Page 2 of Fu*kboys in Flannel

The sounds of the party rage around us, but both of our focus is on a six-inch screen, waiting, wanting for Tessa Clarke.

The island in our home is large, so there’s enough distance my doppelgänger can’t reach across and throttle me. I see the veins in his neck bulging and his anger at not only my words, but the entire fucking situation has him ready to brawl. He’s so easy to rile up and you wouldn’t know that he’s the oldest out of the two of us by just mere weeks. Dear old Dad was sticking his dick into every available hole and, by some abstract design, ended up with two sons in a matter of four weeks.

I don’t think anyone expected us to be nearly identical considering the women we call mother couldn’t have been more different, but the Slade blood… well, that blood runs dominant in both of us. The very best or worst of Dad is evident in both Mason and me. We have the same body, the same hair, the very same facial expressions. The only difference is our eyes and if you didn’t pay enough attention, not even that would be enough to help distinguish us.

But our mannerisms are where you can decipher us. I pride myself on being calm and collected. I like playing with my prey and using every weapon in my arsenal to fuck with someone and before they even know what’s coming, either their lips are wrapped around my dick or their blood is draining at my feet. My crazy is contained and like arsenic, will slowly leech out and poison you bit by bit.

Mase though. Mason Slade is a ticking time bomb. Always has been and always will be. He attacks first, and his brutality is one of the things I love most about my brother. We are at the core carbon copies and once we hit sixteen, Dad knew we were a lethal combo that he dared not fuck with.

The only people we can tolerate are the rest of the Ravens but besides myself, the only person that can truly get through to Mason when the flames are licking at his sanity is Grey Bishop. Our unofficial head of this generation of Ravens.

Everyone always called our dad ruthless, conniving, and cunning. He is all of these things, but by design. Rhett Bishop’s design. Grey’s dad is one of the most obscure commodities I’ve ever encountered. The man is like a fucking chameleon. The only man my dad is truly afraid of. I don’t know the particulars and while I wouldn’t call them friends, there is a definite understanding between them. They didn’t go into business together and bring in Remington’s dad for no reason. If I wanted to, I could dig but I don’t. Rhett and I have an understanding, born in subterfuge and thriving in perversion.

The quiet stare-down between us ends and I shake my head of all thoughts except Tessa.

“Eat my dick, Bennett. How’s that for one word grunts?” he growls at me, and I watch as his hands squeeze the edge of the countertop. The skin across his knuckles turns white with the force he’s exhibiting, and I hold the lit match to incite the inferno.

I grab the front of my black pants and thrust my hips at him, “I’ll let you eat mine, big brother. Sounds like you spend too much time thinking about our dicks.”

“If I was gonna be into dick, it wouldn’t be yours. I’d rather fuck pretty boy than touch you. Your dick is wrapped in crazy and dipped in deceit.” That’s the thing about my brother, while he may be quick to anger and act like his vocabulary is limited… he’s got a depth to him just boiling under the surface. I love pushing his buttons to see what will let him peek out behind the exterior he puts on for the entire mountain.

He’s breathing hard, causing the empty cans strewn across the granite to rattle around and it amuses me.

“Of course you’d choose Remington. I’m happy to let you and Remy live in domestic bliss and I’ll take Tessa as she’s rightfully mine. I claimed her for my own first.” I state unequivocally.

We’ve been playing this game of grab-ass for the last year between the three of us and last weekend it finally came to a head. I want Tessa Clarke and she chose me. Well she kissed me first so basically that’s a green light that she’s mine. I just need fucking Mason to step the hell back.

“You’ve been using that same argument all week and by all rights as the oldest, she’s mine,” he snarls back at me and the next words that flow from my mouth are unchecked.

“You covet what you can’t have. You know as well as I do that it should be me. I’m the better choice. I always will be. Your anger will see you dead or exiled in the next few years. Back. The. Fuck. Off.”

I mean what I say, but I cringe internally at my choice of words, knowing that it will pick at the festering wound that Dad caused years ago when he pitted us against each other. I can’t take my statement back, nor would I. I say what I mean and mean what I say. Trying to retract something after it’s already been voiced into existence is futile.

“You expect Hollow Hill to bow at your feet. You talk about me coveting, but isn’t it you that secretly yearns to be the one on top. The one everyone looks up to. It kills you that Grey is King. Don’t talk to me like you’re better than me. We’re both Slade’s. At the root of it, we’re grimy. Grey will always take point. Humble yourself, little brother. Or you will be the one who ends up dead and buried on this mountain, just like your whore of a mother.” His words hit the intended target and without preamble and in a split second I feel the cup slip from my hand, and the amber liquid inside hits the ground splashing up, spraying the cotton covering my lower legs.

I barely register the feel of the sticky liquid as I jump up on the island and swing my body around to land a right hook across my brother’s jaw. His head snaps to the side and I slide back off the granite chuckling.

The match was dropped, and the fire is burning. I watch the flames licking at his eyes as he snaps his head back to me, tongue poking out to lick at the blood from the corner of his mouth.

He had it fucking coming. The woman that gave birth to me may have been a bitch, but he knows how touchy I am about her. Dad killed her with no remorse. No love lost for the woman who gave him a son. She was a loose end he tied up when she got involved with some old-world money family called Sanderson.

Too many of those old money ass fucking families from Woodsboro are entangled together and since Dad and the rest of the last group of Ravens have ties to the St. James’, sides were taken. My mother deserved her death, but using it against me is a low fucking blow.

“I’m going to kill you Benny boy and then I’ll draw my name on sweet Tessa’s porcelain skin in your blood. That’s the closest you’ll ever get to my girl,” he taunts me as he walks around the island and stops directly in front of me as I shift my body to meet him head on.

We are eye level, breathing each other in and the tension is so thick we could drown in it. He’s baiting me and it’s taking everything in me not to react again. He got me once, but I won’t make that mistake again tonight.

“It’s cute how you think she’d fall into your arms after killing me. You’ll never get away with it. Grey wouldn’t allow it. You know as well as I do, he gives us just enough leeway to be independent, but like the all fucking seeing father, he always knows when one of us is going to go off the rails.” I snap out because it’s fucking true. It’s been happening for years and it’s no coincidence that Grey is always there, popping up in some way in order to get us to fall in line.

A sixth fucking sense zeroed in on any and all Ravens. Past and present.

“I’m the better choice. I’m the only choice, Mason. Concede.” I murmur quietly because he’s so close I don’t need to add any volume.

In silence, there is power.

“Mmm. Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t. But one thing I know for sure is… I owe you one.” No sooner have the words left his mouth does he grab me harshly by the collar of my blue and green flannel.

Snarling.