Chapter 5

Five

Josh

" W hat is this, two men and a bathroom? You dudes know we're up here in the twenty-first century, yeah? You can get your own hotel room."

Fuck , he's so loud.

"What the hell are you talking about?"I growl.

Ezra steps into the bathroom with us, grinning coldly as he shoulders past Arnie. "I'm not talking about anything. I just came to powder my nose. Which is different, kids, than putting powder up your nose."

When we both look at him—Arnie’s probably shocked, and I'm speechless with rage—Ezra hooks his thumbs around the waist of his red trunks. "You can stay if you want, but I don't really roll that way. Nothing sexy about taking a piss, ya feel me?"

"Fuck." Arnie hurries out of the small space, and I glare at Ezra before I follow.

"Jesus,” I say, pulling Arnie into a nearby room. “I'm so sorry."

His eyes widen. "Is that your new stepbrother?"

I arch my brows in confirmation.“’Fraid so.”

Arnie shuts the bedroom door. His eyes search my face, and for a minute my pulse picks up, thinking he might kiss me…wondering if I should kiss him.

Instead he looks at the floor. When he looks back up, his face is guarded. "Good luck with that, Josh."

And then he's out the door. He’s walking down the hall, back toward the pool deck, like this never happened.

I'm staring after him when the bedroom door opens.

"Are you the top one or the bottom?"

I want to smash his smug face in. I’m so pissed off that my cheeks and neck are burning, but I have to play it off. He doesn’t deserve to feel gratified. I try my best to keep my voice calm, almost ridiculing. "What the fuck are you going on about now, bro?"

"What do you think?"

I rub a hand over my face, trying to cool my temper, and Ezra’s mouth bends into a smirk. "Get kissed, did you?"

"Actually I didn’t. What's your hang up with this shit? Are you gay?"

His eyes narrow, and his cold face hardens. "I already know you are, Joshie. One of the girls here was lamenting over it."

The hall shifts slightly as my throat goes too tight. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, just a girl complaining that you never looked her way. She was worried you might bat for the other team."

I want to tell him it’s none of his business. It's right there on the tip of my tongue as my body locks up and my mind goes hazy with anxiety.

"Who I bat for isn't your business,” I manage. “Unless you want it to be." I give him a fucked-up smirk of my own. "Is that it, Ezzie? Projecting what you want to be true?"

He laughs. "In your dreams, Miller. If anybody's a stepbrother fucker, that'd be you. You're the one who comes from small-town Alabama."

"Don't be a bully, angel. Doesn't suit your pretty face or your weirdo fuckboy name."

Shit, that was mean. I almost recoil at my own words.

"That's pretty rich for someone named Josh. Your name's a joke, like literally."

Everybody calls me Miller . I stare at him, wondering if I'd get in trouble if I decked him on his first night in Fairplay.

"You should fuck off. This is stupid."

"You called me angel." He grins, folding his surprisingly muscular arms across his surprisingly bulky-looking chest. "What's that about?"

"I already said this back at dinner. Your name sounds like an angel, like an asshole angel." And you look like one, too.

He smiles, and my heart pounds harder.

"Why are you here?” I ask him. “Hanging out with my friends, wearing someone's borrowed swim trunks..."

"These are mine." He smiles smugly. "Your mom told me there's a pool here. Had them on under my pants."

"Fuckin' genius," I drawl.

"And your friends?” he says. “They're our friends now. We're brothers." He steps to me, putting a palm on my shoulder. "Wanna go home, bro? We could pop some popcorn. Watch a Disney movie? I got time for all the bonding with my new bro."

"Fuck off." I walk to the living room end of the hall before my temper cools and I turn back toward him. "I'm going home now. You can follow me or don't."

He chuckles as I move toward the front door.

Still, I wait for him in my car for almost ten minutes. Feeling obligated. Trying to be nice.

Nice guys finish last, I tell myself as I drive home without him.

It's two more hours before Ezra rolls back up the driveway. I know from Jenna that he left right after I did. So, I've had an hour and a half to wonder where the hell he went.

When I came in alone, I had to tell my mom I've got a headache, which will sic her on me for the next few days. But what else could I have said?

Your stepson's a total dick. He saw me almost get kissed , fucked it up, and now I want to smash his face in for giving me shit about being gay. Oh wait, but you don't know I am. Nobody knows anything about me here. And most of them never will.

I watch through the front-facing window in my bedroom as he parks behind my car in the circle drive. This window has a nifty little window seat. I don't come over here often because it's blocked by my bench press, but I realize as I watch him step out of his Jeep that it's a nice view. I can see stars over the oak trees in the front yard.

But stars aren't what draw my gaze. My eyes lock onto Ezra, who's headed toward the front steps with long, leisurely strides. He's wearing a pale shirt and walking not fast but not slow; that's all I can discern from up here.

I hear the front door open, and I creep over to my bedroom door, listening to the rise and fall of voices from down below. My mom and Carl are both chatting with him. I hear Ezra laugh, and my dick twitches at the husky sound.

Not that guy, buddy.

As Ezra's voice raises and my mom laughs like he's a damn comedian, I think of Arnie. How that might have gone were it not for Ezra and his cock block. I could have actually gotten with someone. While I'm still here in Fairplay. That’s something that I never had on my bingo card.

I’m pretty “in the closet,” and it’s not because I want to be. It’s because Fairplay’s such a small, conservative place. Coming out would be a big deal here, where lots of people still think gays are going to hell. I'll come out to Mom and Carl at some point, and when I get to college, getting D is high on my to-do list. But the idea I could have kissed a guy tonight —

Suddenly, Ezra's feet are clomping up the stairs, and my face heats up at the thought of him knowing what’s on my mind. I think I hear him pause for just a second outside my door. Then he’s plodding toward his room.

His room. That's his room now—right beside mine. Fuck, I share a bathroom with the fucker.

I lie on my bed, my hands behind my head, and stare at the bathroom door. I think of playing some live dealer blackjack online to distract myself, but my head still hurts. I dare take a piss—after locking his door, of course—and brush my teeth, then hit the hay.

I don't know how much time has passed when I open my eyes, woken by...I hear a sound and push myself up on my elbow. What is it? It sounds like stomping. Or walking. But it’s not coming from the hall; it’s coming from behind the wall my headboard's pressed against.

So...outside.

I get up, my heartbeat throbbing in my sore forehead, and walk to the widow seat. My eyes go to the moon, the haze of clouds in front of it. And then there's a cloud…closer. Right on the other side of the window.

That fucker’s smoking on the roof.

He's dappled by the moon's light. I can see his shape, though. He's sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him, leaning back on one arm, shirtless, tilting his head back to blow smoke up at the sky.

I reach for the window, thinking I'll push it up and tell him to—I don’t know what. It doesn’t matter. Mom and Carl's room is right below mine. If I open the window, they might hear; I’m sure he’d find a way to blame me.

Then Ezra shifts his weight, and I remember something awful: there's a weak spot in that roof. I tried to climb out on it once after we first moved here. Almost fell through it myself.

I suck a long breath into my lungs…push the window up as carefully as I can. I lean out just a little, hoping I won’t spook him into falling off. Or maybe that I will .

"Hey…"

He turns toward me, grinning in what looks like surprise.

"Look who it is—DG. In the middle of the fuckin' night, too." He takes a drag of his smoke, blows it out. "Wanna join me for some primo nicotino?"

"What are you doing?" My voice sounds rough from just waking up.

Ezra gives me a deadpan look. "What's it look like, Einstein?"

"He wasn't the only genius, you know. At least be creative and try Aristotle or some shit."

When I hear his smoky laugh, I know I've fucked up. "Okay, DG. You would like to be called Aristotle? That's a little weird, but if you really want me to…"

"No, fuckwit. I want you to stop waking me up. Leave me alone."

He grins—and it's the mean one I've seen before. "Poor Joshua. I can leave you alone," he says in a mimicking voice.

He stubs his cigarette out on the roof's shingles and shoots me a look before rising almost to his feet and slowly walking toward his window.