Bruised (Wrecked & Wrong #1)

Chapter 1 Puppy

I heave my duffel bag into Oliver’s hallway with a grunt. “You sure it’s cool I crash here?”

“Of course,” says Oliver, my best friend in the whole world. “Mom doesn’t care. She’s touring Europe with her newest fling, Fabio—can you believe it?” He rolls his eyes. “Come on, drop that off in my room.”

He leads me upstairs, and I carry the duffel bag on my shoulder, huffing and puffing. The plan is to stay for as long as I can—the whole summer, if possible—so I’ve stuffed it close to bursting.

It’s obvious before even entering the house that Oliver’s family is better off than mine, but his room makes the contrast even clearer.

Special-edition action figures line his bookshelf, and unlike my haphazard IKEA setup, there’s actually some thought behind Oliver’s furniture. Everything feels cohesive, welcoming. Like a home.

I dump my duffel bag near the door and gasp at the sight of his desk. “Dude! Really?”

“You brought your laptop, right?”

“Of course I brought my laptop! But I didn’t think…”

Instead of one, there are two gaming setups on Oliver’s desk—complete with monitors and RGB keyboards. There’s even an additional gaming chair next to his.

Crying would be a bit much, but Oliver’s grinning face makes my eyes burn.

“Told you we’re gonna game all summer,” he says. “Just wait until you see the snacks.”

We abandon his room for the kitchen, and Oliver pulls the cabinet open to reveal a sick collection of chips, chocolates, and sour candy—my favorite.

He throws me a bag. “Here. Dinner.”

I look down at the candy and then up at him, and my eyes must be gleaming, because he turns serious for a beat.

“I told you, Lane. This summer is all about you and me having the house to ourselves and the time of our lives. One last summer.”

“One last summer,” I repeat, and the days and nights spreading out in my mind make the hollow ache in the pit of my stomach a bit easier to bear.

If only I could forget Oliver is leaving town. If only I could forget he’s leaving me behind.

We snack on our “dinner” in his room while we set up my gaming laptop at his desk, and after that, we game for hours until late into the night. When we’re bug-eyed and twitchy, Oliver leads me downstairs, and we grab blankets, more snacks, and put on a chill Xbox game.

“Finally, huh?” Oliver says.

“Finally, what?”

“We finally made it.”

We did. Oliver and I both repeated our junior year—me because of my dad’s work that left us constantly moving, and Oliver because of his mom and stepdad’s nasty divorce.

When we first met, we bonded over that, and when we both got hooked on gaming, it was game over. We’ve been inseparable ever since.

This summer, we have his house all to ourselves, and in the fall, Oliver’s going to MIT—literally at the other end of the country.

Why couldn’t he get accepted at another college instead?

It’s a six-hour flight from Portland to Boston, and I can’t afford the plane tickets, that’s for sure. We’ll never get to see each other.

A few times a year, maybe.

The summers, if he spends them back at his mom’s.

That’s it. And when he’s done, he’ll be a full-fledged engineer—who knows what opportunities he’ll have? He might not even come back to Portland. He’ll leave me behind in more ways than one.

I put down the controller, unable to focus with all the thoughts running through my head.

“Excited about college?” I ask.

“Excited?” Oliver mutters. “I don’t know. It just feels like the right thing to do.”

“Yeah,” I mutter back, not at all salty. I can’t afford a good college like him, and even if I could, my grades are too shitty to get accepted.

“What are you going to do?” Oliver asks, taking a sip of Dr Pepper.

I shrug. “I don’t know. Start working at Dad’s place in the fall, maybe.” I wince as soon as I say it. It feels so wrong, but I haven’t found anything that feels right. The hollow feeling in my stomach grows, and I try to fill it by munching on more chips.

“What about Micah?” Oliver asks.

I scoff and pull my knees up to my chest. “Dumped his ass.”

“Too boring?”

“Too nice.”

Oliver flashes a grin. “Nice is bad?”

I fiddle with at a loose string on the seam of my black shirt, then start picking at my chipped black nail polish. “I don’t know. He just… couldn’t give me what I need.”

“And what do you need?”

“Well…” I shrug, forcing a sheepish grin. “You can’t give me what I need, either.”

“Thank God.” Oliver laughs in relief—we both do, but the laughter dies quickly and ends in silence.

We’ve never talked about it, not seriously, but we both knew it was never going to be like that. Not between us. We’re the same kind of lonely, just not the kind that fits together.

Oliver’s gay, same as me, but we both prefer to be, uh… on the receiving end. Not that we’ve talked about it at length. We have other things in common—us both being bottoms is just one of them.

“I wish you didn’t have to go,” I mumble, and the hollow feeling in my stomach swells and makes me want to crawl out of my own skin. I pull at the choker around my neck, fidgeting with the black velvet band and the silver ring at the front.

“I know.” Oliver’s voice is subdued, pitying in a frustrating way. “Me too.”

“Yeah? Then why don’t you just stay here?” I want to yell at him, but I can’t. Just because I have no fun opportunities in life doesn’t mean I can drag Oliver down with me.

Restless, I jump off the couch and study the photographs lining the shelf above the TV. I haven’t noticed them before, and now I’m desperate for a distraction.

“Hey, who’s that?” I point at a dusty family photo. There’s Oliver, Oliver’s mom, and what I assume to be his stepdad, who left the picture when Oliver was thirteen. No surprises there. But in the corner, there’s a taller, older boy I can’t pinpoint.

“That’s my brother,” Oliver says. “Mason.”

I study the photo more closely. Oliver must’ve been around thirteen, all big brown eyes and a mop of soft, sandy hair that curls a little at the ears. He’s grinning wide, leaning in against his stepdad.

I don’t think I’ve ever smiled like that in a photo. Even when grown-ups asked me to, my face remained blank and tight-lipped, sullenly glaring into the camera.

And then there’s him.

The older one on the edge of the frame. He’s not smiling exactly, but a smirk tugs at the corner of his lips. His hair is brown, close-cropped, and his slate-gray eyes look straight into the camera as if he’s daring it to blink first.

I put the photo back in its place. “You never told me you had a brother.”

Oliver shrugs. “We don’t really talk.”

“Why not?”

“He’s, uh… locked up.”

It’s Oliver’s turn to fidget, and I lie back on the couch, knowing not to pry. Whenever the subject of his stepdad comes up, he gets all twitchy and angsty, and maybe the same goes for his big brother.

We put on a movie: a mindless action flick, something we’ve both seen before. After a while, Oliver yawns and pulls a blanket over himself.

“I’m beat. Wanna crash right here?”

“Sure.”

We end up splayed out on the couch, half covered by blankets and half covered by snack crumbs. Oliver always sleeps like a rock, and it’s nearly impossible to wake him up without a megaphone blaring in his ear.

For me, it takes a bit longer to settle in, but after a while, I fall asleep with the tentative hope of a chill, cozy summer in front of me. A summer with my best friend, full of snacks, late-night gaming, and no worries about the world outside our little bubble, or even what future awaits us.

The sound of a car door slamming jerks me awake.

Oliver is still snoring away, but I’m wide awake, heart pounding in my chest.

I get up from the couch and pad toward the kitchen to look out the window facing the front yard. There’s an old, beat-up-looking car by the road. It drives away, and the next thing I know, someone unlocks the front door.

What the fuck? Oliver said his mom was abroad on that trip, so who else can it be?

I hurry over to the couch. “Hey, wake up.”

Oliver wipes his nose with his hand and grumbles, “What is it?”

“Someone’s here,” I hiss, panicked. When I turn around, my breath catches in my throat.

A young man stands in the hallway, duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He looks tired, with dark lines under his eyes like knife marks.

Speak of the devil; we were literally just talking about him. Oliver said he was locked up, though, so what the hell is he doing here?

He doesn’t even look at me before he turns to the kitchen, opens the fridge, and gets out a jug of milk.

“Mason?” Oliver has woken up at last, and unlike my usual experience of his slow wake-up routine, he shoots from the couch, looking surprised, a little worried, and… angry?

The intruder—Mason—keeps drinking from the milk jug, unbothered. He’s dressed in plain clothes: gray sweatpants, a dark gray sweater, and nondescript sneakers. He’s tall and broad, with sculpted shoulders and a lean, muscled torso. I bet he’s got a six-pack under those baggy clothes.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Oliver all but growls. His morning mood can be pretty bad, but I’ve never seen him like this. “I thought you weren’t getting out for another six months. December, that’s what Mom said!”

Mason stops gulping down the milk at last and sends Oliver a glance. “Ever heard of early release, little brother?” he says, voice deep and rumbling.

It’s the type of voice that settles in your bones. It’s sure settling in mine. I feel shaky and a little dizzy, like the time I had three energy drinks at once and spent a sleepless night regretting my life decisions.

“Why didn’t you call?” Oliver asks.

“Mom said I could stay here.”

“Stay?” Oliver squeaks.

“Needed to report an address on my release form,” Mason says with a shrug. “I’m on parole, so my options are pretty limited.”

“What about your apartment?” Oliver asks.

“Lost it when I went in.”