by H Hunting
“I’d do it in the backyard to avoid the mess.” He gives me a wink and brings the bottle to his lips, tipping his head back and draining the contents.
“Not sure if I should be grateful or concerned that you’ve already thought that through.” I salute him, grab a box of Lucky Charms from the cupboard—checking to make sure it’s not one of the three I’ve already eaten all the marshmallows out of—and hoof it up to my room. I lock the door and shove in my earbuds, pulling up a heavy album to drown out the music blasting from the outdoor speaker.
I move across the room and run my fingers over the satin-and-velvet skirt hanging from my dress form. It’s a project for my costume and set design class. It isn’t due for another month, but since I love sewing more than Lucky Charms, I started it right away.
It’s complex and layered, with lots of ruching, an intricate lace overlay, and detailed bead work. I’m in the middle of a particularly tricky part when there’s a knock on my door. I’m inclined to ignore it, but the knocking continues—two raps, a pause, one rap. It’s River.
I finish the line of stitching, set the dress aside, push my chair back, and stand slowly. My shoulders are sore from hunching over, and my right foot is stiff. I hobble to the door and open it a crack.
“Hey, can I come in?” He looks over my head, as if he’s expecting someone to be in here with me.
The only people who come up to my room are Lovey and Lacey, and that’s only happened a couple of times.
“Sure. ’Sup?”
He steps inside my room and closes the door behind him. His expression is pensive, and serious, as it is most of the time. “This kinda sucks for you, doesn’t it?”
I wait for him to elaborate, but he just stands there, frowning. “My earbuds drown most of the noise out,” I finally say. I have to assume he’s referring to the party happening downstairs and outside.
“I don’t mean the noise. Well, I do mean the noise. But it’s more than that. It’s everything—all the jocks, the girls, the people, the mess.”
I shrug. The mess isn’t much of an issue. River and Mav aren’t the tidiest, but we have a cleaner who comes every Monday.
I sigh and thread my fingers through his, squeezing. “I don’t need to be babied, River. I can handle the parties and the noise and everything that comes with it. I might not want to participate all the time, but I don’t mind being a silent observer. This is normal college-kid behavior. And we have a sweet house with a pool, and you and Maverick have lots of friends. I don’t want you to think you have to shoo everyone away because you’re worried about me.”
He flips my hand over and skims the faint crescent scars, most of them faded. “I feel like a shitty brother. I’m the one who pushed you to move in with us, and I’m hardly here. And when I am, there are always people to entertain, and you’re stuck up here.”
“It’s my choice to be up here.”
He nods, but I can tell he wants to say more. Instead, he drops his head and sighs. “I’m going over to a friend’s house tonight, and I’m probably gonna stay there.”
“A friend?” I quirk a brow.
“I’m not feeling the party vibe, and I have practice tomorrow morning.” He’s focused on his fingernails.
“Okay. Do I know this friend?”
He makes a face and ignores my question. “You want me to take you to Lovey and Lacey’s or something?”
Maybe he’s finally met someone he actually likes. That idea hurts a bit, because River and I don’t keep things from each other. Not often anyway, though anything involving Kodiak has been the exception to that rule. I let it go for now. “Mav has an away game tomorrow, right?”
River nods, dark hair flopping over his right eye. He’s freshly showered, and he smells faintly of cologne. I also note that he’s wearing his stylish jeans, his favorite running shoes, and a shirt I once told him made his arms look awesome.
“I’m good here,” I tell him. “I’m working on a dress, and I can sleep in if the house is quiet and empty in the morning.”
“Okay. Just keep your door locked. Some of those guys down there are douchebags.”
“Sure.”
He pulls me into a rare hug. It’s tight and hard and full of pent-up emotion. “I’ll always be your trampoline, Lav, even if you don’t need me to be.”
“I know I’m always safe to land.”
“Always.” He kisses me on the top of the head and slips out the door, waiting for me to turn the lock before he taps on the door and descends the stairs, leaving me to wonder what secrets he’s keeping.
Present day
I WAKE UP to the sound of a door slamming at the ass-crack of dawn. Maverick’s game is in the afternoon, and the bus ride is two and a half hours. They won’t get back until this evening. I can wander around in my jammies and eat cereal out of the box without anyone getting on me about it. I can also watch TV in the living room on the huge screen instead of the small one in my room. But first, I’m going to sleep in.
I pull my covers over my head and snuggle into my pillow. However, after what feels like a handful of minutes later, I’m woken again by the obnoxious blare of a siren.
I bury my head under the pillow to block it out, but it’s not stopping. At all. In fact, it sounds like it’s right outside the house. After thirty seconds of pervasive sirens, I finally throw my covers off, drag my ass out of bed, and peek through the blinds. A haze hangs in the air, smoke coming from somewhere close by.
I rush to the next window—the one that has a view of the top of BJ and Kodiak’s house and a bit of their backyard. Smoke billows into the air, and the flashing lights of the fire truck out front make my chest suddenly tight.
“Shit. Shit.” Everyone should already be on the bus, except for BJ—who sleeps like the actual dead.
I wrench open my door and rush down the stairs. I’m not fully coherent yet, my body in flight-or-fight mode. My coordination is bullshit on the best of days, so I skid down the first set of steps on my ass, slam into the wall on the landing, and then hurtle myself down the second set. For sure I’m going to have bruises, but all I can think of is BJ in that burning house.
I bolt through the living room and come to an abrupt halt when I see BJ stretched out on one of the recliners, mouth open, a hot dog hanging out of the right side like an unlit cigar. He’s surrounded by empty food boxes. It smells like stale farts and sour sleep breath, but I have never been so freaking happy to see my cousin in my entire life.
I rush over, trip on a half-empty carton of Ramen noodles, and land on top of him. The hot dog slides out of his mouth and down into the chair somewhere. He grunts, but otherwise doesn’t rouse.
I shake his shoulders until his eyes pop open. It takes me a moment to find my voice through the panic. “There’s a fire!”
His confusion morphs into concern. “What? Where? Here?”
I give my head a violent shake and clamber out of the chair, stumbling backward. BJ is quick, though, and he grabs me before I land on my ass.
“Your place. Come on.” I grab his wrist and tug, making him follow me outside.
Instead of a clear, bright morning, we step out into a cloud of acrid smoke.
“Holy shit!” And now it’s not me pulling BJ along, it’s him pulling me.
I stumble, barefoot and light-headed. BJ wraps an arm around my waist and hauls me up so my feet aren’t touching the ground. He cuts across the lawns to get to his house, but police stop him. There’s already a crowd of students congregated across the street, watching smoke billow out of the windows on the first floor.
“Hey, hey, you can’t go in there,” an officer tells us.
“That’s my house. What happened? Was there anyone in there? Is there anyone in there?” His panicked gaze darts to mine, the same fears reflected there.
“Game.” My voice is a whisper I’m sure he can barely catch over the sound of people shouting and the spray of water.
“Shit. Right. Thank God.” BJ runs his fre
e hand through his sleep-messed hair.
The police officer nods in confirmation. “The house is empty. The fire started in the kitchen. You said you live here, son?”
BJ scrubs his palm over his face and motions to me. “Yeah. I crashed at my cousin’s last night.”
The police officer looks from him to me and back again. “Your cousin?”
It takes me a few seconds to understand why he’s wearing a confused expression. BJ is dressed in only a pair of low-slung jogging pants. His entire lean, somewhat wiry chest on display, along with his tattooed arm, which is mostly a colorful burst of flowers. Lilies to be exact, because that’s his mom’s name, and he loves the freaking shit out of her.
Beyond the shirtlessness, based on the way his jogging pants hang, and the outline at the front, he’s commando. I’m dressed in a pair of sleep shorts and a tank top. It’s black, thankfully, so it hides my nipples, but I’m braless, and there’s a lot of cleavage. BJ’s arm is wrapped around my waist, presumably to keep me from tripping over my own feet.
“Yeah. Cousin. She lives just there.” BJ thumbs over his shoulder and then points at the smoking house. “How bad is it? Do you know what happened? My dad is going to shit a brick.” BJ is all over the place, but I can understand why since his house is currently on fire.
“Hard to say. We’ll know more soon, but it looks like the fire was confined to the kitchen for the most part. You have roommates?”
“Yeah, two, but they play hockey for the school team, so they’re away until tonight.” He looks to me. “This is gonna be bad. We’re gonna have to call everyone.”
I shake my head. “I’m not calling Quinn’s dad.” Lance Romero scares the crap out of me. He’s a nice guy, but when he gets pissed about something, he’s a lot like my dad. The fuse gets lit, and he goes off. I’ve only seen it a few times, but that is more than enough. “Do you think it’ll be better if we call your mom or your dad first?”
BJ strokes his beard like a magic genie is going to appear and blows out a breath. “Dunno who’s gonna be less volatile. I’d say my mom, but man, I can’t see her being happy to hear the kitchen went up in flames. I really hope it was faulty wiring or something.”
Since there’s nothing we can do but stand around and watch the firefighters do their job, BJ and I head back to my house so I can change and find him something to wear from Maverick’s room. I pull a T-shirt from my brother’s closet, unwilling to look inside his dresser. There’s a distinct possibility I might find things I don’t want to, if the tub of lube and box of condoms decorating his nightstand are any indication.
When I return, BJ is sitting at the kitchen table, his phone in front of him, his hands in his hair. I toss the shirt at him and turn on the Nespresso machine.
“Coffee?”
“Please.”
Neither of us talks while I prepare lattes; mine is coconut milk. I grab a box of Lucky Charms from the cupboard and tuck it under my arm. “We should probably go back out there.”
I don’t know what purpose it will serve, other than to remind us we’re lucky the house was empty and BJ likes to sleep on our recliner.
“Yeah.” He’s still staring at his phone.
“Did you call your parents?” I pop a crunchy marshmallow into my mouth. “You don’t want them to see it on the news first.”
“Shit, you’re right. It’s gonna be everywhere.” He waffles between his mom and dad and finally settles on his dad.
BJ video calls him. When his face pops up, it’s like looking in an aging mirror. BJ has his mom’s dark eyes, and his hair is darker than his dad’s salt and pepper, but they are essentially replicas of each other. Uncle Randy’s grin falls as soon as he sees BJ’s serious expression. “What’s wrong?”
BJ explains what he knows so far—that there was a fire, and it started in the kitchen, but they have it under control now. Uncle Randy throws a million questions at him, so we end up walking back over to the house so his dad can talk to someone in charge.
Of course when the police and firefighters realize it’s the Randy Ballistic, former NHL player, they all lose their cool.
Like my parents, BJ’s live an hour or so away. They bought a piece of property on Lake Geneva a few years ago, and when our dads—along with my uncle Miller—decided to start their own training camp, they moved out there too. It didn’t hurt that some of their former teammates and friends had also moved back to the area.
So of course that means BJ’s parents are coming to assess the damage. Within the hour, I have a call from my mom, telling me they’re coming too, along with the Romeros and the Bowmans.
BJ and I end our respective calls, during which there is no room for argument, and both exhale the same, long, distressed breath. It sucks that we’re the only ones here to deal with this.
“My parents aren’t going to tell Mav before the game,” I report.
BJ yanks on his beard a couple of times. If he keeps doing that, he’s going to start pulling it out. “Yeah, but, like, everyone on the block has seen the spectacle, and for sure people were recording it out there and posting it. Someone’s gonna send something to the guys.”
I bang my head on BJ’s biceps. He’s right. It’s going to get back to them. “I guess it’s better coming from us?”
“Probably.”
“I’ll call my brothers?” River might be at practice, but if he catches wind that BJ’s house caught on fire, he’ll be worried because those two are pretty tight. I make a face like I’ve sucked on a lemon. “You can call Quinn and Kodiak? Or Mav can tell them?”
BJ nods resolutely and pulls up his contact list while I call Mav and tell him what happened.
“Oh shit, Kody’s gonna flip his lid.” Is pretty much all Mav has to say.
After that, I call my twin. I assure him everything is okay and he tells me he’ll be home in a couple of hours.
BJ and I sit on my back deck, where the nosy bastards who are filming and posting on social media can’t see us. There’s now a police barricade at the end of the street to keep people from driving by. Neighbors are throwing porch parties, watching the fire crew clean up. It seems like the worst of it has been taken care of, but the air is sharp with smoke.
“Everything is going to smell like a freaking campfire. Kody is going to lose his mind.” BJ keeps rubbing his beard.
I tip my head back and look up at the sky. “Do you think he’ll have a meltdown?” Kodiak has always been very particular about his things.
“Absolutely.” BJ laces his hands behind his head. “He’s being a fucking idiot.”
I glance at BJ. “What do you mean?”
“He’ll for sure have some sort of massive attack, and it won’t be pretty because he’s Kody, but I’m not talking about the house. I mean with you. He’s being an idiot. I know he’s been nothing but a dick to you.”
“He really hasn’t been anything to me since we were kids.” Such a stupid lie.
“If you want to play it that way, you go right ahead. But I’ve known both of you my entire life. You two were tight, like it was . . .” He shakes his head. “I remember being jealous as a kid.”
“Jealous? Of what?”
“I don’t know exactly. It’s weird. Everyone wanted to protect you all the time, and I get why, because you went through a lot.”
Like everyone else, BJ talks around the carnival incident.
“River has always been the worst, and I understand why, ’cause he’s your twin, but Kody, man, he lived for you, and you were the same. You had this thing no one could touch. It drove River fucking insane.”
“Everything drives River insane, and we were kids.”
“Nothing drives River more insane than the way Kody was with you, and you know it.”
I nod because it’s true.
BJ crosses one leg over the other. “I get that we were kids, but like I said, it’s weird shit. We all knew it was something way bigger. Like, I’m tight with Quinn and River as much as anyone can
be, but you and Kody were an extension of each other. He’s never been like that with anyone else. He even keeps Maverick at arm’s length. But back when we were kids, when you moved, he moved. You were completely in sync with each other. It was like watching a perfect-ten pairs performance on the ice.”
I’ve watched BJ skate pairs competitions before. He’s absolutely amazing, and it’s easy to see why pretty much every partner he’s ever had falls hopelessly in love with him. He pretends it isn’t happening.
I consider how my relationship with Kodiak must have appeared to our friends. BJ’s right; Kodiak and I always had a very strange kind of connection.
“Everyone thought it was so cute, but after that night you got locked in the closet, things changed.” BJ looks away from his smoking house, all sorts of questions in his eyes.
No one really talked about the closet incident after it happened. For about a week, Maverick went to Kodiak’s house and he didn’t come to ours, but it wasn’t because of me. River was the issue. Lainey and my mom had closed-door conversations, and I saw Queenie every day during that time.
The longer they kept us apart, the worse my anxiety got, and I started having nightmares about being locked in the closet. I slept in River’s room, and still the nightmares kept coming. Eventually they gave in and let Kodiak come over when River was out with friends. I still remember how hard it was not to rush up and hug him, to soak in the balm of his presence like a sponge.
He’d looked so tired, like me. And worn out, like me.
That event had flipped a switch in both of us. We recognized exactly what we could do for each other, and it became . . . addictive. I can see now how dangerous that probably was. Power wielded over each other has the ability to both build and break.
“Kodiak was only trying to help me. That’s all he was ever trying to do. It just became unhealthy for both of us.” At least that’s what our parents eventually decided.
BJ stays silent for a while. “But then something happened two years ago with you guys, when he was a sophomore here.”
My head snaps in his direction. “Nothing ha—”
