Oran
“Hello?” I shouldn’t have answered the phone- I knew it- and I clenched my jaw hard as May dribbled spit down my shaft to ease the friction. Holding back her hair with my free hand, I frowned when she paused to glance at me through narrowed eyes, but my brother’s raspy tone halted any pleasantness currently muddling my brain.
“Hey, Oran. I’m sorry to call so late.” Prickles raced down my spine, and I tugged May’s head back to throw my legs over the side of the bed. “I was just wondering if we could talk.”
“Mateo, of course. What’s up?” My hard-on shriveled like a grape in the sun when Mateo sucked in a rattling breath, and I covered my mouth to hide my frown. “What’s wrong?”
“I just . . . I need to talk to someone. I’ve been up all night. You know how Dad says I can get out? But I’ve been thinking . . . what if I can’t do whatever it is he makes me do? I mean, what if I should just take Sonja’s advice?” Alarms rang in my head, and Mateo sighed heavily as the hairs on my neck and shoulders stood straight up.
“Mateo, if you think suicide is your only option, then you should. But if you have even the tiniest smidgen of hope, then you shouldn’t.” A gasp sounded behind me, but I ignored it as my form morphed into a grimace. “You and I don’t have the best relationship, Mateo, but you’re still my brother. I don’t judge you for what happened, bu—”
“I’m over that.” He sounded so hollow as he cut me off, and I held my breath as soft hands rubbed my shoulders and down my back. “I realized everyone was right— it was stupid. I was stupid. It’s not about that bitch or that thing. I just . . . you know what else I realized, though, Oran? I don’t know if I can do whatever Dad wants me to do. I know that whatever it is, it’ll be beyond fucked up. Even if I can get through it, I won’t come out okay on the other side.”
“I have faith in you, Mateo. You know, Dad doesn’t have to give you permission for anything. What’s he going to do if you just walk away?” If there was one thing I’d learned since moving to Seattle, it’s that Dad was only a threat if he was right there. Otherwise, he couldn’t be bothered. Carlyle was no different— if Mateo said ‘goodbye,’ Carlyle would sneer ‘good riddance’ and never give it a second thought. “Do you want to come stay with me for a while? Get away from New York City and Dad?”
“No. I’m really tired. Carlyle came back just to call me useless, that he should do it himself. I don’t get it. If he thinks he should do it himself, why does he still make me do it knowing I’ll fuck it up?”
“Because Carlyle’s an asshole, Mateo. You of all people know how much he likes to talk down on everyone else.” A cold sweat broke out on my body at his silence. Mateo wasn’t even breathing, and I held my own as anxiety gripped my gut in a vise. “Mateo, trust me, once you realize Carlyle’s opinion doesn’t count for shit, everything will get better. You just have to realize it for yourself. No one else can make that revelation for you.”
Mateo’s breaths started up again, and I clenched my jaw hard as goosebumps swept down my back and arms. He didn’t say anything more before hanging up, and I listened to the flat, long beeps, and clutched my phone tightly. Leaning back against May, I flopped my head against her shoulder to heave a massive sigh, and she rubbed my back soothingly.
“I don’t know. Mateo’s a gentle kid, the spitting image of our mom if my dad’s to be believed, inside and out. He’s spoiled as all hell, but he’s . . . ” Trailing off, my mouth dried as I inhaled deeply, and May rocked back to hold me to her chest. Caressing my chest while I gazed at the endless white of the ceiling, she didn’t say anything. What could she say? “I don’t know why he’s suddenly calling me. Like I said- we don’t have even a good relationship. Mateo spent all his life hiding, and I spent all my life trying to grab something I could never catch.”
“Maybe he just needs someone to talk to, and he chose youbecauseof your neutral relationship.” Humming softly, I rolled onto my front to hold myself over her, and May’s blurred features puffed out in a smile. “I was gonna be mad that you answered, but now I can’t.”
“Are you coming with me to work tomorrow to sign all the forms to get your subsidiary up and running?” Changing to subject none-too-subtly, I climbed off May to grab my glasses, and her gorgeous body came into sharp focus. New bruises blossomed on her side and thighs, and I bit down on my bottom lip as she crawled up to the top of my bed. “I know you wanted to talk to your old college friends and get the foundation laid first.”
“Yeah, I do.” Cuddling against my side, May wrapped her legs around my left, and I laid back to grab the remote. Mateo distracted me at the television flickered to life, and my lips twisted at the myriad of possibilities he could experience. He was right- whatever our father thought to test him with, it’d get dangerously close to breaking him, but May’s voice broke my thoughts. “I’m gonna do it all this weekend. I know I can’t expect much, though, so I’m still planning on doing interviews and stuff.”
“What about your sister?” Natasha had practically jumped at the chance to stay in a nice hotel to ease May’s worries. It beat Erik’s back seats, for sure, and it was free. With the weather getting worse, they were just waiting to make sure her meds were adjusted correctly before heading south to California.
Which worked for me because Sarah wasn’t comfortable in the hotel room alone, and May wasn’t comfortable leaving her there.
“I mean, what about her? We’re homeless right now, she doesn’t go to school, and she looks for opportunities, but it’s honestly not looking good. Even if she’d just get her GED, she could go to college, at leastdosomething instead of being bored all day, every day.” She sounded so annoyed, it was cute, and I couldn’t help but smile as she rested her cheek on my shoulder. Just lounging around like this, naked, in the afterglow of great sex, was a wonderful change of pace, and I kissed her crown absently.
“I could get used to this.” My murmur earned me a blissful sigh, and I opened the tv guide to scroll through shows without actually looking at what they were. “Maybe, I’ll go behind your back and get a house with another, smaller house on the property. That way we’ll have privacy, you can charge rent if she doesn’t go to school, so it’ll force Sarah to get a job. I know she has her struggles, May, but there’s no way to overcome than to battle them.”
“You know, Oran, I think, for once, you might be onto something.” A wide, lazy smirk stretched my lips at that, and May nuzzled my chest tenderly as her arm slung over my waist. “That’s a good idea. I had thought, at one point, that if Sarah and I were going to live separately, I’d want to be in the same building, at least. If she doesn’t go to school, she’ll have to get a job, and if she doesn’t get a job, I’ll start the eviction process to show I’m serious. But not until she’s eighteen, and we’ve talked about it.”
“Exactly. See, great minds think alike. All we gotta do now is find a place.”If things are this great now, they could get much better.All I had to do was keep May happy, and that was easy because Ilikedmaking her happy. If I could help her by making her sister happy, I’d do that, too. Caressing the smooth slope of her back, I decided on cartoons because . . .
I was living in a fairytale, after all.
