Chapter Four
“Are you sure about this?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Lay off me, will ya?”
Brock glared at his brother, who’d shown up right on time, as he was emerging from a long, scalding shower which had done exactly nothing to clear his rattled brain. “I never should’ve given you a fucking key,” he muttered as he toweled off his hair, baring his backside to Austin, who’d been draped across his bed, half asleep. “You really don’t have to babysit me.”
“Tell that to our mother, please,” Austin said around a jaw-cracking yawn.
“I will,” he said, rubbing some random white pasty product into his dark hair, something the hot chick who cut it every four weeks insisted he buy. “At our next intolerable family dinner, how about that?”
Austin groaned and dropped his arm over his eyes. Brock watched him a few minutes, his sympathy muscle flexing in a fairly healthy fashion, which was a good sign about his general state of mind.
“You’re gonna work yourself into a stroke, my brother,” he said before pulling on a pair of black boxer shorts and rooting through his closet for a pair of jeans.
“Uh,” Austin grunted from underneath his arm.
“Then I shall be forced to do the brotherly thing, I suppose.” Austin raised his arm. “And marry your smoking-hot wife for you.”
“Fuck you, loser,” Austin said, the arm back in place again.
“No thanks. That’s just weird.”
“You’re weird,” Austin mumbled.
“Dude, if you want to have a weirdo contest, why don’t we tell dear Virginia about the actual paternity of her precious grandchild, eh? Maybe at the next family dinner?”
“Go to hell,” Austin said.
“Lame. You really are tired.” He smacked his brother’s leg so he could sit and pull socks from the drawer next to his bed. He sat, elbows on his knees, hands dangling for a few seconds. The ants had been stupefied by the hot water, but they were gathering momentum again, ready to begin the Brock full-body march. The only thing that he’d found would stop them was sex. But the problem was, once he started down that road, he couldn’t stop, no matter what sort of pharmaceutical cocktail he’d ingest.
Exhaustion stole over him again and he flopped back next to his brother, staring up at the circulating ceiling fan, willing the skin-crawling sensation to cease, desist, leave him in peace for one damn night. By the time he realized what was happening, his teeth were chattering and someone was covering him with a blanket. On reflex, he rolled onto his side, curled into himself as tight as he could and began mentally reciting the Serenity Prayer.
It didn’t help, but it kept his mind occupied for a while, so the moment could pass. When he emerged from the warm cocoon, groggy and head-achy, Austin was there, holding a glass of water and a fistful of pills. He sighed and threw off the cover, taking the water and swallowing the pills, wincing at the slimy taste they left in his throat. “Thanks,” he said, looking down at his lap.
“No problem,” Austin said, slapping him on the back. “But I’m on the record as against this little dinner party idea. You know I like Caro, Brock. That’s not the issue. You put that girl through so much…”
“Spare me the memory lane journey, please.” The ants were also groggy, but mustering again. He rose and stretched, relishing the soreness in his chest and arms. He’d hired a new trainer and demanded that the guy push him ever harder. The guy had done so, right to the brink of making him almost pass out a few days ago. He loved it and its mind-blanking numbness.
Fucking or other forms of exercise, he thought as he shuffled into the bathroom to brush his teeth. That’ll be the name of my sought-after memoir someday.
When he emerged into the main room of his condo, Austin was in the kitchen, drinking water and eyeballing his phone. “Go on, already. Beat it. Go home and service your wife or something.”
“I’m going. Hey, did Melody ask you about the lake house weekend coming up?”
“Yeah,” he said, splashing water from the kitchen sink up onto his still sleepy face. He’d forgotten about until now. “Whatever.”
“If you want, you could bring Caro. As a friend.”
He tossed the kitchen towel down on the empty countertop. It was a prop, just like every other damn thing in this room. He couldn’t cook to save his life but he made a mean PB&J and knew his way around a soup can when he didn’t have the energy for any other options. “Sure. I’ll do that.” Anger took over again. Fury roiled in chest, shoved its way up his gullet into his throat, filling his sinuses and skull. Choking him, as it always did. “Go home, Austin,” he said, glaring at his brother.
Austin met his gaze, his cool, steady, normal-guy expression striking a match to Brock’s smoldering nest of rage. “Stop fucking staring at me like I’m a god damned freak, will you? Jesus.” He stomped out into the living room and flopped down in one of the leather chairs his mother had delivered to this random, sterile, cookie-cutter condo. He buried his face in his hand, willing Austin to go so he could be mad in peace. It was another stage and he had to get past it before he left for Caroline’s little dinner party. He felt a hand on the top of his head. He ignored it and ignored it some more until the door clicking shut made him take a loud inhale.
The air filled his lungs, making his blood pump faster, so fast he believed he could feel it swooshing through his pulmonary system. Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Tha-thump.
He could picture her—not Caroline with her full, perfect curves and her thick auburn hair. But the other her. The new her. The odd bird, junkie her he’d met today.
Kayla. Dark hair, mysterious, haunted eyes, thin frame, nervous tics and all.
He groaned as his body responded in its usual fashion, hardening all over. He limped to the bedroom and took care of things, willing his mind blank and not full of Kayla the junkie, a.k.a. the last person on Earth he should be jacking off to right now. But he lost that battle and cried out into the darkening room, phantom tasting her skin, her full lips, her sweet pussy, coating his hand and the clean shirt he’d wanted to wear tonight.
With a grunt of disgust at himself he rolled off the bed and tossed the now sticky shirt into the hamper. As he yanked another one off a hanger without looking at it, he left his jeans unzipped, his still-hard cock exposed to the cool air in hopes it would soften.
It didn’t. But that was his life, wasn’t it? His fucking curse to be the twin who got the triple dose of pervy, the double dose of addiction, the quadruple dose of loser.
He stared down at his dick, thinking boring, unsexy thoughts, the way his therapist had urged him. But it took almost an hour before he felt equipped to go out in public, to his ex-girlfriend—hell, his ex-fiancée’s condo—for some kind of a lame ass dinner party with ‘friends’.