Chapter 3

Three

Josh

I ’m gulping water from a straw, swallowing as fast as I can. I’m so fucking thirsty. When I feel like I’ve had enough, I open my eyes and see…Ezra.

Pretty Ezra. Sort of sunburned. His eyes on mine are intense. It makes me feel confused. I look around, noticing…I’m in his room? I don’t remember falling asleep in here.

“It’s okay if you don’t remember.” His low, soft voice comes to my ears like a surprise. I realize he’s crouched beside his bed, where I’m lying on my side.

I’m in his bed. Under his covers.

Something bad happened. I turn the dread over in my mind, seeking out what it was.

“We had…an argument.” Ezra takes a breath, as if to fortify himself before he adds, “After that, you got a shower. And in there, you had a seizure.”

My spine stiffens as my sense of what the fuck collides with what you might call memory. I don’t feel surprised to hear I had a seizure, but when I try to visualize what happened, I just…can’t.

My whole head feels sore and heavy. Like there’s a black hole drilled between my eyebrows.

“Do you remember anything about it?” he asks. “Your mom said you usually don’t.”

I don’t have seizures. Anymore . I lift my eyes open again, alarmed that I can’t get my mouth to say it.

“ It’s okay if you’re out of it,” he says. “I’ll be here with you. So don’t be worried.”

I open my eyes again to golden sunlight. My eyeballs throb as I glance around the room. Ezra’s room. I had a seizure. I squint at the bathroom door…look over to the bedroom door. That one’s shut. Where is he?

Then I feel the mattress shift. I cut my eyes to my left and realize Ezra’s in bed beside me. He’s on his back, like me, and he’s holding a paperback above his face.

“What are you reading?” My voice is fucking rough and raspy. I feel him startle before lowering the book to his bare chest.

“Fuck.” His lips twitch in a small smile. “You snuck up on me.”

It’s such a stupid thing for him to say. Makes me smile as I close my eyes for a second. It’s a struggle to drag them back open.

“I’m awake now.” I get a deep breath, and he climbs over my legs to the bedside table, where he picks up a glass with a straw in it.

“Water,” he says, holding it to my lips.

I smirk, and I want to take it from his hand, but my whole body feels like I swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills.

I drink some of it, realizing as I do that Ezra saw me in a seizure. That thought makes my throat feel stuck, so I stop sucking from the straw. I shut my eyes and fight the painful sting that builds behind them.

Fuck, why did this happen?

I outgrew this.

I cover my eyes with a hand and try to breathe deep, but I can’t. I don’t feel right.

Ezra’s moving over me. He’s climbing back up on the bed. Fuck, I wish I could get up. I should try to.

Instead, I feel him tucking blankets around me. My foggy mind is so confused, but I’m pretty sure that’s what he’s doing. Tucking me in. His hand brushes my hair back, and it feels familiar.

“Keep your eyes shut,” he says softly. “Everything’s okay, Mills.”

Then he snuggles up to my side, drapes an arm over my chest, and rests his cheek against my shoulder.

Ezra

DG is awake now. Josh .

I kept waking up to slide the little pulse ox clip onto his fingertip, put the numbers in my phone. As I looked at him, at sleeping Miller, I realized how much I don’t know about him. He’s All-American good-looking, with his wavy dark hair and those pretty blue eyes. And he’s got a nice ass. Big, warm hands. He’s got a dick I love to suck, a throat he’ll groan with if I bite it. But I don’t really know him.

A little while ago, after the sun rose, I cleaned up the bathroom. Then I wandered into his room and looked around. On his desk, there’s a framed picture of him playing drums when he was maybe six or seven. On his bookshelf, a shot of him with Brennan. DG is a little smaller, with a deep tan. It looks like they were on a boat in Florida. There’s an unframed snapshot lying flat on one of his shelves—and it’s got Mills with his dad’s kids. He’s got a sibling on each knee, and he’s wearing a gray sleeveless shirt. His hair is longer, lighter. It looks like it’s blowing in the breeze.

He’s got his cello in its stand beside his dresser. It seems crazy to me that he plays the cello. How did I not know before that day he drove me home?

Because he doesn’t play when you’re around.

I close my eyes now, trying to memorize our current pose: the one where I’ve got an arm around him. After today, I have to leave him alone. Try to be a normal person, a stepbrother who’s not warped and evil.

“Who are you,” he says softly, “and where is Ezra?”

I crack one eye open. “I’ve been watching over you all night.”

He grins like he thinks that’s absurd. “Are you my guardian angel now?”

“Yeah.” I peer up at him. “You saying you don’t like the services?”

“I’m saying I don’t think I know the service provider.” His voice is slow, like sleepy, and a little deeper than normal. But he’s smiling.

I lift my head off his shoulder and prop my cheek in my hand. “You’re saying you think I can’t be a guardian angel?”

He grins. “I’m saying I think you’re the clone imposter.”

“The clone ?” I’m putting on, hoping to make him laugh.

“Yeah. So I’m just wondering where is Player One,” DG says.

“Pshhh.” I wave at myself. “This is Player One.”

His eyes move to mine, still looking sleepy. “Must have scared you if you’re acting like this. Did I scare you?”

The first thing I can think of is some joke about his hair— like how it’s scaring me because it looks so messy. But I swallow that dumb shit and look him in the eye and try to be a good and honest person for once. “A little.” I add, “But I deserved it.”

His brows crease, and I realize he probably doesn’t know what happened. He looks down the blankets at himself. And then he sighs. I move my arm off his chest, and his eyes come back to meet mine.

“I remember waking up in my room…before. And hearing you,” he says, sounding quiet and cautious. Even his fucking face is cautious.

“Hearing me crying last night?” I have to force myself to say it.

“Yeah. You know…” He lifts his hand up off the blankets and wiggles his fingers a little, miming as one does .

“Yeah, I know,” I confirm. “So after that, we—I—”

He smiles weakly, covers his face with a hand. “This is so weird.”

“You had a good time,” I say, smirking despite myself. “Until after. I was a prick, and then you went to get a shower.”

“And in the shower…”

I nod. “I came in to say I was sorry.”

He laughs, sliding his hand off his eyes so he can grin at me. “You were gonna say sorry ?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

He smiles like he’s enjoying this.

“Yeah,” I say, “so I went in and saved you. Basically a hero.” I press my lips together, trying not to laugh, and Millsy snickers.

“Brought you in here, tucked you all up.” I arch one eyebrow. “Called your mom, too.”

“Shit, was she worried?” he asks.

“Probably. But I told her I’ve got it covered. I’ve been checking in.” I hold my phone up. “Using the finger tester thing to check things out.”

“The finger tester thing, huh? ”

“The pulse oximeter .”

“Wow, that’s what it’s called?” he says.

“That’s what it said on the box.”

He gives me a strange look. Maybe he knows the damn thing didn’t have a box. I found it lying in a drawer, where his mom said to look.

“Well, I’m fine,” he says, pushing up on one of his elbows. He looks around the room like he’s seeing it for the first time, his eyes resting for a second on the football pillow over in my armchair.

Then he shifts his legs toward the bed’s side and scoots so he’s sitting there, my blankets pooled around his waist, his bare back rippling as he leans on his arm.

“I’m gonna…go or whatever.” He stands, tugging the sheet off my bed and wrapping it around his hips. “So uh…thanks.” He glances over his shoulder, pressing his lips together as he moves toward my bedroom door.

“Bathroom route’s faster,” I say.

“Mm.”

I can’t help walking to the doorway, watching as he walks to his room. “Do you feel okay?”

“Like I got my dick sucked by some ‘straight’ guy,” he says.

I can’t help a low hoot. I guess he remembered.