I can’t imagine what a strange
picture we must make.
When I’m settled in the car – Jason gets in the back
with me this time – Austin reverses out of the drive. Just as we’re about to pull away, Austin
stops the car and lowers his window. I’m
curled into Jason so I don’t immediately see who he’s talking to but I recognize
the voice immediately.
“Hey guys,” Bryan says, sounding jovial and I freeze.
“Hey Bryan,” Austin says breezily.
“Where are you guys going?”
“Just taking a friend home.”
“A friend?” Bryan says. “You guys don’t waste any time.”
“Chill, dude,” Austin says. It’s almost dawn and the car certainly isn’t
dark inside. I know if Bryan tries to
look at who’s in the back with Jason, he’ll see me. It takes me until this moment for the penny
to finally drop here. Bryan must be the
family that the twins are visiting. I’m
such an idiot for not asking them. I got
wrapped up in my lust and their likeness to a sexy comic book character, and
disregarded what was right in front of me.
“Okay, man,” Bryan says. “You gonna come in for breakfast when you get
back?”
“Sure,” Austin says.
It’s quiet for a moment and I still have my face
buried against Jason but when I hear my name I realize that Bryan was nosy
enough to peek inside the car. My face
may be covered, but my hair is such a giveaway that it’s me.
“Katelin?” He
sounds so confused. “Katelin, is that
you?”
I don’t want to raise my head. I know I look like shit and I’m certainly not
up to any kind of questioning at this point in time, but I can’t just pretend
I’m not here.
“Hey, Bryan,” I say.
I watch as a whole raft of expressions pass over his
face.
“You know my brothers?” he says, looking so confused I
actually feel sorry for him. That’s
before I take exactly what he just said.
“Brothers?” My voice is a little too high pitched.
“Half-brothers,” Jason says gently.
“We went to The Red Devil,” Austin says. “We went out for a drink.”
“And came back with a girl?” Bryan says.
There is a moment of silence after he speaks that is
so deafening that I actually get the urge to scream. No one says anything. Bryan is looking between us all as though he
doesn’t want to believe what is running through his mind. He’s friends with Ethan and Nathan so it’s
not as though threesomes are something alien to him.
In the end, it’s Austin who breaks the silence.
“We’ve gotta drive Katelin home now. We’ll be back in a little bit.”
“I can take her home,” Bryan blurts out. He sounds angry, as though he feels like he
needs to get me away from these people he knows are practical strangers to me.
“That’s okay,” I say. “I’m in this car now. But I’ll
speak to you tomorrow, okay?”
He looks torn, as though half of him wants to object
and insist, but the other half is still unsure about what the fuck is going
on.
“Okay,” he says eventually. “If that’s what you want.”
I nod, and Austin and Jason say goodbye to their
brother and the car moves off down the street. It’s deathly silent. I can tell
the twins picked up on Bryan’s mood. I
know they want to ask me but are worried about my state of mind. I can’t stand the tension.
“So you’re Bryan’s brothers?”
“Half-brothers,” Jason says.
“Yeah, I got that part.”
“You know Bryan?” Austin asks.
“You could say that.”
“Fuck,” Jason mumbles under his breath. I can tell he thinks we have some kind of
relationship history and is worried that they have trodden on Bryan’s turf.
“We’re friends, okay?”
“He didn’t look at you like you were just friends.”
“We are, Austin. Nothing has ever happened between us. There were rumors that he liked me a while back. But nothing ever happened.”
“Shit.” Jason’s on a roll with the