14. Imry
14
IMRY
My first attempt at painting Haze and me together is awful. I think it’s because I’m painting what I want to see. Not what’s actually happening between us. I want it to be sweet and romantic. The kind of love that can be seen and felt through the strokes of a paintbrush.
But that’s not what our relationship consists of. I’m trying to force an image that doesn’t exist.
It’s entirely different when I see an image in my mind, and it doesn’t exist; like family portraits I pull out of thin air. That’s different because I’m capturing the essence of our family. I’m placing a memory onto canvas, stitching individual memories together until they form a cohesive image.
This memory doesn’t exist.
If I call it a wish, would that switch a lever in my head and allow me to paint it? It is a wish, whether I want it to be or not. I wish we were here, at this moment that I’m trying to create.
Except that I can’t see it fully in my head. Does that mean I don’t know what I want either? Am I trying to force something on myself as much as I am on this canvas?
I take a step back and stare at it. It’s absolute shit. That’s what’s happening.
My eyes flicker to the half-finished painting beside me—one of Haze on the counter with his shorts down around his thighs while I suck his dick. His hands grip the marble tightly, his head thrown back as he comes down my throat.
His dick bulge in my throat is prominent. Tears run down my face, my eyes red as I stare up at him. Fucking hell, why do I look like I’m worshiping his orgasm? Is that even a thing?
My hands dig into his thighs. Cum and spit are gathered at the corner of my mouth, dripping down my chin. A line of this mess hangs from my chin, suspended in the moment like a snapshot. My mouth is stretched wide around his dick with my nose buried in his navel.
Once again, our surroundings are nothing at all. Just a blank canvas. I’m not sure if I’m simply inundated with too many moments that need to get on canvas or if this is as far as they go. This series of images end as if they’re memories popping up before fading away.
I’m immortalizing them before they fade away, so we always remember.
I sigh and turn my back on my art to head for the sink. The clock on the wall says Haze will be here momentarily, anyway. We’re having dinner. More accurately, we’re cooking dinner together and spending an evening of ‘ movies and chill ’ that will inevitably end with an orgasm or two.
I methodically wash my brushes and then the plate with the paint. I scrub my hands with soapy water and dry them off. My smock gets hung up, then my earbuds are dumped into their charging station.
Just as I’m shutting the door, there’s a knock at the front. I love Haze’s punctuality. When he says he’s going to be somewhere at a specific time, he’s there on time.
I stop at the door and pretend I can stare through it. Every time I open it, a new image gets burned in my head. Inhaling deeply, I open the door and meet his gray-blue eyes. They’re such a unique color. Sometimes I wonder if seeing them for the first time is what captured my muse initially. Eyes can be very generic, so when they stand out, you tend to notice.
“Hey,” Haze says. He has a paper bag in his hands.
“Hi,” I answer and take a step back to let him inside.
“I had vegetables that needed to be used up, so I bought a few other ingredients. Thought we’d make some stew.”
“Isn’t stew for cold nights on the mountainside?” I ask, shutting the door behind him.
Haze gives me an amused look. “If we wait for a cold night, we’ll be waiting a while. Besides, I really love stew. This’ll be my first time adding all the ingredients I like and not leaving some out because Frankie is a picky bitch about what kinds of vegetables he eats.”
“If you’re cooking, he shouldn’t complain,” I say.
He huffs. “Believe me, listening to him whine was far more exhausting than just not putting the vegetables in.”
I shake my head and follow him into the kitchen. He begins pulling out vegetables—carrots, green beans, mushrooms, a small bag of frozen corn, and a jar of barley. He hands me a wrapped package of steak tips.
“How do you feel about chopping these into bite-sized pieces and browning them on the outside?” he asks.
“I’m going to master this task,” I tell him.
Haze grins and continues pulling shit out of the bag. I dig out the cast-iron pot, fill it halfway with water, and set it on the stove. Then I let Haze take over the pot.
As he adds seasoning and tomato paste and whatever else, I pull out a couple chopping blocks, knives, the flour, and a bowl.
Haze adds some seasoning to the flour before taking up his position further down the counter with the stove between us and begins on the carrots.
I mindlessly chop steak tips as my mind wanders. I find myself thinking about Voss heading into the wolves’ den. Alone. Yes, he’s entirely capable and he won’t actually be alone since he’ll have Uncle Noaz’s crew. But one of us won’t be with him.
“You’re quiet tonight,” Haze notes.
I glance at him. He’s finished with the carrots and puts them right into the water to begin cooking. He starts on the green beans next.
With my job of cubing steak tips finished, I begin coating them in seasoned flour as a chunk of butter melts into my cast-iron skillet so I can parcook my first batch of meat.
“I’m worried about my brother,” I confide.
“Which one?”
A smile makes me glance at him again. “Voss.”
“Ah. Why?”
“Loren says he’s retired from taking contracts so he can stay with Oakley. Believe it or not, he thinks karma has it out for Oakley.”
Haze snorts. “I mean, crazy fucker, and then literally stepping into the hunting grounds of a serial killer? Yeah, I can see that.”
I chuckle. “I agree. He’s not exactly exaggerating when he says he’s concerned about Oakley’s well-being in life. However, his ‘ retiring ’ means we have a hole, and this contract is something that Loren would excel at. Voss… I’m not sure. He’s well qualified enough, but… it’s not the kind of work he usually does, and I’m really worried he’s putting himself in a dangerous situation.”
“That’s so filled with holey vagueness, I’m not sure I can even comment,” Haze says, amused.
I laugh. “Sorry. I probably shouldn’t have brought it up. The contracts are confidential, as you can imagine, so I can’t really talk about it in a way that would make sense to you.”
Haze shakes his head. “No, I get it. I understand being worried about a brother and feeling helpless to do anything about it.”
Of course, he does. He’s lived most of his life that way.
“I know you’re close with Avory and Ellory, but you’re pretty close with all your brothers, aren’t you?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“Have you always been?”
I flip the batch of steak tips in my pan as I consider this. “You know, maybe? Loren was maybe three when Mom started acting like a bitch toward him. We were kids, so we didn’t necessarily see that Loren was different. Maybe Myro did; he was nine. Voss, at six, might have, too, because he’s always been able to make connections he didn’t understand. We triplets were only five, so I know for certain we didn’t see anything wrong with Loren. But she was always… picking at him. Like… that’s not what kids do. Smile more. That tone is disturbing, Loren. Talk like a kid.”
Haze frowns as he dumps the green beans into the pot. I take off the first round of meat to let it rest while I get the next batch into freshly melted butter to brown in my skillet.
“We didn’t understand what the problem was, but Myro started protecting him, complaining to Mom that he was only a little kid, and she should stop nagging at him so much. I think because he was getting defensive over Loren, the rest of us did too. Once he was diagnosed, we heard Mom complaining to Dad a lot about how Loren was ‘ broken, ’ and needed to be ‘ fixed .’ Dad was so damn offended. There are only two times in my entire life I’ve heard Dad yell, and that was one of them. Mom might have dropped her argument, but she didn’t stop trying to ‘ fix ’ Loren. That’s when we all became protective of him.”
“That’s shit and, in a roundabout way, I know exactly what that feels like.”
“Yep. So we spent years being the buffer between Mom and Loren. Dad stepped in, but I think after a while, he thought Mom was better. That she accepted Loren as he was. She was very careful about being a ‘ good mother ’ when Dad was around. I think we didn’t say anything to Dad back then because we thought he knew it was just an act and he…” I shake my head.
I don’t want to say Dad knew because I now know he didn’t. He truly thought that once he made it clear something concerning us needed to be dropped and she should love us the way we are, she did.
“When we had our tenth birthday, officially reaching double digits, Mom started trying to force Avory and Ellory apart. It was cute when we were kids, but it’s time they grew up and had some independence. That’s not how brothers act. Blah, blah.
“Professionals say psychology is genetic. You’re born that way. But most of the time, sociopaths are a product of their environment. I think, in Loren’s case, it’s a combination. He was definitely born with an antisocial disorder, but the more Mom tried to change him, the deeper into it he got. Mom is probably the reason he became the thing she tried to break him of.
“One thing the professionals got wrong about Loren specifically is that he absolutely can form personal relationships. Once Mom started splitting her displeasure from him to our brothers, Loren became incredibly defensive. Mom grew increasingly afraid of him, though he rarely said anything that could be construed as a threat. It’s the way Loren looks at you, you know? Like he’s seeing your soul.”
Haze laughs. “Oh, I know.”
I grin. “Mom’s probably the reason that Loren found a violent streak. She pushed and pushed and pushed, constantly on Avory and Ellory to split up. Loren was always right there, forcing her out of their space. Then the day came when Mom went too far. We were fifteen, and I came home to find her saying some really… mean things to my brothers. I got between them, yelling back at her.
“Then Loren was there with a knife in his hand. Mom was scared. She stumbled away. Dad came home a minute later with Voss and Myro. He took one look at the scene in our room and just… knew what was going on. It probably wasn’t difficult to figure out with me hiding my brothers and Loren with his butcher knife standing in front of us like a crazy little psychopath.”
“Wow.”
“Yep. Dad told Mom to pack her shit and leave. She screamed and cried and begged. Nothing was ever her fault. Somehow, she got three broken, fucked-up kids. That was the second time we heard Dad yell. Maybe it was Dad’s rage and his defense of us that made us understand that he really didn’t know what happened at home when he wasn’t there. But yeah, anyway, the next day, he had movers in here, packing up the house, and moved us to the Estate.”
“That’s a wild ride,” Haze says.
I take the last batch of meat from the skillet and turn the burner off. I spend a minute scraping the bottom of the pan, adding some liquid from the pot to deglaze it, and then dumping it into the stew pot.
“In a longer answer than you probably needed, yes, we’re close. I think we’re closer than we might have become naturally because of Mom. We spent a lot of time protecting each other when we shouldn’t have had to, but that led to us forming close ties.”
“Can I ask you a question not quite related to this contract Voss is doing that has you worried?”
I grin as I watch him add the rest of the ingredients to the pot. “Yep. I might not be able to answer, though.”
Haze nods. “You said Loren is protective of you. That means Voss, too, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then am I out of line when I say that if Voss gets himself into trouble, Loren will be propelled to protect him?”
“No. He would. The issue is that Voss will be in New York. There’s not much further he can go and stay in the same country, you know? It’ll take time for Loren to get there.”
“Ah.”
We’re quiet as I watch Haze finish with the stew. I wash the dishes we’ve dirtied while he does. There isn’t much, just enough to get in the way.
Haze wipes down the counters and then we stand in the kitchen facing each other while the warm, delicious scent of beef stew fills the air and makes my mouth water. Or maybe I’m salivating because the man in front of me is hot as fuck. Either way, I’m about to drool.
He takes my hand, our fingers connecting as he slowly links them together. Haze pulls me close. When I’m directly in front of him, resting my hand on his stomach, he kisses my forehead.
“I’m not going to pretend I have some magic method to be less scared for your brother; I don’t. I was scared for mine every day and that’s not something you ever grow numb to. But I do understand your fear, even if it’s very different than mine was. If you need to talk about it, I’m happy to listen.”
My forehead drops to rest on his chest. “Thank you.”
Haze nods, wrapping an arm around my waist. “It’s hard worrying about someone you love and being powerless to do anything about the situation.”
I sigh. I think I just realized yet another thing to add to the long list of why I’m obsessed with this man. He understands my constant worry over my brothers when they’re out murdering while I stay home and wait for them to return, not knowing what’s happening to them. It’s not the same worry he went through, but in a way, it is.
That he can relate, that he understands that feeling, just makes me long for him to be mine all that much more.