“Jason.” I raise my hand to his face, but he slips from under my fingertips, stumbling away.

He shakes his head, a jerky movement, eyes flashing with something like fear. “Stop this shit.”

“What shit?”

“Playing at… at being boyfriends or something.”

The fuck. What does he want me to do, punch him and rape him? “I want you to have a good time, too.”

“Don’t, okay?” He lifts a finger, dark eyes flashing. “It’s not about me. Stop making it about me. Fuck me, use me, do whatever you want with me, beat me”—his voice cracks—“but stop this circus.”

“Dammit, Jase. Jason.” I reach for him again. “I’m not pretending, or lying. I really want you.”

And then I stop myself. What the hell am I doing?

“Fuck,” he hisses, “I can’t, damn you. Keep the fucking money, I can’t. I can’t.”

His eyes have gone wide, unfocused. Unreadable. And as I watch him, trying to find the right reaction, the right words to make him stay, I see his eyes going blank, reflecting myself like empty mirrors.

His shields are back up, right as mine are down, as I’m cracking myself open for him, letting him see he means something to me, something I wouldn’t let myself see before, and he’s stepping away.

It jars me, jolts me back to reality, where my anger returns tenfold. “What’s the matter? Isn’t this your job? Are you seriously trying to make me think you’re uncomfortable with me touching you? Maybe you’re trying to scam me like you did my brother?”

Wiping a hand over his mouth, he stumbles backward. Dammit, he’s got the confused act down pat. “Your brother? Ocean? Is this why you brought me here? Ocean put you up to this?”

Damn, I hadn’t meant to come out and accuse him like this, but now it’s like I can’t fucking stop.

“Up to what?” I advance on him. “See where his money is getting wasted, yet again? Our parents took his last fucking dime, and now you’re spending it—on what? Drugs? Booze? He thinks it’s for a good cause, dammit.”

He pales, the blood draining from his face so fast it can’t be an act. “Fuck you.”

I’m too fired up to stop, though, not about these things that have been fucking up my mind since I first saw him. “He and Jesse Lee give you their money so you can get off the fucking streets, so you can fucking stop hustling. But here you are, sleeping on a street corner, letting guys beat you up and fuck you. What have you done with that hard-earned cash, huh? What do you have to show for it? Tell me.”

And man, I really wanna know.

“Fuck you,” he says again, his voice hardening. “You don’t understand anything. Tell him…” He takes a deep breath, jabs a finger at me, his white face tightening into a familiar scowl. I see with a start that blood has started running from his nose, coating his mouth. “Tell him I don’t want any more of his fucking money. Not if he doesn’t trust me. Tell your brother that. I’m outta here.”

“Fine,” I say. “Go.”

His eyes narrow, then he turns around and stands with his back to me. His shoulders are heaving, and for a moment I want to take it all back. Go grab him, make him sit, clean the blood. Make him understand where I come from, why this matters so much to me.

Why I’m so damn furious and why I want an explanation.

But the moment passes, and he shakes his head, then opens the door and is gone.

“You don’t understand.”

His words echo in my head in the dark hours of the night. The things I said. The things he said back.

Sinner, my aunt’s voice whispers in my mind, but it’s grown fainter than ever.

Shut up, I tell it, and it goes silent.

Still, when morning comes, nothing is clearer. Or midday. Or evening. Or the day after.

I surface from work only to field another call from my dear dad, and after he threatens Ocean again, and I all but lose my shit on him, I tell him I’ll meet him next week to see what he has to say. To set his terms and make his demands so that I can tell him what to do with all of it, and maybe punch him for good measure.

He has nothing to threaten us with. This is bullshit. Between that and all my thoughts about Jason, I fuck up every single task assigned to me, until I’m sure I’ll be fired.

By the time the weekend comes around, I’m damn tired. I tell Ocean and the others I’m not up to anything, lock up my apartment door and slide, lost in a fog of alcohol, anger and want, caught in an internal war I can’t seem to win.

I should be worried about meeting my old folks, who are fucking scammers, selfish and not caring about their kids’ wellbeing. I should worry about losing my job at Collateral Damage and letting my friends down.

But all I can think about is Jason. That paleness. The way his voice shook when I made my accusations.

What if he isn’t scamming my brother? For all he knows, I’ve told Ocean he’s throwing his money down the drain, and he won’t see another penny. If he was a scammer, wouldn’t he have a story ready to give me?

Or maybe he thought I’d be as easy to convince as my brother? Maybe it was all an act, and he thought I’d buy the emotional meltdown. A calculated risk, going all in, in the hopes that I wouldn’t tell Ocean.

Fuck that. I’m not a push-over. I’m telling Ocean everything.

But every time I lift my phone to call my brother, I hesitate.

Disgusted with myself, I throw the phone on the coffee table and turn on the TV on low. There’s a football game on, and I stare at the images, not really registering anything.

Jason taking off his tank top, turning to face me with that cheeky, crooked smile, his tattooed, strong chest in full display.

Jason pushing me down on the sofa, strong hands on my shoulders, kneeling between my legs. Winking at me.

Going down on me.

How the hell can I be turned on, and worried, and so fucking angry at him at the same time? Makes no sense.

And the worry wins out. For all that he told me off and walked out with his head held high, he’d looked downright scared. Of what? His monthly allowance from Ocean and Jesse getting cut? Or is there something more he isn’t telling me?

I think again, like I often have, of the thug I punched in the alley, and of the scars on Jason’s chest and arms. I need to see them, map them, find out what happened. Find out who he really is, what the truth is. But I blew it all by yelling at him and showing him the door.

Dammit, what was I supposed to do? Play along forever?

You weren’t just playing along, the voice in my head snickers. Come on. But you keep telling yourself that, buddy.

Keep telling yourself that you only wanted to talk to him, that you weren’t into it when he sucked you off. That you didn’t come so hard you thought the top of your head popped off and your heart stopped.

That you weren’t dying to do the same to him, and fuck the goddamn truth.

Monday morning finds me nursing a hangover and new doubts. This time they have to do with this meeting with my parents. Today’s the day we’re supposed to meet. Should I have told Ocean about it? Or anyone else?

We’re only supposed to talk. That is, to negotiate. What else do we have to talk about? Reminisce about my rotten childhood? Or about how they lied to Ocean three years ago, making him think Mom was on death’s door, took his money and skipped town without a goodbye note?

Besides, it’s nowhere shady, I made sure of that. We’re meeting at a small park Dad suggested, in the late afternoon.

I’m there on time, eager to get this over with. As I enter the small park, I realize I’ve wanted to do this all this time. Confront him. Look into his eyes as I ask him if he ever regretted how he treated us. If Mom did. I want to know if they’re sorry.

If I can find it in me to forgive them and let go of this all-consuming rage that had me beating up whoever looked my way at school and got me into fights that made Aunt Martha hate me even more.

Thinking about his total disregard for Shun and me stirs up all sorts of memories. Good ones, with my brother. Bad ones that I’ve been trying to forget.

Ocean says he’s made his peace with all that happened, but not me. Not yet.

Seeing my father is a sledgehammer to my chest. Sure, he’s changed over these past seven years. I was a scrawny, short kid last time I saw him, and he seemed huge. Now he just looks old, shorter than me, chubby around the middle, his beard streaked with white, his eyes lost in a web of wrinkles—but it’s still him.

“Dad?” It feels strange to call him that, to call anyone that. Mom isn’t with him. He’s alone, and I refuse to examine the sting of disappointment. She hasn’t seen me in seven years, but she doesn’t seem to have missed me.

Jesus, I thought I had this under control. This isn’t why I’m doing this.

Right?

“Raine.” His voice hasn’t changed one bit, dry and cracking on my name like a whip, laced with loathing. His gaze slides over my face, slick like oil. “Well, well, if the runt of the family hasn’t grown up. And grown teeth, too, haven’t you?”

I’ll show him teeth. “What do you want, Dad?”

His eyes narrow, a watery, washed-out blue. “You should have let your brother handle this.”

I take a step closer, look down at him, my jaw tight, my hands curled into fists. “Why, so you can swindle the rest of his fucking money out of him?”

“Stay back, boy.” He lifts a finger, and I remember this gesture.

I have a sudden, crazy urge to crush his finger and then punch him in the face. I clench my fists and grind my teeth. “Listen good, motherfucker. You’ll get no more money out of us, got it? It’s over. Go back into the hole you crawled out of. We owe you nothing.” I take another step forward, and he takes a step back. Something flickers in the depths of his cold eyes, and I want to believe it’s fear. Fear is what it should be. “Get the fuck out of my sight.”

I expect him to get in my face and push me, yell something.

But he smirks as if he knows something I don’t. “See, told you. You should have let Ocean talk to me. Because you…” He strokes his beard. “You, filthy faggot, are no son of mine. Tell Ocean that if you don’t do as I say, there will be consequences.”

And with that, he turns around and starts walking.

“Hey. Just one sec, you fucking asshole.” He thinks he gets to walk away without hearing all I got to say to him? “That’s it? You call me a faggot and think I’ll fall apart and beg you for forgiveness? And what consequences are those, huh? What did you think you’ll do, spank me? Beat me up?” He keeps going, and I follow after him, all fired up for a fight. My fists are itching. “Oh wait, I know. Forget all about me until you need me again? Well, newsflash: Shun and me, we don’t need you anymore. Those days are over. We’re not little kids anymore, depending on you, motherfucker. How does it feel to be the one needing us?”

He doesn’t even glance my way. “You’re not the one who will get hurt. I know where your friends live, who their girlfriends are. Where their kids play.”

My blood turns to ice. I follow after him. “What did you just say?”

But he doesn’t reply. We’re out of the park, at the corner of a narrow street, and I reach to grab his arm, turn him around.

He evades my grasp, hurries into the alley, and I follow, vibrating with rage and fear. I stumble a few steps and stop. “Wait!”

And that’s when I see the guys detaching themselves from the shadows of the alley and coming at me.

I take a step back.

Finally my dad turns, a disturbing smirk on his face. “This is a taste of what will happen to you and your loved ones if you don’t pay up,” he says. “Get him, guys.”

Fuck.