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“You’re the one waving your dick about the nice thing you’re doing.” Asher ran a hand through his wavy hair in frustration.
Was I wrong to be so annoyed that he would mention ‘my dick,’ even if it were figurative? “Oh, shut up, Asher. You’re acting like a spoiled child. Which, let’s face it, doesn’t require any acting at all.” The words tore free from the constraints I’d put around them. The anger at his language — and I didn’t mean the fact he cursed, but the fact that he was so nonchalant about saying that I was waving my dick or whatever — mixed with the frustration of all my plans falling through and with the added pressure of having to spend countless days around him made for a perfect storm. Not even a carpool peace offering meant anything to this guy. But I wouldn’t explain myself to him. He didn’t deserve anything of the sort. “I swear to God, if you keep picking a fight, you’re gonna get it. But you’ll regret it, too. So shut up, take a nap, and wait until we arrive. Then we can go our separate ways. You don’t have to see me and I don’t have to see you.” How we would pull that off, I didn’t know, but at least while Eileen and Dad were away, I could do a lot to avoid Asher.
He pursed his lips, his nostrils flaring, and leaned back in his seat. His head turned away from me without another word. He gazed out the window silently and I was almost grateful. The only thing better than this would have been a nice fucking word from him. But the chances of Asher sharing anything nice with me, even if it didn’t cost him a damn thing, were lower than the odds of winning the lottery.
I didn’t waste my money on lottery tickets. And I wouldn’t waste my breath on a thorny asshole I had to live with.
After I took the right exit from the highway, I drove up the winding road through the hills. Higher and higher we went. Endless pastures and fields with scattered houses gave way to rare forests. The forests thickened and grew darker, made up more of evergreens than oak and ash and birch of the lower lands.
Dad’s house — or our house, as Dad always insisted on saying since merging our families — was the work of his hands and his company. When the collision time had arrived, Dad had given up the smaller house in the city where he and I had lived in order to move in with Eileen and Asher. There was a spare bedroom for me in that house, so I wasn’t devastated by the move. Beckett had still been around, even if it was a little further away than I’d hoped, and I didn’t need to change schools so late in the game. But this was the house Dad and I truly loved. This was the one he wouldn’t have given up. Had it ever been up to him, this was where we would have lived all along.
It wasn’t a vast and luxurious place without heart and soul. But it wasn’t so small that the only way to call it was ‘cozy.’ The house had a sprawling front lawn and a gravel road between the garage and the main road, which was seldom used since this place was as deserted as it could be. A few houses existed this deep in the woods and high in the hills, but nothing that resulted in a lot of traffic.
The exterior walls of the house were white wood with deep green windows and window shutters. The front porch was big enough for family breakfasts and evening iced tea where twice as many people as there ever were could sit comfortably.
I parked the car in front of the garage and stepped outside with an annoyed stepbrother trailing me once we started unloading our luggage. He lifted all his things out of the trunk and didn’t seem to mind carrying them all at once, even though they were about twice his size. Two backpacks, a laptop bag, a huge duffel, a large suitcase, and a couple of smaller bags with things that didn’t fit anywhere else were all hanging from his shoulders and hands. He hauled his stuff up the stone path Dad and I had made by ourselves; I had been barely older than a child when Dad built this house. I was old enough to assist him sometimes. I was carrying my second round of luggage, walking up the path behind Asher.
Some devil didn’t let me control myself. My gaze trailed his back from his broad shoulders all the way to his shorts. They hugged his round ass like someone had custom-made them to increase his sexiness. I hated that his style worked for me. I hated that anything about him worked for me. He was my stepbrother, for fuck’s sake, whether I liked it or not.
Even so, I let my gaze linger on his ass. It was only fair. He’d irked me for years and if I could get back at him like this, without him even knowing, then nobody lost anything.
Asher’s shorts were rolled up at the bottom, tight around his thighs, and more than a little revealing. My heart stumbled when he lifted his right foot up the steps to the porch. I watched the fine curve of his ass and the tensing of his muscles as he lifted his suitcases and climbed the three steps.
He spun his head wildly over his shoulder, his wavy hair flying like a lion’s mane. “Do you have your key?” he asked. He wasn’t as terse as I might have expected. “Mine’s at the bottom of my backpack.”
All my keys were together and they dangled from my middle finger. “Yep.” I set my luggage next to his, unlocked the door, and then entered the house. It was warm inside, although it was heaven compared to the heat outside.
My dad’s craftiness and experience truly showed in the house. The front door opened to a small foyer leading directly to the stairs ahead. On the right side was the master bedroom with a big, private bathroom. Left, two short steps separated the foyer from the airy living room, connected to the dining room and the north-facing kitchen in the back of the house. There were three bedrooms upstairs, one of which was perpetually empty because Asher didn’t like anyone enough to put up with them for a week and because I hadn’t wanted to subject Beckett to Asher’s glares for an entire week until he moved into our team house. In short, having Dad and Eileen cram Asher and me together meant neither of us wanted to bring friends around that much. There was another bathroom up there; one I had to share with Asher. It was still better than the bathroom in the city, where our rooms connected and we walked in on each other countless times.
Asher shut the door and turned on the AC to an acceptable level. I’d half expected him to make a sauna out of this place so he could rock his style some more. And despite the tiniest sliver of conflicting feelings, I was mostly glad that Asher wasn’t half-naked all the time. It was distracting. It taunted me to notice him. It was painful.
What good would noticing his attractive body do? None. He was — and had always been — strictly off limits. From the very moment our eyes had met on that summer day when my bisexuality roared into the forefront of my mind, Asher Sullivan was forbidden. He had been off limits before, but I hadn’t known I had wanted him then.
The less I was tempted to want him again, the better for us all. He wouldn’t welcome anything I could offer him and our parents were still sweet with each other like they’d just gotten married.
“What now?” Asher asked, looking around. “Do we just…?”
I shrugged. “Do whatever you were gonna do on your own, I guess,” I suggested.
His gaze lingered on me a moment longer than was strictly necessary. It told me nothing — in fact, it was all just a product of my imagination — but I wondered if his plan for being alone in the house included anything he wouldn’t want someone to overhear. The trouble with team houses and shared accommodation was that the walls could be thin. Sometimes, a guy just wanted to let his voice go where it wanted, and an empty house in the mountains was the ideal place to do that.
I wondered what his mouth looked like when he moaned.
Stop this, I snapped at myself. Heat crawled up my neck. You will never find out. And it’s for your own good. So, don’t even think about it. I considered myself a reasonably smart guy. I didn’t make mistakes. My grades were pretty damn good and I knew how to communicate with most people. The exception was Asher. I never knew what he thought and what his words meant. I never knew why he took my meaning wrong. And I was sorely tempted to make the worst mistake of all whenever I was near him for too long.
Maybe this whole thing wasn’t a good idea after all. Maybe I was better off going to the city instead.
“Have you heard from Beckett?” Asher asked.
I stepped into the living room and tossed my backpack into the armchair. It wasn’t plugged in, but it was one of those massaging armchairs with a million settings. I made a mental note to come down later and get a good, long backrub. “I don’t think I’ll hear anything before tonight.”
Asher was silent for a short time. Then, he inhaled sharply and spoke matter-of-factly. “When you do, could you tell me how Nate’s doing?”
“You can ask Beckett yourself,” I suggested. “It would mean a lot to Beckett to hear the support.”
Asher scoffed like I’d just insulted him. “Fine.”
I wanted to pinch the bridge of my nose and sigh, but my phone rang at that moment. I swallowed my reply and picked up. “Hey, Dad. What’s up?”
