“Hard to say,” his brother wheezed. “I’ve been waiting for this phone call since you let Brett Lauther give you a handy sophomore year.”
Shep didn’t see the correlation. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“You tricked a guy into giving you a hand job.”
What did that have to do with Elijah? “I don’t know why you’re still bringing that up.”
“Because he thought it was me. You pretended to be me to get a hand job from another guy.”
“You were going on and on about how good sex was. It seemed the most efficient way of finding out if you were right.” Shep had no idea what the big deal was. “I never would have told you if I’d known you would act like it was a big deal.”
Mac snorted. “Like I wouldn’t have found out, anyway? Once Brett confessed to Tiffany, the entire cheer squad knew by lunch, which meant the rest of the school knew by fifth period. I lost my boyfriend over it. He thought I cheated.”
“Can we stop reliving our high school years and focus on the problem at hand?”
“Sure, brother. As soon as you tell me what it is.” Mac said.
Shep plopped himself down on one of the lounge chairs. “I met somebody.”
“Yeah, I gathered as much. Somebody named Elijah.”
“Yes.”
Silence stretched. “Okay, and…”
His brother had never been the smart one. “And what do I do now?”
“Are you asking me for dating advice, bro?”
His brother didn’t seem to be making fun of him, but Shep proceeded with caution, anyway. Was he asking for advice? Dating was for normal people to decide if they liked each other enough to consider cohabitation and breeding together. Shep was past all that. “I don’t need to date him. I want him. I don’t need to test him out. I just want him to know I’ve… chosen him.”
His brother barked out another surprise laugh. “He’s not chained up in your basement or anything, is he?” When Shep said nothing, his brother’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, “Is he?”
Shep frowned. “What? No. This house doesn’t even have a basement.”
There was a long pause. “Jaynie, you know you can’t just, like, claim him, right? You can’t just hit him over the head and drag him back to your cave. That’s not how relationships work.”
Shep sighed. His brother and sister had been making these jokes since he was eleven years old. Contextually, he understood them, but he just never found them funny. “I know how relationshipsdon’twork. I’m asking you to tell me how theydowork.”
“Do you, though,” his brother asked. “You know how you get when you find something that… triggers you. You can get a bit… obsessed.”
Shep frowned. “I don’t know what you mean.” Mac hesitated once again. “Just spit it out.”
“Mrs. Jenson’s beagle.”
The name triggered a strange sensation deep in his gut. “What?”
“You know what I’m talking about, Jaynie.”
“I know who you’re talking about. I just don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shep said, skin growing hot.
“That dog was the first time mom saw you show any kind of… affection towards another living creature.”
Shep was quickly losing patience with his brother. “Okay.”
“Jayne, you became obsessed with that dog, you started sneaking out of the house to pet him. You begged Mrs. Jensen to let you have him and when she said no you flew into a rage. You ripped her garden apart. You scared her so badly, she put her house up for sale and moved.”
Shep felt like his skin itched. “I was six.”
