by Ace Gray
Touch me here. Pull my nipples. Use your fingers. Mercy had shown Dantè exactly what to do over the years and, if this morning was any indication, she’d turned him into an expert fuck. Gross.
“You okay under there?” Mercy smiled as she ducked down into my line of sight. “You haven’t touched your food.”
“Course, Starfish, just tired.” I couldn’t tell her it was because I heard them last night, and I jerked off, fantasizing it was me…that I woke this morning wanting to do the same.
“A nap in the sun might do you good.” She shrugged, then reached up for a Tupperware, making Dantè’s sweatshirt slide up around her ribs and catch, showing off the flat expanse of her stomach. Her bikini bottoms slid down just a fraction.
A nap wasn’t going to do me shit. Burying myself in her was the only way to alleviate the ache inside me these days.
“Yeah, that would be dope,” I answered the way she wanted me to all the same.
Kick. Push. Kick. Push. The wind rustled in my hair as I skated down the street behind my best friends. Dantè was out in front, as usual, making long arcing curves down the street. Danger could keep up, but every 100 feet or so he kick flipped or ollied onto the sidewalk. Diego was good but nothing about his wheels compared to his waves.
I still couldn’t keep up.
“Rousse, shove that floppy hair out of your face and catch up,” Danger called as he slammed his deck down expertly on the asphalt.
I shoved at my bangs and kept after them. One by one they all ollied onto the low handrail leading down to the library. I managed, teetering wildly on my board, arms flailing until…
Until I wasn’t anymore. Something caught—a wheel, the sticky underside of my board—I didn’t know, but I was shooting from my board to the stair step beneath me. Concrete rushed at my body, my face, and before I knew it, the soft gray slab tore at my cheek and chin.
“Shit!” I swore loud enough to stop them all short.
“Dude, can you stay on two feet for twelve consecutive hours?” Diego laughed as he skated away, Danger shaking his head as he followed.
It was Dantè that hung back. He kicked his board up and walked over to my heap of a body as I tried to get myself together.
“Wanna hand?” He reached out and offered his help. I took it and let him help heave me up to standing. “Got something on your chin.” He thumbed his as I squared my shoulders.
“Yeah, a fucking split.” I winced as I explored the road rash painted on my face.
“Chicks dig scars.” Dantè shrugged.
I smiled at his answer the way I only ever did for Dantè. He was always the kindest of us, finding a way to weave mischief with manners. He saw me when no one else did, not even my parents.
“They dig skills more,” Danger hollered.
“No joke.” Diego laughed in unison. “I’ll never know how you made it to eighteen.”
They both shoved off, taking the rest of the stairs easily on their boards. They were such cocky bastards. Always right, always rough, always ragging on me. Sometimes I wondered why the fuck I was letting them live with me. It was my house that I was buying with my money. Well, trust fund, but still. I had real brothers who everyone loved more, and a father who reminded me of it, they didn’t need to do it too.
Fucking pricks.
I threw my board against the railing and let my frustration rip through my chest.
“Why do they always have to be dicks?”
“Not enough upstairs, it’s the only thing left for them to think with.” Dantè chuckled under his breath.
My friend still stood by my side, casual and unhurried, watching me instead of our asshole brothers as they faded into the distance.
“I try to keep up.”
“You do…”
“I’m not a fucking moron, Dantè.”
“So your natural grace works against you from time to time—”
I interrupted him with my laugh, big and bitter.
“Okay, okay.” He chuckled and added, “all the time, but who’s counting.” He walked slowly over to where my board had landed belly up, the wheels still spinning slow. Dantè bent to pick it up and brought it back to me with a smile. “How about we do what you like to do.”
I took my board back and studied him. He had a way of making it seem as if this wasn’t a pity invite, it was just a simple suggestion. It made me suspicious.
The world I came from was full of lies and deceit, manipulation. My father was an ace at it. The way he ruined lives—the way he was trying to do it to me—was the reason I moved out the minute I had the money to do it. But Dantè…
“I like to do this stuff,” I said, deflecting again.
“I know. But what did you do when we weren’t around? You have brothers, right? What do you do with them?”
“You really want to know?”
He shook his head with that loose smile on his face that made matching him all too easy.
“Where are we, Rousse?” Dantè asked as he scanned the coastline, the sweeping dry grass rising up from the dunes, and his eyes fell on the workshop I’d turned into a garage on the edge of my parent’s property.
“This is what I do in my spare time.” I yanked on the garage door and lifted it, shoving up on to my tiptoes to tuck it away. I stepped in and rolled the canvas back.
My Mustang was in a sexy state of undress, her grill shining like barred teeth, and her scoop glaring like a single wicked eye.
“Whoa.” Dantè looked amazed, his voice hushed as he tentatively stepped forward.
“My first car was street legal. I modified it once I started winning. It’s addictive.”
“You race?”
“Yeah.” I dropped my gaze and rubbed the back of my neck. “There’s a whole underground scene. Sometimes we race on the streets, sometimes out at the abandoned air strip.”
“Dude.” It was the awe in Dantè’s voice that made me feel alive. Not just approval but admiration. None of the guys looked up to me. Ever. But here was Dantè, the silent king of our crew, looking at me like I had something special.
“Wanna drive it?”
“Can I?” His eyes went wide.
“Sure.” I peeled the rest of the canvas back and pulled my keys from the hook hidden in the back. “Think fast.” I tossed them and Dantè easily caught them. He opened the door and hopped in the driver’s seat.
I went around, got in, and despite the foreign feeling of the passenger seat, and sharing this part of me with someone, I was happy. I wasn’t going to eat shit or look like an idiot. I was going to teach Dantè, the god, how to do something.
The rumble of the engine started low in the pit of my stomach then shook my bones as I guided him to the nearest clear quarter mile. I talked him through burning tires and shifting before resetting my watch.
“On my count,” I prepped him, and his brow creased the way it did when he really focused. “Go!”
We slammed forward as Dantè shot out into the sunset. The muscles and veins of Dantè’s arms flexed as he muscled the car down the empty highway. My heart leapt in my chest, my heart beats pounding in time with the wicked roar of my engine.
“Just to the sign,” I yelled.
My eyes flipped from my watch to the sign and back again. Watch. Sign. Watch. Sign… I clicked my watch.
“Wooooooo!” Dantè whooped as he slammed his fist up to the roof. “That was fucking amazing.”
And it was. Sharing all this, seeing the joy it brought me mirrored on his face was awesome. Until I looked down.
First time out, first try—and in my car no less—Dantè had slaughtered my best time along with my hope of ever being first amongst men.
“You gonna race tonight?” Dantè asked as we strapped boards to the roof after a long day in the sun.
“I dunno. You?” I held my breath, always hoping he’d bail, it was the only way I’d win. It was the only way I’d won since I was eighteen.
“I was thinking about it. It’s bee
n too long.”
My hopes crashed, bloody and violent into my spine, reminiscent of a car wrapped around a tree.
“Tey.” Mercy spoke up. “Please.” We all knew what her plea meant and just like that, the wreck inside me rewound.
“Mercy…”
“I can’t lose you. I won’t.” She reached for him and pressed herself up against him. And with a woman like her, a love like theirs on the line, I would have folded too.
“Okay.” He bent and kissed the crown of her head.
“We’ve got a party to plan anyways,” Danger piped up.
“Looks like it’s just you tonight.” Dantè shrugged.
I had to ball my fists at my sides and plant my feet to keep from jumping up in celebration. I was gonna race, I was gonna to win, and then come home feeling like a king. Or as close to it as I could manage. For a moment, life was good, and I wasn’t trying to keep up. I was going to cross the line first.
My smile spread in spite of myself as my hollow words drifted after Dantè and Mercy. “Bummer, man.”
One Month Ago…
“Three kegs, three bottles of Everclear, two watermelons, two eight-balls, and strippers,” I read my list as I scratched it down on the yellow legal pad.
“You making a grocery list?” Dantè asked with a smirk as he popped open the fridge and grabbed a beer.
“That’s what I should do after graduation,” I mused. “Open a store that carries coke and the things you like doing while you’re on it.”
“Sounds lucrative.” He cracked his beer with that same knowing smile. The one that simultaneously said ‘you’re an idiot’ and ‘I’m in.’
“And legal.”
We both laughed and Dantè knocked his can to mine. Our laughter faded into an easy silence as he took the seat next to me and started shuffling through the mail. I went back to scribbling down the things we’d need for the most epic graduation party Pacific Cove University had ever seen.
Days from graduation, a party was the only thing that gave me purpose. Everything else was a giant fucking question mark, and I had myself to blame on that one. Dantè and I had submitted one hell of a capstone project, we were both graduating with honors in software programming, but I was the one that surfed or skated through the career fairs.
I looked over at Dantè as he launched his laptop, hunched over a keyboard and a beer. Somehow he’d managed to hold that position and cutback on the waves regularly. Not to mention spend time in the halfpipe and with his dick up Mercy’s pipe. He’d handled college like it was cake.
“Hey, I have an email from Prof about our project,” Dantè interrupted my thoughts.
“Something wrong?”
“No…” His eyes scanned the screen. “No, I don’t think so.” His smile quirked up.
“Bro, spit it out.” I elbowed him when he just kept reading and rereading.
“We got headhunted,” he said in disbelief.
“What? Whadda ya mean?” I grabbed his laptop and pulled it so I could read. “He submitted an app to a real company and they want to interview us both. They’re considering a surf spot app?”
“Dude.”
“Holy shit.” I shoved his laptop back at him and punched his shoulder. “Can you imagine being paid to surf?”
“No, I literally can’t.” He smiled that easy smile of his, then I caught him glance down the hall to where his bedroom was. “No one can be that lucky,” he added softly.
“Come on, you worked hard for this. We both worked our asses off.”
“You go.” He jerked his chin toward the computer. “That’ll make it one less asshole in a suit to compete with.”
And I thought about it. I really did. Diego and Rousse had a harder time competing on Dantè’s level, but me? I was a fucking badass. Nothing scared me. Not even Dantè. I was bred from champions. I could beat him at his own game.
“Fuck that. It’s both of us or neither.”
“Come on, Danger.” He rolled his eyes. “You’re my brother—”
“Blood brother,” I corrected. “It’s fucking deeper.”
“Agreed.” He slung his arm around my back. “That’s way more important to me. Just take the fucking interview, okay?”
“I’ll fight you.”
“I dare you.”
“Triple dog that shit up.”
“Fine.”
We both started taunting each other with playful slaps and jabs. I had him in a headlock before he could get away. He elbowed me and when I skittered away, I tripped. Dantè was on top of me the next moment, and the two of us were rolling around on the floor, jostling furniture as we went. That is, until we both broke down in laughter.
“Just take the interview.” I sighed. “I’d hate to have to punch that pretty little face.”
“Fine.” He squirmed beneath me.
“I like it when you struggle,” I snarked.
“Add that to the very long list of fucked up shit that gets you off man.”
I couldn’t help but break out in full blown laughter. “You don’t know the half of it.” I sat back, winded from wrestling and the hysterics.
“Please let it stay that way.”
“You don’t think they’ll like spit-roasting chicks written as a hobby on my resume.”
“Not unless you can turn it into an app.”
I pursed my lips and stroked my chin as I considered it before we broke down laughing all over again.
“How did it go?” Dantè asked as he stood from the leather chair he’d been waiting in down in the lobby. I had to wipe my palms on my pants and get rid of the nervous sweat before I clapped him on the shoulder. He looked taller, sharper in his tailored suit. I felt like a kid playing grown up.
“I think okay,” I answered. “I got a lot out about the actual development of the thing.”
“They asked you about the project?” He quirked his brow.
“They didn’t ask you?”
“No. We talked about my work style and ethics, the things I want to do in the future.” The lines in his forehead got deeper. “They wanted to know about my leadership style.”
Fuck. They loved him. I’d decided to fight Goliath and lost. Something cold and inky, something black swept over me. It was that feeling that Diego and Rousse lived and bathed in. Joy and pride that he was our brother but also envy of him. Envy that bred hate.
“I mean, it’s software development, they need to know about your skills. You’ve got mad skills Danger.” Dantè shrugged as my attention focused back on him. He looked different now. “They were probably using business buzzwords to get through mine.”
He believed it. The fucking words coming out of his mouth. He believed his words, and that they might actually choose me over him. I wanted to smash the goodness and naivety off his face. I pictured his blood gushing from his nose and over my knuckles. I could make the golden boy bleed. He would know mortality at my hands.
But I swallowed the image. He was my brother, and I was an asshole with a temper.
“Dream on,” I said the words playfully. Only I knew I was playing with a double-edged sword.
“You’re really moving out?” I asked over the neck of my beer. “Leaving all this?” It had been nine years since that oath, five of which were spent under the same roof. They weren’t all perfect years but Dantè got off on this whole brotherhood shit; I couldn’t picture him really moving away.
“Yeah.” Dantè smiled that bright and shiny smile of his. “She deserves a man. A man that’s gonna give her a real home.”
“That’s awesome,” I answered even though the picture of breaking his nose, of watching him bleed overtook my thoughts as it had more and more in the last year. The last year, in which he’d gotten the job, developed our app, then got a raise, and I had worked long days in the glamorous world of construction.
What I wouldn’t give to make his blood a reality.
“I’m going to have my own division.” He interrupted my thoughts with more of
his fuck-me-in-the-ass-fantastic news. “You’re the first person I hire, Danger. Mean it.”
I believed him. Always. But the pity hire didn’t sit right on my shoulders. None of it did. I wasn’t sure when blood brothers had shifted to something else. Something focused more on blood. Things that had started out as little irritations were now festering sores. We—Diego, Rousse, and I—had all let those small scrapes get infected somewhere along the line. We’d tried to wash them out in the salt of the ocean, or burn them out in the bright of the sun, but they’d become rancid all the same.
They say hatred can only bloom from where love grows but…
“And leave the exciting world of roofing?” I sputtered to cover my thoughts. “You know how much I like getting nailed.”
He laughed. “You gonna turn my room into a sex dungeon?”
I contemplated for a moment, keeping the real depth of my thoughts to myself, but using the words anyways. “Matter of fact, I think I’ll have some secrets to lock away.”
And the bastard—my friend, my enemy—smiled all the same.
“Why are we out here, bruh?” Diego asked with that airy, hollow voice that said he was baked as fuck.
“Yeah, it’s the middle of the night,” Rousse seconded just before he ummmphed, and I heard the bam, bambam of footfalls that even sounded like Rousse ate shit.
I rolled my eyes as I crouched down and started arranging kindling over top of the fire starter I’d brought with me. The second I flicked my lighter and found flame, two of my three blood brother’s faces illuminated with a flicker of soft gold and dancing shadow. My wicked smile curled up in the corner.
“You’re sure Dantè was asleep?” I glared at Rousse as the fire caught and began to spread.
“And Mercy. I checked twice,” he scoffed.
“Still doesn’t explain why we’re out here.” Diego laid out on the log he’d chosen, the one closest to the waves like usual.
“Don’t fucking fall asleep on me.” I threw an empty beer can from the pile behind me over at Diego and it ricocheted of his shoulder.
