Page 18 of Fracture

His footsteps are right behind me, and I spin to meet him so fast he almost barrels over the top of me.

“You know what? Yeah, I am gonna fuck him. I’m gonna wear my tiniest bikini, and let him take it off with his teeth, and then I’m gonna fuck him.”

Levi looks around us, and I realize I just yelled at him in the middle of downtown while people are around. People who are now staring at us. I could cry with embarrassment.

“Just leave me alone, Levi.” I hurry back to my car, sending another text to my therapist to tell her it’s urgent, before taking several deep breaths and heading off to my lunch date with Lilly.

CHAPTER 5

DYLAN

Levi is waitingfor me when I bring my bike to a stop outside Mario’s shop.

“Hey.” He gives me a warm smile as I take off my helmet. “How was it?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I can’t voice what just happened with my grandfather, how mean and cold he was. “He gave me my trust fund, and that’s all I cared about, so…” I shrug, and trail off.

“Fair enough.” Levi claps an arm around shoulders. “Sorry it went bad.”

I swallow hard, resisting the urge to put my arms around him and bury my face in the crook of his neck. “Yeah, it always goes bad with him. But it’s done now.” I gesture to the shop, trying to ignore how good he smells. “So, what do you think?”

Levi releases me to tuck his hands into the pockets of his jeans, and gazes up at the front of the garage. “I think it’s great. He has good staff, we both know what we’re doing, and he trusts us to keep it going.”

“So, we’re in?”

Levi turns to me with a wide smile, holding his hand out. “Guess so, pretty boy.”

The leap my heart does when he calls me pretty boy… It’s just a stupid nickname. But the way he looks at me when he says it, the warmth in the way he grabs my hand and pulls me in for a one-armed hug…

It wasn’t always like this. He was my friend, my best friend, and my girlfriend’s brother at that. He was there for me when my parents died. He was there for me those nights in prison when the bars became too much, coaching me through panic attacks, when I felt pathetic and small and like a stupid little boy who’d wanted to act the big man.

But now, we’re out. We’re free. Now I can say what I want, who I want, that these feelings I have are real…

I give myself an internal slap.You want Stella. You love Stella, You’re trying to win her back, and now you’re here thinking about her goddamn brother. You’re sick.

My grandfather’s stinging parting words pursued me out the door and straight into this moment, a moment which I’m meant to be celebrating. Instead I’m consumed with self-loathing for wanting to fuck my best friend and his sister, like some sadistic little homewrecker.

Stella would never understand. She knows I’m bi, but she wants someone monogamous, who’s faithful only to her. Not to her and her brother. Her brother who sure as fuck never looked at a man as anything more than a friend.

“Hey, where are you?” Levi regards me with a confused smile. “You just totally zoned out.”

I step back from him with a shrug. “Sorry, it’s just all of this, it’s a lot.” I wave a hand at the garage. “Life, you know? Possibilities. All the things we wanted to have, and now, we can have them. I guess I’m adjusting.”

“Yeah, aren’t we all?” Levi turns back to the garage and nods. “This is going to help, though. Give us purpose. A reason to get up in the morning.”

“Stella suggested therapy,” I blurt out, and Levi regards me with a sideways glance.

“Did she? I have a feeling our little Stella needs some of that herself.” He rolls his shoulders, and a dark haze settles over his face. “Remember Jared Marshall, from high school?”

“How could I forget?” That asshole was responsible for most of my black eyes, slamming my head into my locker every chance he got until I was finally bigger than him. “Wasn’t he a quarterback or some shit?”

“Something like that.” Levi huffs out a laugh. “Stella’s going on a date with him.”

I clench my teeth so hard I’m sure I’m going to crack a molar. My hands curl into painful fists and I shove them into my pockets quickly so Levi doesn’t see. “A date? Like, adate?”

Levi tilts his head and raises an eyebrow. “A date. 3pm at the lake. Said she’d let him take her bikini off with his teeth.”

I shift on my feet, rage and jealousy so acute welling up in my chest that I swear my breath is green as I exhale. “Good for her.”