CHAPTER 27
Ipeel Anaise's drunk hands from around the back of my neck, but as soon as I let her wrists go, she clamps back onto me.
"I wuv you, Wootekie," she slurs, standing on top of my feet. "Do you remember when we would all watch the fireworks together?"
"I sure do," I say and shuffle closer to the front door.
"You're certain you don't wanna come?" I hear Austin ask Carey before he grips beneath Anaise's underarms and lifts her off of me. She squeaks, then giggles before wrapping herself around him instead. He pats her head; "You were starting to make me jealous."
Anaise grins up at him, her bangs parting and her cheeks popping out in the most adorable way.
Austin looks back at Carey. "It's only New Year's once a… year."
Brilliant.
Austin screws up his face. "Shut up, Tek."
"I didn't say anything."
"You didn't have to." Again he redirects to Carey as Anaise tries to climb his body. "Last chance." He jerks his head in my direction. "You're not gonna get any fun out of him tonight."
Anaise bops his nose. "You don't know that."
"He hasn't come out with us since college."
Gripping onto Austin's shoulders, Anaise lifts herself and wraps her legs around his waist. "Just because he doesn't like coming out on New Year's Eve, doesn't mean he won't be fun here."
He leans his head back to try and look at her properly. "Why does this feel cryptic all of a sudden?"
"Maybe because ya'll are trying to hide something from us?" Carey interjects.
Anaise rests her head against Austin's chest. "We aren't hiding anything."
I roll my eyes. "I can see that."
"Maybe you're the jealous one?" Austin says with a weak shrug.
"Nah." Carey slumps an arm over my shoulders. "You pair are too cute to be jealous of."
Austin's cheeks blush but I don't think he realizes.
"I'm not really interested in being a third wheel." Carey reaches for the door handle. "But you guys go enjoy the display. We'll be able to see the fireworks from here."
The thought ratchets up the tension in my chest. It's already eleven p.m. "You won't find a decent place to park if you don't leave soon."
Austin grins at me. "Are you trying to kick us out?"
"They're trying to be alone," Anaise whispers, but she's too drunk to actually make it quiet.
"We're not—" I start, but she cuts me off by swinging an arm back dramatically and pressing her finger against my lips.
"Shhh. It's okay, baby. We're all friends here."
With his brows raised, Carey stares directly at how Austin is holding Anaise up by gripping her ass. "You sure about that?"
Anaise links both hands back behind Austin's neck. "Very sure. We're all happy, close, friends."
"Well, you friends go have some fun." Opening the door, Carey ushers the pair out onto the front porch, but not before Anaise gets one last word in.
"You too." She winks at him, exaggerated, and obvious, and I think I'm gonna die.
Austin's gaze meets mine briefly before Carey shuts the door on them, and dread settles in the pit of my stomach where it battles for dominance with the anxiety caught behind my ribs.
"They are definitely fucking," Carey chuckles as he walks past me and back into my parent's house.
"Obviously, but… the hell was all that?"
In the kitchen, he turns back to me. "They're fucking," he repeats with a shrug.
"Not that. I mean—fuck. Do you think she knows?"
Carey cups my cheeks with both hands. "Oh, Oppa. She definitely knows."
My face goes blank and my heart freezes in my chest.
I feel Carey's lips against mine, then his tongue in my mouth.
I know I'm kissing him back, but everything is numb.
"What if she tells him?" I murmur against Carey's mouth.
"Austin's not that stupid," he dismisses, his hand moving up to grip my jaw.
"I'm not talking about Austi—"
Carey's nails dig into my skin and I huff out.
I can feel again. I'm grounded, but I'm still spiraling.
"Do you really think she'd do that?" Carey asks, his fingers hooking into my mouth and pressing into the soft flesh beneath my tongue.
"No, but…"
"But what?"
I moan at the feeling of his teeth nipping my ear lobe.
"Anaise doesn't strike me as the kind of person to fuck shit up for the fun of it. But if she slips with a drunken text, take it as a win. Eden can't do anything from where he is. He's trapped by his own design. Who's he gonna tell? The people who already know?"
"M-my parents," I stutter around his fingers.
"True." Carey dips his head to the side like he's agreeing that his brother could be that spiteful. "Though, where's the downside there? You're only prolonging the inevitable. We've been inseparable all week. I'm not even hiding my affections at this point. They need to find out sooner or later."
I take Carey's wrist and remove his hand from my mouth to stare him down.
"I won't be hidden, Tek."
"I don't want to hide you." My eye contact falls away, and he takes his hand back to press against my chest.
"I know it's your story to tell, but I'm a main character, too."
Looking up, I stare over his shoulder past the kitchen's island bench, through the doorway to the large living room, to the Christmas tree, and the night sky outside the window.
I want, one day, to feel secure enough to hold Carey in this house while my parents are actually home. To not have to sneak around at night. To actually share a bed. It just feels so distant from where we are right now.
I take his hand, and squeeze it. "It's getting late. I'm gonna go to bed."
"Seriously?" He holds tight as I try to walk towards the stairs. "The fireworks… It's not even midnight."
I tug him towards me because I really do crave him twenty-four hours a day. "I don't watch the fireworks."
"You're crazy."
"Were you not here for all that?" I wave back towards the front door. "They didn't push me to go with them because they know."
"Yeah, but I just thought that was because you wanted to be alone with me."
"I do wanna be alone with you. I just don't wanna watch the fireworks."
"So I'll come with you, then." Carey tries to guide me upstairs to my room, but I stop him.
"You know you can't sleep in there with me."
"You're parents aren't here, though," he whines.
"But they will be."
"They'll be too drunk to notice."
"But also drunk enough to stumble into someone else's room by mistake."
Carey pouts. "Don't you wanna give me a new year's kiss?"
"I'll give you one right now."
"It won't count now," he says all bratty, and my balls tighten.
Tilting his chin up, I kiss him softly. "I'd like to go to bed, Carey."
"Okay," he says in a tone that tells me he's going to completely disregard everything I just said. "I guess you won't get your New Year's gift then."
I sigh. "That's not a thing."
"Then let's make it a thing. Every year we'll do something for each other that we've never done before."
Every Year…
That's too fucking real.
When it's just me and Carey it's so easy to sink into how amazing the past few weeks have been.
He's a magic man. A temptress. One kiss from him really does make everything else melt away.
It feels like a hundred times a day I forget that Eden will be coming back.
That this is the fantasy, and not the other way around.
I don't want to say goodbye to what I have with Carey, but my relationship with Eden runs so much deeper.
I know I won't be able to keep it a secret, but how do I tell him? How do I tell my best friend of more than twenty years that I'm falling for his little brother? That I've done things to him he wouldn't believe, and that I'm not willing to let him go?
I look at the stairs down to the basement. "Do you want me to tuck you in?"
Carey flashes me his beautiful sunshine smile. "If you come down, I'll keep you there."
I contemplate it.
It is a better location, but I'm just not ready yet to let everything out.
"Goodnight," I say, and kiss him deeply. It's dangerous, but I allow myself a little more indulgence before I get settled.
"Wait right there."
"I'm going to bed."
"I know. I know. You don't have to come down. But you don't get to walk up those stairs until I give you your present."
"We're not doing this again, Carey. Not tonight. It's late and it's almost—" I cut myself off before anything else slips out. "I'll see you first thing in the morning. I'll make you pancakes and bacon."
"Please. It'll only take two minutes." That puppy dog stare that's all fake innocence cuts at me like it always does.
I grip onto the banister. "Two minutes, then I'm walking up these stairs and I will be off limits for the rest of the night."
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
With a proud smile, Carey nods and quickly disappears into the basement.
I sit on the steps, and with each passing second I try to distract myself.
I try not to focus on the agonizing few seconds between when the fireworks are lit and when they burst in the sky. What they sound like when a bunch all go off at once, and how the explosions seem to build in volume until it feels like my skull is going to explode.
I cup my hands over my ears because I swear I can hear them already.
My heart is beating out of control and I need to get to my room.
Carey will just need to understand that this can't happen right now.
I climb the stairs and shut my bedroom door behind me.
I take my earbuds and place them on the bedside table beside my phone.
New Year's and July 4th are the worst days of the year for me. It doesn't matter where I go, you can't escape the fireworks in Broadrock, but I've got a system; loud music, heavy blankets, alone.
I move to take off my sweatshirt but I'm stopped by a text.
"Holy fuck," I whisper to myself when I see a picture sent from Carey.
He's changed. His black sweat pants are still on, but he's wearing a… a fucking crop top. The red fabric pops against his skin, and the black lettering of the word 'filthy' across the front disintegrates all my willpower.
Sunshine: I'll be waiting in the lounge.
Fucking hell, Carey. I pound the heel of my palm against the side of my head.
I look down at my ear buds.
I check the time: 11:25 p.m.
His stomach looks so good.