I wake up feeling inspired.

I have to thank my dreams for that.

I don’t exactly remember them but I remember the feelings they gave me, imprinted somewhere inside. It was warmth and happiness followed by self-sabotaging and despair. Something beautiful and wonderful had happened to me and then I ruined it all, more comfortable being cold and alone. I wear misery like a worn coat and in my dream it was no different.

It sounds slightly morbid, but it’s the best kind of dream I can have. You know, from a creative point of view. Emotions at a high, swirling inside me, based on nothing. Nothing in my real life is at stake, everything is the same, and these feelings are fleeting. Harmless. So I immediately grab my pen and paper beside the bed and start writing.

I end up filling six pages full of one whole poem, something I can easily break apart later into sections and then parcel it out on Instagram. I’ve been posting so much old stuff lately that I think people might be getting sick of it.

I could actually write more but my phone rings and just like that, all the creativity is drained out of me, like it was never here to begin with. I know it’s my mother calling, she’s the only person I know who doesn’t text.

I stare at the cell for a moment and rally together the strength to talk to her. It would be so much easier for it to go to voice mail but I hadn’t talked to her in a few weeks now, which I feel guilty about, even though she hadn’t called me either.

“Hi mum,” I say into the phone.

“Lazarus, sweetheart,” she says. “It wouldn’t kill you to call would it?”

More than a decade outside of Manchester and her accent is as strong as ever.

“Sorry mum, just been busy. How are things?”

“Oh, you know. The same old. Listen, I have a favor to ask you.” She got to the point fast, as usual. “Noah has been…hard to manage lately. You know he won’t talk to me and he absolutely refuses to talk to Daryl. So I was wondering if you’d be able to come by and take him out for ice cream or something.”

The way she’s talking about Noah, it makes him sound like he’s an eight-year-old kid, not fourteen. Then again, that’s the way she always talks about him. I know it isn’t easy for stepparents but my mother has been with Daryl for thirteen years now and it’s like Noah and Jane are still Daryl’s kids and not her own.

Then again, I’m my mother’s son and she sent me off to boarding school for most of my life, so being parent of the year isn’t exactly her forte.

“Noah doesn’t mind?” I ask. I get along really well with Noah but I also don’t want to stick my nose in where it’s not welcome and considering how volatile he’s been this last year, I don’t want to encourage any teenage angst if I don’t have to.

“He’s lonely,” she says. “He needs a friend. I’m not sure he has any…good ones.”

I automatically pick up on the vibe she’s putting out there and already know what Noah’s problem is. Or rather, their problem with him.

“Okay, tell him I’ll be by in an hour and a half.”

I hang up and get ready. My mother, my stepfather Daryl, and Noah, all live in Santa Clarita, which can take no time at all or all bloody day, depending on the traffic. With it being a Sunday, I get there a bit early which gives me a moment to check in with Marina.

How are you doing? I text her. I thought she would have already texted me this morning like she usually does and now I’m paranoid that maybe our whole dynamic has been turned on its head after what happened last night. The date ended on a good note but even so, the fact that we went out on a date to begin with isn’t the norm for us.

I wait in the car outside the iron front gates of the Murdock household, hoping she’ll respond right away. She’s usually good for a little encouragement before I drive through these gates and into the ninth circle of Hell, but this time I’m on my own.

I put my phone in my pocket, enter the security code and the gates part for me. I drive through the long circular driveway and take the parking spot on the opposite side of the pillars.

My stepfather, Daryl Murdock, is a television producer for CBS. He had a lot of big shows in the late 80’s and 90’s and though any hits have tapered off for him particularly, he’s rolling in the dough.

And it shows. The house is massive, a grand white building that you’d more likely see in Louisiana instead of something you’d see in southern California. The lawn is wide and expansive framed by tall sycamore and oak and the gardens are overseen by my mother, who pretends do all the work but really just hires a gardener instead.

I had to live in this house for the first two years I was in America and though it was long ago, it feels like it was just yesterday. At the time, I was eighteen, fresh out of school and with no idea what my future held. It was when I was in boarding school, hours outside of Manchester, that my father left my mother. I would say he left “us” but since I rarely saw them, it doesn’t sound right.

After that my mother decided to see what the USA was all about, leaving me behind in England. She met Daryl in LA—who was recently divorced for the fourth time—and I guess he was blinded by her beauty. My mother’s always been a very attractive woman, like someone out of a gothic Victorian, all dark wavy hair with delicate features and pale skin.

They fell in love and the rest was history. They actually never married legally and Daryl blames it on him having been married too many times before. I actually think it’s because my mother and father never actually got a divorce. He couldn’t be bothered to stick around for that.

I park the Camaro in the guest parking (yes, the place is big enough for guest parking and because Daryl does so much networking, he often has guests over all the time) and make my way up the front steps to the door.

I knock and wait. Even when I lived here I knocked and I waited. I didn’t even have a key. I could tell that Daryl wasn’t that fond of having me live with them and even now that I’ve been out for ten years, he’s still not fond of me. Like my mother, I got the impression that he never wanted any kids, so I wasn’t exactly welcome. But when his ex-wife died, Jane and Noah, came to live with him and my mother. Which makes for one dysfunctional family.

Rosalie, their housekeeper, answers the door and gives me a big smile when she sees it’s me.

“Lazarus,” she says warmly, “come in. So good to see you. Have you gotten taller?”

She says this each time. Rosalie is a middle-aged Thai lady who has been employed by Daryl for as long as I can remember. In a stark, white-walled house where everything is put in its place, cold and sterile, Rosalie is the only source of life. Well, her and Noah.

“I assure you I have not gotten taller,” I tell her, giving her a quick hug. “I’m actually here for Noah.”

She nods. “Miss Sarah told me already. She and Mr. Daryl are out at brunch with friends. Noah is just in his room.”

“How is he?” I ask her, lowering my voice. “Just between you and me, because I don’t think my mother has a good, shall we say, handle on the situation.”

She nods, her expression turning grim. “He’s a good boy. He’s just figuring himself out. Back at home, boys are allowed to be who they want, masculine, feminine, it doesn’t matter. In this city, too, people are open-minded. But his parents…”

She trails off. She’ll never speak ill of her employers, not even around me, but I know how she feels about them.

“I understand,” I tell her. “I’ll probably take him out to see a movie or something.”

“You’re a good soul,” she tells me, patting me on the arm before she hurries off and is swallowed up by the house.

I take in a deep breath and climb the winding staircase to the second floor, heading down the hall past my old bedroom, Jane’s old bedroom, until I come to Noah’s.

“Noah, it’s Laz,” I say, rapping on his door. I wait a few moments, listening. I don’t want to walk in uninvited in case he’s doing what I was doing all day when I was fourteen, jerking it until my hand was sore.

“Noah,” I say again, knocking louder.

Finally, I hear some shuffling and the door opens.

Noah stares up at me with a sullen expression. “What?”

“What?” I repeat. “No, hey buddy it’s good to see you?”

“Why are you here? You’re here cuz Sarah told you to be here, right?”

I clear my throat. “Mum told me I should probably come by but I’m not here because of her, alright?”

He rolls his eyes and tries to shut the door. I shove my shoulder between and pry it open.

“Come on,” I tell him. “I’ll take you to the movies, whatever you want to see. My treat.”

“I have money,” he says. “And I can go to the movies to myself. You don’t see anyone stopping me.”

“You really don’t want to go?” I ask, watching him closely. Fuck, I can’t tell what this boy is thinking. “Movies, lunch, whatever you want. We can drive to the bloody beach, I don’t care.”

“Not interested.”

Now I’m the one rolling my eyes. Been in this house ten minutes and I’m already reverting. “Fine,” I tell him. “I’ll leave you alone. I just thought you needed a friend, someone to talk to. I’ll be going.”

I’m not faking it either. I am leaving. I love Noah but our relationship goes two ways. Teenager or not, I can’t always be chasing him, trying to be the big brother he never had. With Jane out on the east coast now, I feel he needs me now more than ever but maybe he doesn’t.

I go down the hall, down the stairs, as far as the car, about the check my phone to see if Marina had texted back yet when I hear him yell, “Laz!”

I look back at the door. “Change your mind?”

“Can we go to Venice?”

“Sure,” I tell him. Maybe we’ll see Scooby on his penny farther while we’re down there.

“Great, I’ll be right back,” he says and then disappears into the house.

He’s gone for long enough that I take out my phone and see that Marina responded. I breathe out a sigh of relief.

I’m good. Just finished teaching a class I totally forgot about until this morning.

“What are you smiling at, your girlfriend?” Noah teases me as he comes around to the passenger side. I slip the phone in my pocket and get inside.

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” I tell him, putting on my seatbelt.

“Yeah right,” he says, adjusting his bright purple backpack adorned with glittering stars between his legs.

“New backpack?”

He looks down at it and his features harden, making him look far older than fourteen. As different as Noah and Daryl are, they do look alike. Both are on the short side, but slim and compact, with angular features. Noah’s hair has been a multitude of styles and colors, now it’s long in the front, buzz-cut in the back, like a reverse mullet, and neon blue.

“I like it,” I say quickly. “Though I thought maybe you’d want to match your backpack to your hair.”

He manages a quiet laugh. “Yeah. I was thinking that but then I’d have to buy a new backpack every week and I know Dad’s allowance won’t stretch that far. Especially over something like this.”

“Let me guess, he gave you grief over it?”

“How did you know?” He leans back in his seat. “I know why your mom called you, by the way. We had a fight last night.”

“What about?”

“The backpack,” he says, kicking it. “Because Dad said it was gay.”

I bite down on my tongue, hard, because there are so many fucking things I would love to get into right now about Daryl, but I have to remember that the guy is still Noah’s father, even if he is a grade A wanker.

“Your father,” I begin, choosing my words carefully, “isn’t exactly open-minded. We both know this. What did you end up telling him?”

“I didn’t tell him anything,” he says defensively. “There’s nothing to tell. I just like colors. I don’t know. He kept saying he didn’t want people to think I was gay, that I was hanging out with the wrong people, like Sam, I mean, how can anyone not like Sam? He wouldn’t drop it, he just kept picking on every single detail of my life, like he was goading me, like he wanted me to admit it.”

“Admit what?”

He shrugs, his face scrunching up. “I don’t know. Whatever I am. But Laz, I don’t know what I am.” He looks over at me, face white like he’s frightened to death. Suddenly I’m having deja-vu of Marina last night in that very same spot.

“Noah, you’re you. That’s all you need to know. That’s all that matters right now. You’re still figuring yourself out. Fuck, I’m still figuring out myself.”

“But you like girls,” he says. “You know that.”

I nod. “I do. But sexuality is just a part of who we are, it’s not everything. And just because you like girls, doesn’t mean your life is magically easier, either. Believe me.”

“I just don’t know what I like. Sometimes I like them. There’s a girl in my math class, Natalie, she’s so pretty. But I don’t want to kiss her or get with her or anything like that. I’d just paint her portrait…if I could paint.” He pauses and makes a groaning sound. “I can’t believe I’m talking to you about this…if Sarah or Dad knew…”

I don’t bother reminding him that we have talked about this before and I still haven’t told them and never will. Noah isn’t sure where he stands, whether he’s gay or bi or ace or queer and all I can do for him is be a sounding board. He has new friends now but I’m not sure if he’s confided in them or not. I wouldn’t blame him for not, the last thing you want when you’re in a hoighty-toighty high school is for rumors to start spreading, even if your friends seem like you. California is extremely open-minded but kids will be kids and kids are often cruel.

“You know I wouldn’t tell them anything,” I say. “It’s between you and them. And if you want to wait until you have it all figured out, I can’t blame you. Maybe this is just a confusing time for you…hell, maybe you already know what you want and you’re just catching up. But you know whenever you need to talk about it, you can talk to me.”

“It’s weird though,” he says.

“Look, mate, you’re my brother. I don’t care if it’s not through blood, but you are. And you’re also my friend. Believe me, I do anything for my friends, no matter how weird it gets.”

My mind floats back to last night.

He seems to think that over and we lapse into silence. I give him control of the radio and soon we’re cruising down toward Venice Beach, listening to an oldies station of all things.

“I just don’t know what he’d do,” he finally says while The Byrds sing on about every season, turn, turn, turn. “Honestly…I think I’m afraid of him. Like, not that I’ll just get yelled at or he’ll even disown me. That he’d hurt me.”

I give Noah a sharp look. “If your father ever touches you, you call me. I’m serious, Noah. You call me right away and I’ll deal with it. So help me god, I will give him back good what he’s given.”

He nods. “I don’t think your mother would do anything. No offense.”

I sigh. “None taken.” God, I hope she would do the bloody right thing. “But still. If at any moment you’re afraid for whatever reason, you call me and I’ll come get you. You can stay with me and Scooby for as long as you want.”

I’d like to think that Noah is exaggerating in his fears, I mean what son hasn’t imagined his father whooping his arse over something he did wrong. But in this case, Noah hasn’t done anything wrong and Daryl can be a violent son of a bitch. Not only does he have a bad reputation in the industry for berating and bullying colleagues and clients, but I’ve seen him lose his shit on pretty much everyone in the house, including Rosalie. I haven’t seen him hit anyone, but there have been times where I was sure everyone was seconds away from disaster.

Daryl also started out as a Marine in a longline of marines until a leg injury put him on a different path. Naturally his daughter ends up being a rocker who goes to the east coast with the first guy she fell in love with just to escape him and his teenage son is grappling with his sexuality and the apparent consequences of just being himself.

“As soon as I turn eighteen, I’m right out the door,” he says. “Jane went to the east coast when she could no longer stand it. You were here for what, a year, before you decided to go to Berlin for school.”

“Two years,” I tell him.

“Well as soon as I can, I’m gone. I might even drop out of school.”

“You are not dropping out of school,” I snap at him. “I don’t care how bad it gets, you are not doing that. That will fuck over your whole life. You keep going to school. If it gets bad, we’ll get you out of that house. I promise.”

He watches me for a moment, his green eyes narrowed into a squint, as if he’s trying to read the truth from my face. Then he sits back in his seat. “You better keep that promise.”

“I always do,” I tell him.

When we pull into the parking lot at the beach, Noah opens his backpack and takes out a mascara and a vial of lipstick, pulls down the visor’s mirror and starts running the lipstick’s wand over his lips, painting them a mauve shade.

“Where did you get those?” I ask.

“I didn’t steal them off your mother, if that’s what you’re wondering,” he says, eyes narrowed in concentration as he makes a precise line around his lips before smoothing it out. The kid is like a fucking pro.

“And where did you learn to do that?”

He gives me a close-lipped smirk. “It’s not hard to put on liquid lipstick, you know. Also, I follow a load of makeup artists on YouTube. I want to master contouring next but…we’ll see.”

I want to point out that with his angular face, he doesn’t need the contouring but I let it be. Clearly this makes him happy.

“And don’t worry,” he adds as he swipes on the mascara, “I’ll take all of this off before we go back home.”

I wish Noah lived in a house where he didn’t have to do that but at this point, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

“Ready to go?” I ask.

He nods, beaming at his appearance. It’s the first real smile I’ve seen on him all day. “Ready.”

We head out to the promenade and do the typical tourist thing that even locals will indulge in every now and then—people watching. Even though the weather in May can be volatile and it’s been fairly cold and gloomy as of late (which I love, reminds me of home), the beach is still packed.

There’s plenty to see. We pass people on rollerblades, break-dancers, people playing basketball, dogs pulling wagons filled with smaller dogs, fire-breathers, jugglers and several people on unicycles. I don’t see Scooby anywhere and I wonder if the unicyclists are stepping on his turf. They’d probably have a jousting match to settle it all. Now that would be entertaining.

Eventually we get ice cream like my mother had suggested and when that’s done, Noah goes over to talk to an artist who is painting sunsets on tiny canvases with pastels.

I finally text back Marina. I’m with Noah. He’s been having a hard time so I took him to Venice for ice cream. Want to come join?

She texts back right away. I would, even if I didn’t feel like driving allllll the way down there. But we’re not supposed to see each other outside of our dates, remember?

Oh right. So I guess that means you don’t want to come to our show tonight in Burbank.

Would if I could but I can’t. We’re still on for our date on Tuesday, right? The weather should hold up.

Why what are we doing?

The bees, remember?

Fuck.

Right. The bees.

You promised.

I did.

Three dots appear and then disappear and I feel my pulse quickening with it. Is she backing out? I mean, I’m not crazy about the idea of donning a bee suit and having them swarm around me, or god forbid, get trapped in my suit somehow, but I’ll do it for her.

She texts: We could do something else…

No, I want to do the bee thing. I imagine you like Candyman, in complete horrifying control of them.

I’ve never been compared to Candyman before. I like it.

“Your girlfriend again?” Noah says and I look up to see him nodding at my phone, watching me with a wary expression.

“I told you, I don’t have a bloody girlfriend.”

“Dude, you always have a girlfriend.”

“Not right now I don’t.”

“Then who do you keep texting and smiling like an idiot?”

I’m smiling like an idiot? I try and rein it in.

“It’s just Marina.”

“The hot blonde?” I give him a look. “What?” he says. “I told you I think girls are hot. I just don’t want to stick my tongue down their throat.”

“Well I don’t want to stick my tongue down Marina’s throat either,” I tell him. “We’re just friends.”

But even though what I just said was completely juvenile, it feels like a total lie.

And now Noah is looking at me like he doesn’t believe a word of it either.

“We’re just friends,” I repeat. Friends who are dating each other for fun. But there’s no way I’m getting into that with Noah right now. Everything is already starting to feel complicated and we’ve only just begun.