Chapter 20

Twenty

Josh

I t’s Saturday, and my mom’s cousin Barbara, who lives down in Andalusia, is having her fiftieth birthday party tonight. Barbara’s birthday, and the four hours between Fairplay and Andalusia, mean Mom and Carl are gone before we wake up. Ezra and I both had a bye week this week from football and soccer—which means we stayed up late last night watching the Godfather movies and playing with each other’s dicks and slept like the dead, both in my room.

When I open my eyes, I’m sprawled on my stomach, and Ez is on me like a cape. He’s got one arm slung around my shoulders and another shoved under my pecs. I crack one eye open, smiling into my pillow as I realize he’s lying on his side hugging me, with both of his legs sandwiching my right one.

When I roll over, I find him wearing a sleepy smile.

“Hey there, angel.”

He brushes his lips over my temple. “Hey yourself. Sorry I was on top of you.”

“My favorite way to wake up. ”

We smile at each other. His is tentative but sincere. I can tell it’s a little bit of a reach for him sometimes, still, with me. Like it takes a lot to put himself out there. But he keeps doing it, and I keep loving every second of it.

He shifts his hips, and my eyes go to his morning wood. “Fuck,” he murmurs.

He lies out on his back, and now he’s rubbing his erection. I adopt the same pose.

“I could help you with that.” He grins, angling his body toward me.

“I could help you.”

We start jerking one another, and we’re both so hard that by the time I think we should be sixty-nining it , my balls are drawn up and he’s blowing all over my hand, and then I’m spraying jizz all over his.

“You wanna get a shower?” I laugh.

He flops onto his back, tilting his head toward me. For a second, he’s just smiling at me. Looking into my eyes.

“Nah,” he says. “Let’s get a towel or something. I’m hungry as fuck.”

“I know something perfect,” I say, swiping a towel I’ve got folded in my nightstand drawer for just this reason. “You like bacon, right?”

He nods as I clean both of us up.

“Pimento cheese?”

“I think.” He frowns.

“Biscuits?” I ask.

He nods, still looking slightly puzzled.

I thump his abs. “Get dressed. I’m about to blow your mind. We’ll pick up our food from this shack in the middle of nowhere and I’ll take you somewhere quirky and small-town to eat it.”

“Will we be the only people there?” he asks me.

I nod. “Just us, the birds and the ants and the grasshoppers, and maybe a ghost or two. ”

He laughs. “Sold.”

Ezra

It's kind of fun to drive Mills' little white car. Even though I’m fucking starving, I feel happy in the car with Miller, both our windows cracked, our hands linked in his lap. We rib each other about nothing in particular as I head toward this country road where Miller says there's a trailer on the edge of a field selling greasy breakfast food and pecans.

“Hang a left here onto this dirt road,” he tells me after a while.

The narrow, hard-packed, red dirt road cuts through thick pine forest. We pass mailboxes sometimes, set atop stumps or even nailed to tree trunks. I feel like I’ve been driving for miles.

“Lookin’ a little murdery,” I tease.

"Murder for your taste buds,” he says.

We pass a white-washed sign with faded lettering, and then a long, dirt driveway. Then the road bends, and I see a small, teal camper on the right, parked at the edge of a field of crops.

"What are those things?" I ask Mills, squinting at the leafy green things sprouting from the dirt.

"Peanuts, baby. Ever eaten them boiled?"

"I don't know."

"That's a no, then,” he says. “You'd remember. Nice and salty. Soft. A little gooey when you chew them."

“I know something gooey and nice.”

Miller snorts, and I snicker like I’m in sixth grade.

I park parallel with the run-down camper, and he gets out to order for us. Just as I’m thinking maybe I should get out too, he ducks back into the car with two tin-foil-wrapped biscuits, one tall, amber-colored drink, and a Ziplock bag of pecans.

He hands my biscuit to me. "Unwrap that and smell it. Then throw it in your sweatshirt pocket so it stays warm, and I'll tell you where to go next."

Miller is right—the thing smells fucking amazing. Buttery biscuit, pimento, and a bunch of bacon. Heart attack in a wrap, but I don't give a shit.

"Sweet tea?"he offers, holding it out.

I give him a smirk designed to offend his freckled, Southern boy self. "Really?"

"You knockin' sweet tea?"

I almost laugh. Millsy’s up in arms, just like I knew he would be.

"Is it actually good?"I ask him.

His eyes widen. "Is it really good ?” He shakes his head. “Go on now. Have a big sip."

I do, hiding a grin behind the plastic cup—and I have to admit, it's pretty good. “Tastes like sugar water.”

“It’s supposed to,” he says.

“You’re so Southern. Such a Southern gentleman.”

He stuffs a pecan in my mouth, and I laugh, nearly choking on the damn thing.

“Okay, okay. Whatever,” I say after chewing. “Both the pecan and the sweet tea were good.”

“Damn straight,” he says as I drive back down the dirt road.

“It’s in my mouth, so…” I pop an eyebrow up, since we know there’s nothing straight about that, and he snickers.

"So that's the best breakfast spot in town, is it?"

"Oh yeah," Mills says. "The one non-locals don't know about."

"Are there a lot of non-locals down here clamoring for breakfast?"

"Shut up, Ezra."

“You love me.”

Miller’s face goes beet red, and I can’t stop a cheesin’ grin. I pinch his check, and he grins down at his lap. I cup his neck with my hand. Warm neck. Shy Miller. He does love me. I want so much to say I love him back, but no one’s ever really said “I love you” to me. It feels too awkward.

Miller looks up at me. “I do,” he rasps. “Love you.”

His face flushed, his blue eyes shining, his hair pressed down on his forehead by an Auburn ball cap. I snapshot it in my brain.

“I love you too,” I murmur. I grab his hand. “I really do. It’s hard to say, though.”

Miller pulls my hand to his leg. “Why’s it hard?”

“I don’t know. I guess nobody really says it much around me.”

I can feel the wheels in his head turning. The way his body goes still and he seems to hold his breath for just a second. I know Miller, and I know he wants to say he hates my mom, or motherfuck everyone who ever knew me before he did. But he’s so damn conscientious, and he doesn’t want to steer the conversation that way—to the things I’m lacking. So he just brings my hand to his lips and kisses the knuckles. And he says, “I’ve been wanting to say it for a while.”

“You have?” It’s whispered.

“Yeah.” He gives me a funny little flat-lipped look. “Probably sooner than would’ve been wise.”

I squeeze his hand. “Confession time?” His eyes flicker to mine, his mouth curving slightly in a way that makes me want to bite it. I say, “Me too.”

Miller grins. “Maybe we should try it again. Just for practice. I’ll go first.” He looks into my eyes. Then he squeezes my hand again. “I love you.”

I rasp, “I love you, DG.”

“I love you more,” he says.

“Well…you can’t.” I give him a big smirk that’s fighting to become a grin. “Because I love you more.”

I’m hard for him. The biscuit’s warm against my abs, and my heart’s beating too fast. Miller folds my hand between his and kisses each one of my fingertips.

“I want you,” he whispers, sucking on one.

It makes me groan, so he stops, grinning wickedly.

“I can pull over,” I whisper.

“Not yet.”

He won’t tell me where we’re going—he just tells me when to turn—but I catch on as we roll into the cul-de-sac of a little side street near the red dirt cliffs that overlook the lake. Out in front of us, behind a rickety old gate, is an orchard. Lots of huge trees—maybe pecan?—all spaced evenly. They roll on for a few acres.

“Stop in front of the gate,” he tells me, and when I do, he gets out to open the thing. It’s not locked. I know that firsthand. He swings the gate open and motions for me to drive on in. I do, and he shuts the gate and ducks back into the car.

“You’ll drive on down this little dirt road. You see the house?”

I can feel his eyes on my face, and I wonder when he’ll realize this is where I parked my Jeep the day we met. I nod, because I can see the old house from here. “Yeah, what is this place?” I ask him.

“The old Isabella mansion. A man built it for a woman named Isabella back in the 1800s. It’s been almost fifty years since someone lived here, so it’s gotten more and more run down. You’re supposed to keep away unless you have a key to the gate from the historical society. There’s a cemetery back here that they hand it out for—you know, so tourists can see. But they leave the gate open most of the time.” He shrugs.

The house looks like a red-brick dollhouse. It’s two stories with a dark roof, lots of iron accents, and a tower up top that’s got a little roof shaped like a witch’s hat. The building’s on the verge of being more ruin than house, with boards missing near the roofline and big chunks of the shingles gone.

Still holding my hand, DG waves right. “I know the pebble path goes left, but veer to the right into this grass so no one sees my car from the road. Doesn’t matter about trespassing—my mom’s friend is in charge of the keys to this place—but just…you know. Common sense and all that.”

Yes. Because Miller is my stepbrother, and once we’re out of the car, odds are good I’ll end up with my arms around him.

My heart races a little, wondering again when he’ll realize that I parked here to access the trestle bridge the day I moved here. But I try to stay in the moment. I’ve realized I’m pretty shitty at it, but I’m trying more—for Miller. So he won’t have to spend time with a zombie who’s always stuck in a loop in his own mind.

Mills tilts his head at me, like he can hear me thinking. Then he’s unwrapping his biscuit, and I’m doing the same.

“Fuck. This tastes like heaven,” I say, between chewing.

He grins. “I know.”

I polish off a few bites and turn my wide eyes on him. “Why’s it so good, dude?”

“I don’t know. Some magic shit.”

It feels good to be full—yet another thing I’m working on.

“Whatchu thinking?” Miller murmurs, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

I shift my gaze to his. “You.”

His cheeks color. He gives me a goofy smile. “What about me?” He looks so shy right now.

I reach out and cup his jaw. “Just you.” I rub a finger over his brow. “Blue eyes.”

He shuts them, and I lean over, kissing his eyelid.

“Sorry.” I smile, rubbing at his brow. “Might have gotten grease on your face. ”

“Grease me up.” He gives me a heavy-lidded little grin that makes my dick throb. Then he’s getting out his car door. I adjust my peach ball cap and step out into the grass, feeling so damn hungry for him.

His eyes sparkle as he holds a hand out for me. I thread my fingers through his, loving how damn warm and big and soft his hand is.

“Let’s go up the side steps,” he says. “They’re more sturdy than the front ones.”

I’ve been watching Mills for weeks now—every chance I get, almost obsessively. So I know his face. Which is how I know he’s nervous right before he catches his lip between his teeth. His eyes fly to mine, then flit down to the grass. Then he brings my hand to his chest. Mills adjusts his grip a little, and my stomach tugs from somewhere down low. He’s not just holding my hand—he’s hugging it.

When he catches my eye as we approach the house’s side steps, I can’t breathe for all the things that’re tumbling through my head. I want to say something to him, to say again how much I love him.

Hi, no one’s held my hand since I was like six.

No one’s touched me in a few years except nurses and a lot worse.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

My throat tightens unexpectedly as he leads me up the lichen-covered cement steps.

“This door is kinda hanging off its hinges… Just be careful and don’t bump it.” I figure he’ll drop my hand as we go up the steps, but he doesn’t. His thumb strokes over my knuckles as we step up into…

“Oh wow.”

I think there are Tumblr pages for this sort of stuff; urban decay, but in this case, I guess it’s rural Southern mansion decay.

The room we’re in was probably a parlor—a very long time ago. I blink, taking in the strangeness of it. There’s a big-ass chandelier hanging from the ceiling, glittering under a coat of dust. The floor is dirty hardwood, littered with paint peels that fell from the caving ceiling. The walls have plywood scaffolding exposed through patches that seem to have just crumbled away. At the top and bottom, they’re lined with thick, fancy crown molding.

“This room used to be a letter-writing room,” Mills tells me. “See, look at this…” He leads me past a rotting, wing-backed chair and sagging velvet couch to what looks like a gnome-sized bookshelf built into the wall.

“Those little cubbies were for letters?” I ask.

“Yep. To store your correspondence with…whomever.”

I run my fingertip over the coating of dust in one of them. There’s a piercing pain in my chest as I think of letters… journals . To distract myself, I touch the wallpaper, which actually feels textured.

“Damn, I’m kinda digging this shit.”

“Yeah,” he says, “the pattern’s pretty vintage.”

“Kinda…gemstone forest.”

“It is,” he laughs. “I know this place is old and weird, but I love the vibe. Wanna see more?”

Miller leads me down a hall where two paintings still hang. They’re so old and weather-worn that I can’t tell what they once featured.

“This is so weird,” I murmur, stroking the top of his hand with my thumb. “Like whoever lived here just…left.”

I blink as we move into the kitchen. It’s shaped like a hexagon, with shattered windows all along the back three walls. Teal green fridge, gold-veined marble-looking countertops, a rickety table, and a big, trough sink that’s caked with dust and grime.

“Most of the drawers are empty,” Mills says. “The historical society hauled a lot of that stuff away, after the cops said people were taking it. Last time I looked, all I saw was some old blender. It’s bright orange, though. Wanna see?” He tugs me down with him as he crouches in front of one of the cabinets. Then he turns toward me, putting his free hand on my shoulder. “Sorry, is this making your legs sore?”

I grin. “I’m not gonna break, Mills.”

I bring our joined hands to my mouth so I can kiss the back of his.

I can almost see his pupils dilate as he looks at me. Heart eyed, like the damn emoji. He blinks slowly, and it’s like he goes into a daze.

My heart rate kicks up as I wonder for a second if something is wrong, but then his free hand grips my shoulder and his mouth covers mine.