Wrath: A Sinful Secrets Romance, page 15
I think of another Ezra who might cuddle up to him now. Maybe the same one who would have treated him nice and been his friend—told him, if nothing else, that I’m an ally. That I’ll keep his secret. That it’s all good.
But I don’t think I know that person. Maybe in the past…
But not now.
Two
Ezra
September 7, 2017
I was wrong about this place.
Fuck me.
Help me.
Please-
Three
Josh
I’m gulping water from a straw, swallowing as fast as I can. I’m so fucking thirsty. When I feel like I’ve had enough, I open my eyes and see…Ezra.
Pretty Ezra. Sort of sunburned. His eyes on mine are intense. It makes me feel confused. I look around, noticing…I’m in his room? I don’t remember falling asleep in here.
“It’s okay if you don’t remember.” His low, soft voice comes to my ears like a surprise. I realize he’s crouched beside his bed, where I’m lying on my side.
I’m in his bed. Under his covers.
Something bad happened. I turn the dread over in my mind, seeking out what it was.
“We had…an argument.” Ezra takes a breath, as if to fortify himself before he adds, “After that, you got a shower. And in there, you had a seizure.”
My spine stiffens as my sense of what the fuck collides with what you might call memory. I don’t feel surprised to hear I had a seizure, but when I try to visualize what happened, I just…can’t.
My whole head feels sore and heavy. Like there’s a black hole drilled between my eyebrows.
“Do you remember anything about it?” he asks. “Your mom said you usually don’t.”
I don’t have seizures. Anymore. I lift my eyes open again, alarmed that I can’t get my mouth to say it.
“It’s okay if you’re out of it,” he says. “I’ll be here with you. So don’t be worried.”
I open my eyes again to golden sunlight. My eyeballs throb as I glance around the room. Ezra’s room. I had a seizure. I squint at the bathroom door…look over to the bedroom door. That one’s shut. Where is he?
Then I feel the mattress shift. I cut my eyes to my left and realize Ezra’s in bed beside me. He’s on his back, like me, and he’s holding a paperback above his face.
“What are you reading?” My voice is fucking rough and raspy. I feel him startle before lowering the book to his bare chest.
“Fuck.” His lips twitch in a small smile. “You snuck up on me.”
It’s such a stupid thing for him to say. Makes me smile as I close my eyes for a second. It’s a struggle to drag them back open.
“I’m awake now.” I get a deep breath, and he climbs over my legs to pick up a glass with a straw in it.
“Water,” he says, holding it up to my lips.
I smirk, and I want to take it from his hand, but my whole body feels like I swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills.
I drink some of it, realizing as I do that Ezra saw me in a seizure. That thought makes my throat feel stuck, so I stop sucking from the straw. I shut my eyes and fight the painful sting that builds behind them.
Fuck, why did this happen?
I outgrew this.
I cover my eyes with a hand and try to breathe deep, but I can’t. I don’t feel right.
Ezra’s moving over me. He’s climbing back up on the bed. Fuck, I wish I could get up. I should try to.
Instead, I feel him tucking blankets around me. My foggy mind is so confused, but I’m pretty sure that’s what he’s doing. Tucking me in. His hand brushes my hair back, and it feels familiar.
“Keep your eyes shut,” he says softly. “Everything’s okay, Mills.”
Then he snuggles up to my side, drapes an arm over my chest, and rests his cheek against my shoulder.
* * *
Ezra
DG is awake now. Josh.
I kept waking up to slide the little pulse ox clip onto his fingertip, put the numbers in my phone. As I looked at him, at sleeping Miller, I realized how much I don’t know about him. He’s All-American good-looking, with his wavy dark hair and those pretty blue eyes. And he’s got a nice ass. Big, warm hands. He’s got a dick I love to suck, a throat he’ll groan with if I bite it. But I don’t really know him.
A little while ago, after the sun rose, I cleaned up the bathroom. Then I wandered into his room and looked around. On his desk, there’s a framed picture of him playing drums when he was maybe six or seven. On his bookshelf, a shot of him with Brennan. DG is a little smaller, with a deep tan. It looks like they were on a boat in Florida. There’s an unframed snapshot lying flat on one of his shelves—and it’s got Mills with his dad’s kids. He’s got a sibling on each knee, and he’s wearing a gray sleeveless shirt. His hair is longer, lighter. It looks like it’s blowing in the breeze.
He’s got his cello in its stand beside his dresser. It seems crazy to me that he plays the cello. How did I not know before that day he drove me home?
Because he doesn’t play when you’re around.
I close my eyes now, trying to memorize our current pose: the one where I’ve got an arm around him. After today, I have to leave him alone. Try to be a normal person, a stepbrother who’s not warped and evil.
“Who are you,” he says softly, “and where is Ezra?”
I crack one eye open. “I’ve been watching over you all night.”
He grins like he thinks that’s absurd. “Are you my guardian angel now?”
“Yeah.” I peer up at him. “You saying you don’t like the services?”
“I’m saying I don’t think I know the service provider.” His voice is slow, like sleepy, and a little deeper than normal. But he’s smiling.
I lift my head off his shoulder and prop my cheek in my hand. “You’re saying you think I can’t be a guardian angel?”
He grins. “I’m saying I think you’re the clone imposter.”
“The clone?” I’m putting on, hoping to make him laugh.
“Yeah. So I’m just wondering where is Player One,” DG says.
“Pshhh.” I wave at myself. “This is Player One.”
His eyes move to mine, still looking sleepy. “Must have scared you if you’re acting like this. Did I scare you?”
The first thing I can think of is some joke about his hair—like how it’s scaring me because it looks so messy. But I swallow that dumb shit and look him in the eye and try to be a good and honest person for once. “A little.” I add, “But I deserved it.”
His brows crease, and I realize he probably doesn’t know what happened. He looks down the blankets at himself. And then he sighs. I move my arm off his chest, and his eyes come back to meet mine.
“I remember waking up in my room…before. And hearing you,” he says, sounding quiet and cautious. Even his fucking face is cautious.
“Hearing me crying last night?” I have to force myself to say it.
“Yeah. You know…” He lifts his hand off the blankets and wiggles his fingers a little, miming as one does.
“Yeah, I know,” I confirm. “So after that, we—I—”
He smiles weakly, covers his face with a hand. “This is so weird.”
“You had a good time,” I say, smirking despite myself. “Until after. I was a prick, and then you went to get a shower.”
“And in the shower…”
I nod. “I came in to say I was sorry.”
He laughs, sliding his hand off his eyes so he can grin at me. “You were gonna say sorry?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
He smiles like he’s enjoying this.
“Yeah,” I say, “so I went in and saved you. Basically a hero.” I press my lips together, trying not to laugh, and Millsy snickers.
“Brought you in here, tucked you all up.” I arch one eyebrow. “Called your mom, too.”
“Shit, was she worried?” he asks.
“Probably. But I told her I’ve got it covered. I’ve been checking in.” I hold my phone up. “Using the finger tester thing to check things out.”
“The finger tester thing, huh?”
“The pulse oximeter.”
“Wow, that’s what it’s called?” he says.
“That’s what it said on the box.”
He gives me a strange look. Maybe he knows the damn thing didn’t have a box. I found it lying in a drawer, where his mom said to look.
“Well, I’m fine,” he says, pushing up on one of his elbows. He looks around the room like he’s seeing it for the first time, his eyes resting for a second on the football pillow over in my armchair.
Then he shifts his legs toward the bed’s side and scoots so he’s sitting there, my blankets pooled around his waist, his bare back rippling as he leans on his arm.
“I’m gonna…go or whatever.” He stands, tugging the sheet off my bed and wrapping it around his hips. “So uh…thanks.” He glances over his shoulder, pressing his lips together as he moves toward my bedroom door.
“Bathroom route’s faster,” I say.
“Mm.”
I can’t help walking to the doorway, watching as he walks to his room. “Do you feel okay?”
“Like I got my dick sucked by some ‘straight’ guy,” he says.
I can’t help a low hoot. I guess he remembered.
Four
Josh
The first thing I realize after getting to my room is that I don't have my phone. I drape his top sheet over my baseboard and grab a pillow to cover my junk before checking the bathroom. But it's not in there. Ezra has it. It's got a passcode, so I guess I don't care. I'm not going to get it just yet.
He was right: I really don't remember last night. When I said something about getting sucked off by a straight guy, I was just bullshitting. What I do remember, in fucking detail, is me running through the bathroom like Super Queero. Climbing on his bed and reaching down to grab his shoulders.
Ezra...
When I was sleeping off the seizure, I think I was aware that he was with me. And I was happy. I was partially conscious, and I have these fragments of memory where I was happy to be in his bed. I remember his hands on me. Maybe my face? Pretty sure he played with my hair. And then this morning—
A quick glance at my clock reveals it's actually 1 p.m. Fuck.
But anyway, when I woke up, he had his arm over me.
Why?
Why why why why why would he do that?
It doesn't matter. I sit on the edge of my bed and rub my forehead. I should call my mom in just a second, see what she wants me to do. I don't think I need to go in unless I have another seizure. And I won't. I can't.
Tears fill my eyes again. I swallow to keep them from falling. I'm not gonna cry about this shit yet. It was just a onetime thing. No way it happens again.
You can't drive now.
That's why they make Uber Eats.
I stretch out on my bed and pull the duvet over me. It's the same brand as his, but it smells different. The last thought I have before my eyelids drop shut is You're so stupid.
* * *
"Dee-geeeyyyyyyyy..."
I hear it a few times before I realize—Ezra. I pry my eyelids open, and he’s right there, standing over my bed.
"Fuck, I fell asleep again?" My throat is sore just like my tongue is. Did my voice break? I can barely hear my own words.
"Say it again, Snow White." I feel the mattress indent as he sits down by me. "I'm listening. Just speak up a little louder..."
My mind spins. "Snow White?"
Ezra's chuckle fills my whole head. "Shit, I meant to say Sleeping Beauty."
I crack an eye open, finding that he's lying on his side now, facing me.
"I woke you up because there's a fish fry..." He wiggles his dark brows and sticks his tongue out, peering at me with his cheek propped in his palm.
I give him an exaggerated frown. "What?"
"Yeah, your boy Brennan, at his uncle's place. Supposed to be a fish fry, they say."
"Oh, yeah." I remember this now. Brennan's Uncle Gus has a big hunting cabin on some land that runs along a county road outside town. Gus moved up to Tennessee last year, and Bren is taking care of the place. He started telling people the other day that he was frying some fish out there this weekend.
"I wasn't sure if you would want to go. So...I got you this." He leans away and reappears in my frame of vision with a cherry Icee.
"Marcel got it, but I ordered it," he corrects, handing the cup to me.
I push up on my elbows, then sit fully up.
"Thought your tongue might be sore,” he says. “You stuck it so far down my throat, I accidentally bit it." He says this perfectly deadpan, which makes my eyes widen even though I know it's bullshit.
He grins, pointing his fingers at me in a gun shape. "Gotcha."
This might be the most animated I've ever seen Ezra. His eyes are alight, almost sparkling with good humor, and his mouth is curled into a lazy grin. I’m reminded he has nice, white teeth.
"Do you want to go?" He seems intense. Scrutinizing.
I take a long sip of the Icee, trying to avoid his eyes. Who is this guy and where is Ezra?
"If you don't, we can stay here." He sounds...like a bro. Which is how I know it’s gotta be an act.
"You don't need to take me,” I say. “Or stay." I look at him out of the corner of my eye, which makes my head hurt.
A strand of hair falls over his forehead as he looks down at my duvet. "Yeah, I know. But I want to." He sits up, crossing his legs, and I notice he's got on sleep pants and a plain white T-shirt. With his lean muscle and tanned skin and his marble sculpture features, he looks amazing, and I hate that I think that.
"You didn’t give me a seizure, you know. Even if you were a dickwad." I rub a hand through my hair and arch a brow at him. "Can't get in my head, angel face."
"I know." But I'm pretty sure he looks contrite.
I turn away from him—he's sitting slightly behind me on the bed—and rub my eyebrows. It feels tight behind there.
I drink more of the Icee. My tongue...I guess I bit the side of it. I inhale slowly, exhale even slower. Still feel that weird, sleeping pill feeling. I sort of remember it from when I was younger.
"I'm going to tell Marcel we're not going,” he says. “And don't worry...nobody knows why."
"How the hell did you get Marcel to bring you an Icee?" I look over my shoulder again.
He winks.
"I want to go,” I tell him, surprising myself.
"You do?"
"Yeah. I like Bren’s fried fish."
"Really?" he asks.
I lie back against the pillows, closing my eyes. "It's good, dude. You never had beer-battered catfish?" I crack open one eye just in time to see him make a face. "Virginia too good for fried fish?" I ask.
"Sounds greasy,” he says.
"Yeah, it is. It's greasy and good. The fish is soft and white on the inside. The batter they fry it in is good shit. Like...I don't know. Beer-spiked cornbread or something."
He gives me a what-the-fuck face. I feel sort of weird lying down while he sits by me, but I’m so tired I don’t care.
"Oh, c'mon,” I say. “You never had cornbread?"
"Nah, dude. Fried food..." He shakes his head.
"Cornbread isn't fried food. It's like a buttery cake without icing."
He wrinkles his nose.
"Tell me you like cake.” I give him the same look he's giving me.
He lifts a shoulder. "It's okay."
"Cake is okay?"
His eyes narrow. "Sometimes the icing is too much."
"Maybe you just haven't had good icing."
"I've had good icing."
I shift onto my side, so I don't have to strain my sore neck to see him. "How can you be so sure?"
"My mom is a food snob,” he says. “Her second husband was a chef in Newport News, for this fancy restaurant."
"And did this fancy restaurant serve cake?"
"Some."
"Let me guess. Cheesecake and some kind of triple layer chocolate death gig?"
He cracks a small smile, like a smirk with one side of his mouth. "Yeah, they had cheesecake and chocolate cake. He brought it home all the time and the cheesecake was okay, but the chocolate stuff was weird. Made you feel like you're going to choke on it."
"Oh, you're gonna choke on it."
He shakes his head and puts a hand over his face. "Trust me. It wasn't good. The cake." He looks almost embarrassed. It makes me grin.
"My grandma makes this killer yellow cake with chocolate icing,” I say. “If you don't like it, you're not even alive. I'll make it sometime soon."
Ezra looks skeptical.
"Yeah, I can make cake,” I say. “Can you?"
"No,” he says.
"Not into the culinary arts?"
"No." He looks annoyed.
"Was your stepdad an asshole?"
He gives me a bug-eyed look, like he's surprised I asked.
"I'll take that as a yes. Is your mom with him now?"
"No,” he says.
"Is she with another guy? Remarried?"
"Affirmative.” He rolls his eyes. “Anything else, Sherlock?"
So many things. I tell him, "No," and sit back up to drink more Icee. He sits beside and slightly behind me, still and quiet for a long moment.
"So you want to go?" he asks.
"Yeah, I'll go. If you don't want to, someone else can pick me up."
"No, it's okay. I want to."
Five
Josh
I call Mom and Carl from the swing under the back porch. I don’t want Ezra to hear me talking, even though I guess he might know everything there is to know about this topic by now. I can tell my mom is worried based on how her voice sounds—the same way it used to when she talked to our dying cat, Hermano.
“I feel fine now,” I assure her.
“That’s good,” she says. “I talked to the on-call last night. Dr. Kelley will make space for you on Monday morning. We won’t be back, but I thought Ezra could drive you.”
