Chapter 2
Dane
Trying to breeze through the house unnoticed this close to dinner time is risky.
If I hadn’t left home without my wallet this morning, I wouldn’t be here now, braving enemy territory.
It’s not usually so hostile here, but the atmosphere has shifted since the interloper took up residence down the hall.
As if that’s not bad enough, she brought her boyfriend with her. All the more reason to stay away.
“Dane!” The voice of my father implodes what’s left of my optimism, and I loathe how it makes me halt in my tracks.
Almost made it too. My hand hovers over the doorknob to the bedroom Artie has kept me in since birth, pettily refusing to update a single inch of it while every other room in this place has become a pretentious designer’s wet dream.
I face him. “Yes, Father?”
He stands like a prison guard, arms crossed, feet apart, and his heavy brow glowering at me with matching contempt. “Where’s your shirt?”
Was I wearing a shirt when I left this morning? “Dunno.”
“Wash up and find a shirt. Dinner is almost ready.”
“I already ate.”
“That wasn’t a request. Your sister is back home. You’ll be at that table in fifteen minutes, or you won’t have a bedroom in this house anymore.”
“When you put it that way, I’m suddenly starving.” I crank my doorknob and push into my room before slamming the door so hard the wall rattles. There’s nothing Artie loves more than his precious walls.
On the bright side, my stepmother is a fantastic cook, and I actually am starving.
I was going to link up with my buddy, Randy, at his family’s barbecue earlier, but I went to get faded at Kaden’s instead.
That dude is nippy when he smokes, but I hadn’t gotten laid since May, and I’ve been desperate.
I thought I had a shot with a little cutie on the beach earlier who was clearly checking me out, but he had to get all “straight” about it before I could get him somewhere private.
Now he has my face on his camera to wank off to whenever he wants, and I have bite marks on my arm from a feisty stoner twink.
I walk into the bathroom naked, not giving a damn if Thalia or her boy toy get an eyeful.
It would serve them right for taking over my space.
When I got home last night from a bonfire, my bathroom was covered with another man’s clutter.
I don’t know why that pissed me off so much, but I couldn’t think straight enough to let it go.
Figures Thalia’s boyfriend uses an electric toothbrush.
He probably flosses twice a day and wears his retainer to bed too.
That Oral-B is back on the counter, so I know he saw what I did with his things.
When I open the bottom drawer and see the pile I made last night, I feel a little giddy that he left it all there.
Haven’t even met the dude, and he’s already submitting to me.
As a reward, I’ll leave his toothbrush where it is. For now.
While the shower heats up, I look in the mirror and wonder what could have possessed that cutie on the beach to take my picture if it wasn’t attraction.
I plant my hands on the counter and lean close to the mirror, watching my own eyes until I get lost in them.
Brown, same as my mom and my dad, yet I can't find either of them in mine. Just one more thing about me that doesn’t make sense.
Sometimes I’m sure I was switched at birth, but then people tell me I’m the spitting image of Artie, and I puke a little in my mouth.
Besides height, I don’t see the resemblance, and I don’t want to.
As for Lori, I’m not sure. I blocked her on social media a long time ago, same with Thalia, and she’s never come to visit or even called to say happy birthday.
In the one photo I salvaged of my mom and me, we have the same curly hair, though hers is gold-dusted like Thalia’s, whereas mine is a dingy, ashen brown like the sun-bleached, salt-crusted planks of the Ocean Beach Pier.
A decade-old scar indents my forehead above my left eyebrow. Faded now, like my memories, but as permanent as the hole in my heart.
What did he see?
My hand flies from the counter to slap the side of my face, whipping my head to the side and stinging my cheek. Punishment for thinking about Mom.
The sound, the vibration, and the pain all shake enough sense into me to realize the shower is steaming and time’s ticking.
For the special occasion, I put on my Depeche Mode t-shirt, gym shorts and Crocs, then I follow the scent of Joselyn’s cooking into unfriendly territory.
Even when no one’s home, I don’t trust this house.
Artie is just the sort of prick who would lace his sacred interior with nanny cams, so I stay on guard and only jerk off in the common spaces when I’m really trying to get to him.
“Yo, family plus one!” I round into the dining area of the main room. Everyone’s at the table, and though I quickly count four heads, my sights zero in on the lasagna still steaming in the center of the table. I fold over and stick my nose right up close to the casserole and inhale.
“You’re late. I said fifteen minutes,” Artie huffs from the head of the table.
“Damn, this smells good.” I slip my arm around the shoulders of the dolled-up woman to my right before pressing a purposeful kiss to her cheek. “Thanks, Mom.”
“Oh!” Joss blushes at my show of affection. “Of—of course. I hope you enjoy it.”
Ah, Joselyn… Moved in right after Lori moved out.
I made Joss’s life hellish for a time until I realized my gripe isn’t with her but with my family.
Besides, she’s actually one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.
Suspiciously so, but it’s way harder to fuck with someone who’s constantly plying me with food and compliments than someone like Artie, who is evil incarnate.
“Leave her alone and say hello to your sister,” Artie mutters, clearly perturbed.
I’ve never called Joss Mom before, and it was super weird forcing it off my tongue just then, but I love the way it unnerves Artie.
I’m hoping it unnerves Thalia too. Maybe she can get word back to my estranged birth-giver that I’ve moved on.
Slipping into the chair beside my stepmother, I laser my focus on the girl who looks too much like Lori for comfort, but the displeasure etched along every inch of Thalia’s face is all Artie.
“Hello, sister.” I pay her displeasure with disinterest, taking her in with a dull look.
“Hi, Dane. How are you?” Her smile is forced, and the flutter of her eyelashes wafts contempt across the table, interrupting the delicious smell of food I should be stuffing into my face right now.
“Hungry.”
Dad’s arm reaches over the lasagna. Not to dish it out, but to break my stare. “This is Connor, Thalia’s boyfriend.”
“Hello, Connor, Thalia’s boyfff—” I slide my gaze straight ahead, and my voice gives out mid boyfriend when I realize the blondie beside my sister is the same one from the beach.
My stalker.
He’d called himself a photographer, but in my book, taking unsolicited photos of half-naked men is stalker behavior, art or not.
Not that I mind being stalked by a toned-up snack with ocean eyes and the most perfect smile I’ve ever seen.
Swear, those teeth shone brighter than the sun when he pretended to be shocked by my advances. It’s that Oral-B, I guess.
He’d said he had a girlfriend, so he wasn’t lying about that.
Was he telling the truth about being straight too?
The way he’s gaping at me like a scared puppy suggests he’s not a good liar, and I wonder if he’s already told Thalia I propositioned him.
It would make things interesting if she knew, but I’m not sure that’s the play I want to make yet.
Despite his shock, Connor has no qualms about holding my stare, but I’m not paying him the dull ambivalence I sent Thalia. For him, I’m scintillating. Can’t help it. Maybe I’m not as good a liar as I think either.
“Now, this is a twist.” I lean in, hooked on Connor’s eyes and longing to count their shades of blue.
I lose track when he blinks, shakes off that deer-in-headlights look, and glances at my sister. Damn.
“What’s a twist?” Thalia asks impatiently.
Straightening up, I avert my lust from my stalker to the lasagna and drive the serving spoon through the cheese and noodles. “Just didn’t think blondies were your type.”
“How would you know what my type is? We’ve hardly seen each other since we were kids.”
“Good point.” I pile my plate with more lasagna than even I can probably finish, but I’m sure as hell going to try.
“Try not to make a mess everywhere,” Artie grumbles.
While the fam busies with serving themselves, I hover my fork just before my mouth and watch Connor.
Connor. I went to high school with a Connor, and he was an Eagle Scout at fourteen with a real snobby personality. Ratted me out once for carving dicks into the boys' room mirrors. It’s hard to shake the name association, especially when this Connor is dating my snobby Girl Scout sister.
“You know, Dane,” Artie says, “Connor was on the team that won the NCAA men’s soccer championship last year.”
Say what?
As if finding my stalker at my dining table isn’t surprising enough, now I hear he’s a bona fide soccer champion? Must be why Artie’s allowing him to shack up in the same room as his golden child without making an honest woman out of her. Good God, they’re gonna be fucking in that room.
Appetite waning, I lower my fork and glance between Connor and my dad, then back to Connor. “That so?”
“He could teach you a few things,” Artie says.
I smirk because it’s just too easy. Something tells me there’s a lot more I can teach Connor than he’s got to teach me.
With an adorably timid smile, Connor says, “I wasn’t a dealmaker in that match or anything. I was, maybe, the fifth best player on the team.”
“Dane isn’t anywhere close to being the fifth best player on his team, and they had a losing record last year.”