by Lina Langley
I wanted to prod and ask why, but I knew it was wiser if I kept my mouth shut.
“My foster mom called me on Friday,” he said. “She told me that a court date has been set.”
“A court date for what?”
He took a deep breath and turned his body so he was looking right at me. “My foster dad,” he said. “Well, an old foster dad, he, uh, sort of beat me up, I guess. It was really bad so they’re prosecuting him.”
I blinked, looking up and down at him. He looked uncomfortable. I reached out and grabbed his hand, holding it steady in my own. “I’m sorry,” I said. “That’s horrible.”
He shrugged. “It’s not,” he said. “I threw the first punch.”
I stared at him.
He shook his head, his entire face paling, and then looked down. “See, this is why I didn’t want to tell you,” he said. “I just knew you were going to start thinking I was some sort of thug.”
“I don’t think you’re a thug,” I said. I could hear his quickened breath.
“You don’t?”
“No,” I replied. I couldn’t resist, I reached out and tilted his chin up so he was looking right at me. “Mason, whatever happened, I’m sure you had your reasons.”
He smiled at me and opened his mouth to talk.
“You don’t have to tell me, though,” I said. “You don’t have to justify yourself to me.”
“I know,” he said. “I want to.”
I blinked as I began to move my hand away from him, but he leaned into my touch and my breath caught in my throat. I could feel his stubbled cheek on the palm of my hand, I could feel his breath tickling my fingertips. I could almost touch the ridges of his lips with my thumb, but I managed to stop myself, trying my best to enjoy the moment for what it was.
He opened his cat-like eyes to look right at my face. “I had to stop him,” he said. “He would have hurt my foster sisters if I hadn’t.”
He said it with such conviction, I couldn’t help myself. I wrapped my arms around him, holding him close to my own body, ignoring the gear stick in the way of our bodies. I felt his warmth on mine and when he buried his face into the curvature of my neck, his breath tickling me and sending shivers down my spine.
“It’s okay,” I said quietly. “I’m here. We all are.”
“I know,” he replied, moving away from me. “I know that.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MASON
“A B is hardly something to celebrate,” I said between gritted teeth. We were in Jules’ room. Hashim had debate club, but Brandon was working on his laptop in front of us.
“A B is hardly something to celebrate,” Brandon repeated, then shook his head. “You’re going to have to learn to take a win.”
“One of these days,” Jules said. “You’re going to have to.”
I smiled at them, then shook my head and looked back at my essay. “She did seem to like it,” I said.
“Are you kidding, I’m sure she loved it,” Jules said. “Your analysis of the morality of the characters in a historical context was really well done.”
“Will you two just fuck already?” Brandon said, never looking toward us.
I glared at him, but Jules threw a pillow at his face. “Get out,” Jules said.
Brandon looked at him with wide eyes. “You’re kicking me out?”
“I’m kicking you out,” he said. “Go watch Youtube somewhere else. I want to talk to Mason.”
Brandon closed his laptop and then made kissy noises toward him. “Put a sock on the door,” he said. “I’ll keep Hashim entertained.”
“I’m sure you will,” I said, flipping him off. He threw the pillow back at us and left the room, not before he looked over his shoulder and wiggled his eyebrows at us.
Jules looked at me and shook his head, his cheeks red. “Sorry,” he said. “I guess I’m easy to read.”
“You are,” I replied.
I was sitting on the bed next to him, our bodies about five inches apart. I had been really careful not to touch him, because after what had happened in the car, I had felt myself leaning into him and feeling so compelled to kiss him that I had almost forgotten myself.
But I hadn’t. I had managed to pull away, my heart beating a million miles an hour, and flashed him a little smile. Because that felt like what I could do, and it was better than nothing. Ever since that moment, I had dreamt of his scent, of the way his eyes glimmered whenever he spoke, of the little lines on his face.
I had wanted to spend less time with him, but extricating myself from the group had proven difficult, and part of me simply didn’t want to do it. I liked the three of them. They were my friends, and they were helping me. They hadn’t needed to do that, but they had, and I was grateful to them. They had made what seemed like an impossible task something I could actually deal with.
Especially Jules. It was mostly all Jules.
“I didn’t send Brandon out of the room just to make you uncomfortable,” he said.
I kicked off my shoes and swung my legs up so that my body was on the bed entirely and I could turn to look at him. “Not just for that?”
“Well, I wanted to apologize for that,” he said. “It’s been months, I thought they’d be bored of it by now.”
I laughed. “They just think it’s funny to watch you squirm.”
“I know!” he replied, sounding outraged. “I hate it.”
I smiled at him.
He cleared his throat before he continued talking. “But if it makes you uncomfortable—”
“It doesn’t,” I said. “I think it’s funny to watch you squirm too.”
He snickered, his eyes shining. He was wearing his uniform, but his tie was slack and the top two buttons of his button-up were undone. His dirty blond hair was slightly curly and fell softly upon his face and onto his shoulders. “You suck,” he said. “No wonder you like them.”
I shrugged, but I was still smiling at him.
His expression darkened a little. “But I did want to talk to you about something serious,” he said.
“What?”
“I’ve been thinking,” he said.
“Don’t hurt yourself.”
He ignored me. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “What if we went with you to court? I know it’s a few months out still, you know, technically not until next year, but--”
The haze of happiness I had been in lifted, leaving in its place cold harsh nothingness. I felt like I had dived into a pool, only to realize that the bottom of it was covered in sharp stones. “No,” I said, trying my best to keep my voice steady. “Absolutely not.”
I wasn’t looking at him when he spoke, mostly because I didn’t want him to see the expression on my face. I was sure it was something between a cross of fury and terror, and there was absolutely no need for him to see that shit.
I didn’t want him to question me. I didn’t want him to ask me what was wrong, because if he did, I might have told him.
“Mason—”
“No,” I said. “You can’t come.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said.
“You didn’t upset me,” I replied, which sounded like a lie even to my own ears. “It’s fine, you just can’t come, okay?”
“But why? We’re your friends,” he replied.
I bit my lower lip. “Exactly,” I said. “And I would like to keep it that way.”
“You shouldn’t be ashamed—”
“Fucking stop it!” I said, my voice a menacing whisper. “I’m not ashamed. You can’t come, I don’t want you there.”
“Mason…”
I picked up my head to look at him, then bit my lower lip. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just…”
Worried. I was worried. I was worried they were going to find out the truth and ostracize me for the rest of my life when they had all become so important in my own life. But I couldn’t tell him that. I couldn’t tell him anything.
“No, I’m sorry,” he said. �
��I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have insisted.”
“It’s okay,” I said, looking at him. “I get it. You guys care about me and you just want to help, and I’m being an ungrateful idiot.”
He smiled at me. “Not exactly,” he said. “You’re allowed to, you know, have your things. Separate from us.”
“I know,” I said.
“But,” he replied, smiling brightly. “I do have an idea of how I can make it up to you, and I promise that you’re going to love this.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
JULES
I could feel the hesitation when I first asked Mason if he wanted to spend a weekend at my place with the rest of the boys, but we made sure to be there when he called his foster parents, and we all cheered when he got permission to stay at my place for one weekend.
Mason didn’t look particularly excited, but then our eyes met and he smiled at me, and it was the sweetest smile I had ever seen in my life. It felt like I was going to faint any time I saw him smile.
It had stung a little that he didn’t want us to go to court with him, but I supposed I got it. He seemed sort of ashamed every time any one of us brought it up—it wasn’t just me, he had told the boys about it—so we had stopped talking about it at all.
What we hadn’t managed to stop talking about was the weekend away. It was our tradition, each six months, one of us hosted the other two for a weekend. Except this year, when it would be four of us. I was excited it was my turn to host, but Mason didn’t seem to share the sentiment.
Not even as we were in the car, driving along on the freeway. “Cheer up,” I said to him.
He hadn’t called shotgun, but Hashim and Brandon had ceded it to him after puckering their lips and making kissy noises at him. Mason rolled his eyes, but he got in the passenger seat, buckled up and smiled at me.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “This is my first road trip ever. I don’t know how I’m supposed to be acting.”
“How you’re acting is fine,” Brandon called from the backseat. “We all love your moody vibe. It’s very…”
“Emo?” Hashim offered.
Brandon scoffed. “Nah,” he said. “It’s not.”
“Holden Caulfield?” Mason said quietly, a little smile playing on his face.
I laughed. “Nice. Vintage emo,” I said. “To think you were behind only a couple of months ago.”
He smiled. “I’m still behind,” he said. “And I am excited. I just have things on my mind.”
I checked my mirrors so I could begin to switch lanes. “You can act however you like, really,” I said, then dropped my voice to a whisper so only he could hear me. “I just like it when you smile.”
His smiled widened a little, his cheeks reddening. “It’s hard not to smile around you,” he said, his voice also a little more than a whisper.
Hashim and Brandon were snickering in the backseat. There was a certain amount of trepidation when it came to how Hashim and Brandon were acting. I didn’t want them to make Mason uncomfortable. I couldn’t help what they did, though. I liked the teasing a little, too, because there was something really nice about seeing Mason blush and smile when he heard my name.
Every time that that dimple would appear on his right cheek I would feel like I was falling apart. I hadn't thought about what I was going to do when we got back to my place, but I did know it was killing me not to ask him about it again.
I had stuck to what I said I was going to stick to. I was just his friend, nothing else, and I think he liked it that way. I didn’t. I didn’t know how long I could stay around them, I didn’t know how long I could pretend it wasn’t killing me every time he smiled at me when our eyes met, but I couldn’t reach out and touch him, I couldn’t reach out and kiss him. It was one thing to not be interested in me. I got that. But he acted like he was interested and I didn’t know how I was supposed to deal with that at all.
I didn’t want to pull away from him, but this was going to be a real test. If he didn’t want to be around me romantically, I thought I would have to pull away from him because it simply hurt too much to have him around.
I wasn’t sure of it because I had never been in love before, but I thought this might be what love felt like. If it was all-consuming and also sort of made me made feel sick, then this was definitely it.
And I wanted to tell him. I did, because it was more important than a date. Even if it was unrequited love, he needed to know the truth, because keeping it from him… it felt like it was wrong.
I looked at him, his eyes on the road, a little smile still on his face. The sun was hitting the side of this cheek, making his silhouette stand out against the black leather inside the car. I sighed. I could have fallen in love with him at that very moment.
He turned to smile at me. “Are you okay, though?”
“I’m fine. Why are you asking?”
“You just seem like really lost in thought there.”
“I’m fine,” I repeated. Maybe if I said it enough times, I would begin to believe it myself.
Then he reached out, grabbed my shoulder, and grinned at me. Suddenly, everything was better.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MASON
I knew I shouldn’t have agreed to go with them. There was no way that I was going to get around meeting my birthmother, and there was a part of me that thought it would be so much better if she just didn’t know I existed. Keeping it a secret would preserve my friendship with the boys. It would keep everything the same, and I liked things the way they were. I liked hanging out with Hashim and Brandon, but mostly I liked spending time with Jules.
He was the one who always made every day a little brighter; being around him always made me feel better about myself, until I remembered why I had arrived there and what was keeping from him. I simply couldn’t shatter his world. But when he had given me the opportunity to go to his house, to meet his parents, I would’ve been an idiot not to take it. I had always wanted to know, and I hadn’t realized that I had always wanted to know until Clive and Denise had given me that folder. I wanted to confront her, I wanted to know why she gave one of us up while the other one had a charmed life. I was still a little jealous of Jules, but I understood now that it was better that one of us had a charmed life.
So even though I was trying my best to make everything seem normal, I was being distant and I was sure they could see I was a nervous wreck. I had to stuff my hands into the pocket of my jeans to make sure they couldn’t tell they were trembling, and I even turned down Jules’ offer to drive regardless of how much I enjoyed it. I knew that I wasn’t in any state to be driving.
I couldn’t back out anymore. I was already on the way there, and I couldn’t just pretend I was sick and beg to be taken home, no matter how much I wanted to.
I didn’t think Clive and Denise would be very impressed with me if I did that. They had already sacrificed plenty for me. I didn’t need to make it harder on them.
As Jules pulled off the freeway, I began to get more and more nervous. I was trying my best not to fidget, but I was finding it difficult. I turned my head so I could open the window, because I really needed to think about something else. I could smell pine trees and I could hear birds tweeting every now and then, when the sound of engines died down just enough.
“Where do you live?” I asked after Jules had driven about fifteen minutes into the forest.
“Near a lake,” Jules replied. “Well, it’s more like on the lake, but… There is lots of water.”
“Okay, well, how far away is it?”
“Not too far,” he replied. “Why? You getting sick of the car?”
“Something like that,” I said quietly. It was more that I wanted the car ride to take forever but I couldn’t exactly say that.
“Take a page out of the boys’ book. They’re both sleeping like babies.”
I looked back to check on them, and he was right. Hashim had his head on Brandon’s shoulder, his mouth was open, and there was a little drool o
n his chin. Brandon’s head was tilted back, and he was breathing deeply, his mouth half-open.
I couldn’t help but wish that they were still awake. If they were, then it will be easier to hang out with Jules. Whenever we were left alone, it felt a little like too much. I could hardly control myself around him. He made it difficult, especially when he flashed those green eyes at me. He might’ve looked a little like me, but they weren’t my eyes. They were his, and I loved them, and maybe that meant I loved him a little bit too.
But I couldn’t love him. Not like I wanted to, because even if he didn’t know, we were related. We were twins. He didn’t know, but I knew. I knew and I had to stay away from him because of it. We could never be together. It just wasn’t in the cards for us. It was unnatural.
Of course that’s what I would start telling myself right before I decided to stick my hands down my jeans and began masturbating as I thought about his beautiful mouth around my cock. But I would feel bad after that, always telling myself that fantasizing about him was crossing a line. I tried to see him as my brother, trying to convince myself that we were meant to be family, but it was almost impossible.
We were definitely not the type of family I wanted to be.
I shifted my weight in my seat, taking a deep breath and closing my eyes. I felt the smell of grass and pine trees, the clear country air filling up my lungs, and for a second, everything was okay. I was right where I needed to be. Nothing was going to change and I was happy. Then Jules pulled into a street and my eyes shot open. We were going down a dirt road, and it was small and narrow, with only enough space for one lane. Jules had slowed down considerably and the boys were waking up in the backseat. They began to chatter with each other, while I tried my best to stop myself from puking. Jules looked at me. “Are you okay?”
I nodded. I wanted to reassure him verbally, but I couldn’t bring myself to actually speak, because I couldn’t risk the content of my stomach going on the nice leather interior of his car.
“Carsick,” I managed to say when I realized that he wasn’t going to stop looking at me until I answered him.
