4. Envy
No, no, this is all wrong. This can’t be happening.
He can’t be here. He’s not even supposed to be in town. And he most definitely wasn’t supposed to be the man on the other side of that door.
Logan. Dad.
Holy fuck.
As I barrel down the stairs, I half expect him to follow me, but he doesn’t. No shouting, nothing. Even if he said anything, I wouldn’t be able to hear it. My ears are thrumming with the frantic beat of my heart, and tears blur my vision, making me stumble and almost fall.
When I burst into the street, rain is pouring down harder than ever, and the world seems different, surreal, wrong.
I was just trying to meet up with someone.
A stranger. Not him. Definitely not him.
Even though I wished things would be different, no part of me thought it would actually come true.
Is this some divine punishment for wanting what I shouldn’t?
Or did he know who I was, which… No. He didn’t.
The look on his face was as shocked as mine.
More than that—he looked horrified.
I didn’t have any pictures of my face on my profile, and my username is a variation of my gamer nickname; it doesn’t hint at my real name at all.
And as for his pictures… For me, North43 was supposed to be a substitute for the real thing.
Another man, a different time. I never thought… I couldn’t know…
Teeth gritted, I get on my bike and pedal through the rain at a mad pace, with no consideration for traffic rules or safety.
A few cars honk at me. I almost hit a pedestrian.
Through it all, my heart is hammering against my ribs, and my legs are screaming as I punch my feet down on the pedals, desperate to get as far away from that apartment as I can.
As far away from him as I can.
God, I’d almost forgotten his face. If I hadn’t spent so much time staring at pictures of him, I would have.
In the pictures, he was younger, a few pounds lighter, and had no streaks of white in his dark hair and beard.
The Logan on the other side of the door looked more rugged, but somehow just as gentle and kind as he used to.
Ollie, he called me. It’s a name from the past, from simpler days.
From a time when my life used to be joyful.
A time I felt loved. My biological dad left the picture when I was too young to remember much.
Mom refuses to speak about him or why he disappeared, but I guess he thought two sons were too much responsibility.
Mom started seeing Logan Baker when I was seven and my brother almost eleven. Shortly after, he moved into our house and became part of the family. He took care of me. He clothed me, fed me, did everything fathers do. He was my favorite person in the world.
When he and my mom broke up, he left, and between one day and the next, I didn’t have a dad anymore. I was abandoned—again. I never thought I’d see him again, and certainly not like this.
It doesn’t make sense. I didn’t even know he liked men. I certainly didn’t know he liked guys my age. Well, he thought I was twenty-three, but that’s beside the point.
This was the man I was ready to give my virginity to.
Now I feel sick. This is not how it was supposed to happen at all.
He left me six years ago, and now he’s back in town without even telling me about it?
And he’s just, what, living life hoping he doesn’t run into me?
None of it makes sense, and my heart is pumping too fast, my feet pedaling too violently, everything a jumbled mess in my head.
I have so many questions—questions I’m dying to get answered.
Why is he here?
Why didn’t he tell me?
Why did he turn his back on me when I was so young and needed him?
I wasn’t okay without him, damn it. I haven’t been okay ever since he left.
He ruined everything. Me. And now his presence is threatening to ruin me a second time.
Somehow, I arrive at the twins’ apartment, soaked in sweat and feeling shellshocked and numb.
When I step inside, that scent fills my nostrils again. The same scent as the one that hit me when Logan opened the door and found me soaked in rain and full of nerves. His scent.
The twins are nowhere to be seen. Luca is out on his dinner date, and Nico is doing whatever in his room.
Thank God. I don’t know what I need, but I know I can’t talk to the twins right now.
They’re going to ask me questions I don’t want to answer.
I don’t know them well enough to have faith that they wouldn’t judge me.
I don’t know who I can tell, except my best friend, Lane.
He knows about keeping secrets; he kept one from me all summer.
He’s a lousy liar, and we both have experience in wanting the wrong guy, I guess.
In his case, the wrong guy wasn’t his stepdad; it was my asshole big brother who’d just gotten out of prison.
They might have thought they were being subtle when they started hooking up in Mason’s room and even in the freaking pool, but I knew for a long time.
Even if the thought of my brother and Lane still makes my stomach churn, I’m mostly over it.
They seem happy together, despite everything.
Lane has put some spell on my brother and made him less of an asshole, I guess.
When I text Lane, he replies right away.
He and Mason live in the Pearl District, so we agree to meet tomorrow at a café that’s close to us both.
Lane is the only one who’d understand what I’m going through—and most of all, the only one who wouldn’t judge me for it.
I just hope I’m able to tell him my truth, the way he failed to tell me his.
Murphy’s Coffee is quiet inside. It serves premade salads and sandwiches for lunch alongside its à la carte menu, and it seems mostly catered to weekday workers—not friends meeting on a Sunday afternoon.
We agreed to meet at four, but I’m ten minutes early. I couldn’t stand to stay in my room a second longer, too wired, my stomach in knots. I barely slept a wink. Tossed and turned, unable to find rest as flashes of last night played in my mind.
Logan’s shocked face. His gentle voice saying my name. Ollie. I screw my eyes shut, my heart jumping in my chest.
Don’t think about him. Easier said than done; it’s what I’ve tried to do for years and failed. And now that he’s back in town, it’s not like ignoring him will get any easier.
I take a seat at a booth in the corner, cradling a mug of hot chocolate. The sticky liquid clings to the roof of my mouth. Too sweet. Logan used to make me hot chocolate during the winter months, and it was way better than this.
I clench my jaw. Failed again. It’s not my fault that he’s constantly invading my mind, damn it. After last night, the memories feel fresher than usual. Closer than ever. Logan. Dad…
Luckily, I don’t have to be alone with my thoughts for much longer. The door chimes, and Lane walks inside. He waves as he spots me, but he’s not alone.
“No.” The word grinds out of me in protest and anger.
Behind Lane’s small frame, an older guy follows. A lean, muscular guy with broad shoulders, brown close-cropped hair, and an annoyingly smug look on his face.
Why the hell is he here? This is supposed to be a private conversation between me and Lane, not me, Lane, and my brother. Fuck.
“Sorry!” Lane blurts, fidgeting with the choker around his neck. The coal-black liner around his eyes is smudged at the corners. “He found out where I was going, and—”
“Leave.” I glare at Mason, who’s sliding right into the booth across from me.
Ignoring me, he pulls Lane in with him, hands on his hips. Lane gives a little yelp but lets himself be manhandled into the seat.
“I didn’t invite you,” I grumble.
“I know.” Mason shrugs and grins. “But I wanted to see how my little brother’s doing.”
He waves at the waiter, even though you’re supposed to order at the counter. Spoiled asshole. Acting like the world is his oyster—like he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants. Even sleep with my best friend right under my nose, after I begged him to stay away.
I hold my mug of hot chocolate in a death grip. “I’m doing fine, now leave.”
Mason raises a brow, looking unbothered. “But Lane said you’re upset.”
I glare at Lane in betrayal, and he holds up a hand.
“I didn’t! He just… figured it out.”
Great. I should leave, but I’m desperate to talk to Lane, my asshole big brother be damned.
They get their drinks, and Mason sips his coffee while placing a hand under the table—on Lane’s thigh, no doubt. They’re sex-crazed maniacs, the both of them, and I’m not in the mood to see them paw at each other today. I’m never in the mood for that, but today least of all.
My shoulders stiffen as I try to ignore the way Lane looks up at my brother with stars in his eyes.
They were annoying enough to be around during the small stretch of time we lived together, but now I can barely stand to look at them.
Now and again, Lane’s eyes widen for a beat, and I suspect it’s because Mason must’ve squeezed his thigh.
Their sexual shenanigans aren’t even the worst of it, though. No, the worst is the way they look at each other. The smile tugging at the corner of Mason’s mouth. The gleam in Lane’s eyes and the blush on his cheeks.
Envy blazes through my veins. It feels like anger—it feels like the desperate wish to feel like that for someone else. When I tried to break out of my bubble and meet someone, I ended up meeting… him.
God, there’s no way I’ll tell Mason about it. Not that Logan is back in Portland, and least of all how we met. Mason would go ballistic. Logan was his stepdad, too. He’d get me to tell him Logan’s address, and if I gave it to him, I have no doubt he’d go there and do something stupid.
There’s no need. It’s not like it was planned. It’s not like Logan wanted to meet me like that; it just happened. But that doesn’t make it any less painful.
“So… what’s up?” Mason stops watching Lane sip his soda to instead pierce me with his slate-gray eyes. “What’s wrong?”
He’s always been intense. Intensely annoying. He always walks into a situation assuming he’ll get his way, and no matter how much I fight it, that’s how things usually go.
“I’m fine. I’m alive, see?” I spread my arms wide in exasperation. “Now can I talk to Lane, please? You know I won’t say anything unless you leave.”
“Baby,” Lane says, gazing at Mason, and I nearly throw up in my mouth. “Can you get me a packet of gum from down the street? You know the one.”
He tugs at Mason’s shirt, looking sickeningly cute and pleading. I can’t stand the ridiculous nickname Mason gave him the first time they met, but in this moment, I have to admit it kind of fits.
“The green one?” Mason asks, and Lane nods. “Okay, puppy. Be right back.” He pulls Lane in by the collar around his neck and gives him a needlessly sultry kiss.
When he leaves, I blow out a deep sigh I’ve been holding in. For once, I’m grateful my brother is so smitten with Lane that he’ll do anything for him—even obey a thinly veiled request to stay away.
Lane leans over the table. “Okay, now you can tell me.”
“Why did you let him come?” I mutter, still salty that we’re in this situation in the first place.
Lane smiles sheepishly. “You know what he can be like.”
“An asshole?”
“Persuasive.” Lane’s cheeks flush a bit, and I roll my eyes. He’s claimed that he tried to resist Mason’s advances and didn’t just jump into bed with him, but I have a hard time believing that. I know what he means, though. It’s like I mentioned: my brother always gets what he wants.
I tilt my half-empty mug, swirling the hot chocolate around. “If I tell you, do you promise not to tell Mason?”
Lane squirms in his seat. “I’ll try.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“Oh, come on! You know what he’s like.”
“It’s not like he’ll torture it out of you.”
“He has his methods.” Lane winks, making it obvious what he’s alluding to.
I grimace. “Even if he denies you sex for a week, promise not to tell him.”
“I promise I’ll try not to tell him. It’s the best I can do,” he mumbles, gaze downturned. “I don’t want to lie to you again.”
Well, that’s fair, I guess. He spent the whole summer lying, so he’d better make it up to me.
Only truths from now on. I just don’t know if it’s good enough.
But we’re running out of time before Mason returns from the shop, so I need to act quickly and blurt out the words that hang at the tip of my tongue.
Leaning in close over the table, I whisper, “He’s here.”
“Who?” Lane raises a brow.
“Logan.”
“Wait…” His eyes widen. “You saw him?”
“I met him.”
Lane blinks. “What? How? I thought—”
“I went on a dating app, okay? And I didn’t see his face, and when I met him—”
“Oh.” Lane’s eyes get even bigger, and he shakes his head in horror. “Oh no.”
“I know. I had no idea, and he didn’t either.”
“Oliver…” Lane reaches out a hand to grip mine, which is shaking, my fingers tapping repeatedly on the tabletop.
“I don’t know what to do,” I whimper. I feel like I’m thirteen again—a boy left behind by the man who was supposed to protect him, who was supposed to love him.
“You need to talk to him,” Lane says.
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Would you rather try to pretend this didn’t happen?”
“No.” Every word comes out choked, and I can’t breathe properly.
Lane’s hand squeezes mine, and I close my eyes, trying to take a deep breath. At that moment, a shadow looms over us, and my eyes pop back open.
“What’s happening here?” Mason’s calm voice carries a sharpness underneath. “Why are you crying?”
“He’s okay,” Lane says quickly. “He’s just homesick.”
I don’t know about homesick, but I feel sick, alright. I could throw up at any minute, and my eyes leak tears whenever I blink.
“Well, just move back home to Mom’s, then,” Mason says with his usual arrogant, bored voice, but there’s an unmistakable tense undertone, making it a question at the end.
He doesn’t believe us, but I can’t tell him the truth. I can’t.
Lane scoots out of the booth, sits next to me instead, and gives me a tight hug. Then he takes the opportunity to whisper in my ear. “Talk to him. Meet him somewhere public.”
I hug him back, trying to force my tears to recede and my heart to quit aching. The physical touch helps somewhat. It would help more if my brother weren’t observing us with a skeptical look on his face.
Once they’ve left, the chime of the café door echoing in the air, I fish my phone out of my pocket and act before I can talk myself out of it. There’s no way I’ll arrange another meeting with him through the app, so I go to our messages and type two demanding words—not even a question.
Me:
Your number.