, it’s hard to know why. Maybe she figured he was a piece of shit just to her and that he’d give a fuck about his son. I—” He stops himself, as though he knows he’s said too much already.

Maybe he did, since I’ve been his stepbrother for how long and he’s never talked to me about this before.

Talking has never been our thing. More often than not, if one of us was ever in a mood, the other would harass or pick a fight. Kind of our fucked-up way of dealing with shit.

Funny how we could go from having such wild encounters—tossing him around on the bed, getting jerked off in the bar—to having moments like these that are so different but so us. I’ve always thought Atlas was a messy map, but just like with all the fucking around we’ve been doing, I don’t mind being lost with him.

“I knew,” Atlas whispers, his words sorrowful and full of guilt.

“Knew what?”

His hands twist in his lap. He’s nervous, on edge. Even as I asked the question, I feared I already knew the answer. No, no—I don’t want to believe he’s about to say what I think.

“About our parents.”

There it is. My stomach knots up with tension.

“I caught them together, saw them kissing.” His chin trembles. This isn’t the Atlas I’m used to seeing, always with his guard up, ready to take on the world all on his own. He’s letting me see past all that, and that’s something I can’t take for granted.

“I confronted him. Hit him. Christ, I wanted to fucking kill him, but I didn’t. I just…dropped it.”

He spits out his words with anger, at Glen, at himself, but there’s a tremble of emotion, his voice filled with grief. My muscles twitch as I struggle to keep from going downstairs and take on Glen myself. But Glen’s not my concern right now; Atlas is. I want to soothe him. Make him feel better. “A, it wasn’t your job—”

He raises his hand, silencing me. “I have to get this out, or I won’t. I’m not sure why I didn’t tell her. I fucking hated him, but…but I knew she loved him. And maybe I didn’t want to break up my family. Whatever the reason, I regret it more than anything. What if I told her earlier and somehow that changed things? What if hearing it from me would’ve been easier than hearing it from him? What is that thing called… The butterfly effect. One thing can change everything. What if me telling her earlier meant she wouldn’t die, and I could have stopped that, but I didn’t because… Hell, hard to even remember why. Because I’m the biggest piece of shit ever?”

Piece of shit?

Hearing him say that about himself is like a baseball bat to the gut. How can he think that?

Oh, my Atlas. My beautiful Atlas, carrying the weight of all this guilt that only belongs to Glen and Mom. It breaks my heart to hear what’s tortured his soul all these years, but I’m glad he’s sharing it with me. I want to see all of him, even the messiest parts. I want to see those things he wouldn’t ever share with another soul. “It’s not your fault, A. There’s no way you could have known what would happen. You didn’t tell her because you thought it was the right thing to do. The only people to blame here are my mom and Glen.”

He gulps, his lips struggling against each other. “Maybe,” he says, shrugging before wiping a stray tear from his face. As his jaw stiffens, I can tell he’s trying to regain control over his emotions. “Anyway, fuck him. I don’t want to think about him. I just…”

He has his guard up again, but I still see the sadness in his expression, this ache in him that he can’t hide from me.

“Despite all that,” he says, “I keep coming to this fucking house and keep seeing him because she was the best person I’ve ever known, and she wouldn’t want me to walk away from him. Is that how you feel about Brandon? Like he would’ve wanted you to make shit work with Ellie, regardless of how bad it might get? I guess that’s a fucked-up thing to say. I’m sorry. It’s not like he’s dead.”

It’s hard to believe he thinks he should be sorry. For what? Actually giving a shit about the stuff I’ve been through? Most people just pretend Brandon was never in my life. “I get what you mean. It’s…complicated. I do feel like he’d want Mom and me to be okay, but there’s another side of it that makes it trickier.”

“What do you mean?” His words are so gentle, like he’s careful with me around this subject, because he must know how excruciating this can be. Thoughtful Atlas.

“A, let’s not make this about me.”

“No, believe me, I’d rather think about someone else’s problems right now.” His tone is playful, but I can tell he’s serious too.

I know what I want to tell him, but I hesitate. I’ve never shared this with anyone, but I know him, and he’s never told anyone what he’d just shared with me either. Besides, if it’ll cheer him up, isn’t that enough to risk it?

“Do you remember when I got injured junior year? And y’all went to the Caribbean for a few weeks that summer?”

He nods.

“I was out back by the pool one day, and when I went inside, I noticed the garage door ajar. I’d gotten groceries earlier and thought I might have forgotten to shut it. When I headed up to my room, I found Brandon going through my stuff. He had some of my painkillers in his hand. At the time, I was just so happy to see him that it didn’t really click. And he looked so rough—his hair was a mess, and he was so skinny. I tried to give him a hug, but he wouldn’t let me get close. He told me everything was fine, that he was getting help and just needed some money. A loan, he said, so I Venmoed him my savings that I was going to use to go to London with Colin and the guys the year after. I haven’t heard from him since.”

Atlas’s jaw tenses. I know him, and I know he’s upset on my behalf. “And you never told anyone? Not even Ellie?”

“Not even my therapist,” I say, shaking my head. “Everybody already has their opinions of him. I didn’t want anyone to know what he’d done. And I felt foolish because I really wanted to be there when he needed someone, but now I know it was just the disease, and that money probably made his life even worse. In hindsight, I realize he must’ve seen Mom’s post with you guys on vacation and thought it’d be a good time to come by and steal from us.”

Fuck, now I’m tearing up.

Shit.

I bat the back of my hand against my face. “I don’t want anyone to know what he did. People don’t get it. They just blame him, I guess ’cause they don’t understand addiction. Like they never made mistakes. Never experimented or got too drunk. Sometimes I wish I could get people to imagine…what if the biggest mistake they ever made at the worst moment of their life, when they couldn’t see a reason to keep going, happened to have lifelong consequences? If that horrible moment of weakness altered their brain chemistry so much that they’d never be the same again? Was it so terrible for him to be vulnerable? Was it so terrible for him to need something to ease the pain? Was it his fault that when someone else had a mentor or friend who could help them, he happened to meet someone who could only make it worse?”

“I think that makes you…pretty fucking great. It’s very forgiving of you. I don’t know that I could see it that way. Or if I would have if you didn’t explain it to me, but hearing you say it…I get it,” he says, and fuck if that doesn’t release some of the tension in me, like I’m a tire with a leak. Like with all that other shit I talked to him about at the auction, there’s a relief that comes from sharing that with him. “I never asked, but when did you figure out he wasn’t coming back?”

I grapple with the memories this brings up, but I push through because it’s nice to share them. Not just with anyone, but with Atlas. “It was a slow disappearing act. He’d be gone for weeks. Then months. I thought I’d experienced the worst pain I could experience when Dad left, but when Brandon left, I knew I was wrong. It was so horrible, I thought I was going to die.”

There’s a shift in his gaze, a different sort of concern. “Like, you were going to hurt yourself?”

“No, no. Like my heart was going to explode… I didn’t know how a person could be in so much pain and keep on living. I figured a body would have to shut down before it got that bad, but it doesn’t.” I can’t disguise the despair as the memory comes flooding back, along with the haunting sensation of oppressive, suffocating grief.

When I finally force myself to look at him again, his gaze is tilted down, and I know Atlas well enough to understand he’s working through everything we said today.

“I’m sorry, A. I shouldn’t have gotten into all that. I know it’s not the same as the stuff you have with your mom.”

A subtle shift, gaze snapping to mine, eyes soft and confused. “It’s not a contest.” His expression wavers. “It’s just…it might be for different reasons, but I know the pain you’re talking about.”

“I know you do. I’ve always known.”

He pauses, hesitates, then lets the words spill out, “I’ve always known too.”

Atlas has got that beautiful pouty expression on his face, and I can’t help myself. I reach out and rest my hand against his cheek, my thumb against his bottom lip, tracing. He leans into my hold, and we gaze into each other’s eyes.

Just looking. Really seeing each other.

And letting the other see.

It was a bittersweet discussion, one we’ve had for a long time without exchanging words, so it was nice to finally speak those things that had gone unspoken.

I feel the bed jerk a little, and before I know it, I’m kissing him.

His nose presses against my cheek, his mouth wet against mine, teeth nibbling at my bottom lip. Our hands are greedy as we claw at each other. My body has seized control, desperate for Atlas’s kisses and touch to take away my pain or help me forget. It can’t do those things, but damn, it sure helps.

Soon, I’m lying across the bed with Atlas on top of me, pinning my wrists at my sides as his tongue invades my mouth. Our tongues are lost in a wet dance, his breath colliding with my face.

I feel warmth against my cheek… A tear? Atlas’s?

All I can think about is making him feel better, giving him pleasure to replace all the pain we’ve shown each other tonight, so I keep on kissing.

Desire pulses through me, a deep hunger to ease my own pain and his. To help us race against the darkness. When he releases my wrists, I plant one hand on the back of his head. “Atlas, I want you.”

“I can tell,” he whispers into my mouth, and we both chuckle.

God, what this guy does to me.

“No, I meant I want you in me, right now.”

He pulls back, propped up on his forearms, gazing down with that cocky expression on his smug face—the sort of face I would’ve wanted to punch back when we were in high school. Now, it’s hot as sin. “I knew you wouldn’t last long without wanting to bottom for me,” he teases. There’s still sadness in his eyes, but there’s light too, the part of him that can make the best of things even with all that pain.

After everything that came up, we both need a release.

“They’re gonna come looking for us at some point,” he adds.

“I don’t give a fuck. I need this, and you do too.”

“Where did this cock-hungry Troy come from?”

And I am Cock-hungry Troy. I’m not ashamed of it.

I reach into my pocket and retrieve a condom, which he eyes. “It’s like you were planning this.”

“Just prepared. But I’ve been tested. All negatives.”

“Same here.”

“And as long as we’re just fucking around with each other…”

I don’t even need to finish my thought before his eyes narrow. “Naughty Troy. You saying you want me raw inside you?”

“Yes.”

“In our parents’ house?”

He’s right. We can’t. We shouldn’t.

“Yes.” That’s not the right answer, but I don’t give a fuck. “I like to repay my debts quickly.”

Now he’s all smiles—maybe my distraction is working after all—and then his gaze shifts. Is he seriously considering this?

“We should get some lube if we’re going to try that.”

I shake my head. “Oh, my sweet noob…”

His eyes widen. “Won’t that hurt?”

“You think I’d be asking if I didn’t want a little pain?”

He snickers, his expression vacillating between uneasiness and excitement.

Just how I like him.

His concern gives me confidence that he’ll take the necessary precautions. “I’ll talk you through it, A. Just keep in mind the three S’s of lubeless anal.”

“And those would be…?”

“Spit and super slow.”

As he cringes, his lips curl into a smile. “You just made that up, didn’t you?”

“You liked it.”

He plants his forehead against mine, and I feel his warm breath as he chuckles. “You are too adorable sometimes,” he says, leaning back to gaze down at me. “But if we do this, you’ll let me know if it hurts too much?”

“Oh, that’s easy to figure out. When my fist makes contact with your cheek, you’ll know it hurt too much.”

We share a laugh.

I don’t know what the fuck we’re doing, but I don’t want it to ever stop.