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I picked up my glass of orange juice when movement to my left caught my attention. From the open door, Jordan stepped onto the terrace with a fresh look on his face and as little clothes as he could decently wear for breakfast. The dirty yellow sleeveless shirt he wore was enough to make me want to whimper. The long holes for his arms revealed much of his ribcage and the deep cut of his neck hid little of his pecs. The shorts were cream and shorter than his usual knee-length ones but only a little longer than the regular swimming shorts I’d seen him wear.
“Morning,” he said in a deep murmur. “How’s everybody?” He took a seat across from me, casually stuffing his plate as if nothing in the world was wrong. He popped food into his mouth, chewed, conversed, and even laughed.
How could he laugh at anything? My soul was torn between wanting to run away and never tempt him again and craving eternal damnation by seducing him without shame. The only thing I couldn’t stand was this limbo we were stuck in. Give me Heaven or give me Hell.
I was so tense that even Mom noticed. She put a hand on my shoulder and rubbed it like it would ease some of the tension. It didn’t. “Darling, are you okay?” It was a quiet question, just between the two of us. And my eyes flicked to Jordan before I could stop myself.
He was so cocky and confident this morning. He rested his right ankle on his left knee, his legs spread wide as he leaned back in his chair. He held his glass of orange juice, talking about the bathroom repairs with George, not even noticing my existence. His specialty. He lifted his other hand and ran it through his short hair, then lazily scratched the back of his neck. His lips were redder than ever. Or I imagined it. Were they a little swollen? Had I bitten him hard? I felt the air leave my body as I remembered the impact of my back against the house and Jordan’s torso against mine. “I’m fine,” I wheezed to Mom. “Just tired.”
She sucked her teeth. “You shouldn’t have been drinking.”
“Mom…” But I didn’t have the strength to defend my choices. I was close enough to twenty-one. What did it matter if my ID wouldn’t let me buy alcohol? It was all fictional, anyway. But even my rambling thoughts came to a halt when Jordan’s ears picked up my mom’s words and his brown eyes flicked to mine. His gaze touched my eyes and held the contact until I broke and looked away, lips curving down. Was he being cruel on purpose?
“That’s only one of the downsides, honey,” she lectured. “It leaves you dehydrated and tired the next day. The quality of sleep is far worse when you are intoxicated.”
I gritted my teeth. I hadn’t been intoxicated. I had been liberated. For one incredible moment, I hadn’t given a damn. Truly. I had surrendered myself to him and let him do whatever he wanted for as long as he wanted it. And their arrival had interrupted us.
George was the first to leave the table, saying the kitchen wouldn’t clean itself, and Mom followed with something looking almost like an eye-roll while taking her sunglasses off.
Staying alone at the table with Jordan when he looked fresh as a daisy and sexy as all hell was a bad idea. I cleared my throat and squirmed.
Jordan raised his eyebrows at me. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” The word was as clipped as if he were my sworn enemy. I scraped the terrace floor as I pushed my chair back and got up. “Gotta go.” And I left.
I left him every time we crossed paths that day. I left him at the terrace over breakfast, in the living room after lunch, and at the pier when he walked after me, interrupting me before I even swam. I left him again in the living room after dinner when he turned on his gaming console, looking over his shoulder and meeting my eyes with a question on his lips. I didn’t wait to hear it.
My ears were buzzing when I locked my door that night. What was I doing? I didn’t know. I didn’t know where I was headed. On one hand, I had my answer. Jordan liked me. The guy I had been drooling over for years actually liked me. The knowledge made all the other pieces of the puzzle fall into place. He didn’t want to undress around me in the locker room because it was risky. He had been avoiding me all these years we’d spent living together because the only result from being close could have been heartbreak and pain. He had been turning our dinners into dates because we were all alone and could do anything at all, without witnesses, without threats. It bruised my heart that I hadn’t realized this sooner. It was killing me that it had taken a drunken fight to turn me on and make me admit it. I hated how long it had taken me to say the words when the answer he gave was beyond my wildest dreams.
And now, I was torn to the other end, too. I lay in my bed, light off, eyes wide open. I stared at the ceiling and the shades of the night that filled my room. Slowly, I admitted to myself that we were doomed. Mom and George had doomed us when they had introduced us to each other. Sure, without them we never would have met, but with them, we could never take what we wanted.
It wasn’t going to happen. Jordan had been right to push me away and hurt me in all the ways he had hurt me. I’d believed he had been simply careless, but he had been very deliberate in how he had cracked my heart over and over as the years had passed.
It was my turn.
So, when he knocked on my door and whispered, “Asher? Got a minute?” I pretended I was asleep. Even through the door, I could hear him taking a deep breath, holding it, and releasing it in frustration with me.
Sure, my heart throbbed at doing this to him, but what were my choices?
It was a sleepless night. I was haunted again. The guilt of my choice for this night was somewhat different. I ached for what I had to do to him. I ached with longing to be as selfish and as self-centered as I had always been in my fantasies. But I knew, even as I tried to silence those thoughts, that I couldn’t let us be anything more than what we were.
The reality was far different from my fantasies. The forbidden fruit had always seemed the sweetest in my imagination, but there had always been the certainty of safety in my imagination. I had always known in my bones that I wouldn’t have him. And knowing that, I had made myself comfortable in fantasizing about him. I had never felt like there were any threats. No risks, no ruined relations, and no heartbroken parents.
With one blazing, devastating kiss, Jordan had shattered the walls of my imagination and made it all real. And with all the promises of sweetness and heat, the threats and risks revealed themselves.
The next day, I carried my breakfast upstairs to eat in my room. Only when I brought it to the kitchen did I see him. He slowed down on his way through the kitchen as if he would speak to me, but Mom followed him in, and Jordan simply left his plate on the counter and walked away.
“Darling, you don’t seem alright,” Mom said. “If something’s bothering you, you know you can talk to me.”
Not about this. Never about this. “I know, Mom,” I said. “I’m fine. I promise.”
“Are you sure?” she pressed on while Jordan’s footsteps thudded up the stairs. “You seem a little distant. Were you sunbathing yesterday? For how long?”
“I wasn’t,” I sighed. “I just walked around.”
“Very well,” Mom said, raising her hands in surrender. “Just remember, I’m here if you need me.” She closed the distance between us and wrapped me in her arms. It was the sort of embrace that reverted me to a child. Her fingers ran through my hair, her scent threw me back to my boyhood, and the warmth of her body against mine was all the comfort and safety I had ever known. But you would hate me if you knew, I thought. You would hate me if you ever suspected that the boy you forced to be my brother was the only person I had ever wanted. If you knew how badly I wanted him naked and dirty and sweaty, you wouldn’t think of me as your son. I broke free of her embrace and murmured that I loved her, then turned on my heels and walked away.
George entered the house and spoke to Mom in a low voice. She was not as gentle in her tone when she replied: “It had to happen. His puberty was smooth sailing, but sooner or later, they get moody.”
