by Jamie Shaw
It was like nothing happened—less than nothing. It was like he’d forgotten the way he danced with me on the floor, the way he buried his hands in my hair. It was like I was nothing.
It was just like before.
Before writing songs in my apartment. Before sunsets on my roof. Before tugging my feet into his lap.
And I didn’t dare tell a soul about what happened between us—not until this weekend at Dee’s, when it was weighing so heavily on my mind that I accidentally blurted that I slept with Shawn in high school. I was at Dee’s apartment with Rowan and Leti to help Dee pack up her stuff since she was planning on moving back home, and then we were going to celebrate her birthday before she left, and . . . yeah, it just came out.
The girls surprisingly kept their questions to a minimum, but that night after they were both fast asleep in a blanket fort in the living room, Leti locked himself in the bathroom with me—while my pants were down around my freaking ankles—and grilled me like an overcooked sausage. He held me hostage until I confessed every last detail about Shawn, with only one that I managed to keep to myself: I didn’t tell him that the night I slept with Shawn in high school was the night I lost my virginity.
I could barely sleep that night, and the next morning, after a trip to IHOP for coffee, Shawn showed up with Adam and Mike to help move Dee’s boxes out of her apartment. He ignored me while we loaded the van, and he continued to ignore me that night while we all drank ourselves stupid in her empty living room. I sat right next to him, and it was like I wasn’t even there.
It hurt until it didn’t. Because eventually, all I felt was pissed the fuck off.
“I CAN’T BELIEVE you called him scrawny,” Leti says from the far side of my tiny apartment. I’m busy tossing things into a suitcase, and he’s busy studying my wall full of pictures—of my family, of big shows I’ve been to, of the band.
At Dee’s birthday party last night, I sat next to Shawn, had a little bit too much to drink, and . . . yeah, I called him scrawny. And I poked his bicep to prove my point, even though it did the opposite. I pulled my finger away, hating him for being so fucking perfect I could hardly stand it.
Leti shoots me a grin over his shoulder. “So cold, Tourni-Kit.”
“He is scrawny,” I insist. And smart. And funny. And hot.
“And hot,” he counters, and an image of Shawn pops into my mind: the way he looked when he was loading Dee’s things into a moving van. The way his lean muscles flexed under his T-shirt. The way the heather-gray cotton clung to his skin. The way sweat beaded at his temples.
I hated it so much, I couldn’t stop staring.
“You think everyone’s hot,” I scoff.
“Only rock stars,” Leti fibs.
“And my brothers.”
I glance at him out of the corner of my eye, and the smile he shoots me is all trouble.
Tonight, I’m dragging him along to my family’s Sunday dinner, then driving him to his parents’ place and spending the night before coming back to town. Because maybe a few cities’ worth of distance will help me forget about Shawn. Even if only for five freaking minutes.
Leti returns his attention to my picture-wall and whistles. “Your brothers are even hotter than you are.”
I throw a dirty shirt at him and continue rifling through my things.
“Tall, dark, and handsome. Mmm, mmm, mmm. Are any of them gay?”
The pair of socks I’m holding freezes in midair for a moment before finishing its journey into my suitcase, and Leti misses nothing.
“Silence,” he observes too quickly. “Iiinteresting, Kitana.”
“Huh?” I say to recover, pretending I hadn’t heard him.
“So which one?” One corner of his mouth lifts into an intrigued little smirk.
“What are you talking about?”
Leti turns back toward the picture-wall, his sunshine-yellow Felix the Cat T-shirt hanging loose between broad shoulders. “My guess would be this one that looks like he just broke out of prison,” he says, and I don’t need to join him at the wall to know he’s talking about Mason. “He looks like he’s overcompensating for something.”
I snort out a laugh, and Leti continues guessing.
“Or maybe it’s this one. Who’s this?” When I finally walk to stand beside him, he’s pointing right at Kale.
“That’s Kale,” I answer, and then I casually continue going down the line of brothers standing in the picture, arms around each other and smiles on their faces. “And that’s Bryce. That’s Mason. And that’s Ryan.”
“So which one, Kitastrophe? Or am I going to have to guess?”
I chuckle and retreat to my bed. “Still don’t know what you think you know, but please, try to guess.”
He continues guessing until my bag is packed, and during the hour-long ride, I warn him all about my family. I’d already told him how offensively they behaved at the dinner when I told them I’d made a gay friend, but I think that only made him want to come home with me even more. And when we step inside my house, he proves it. My brothers are expecting us, and when they flock to the front door from different corners of the house to greet me, Leti’s one-man performance begins.
“You must be Mason,” he says before wrapping my most intimidating brother in a fearless hug. My jaw drops to the foyer floor, Mason’s brows turn in with something between shock and confusion, and Leti tightens his squeeze. “Kit’s told me so much about you.”
I glance at Kale over Mason’s shoulder, and his black eyes are just as wide as mine. He looks at me, I look at him, and our mouths mirror each other as the corners tip up . . . up . . . up. We’re kids on Christmas morning, watching Leti as he ends the hug with a firm kiss on Mason’s cheek. He leaves my hulk of a brother stunned, like he’s not sure if he wants to punch Leti in the face or apologize for not hugging him back, and I have to resist the urge to jump up and down while applauding the show. Leti is getting even—for me, for himself, for the entire gay community—and I am so, so on board.
I hold back an ecstatic giggle when it dawns on Bryce that he missed his opportunity to escape. But then it’s too late, because Leti’s arms are around him. “And you must be Bryce.”
Another kiss, another set of traumatized dark eyes, and then Ryan is in Leti’s arms next, but at least he has the decency to lift his arm and hug Leti back. I smile with approval.
“Nice to meet you, man. Kit’s told us a ton about you too.”
Leti pulls away and grins. “Ryan, right?”
Ryan nods and claps Leti on the shoulder, and then Leti is turning to Kale.
“And Kale,” Leti says, smiling at my twin before stepping in to give him a hug. He wraps his arms around my brother, and I find myself wanting to squeal again, but for entirely new reasons. They look so good together—both tall, both fit, both cute as hell. Leti’s arms wrap around my brother easily, and Kale hesitates for only a moment before hugging him back. “It’s good to finally meet you.”
Leti kisses Kale on the cheek, and Kale blushes almost as brightly as Mason had. I swallow another giggle, and Leti asks, “Now where’s Mom?”
He follows the scent of lasagna to the dining room, and my brothers helplessly trail after him. While everyone is distracted, I bump Kale with my hip.
“Told you he was cute,” I whisper, and Kale turns his “shut up” glare on me before pinching my arm and following Leti’s testosterone-filled conga line.
In the kitchen, my third-best friend kisses my mom. He kisses my dad. And at the table, he raises the bar.
“This lasagna is delicious, Dina,” he tells my mom. “Are you sure you’re not Italian?”
My mom chuckles and waves him off. I’m pretty sure it took Leti only two seconds and half a compliment to become her first-favorite person.
“Seriously,” he continues as he carves off another bite. He’s sitting next to me, at my mom’s end of the table, my three oldest brothers on the other side. “I had an ex who was Italian, but he didn’t mak
e it even half this good.” Leti’s eyes swing to Mason, and a mischievous smile touches his lips. “He actually looked kind of like Mason. All big football-player muscles and bad-boy tattoos.” He leans in close to my mom and whispers loudly enough for the rest of the table to hear, “But he was kind of a nympho.”
My mother’s nose turns red, and I choke back my laughter.
“Was he the one with the weird fetish?” I ask even though I have no freaking clue who Leti is talking about and I have no idea if this person did or did not have a fetish. All I know is that Leti is making my family ridiculously uncomfortable, and I’m totally down for being his partner in crime.
He nods with his mouth full of lasagna. “Yeah.” An exaggerated chill shivers over his body as he continues chewing. “I’ll never look at Slinkies the same way again.”
This time, I actually do laugh, but only because I can’t help it. My entire family looks thoroughly disturbed—all except for Kale, who’s heard enough about Leti to guess what’s going on. He grins from down the table, enjoying the show and maybe the view.
“I had to break up with him after ‘the incident,’ ” Leti continues, holding everyone’s rapt attention. Even my dad can’t pull his eyes away.
“Oh God, the incident,” I echo.
“What incident?” Bryce makes the mistake of asking, and Leti shakes his head like he can’t bear to remember it.
“Let’s just say it involved a hot tub, some pop rocks, and a pineapple.”
Kale’s laughter booms from my left side, and I’m quick to join him, followed by Ryan and even my mom and dad.
Bryce just sits there with his eyebrows turned in and his mouth hanging open, a piece of lasagna dangerously close to dropping off the fork he’s holding in the air.
“Dude.” Leti laughs. “We’re just messing with you.”
“Wait . . . ” The lasagna plops onto his plate, but Bryce just stares around the table like we’re the ones who are missing something. “So then what was ‘the incident’?”
Even Mason can’t help but laugh at our brother’s expense, and by the time dinner is over, my entire side feels like it’s splitting in half and I’m pretty sure everyone is in love with Leti—Kale most of all.
“So, Leti,” Mason says after my dad has retired to the den and my mom is busy washing dishes. He leans back in his chair with his hands behind his buzzed head like he owns the place, his muscles threatening to split the shirt he’s wearing. “The guys in Kit’s band . . . they good guys?”
Ryan on Mason’s right, and Bryce on Mason’s left, both hang on the response Leti isn’t giving because I’m too busy interrupting him and digging my heel into his shin. In my rush to prepare him for my brothers in the car, I forgot to tell him the most important freaking thing: that they have no idea I’m in the same band we went to high school with. “Give it a rest, Mase. I already told you that Bill and Ty and the guys are great.”
Leti’s eyebrow lifts at me, and he responds without looking away or putting it down. “Yeah . . . Bill and Ty and the guys . . . stellar dudes.”
“Any of them hooking up with our sister?” Bryce asks, and even in my discomfort, I bark out a laugh and get cocky.
“Yeah, Bryce, because Leti would tell you even if they were.”
“So they are,” he accuses, and I roll my eyes.
Kale leans over the table to look past me to Leti. His chin is propped on his hand and his black hair is tumbling over his forehead. “Our brother is a little slow.”
He barely dodges a half-eaten biscotti when Bryce chucks it at his head. It explodes on the floor behind Kale’s chair, and Kale simply smirks and says, “Mom is going to kick your ass.”
“Language!” she shouts from the kitchen, and all of us laugh while Ryan gets up to pick up the pieces.
My oldest brother finishes finger-sweeping them up, drops them onto my napkin, and kisses the top of my head. With his hand on my shoulder, he says, “Stop giving them such a hard time. You know they’re only asking because they love you.”
Mason shoots me a triumphant grin and goes back to being a pain in my ass. “Any guys we need to worry about?” he asks Leti.
The answer is a face that springs into my mind. One with heart-crushing green eyes. Calloused fingertips. Black hair a shade lighter than mine. And a voice that’s still the last thing I hear at night, because it plays over and over again in my mind.
“I don’t think you ever need to worry about Kit at all,” Leti answers.
He’s lying. He might not know it, and my brothers might not know it, but I know it, and I love him for doing it.
We sit at the dinner table long past dark, until I convince my brothers to let us go and I convince Leti that we really need to hit the road. Kale walks us out to my Jeep and gives me a long hug good-bye.
“Don’t miss any more Sunday dinners. They aren’t the same without you.”
I smile into his shoulder. “What about when I go on tour?”
There are only six weeks left until we leave, in mid-July. Shawn has been busy making arrangements and working on publicity for the album we’re recording next week and releasing two weeks before our first tour date. And I’ve still been busy wondering where I’ll sleep. Before, I wondered if he’d bring girls on the bus after shows. Now, I wonder how I’ll react when he does.
Will I cry? For four straight weeks?
“Take me with you,” Kale answers before letting me go, and I wish I could. Mike, Adam, and Joel are great, but it’d be nice to have my twin with me. I miss him more than I’d ever let his punk ass know, and I know he can see it by the way he pulls me in to give me a kiss on the cheek before moving on to Leti.
My favorite brother stands across from our dinner guest, with his hands tucked in his back pockets and sincerity in his dark eyes. The boys are eye to eye under the glow of the security lamp hanging beside the basketball hoop in our driveway, Kale in a fitted checkered button-down and Leti in hot pink hoodie the same bright shade as his hot pink Chucks. “Thanks.”
“For what?” Leti asks.
Kale gives him a smile that means everything. “For being yourself tonight.”
If I didn’t know Leti better, I’d swear his cheeks turn almost as pink as his outfit. A smile touches his lips and he never takes his eyes off my brother. “Before we came here tonight, I told your sister her brothers were hot and asked if any of them swung my way. Do you know what she said?”
Kale just waits, and I swallow hard.
“She said she had no idea what I was talking about. Do you know what I was talking about?”
Again, Kale says nothing. But because I’m his twin, I can tell the words are right on the tip of his tongue. I can see it in the way his fingers fidget in his pockets.
Leti waits a moment longer, and then he smiles again. “Well, if you do ever figure out what I’m talking about, give me a call.” He pulls my brother in for a hug, unlike the one he gave him when he got here. This one isn’t for show. And it isn’t romantic either. He’s giving my brother his support, and when Kale frees his hands from his pockets and hugs Leti back, hope blooms in my chest and I walk around the hood of my Jeep to crawl into the driver’s seat.
“Love you, Kale,” I call after Leti slides in next to me.
“Love you back,” Kale says. His eyes flit to Leti before I put the Jeep in reverse, and then they drop to the driveway just before he turns to walk away.
“How’d you know?” I ask as soon as Leti and I are on the road. We’re both wrapped in our hoodies, drenched in the chilled night air that blows past us faster than the light of fireflies dancing by the side of the road.
“Maybe I was just hoping,” he says, and when he turns to me, his right hand soaring in the wind, he looks the most boyish I’ve ever seen him look.
“Are you crushing on my brother?” I ask, and he laughs and looks back out of the side of the Jeep.
“Have you seen your brothers? I’m crushing on all of them. Even your dad is hot.”
/>
My nose scrunches at the thought of Leti and my . . . no, not even going to go there. “I don’t think you’re my dad’s type.”
“I’m everyone’s type,” he counters, and I can’t help smiling.
“Why’d you lie to your brothers about the band you’re in?”
And just like that, my smile vanishes. The road gets my undivided attention as we break through the suburbs and head toward the highway to Leti’s parents’ house.
“Because they wouldn’t like it.”
“That’s a shitty excuse for Kale and an even shittier one for you. What’s the real reason?”
I think about it for a long time—for so long that my answer cuts across a silence that’s become as impenetrable as the dark.
“Because Shawn was a secret . . . ” I admit, my voice quieting with the second half of my confession. “One I wanted to keep.”
“What about now?” Leti replies, and a million images flash into my head—the sunset, the stars in Shawn’s eyes, how his voice sounded when it carried on the breeze. Every single one of them ends with the way he won’t look at me now—not even to chastise me for being late or sucking at my job.
“Now?” I ask. “Now I know better.”
Chapter Ten
NONE OF US—none of us—could have predicted the way our album would blow up the first week of its release. Big bands like Cutting the Line and The Lost Keys are extremely vocal about loving our work, and all it takes is a few shares from a few big names. Social media explodes, shows sell out, and we add even more dates to our already booked tour.
Which means more time on the road. More time with Shawn.
“What’s with the purple?” he asks as I lug my guitar case and overstuffed backpack toward the bus, one slung over my left shoulder and the other slung over my right. My shades are down, my hair is a freshly dyed mix of midnight purple and black, and my asskickers are laced tight.
“What’s with your face?”
