I hung up before he could finish and tossed the phone onto the passenger seat. The leather squeaked as I gripped the steering wheel again. My heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs, adrenaline and shame mixing into a toxic cocktail. Relying on James made me feel gross, but I didn’t have the cash to go anywhere else. Construction paid well, but I was bad at finances, another thing that Brittany always ragged on me about.
I pulled away from the curb, leaving my now ex-girlfriend and her locked door in the rearview mirror. I drove fast, aggressively cutting off a Prius as I merged onto the main road.
I was going to James’s. Queer little James. The punchline of the family.
I told myself I was just using him for a roof. I told myself I’d be gone in a week. I told myself that being around him wasn’t going to rub off on me.
But as I drove through the slick, dark streets of Seattle, toward the stepbrother I hadn’t seen in years, the knot in my stomach tightened. It wasn’t just dread. It was something else. Something restless and hungry that I didn’t dare look at too closely.
I turned up the radio to drown it out.
The GPS said twelve minutes. I made it in eight.
James’s apartment was in Capitol Hill, which figured. The neighborhood was all rainbow flags and coffee shops. I parked on the street, snagging a spot between a Subaru covered in political bumper stickers and a vintage Volkswagen bus that probably hadn’t moved in six months. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, but the damage was done. My clothes stuck to my skin, cold and clammy.
I grabbed the soggy box from the passenger seat and left the garbage bags in the truck bed. I’d deal with them later, if someone didn’t steal them first. Not that there was anything worth stealing; mostly clothes and some toiletries, and a gaming headset Brittany had apparently deemed unworthy of keeping.
The building was one of those old brick walk-ups, the kind with a buzzer system that probably didn’t work. I checked my phone. James had texted the address and added “3B” with an ellipsis at the end. Even his texts were timid.
The front door was propped open with a rock, and I climbed the stairs two at a time. The stairwell smelled like curry and cat piss, and someone had taped a passive-aggressive note to the wall about cleaning up after your pets. The carpet was worn thin in the middle, a faded floral pattern that might have been blue once.
Third floor. 3B was at the end of the hall.
I stood in front of the door, the box growing heavier in my arms. Water dripped from the bottom, leaving dark spots on the hallway carpet. I could hear music coming from inside, something instrumental, piano maybe. Of course James listened to pretentious piano music. God, he was such a sissy.
I knocked. Three solid raps that echoed down the hallway.
The music stopped. Footsteps approached, light and hesitant. There was a pause—he was looking through the peephole, I knew it—and then the sound of locks turning. One.Two. Three locks on a third-floor apartment in a building with a broken front door. Paranoid little shit.
The door opened.
James stood in the doorway, backlit by warm yellow light from inside the apartment. He looked different. Older, obviously, but different in ways I hadn’t expected. He’d filled out some, lost the gangly teenage awkwardness. His hair was cut short and styled well, pushed back from his face. He wore a gray henley and jeans that showed me he’d been hitting the gym himself for some time. His eyes—brown, almost amber in the light—were wary.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I replied, shifting the box in my arms. “You gonna let me in, or should I just stand here dripping all over your doorstep?”
He stepped aside without a word, opening the door wider.
I walked past him into the apartment, and the first thing that hit me was how small it was. I didn’t know he lived in a studio with the bed in one corner and a couch in the other. The place was hardly big enough for a rat, much less two full-grown men.
I let out a long sigh, dropping my wet box on the counter. Maybe it wasn’t too late to call my parents after all.
Chapter 2
James
Istood in the doorway, watching my stepbrother drop his wet belongings on my clean counter. Kent never was the type to think before he did something. He just did it, then got mad when anyone pointed out he was being thoughtless.
Why did I ever agree to let him stay with me?
“So…” I said, pushing the door closed behind me. “Lease problems?”
“Yep,” Kent grunted, looking around my tiny apartment.
“Did Brittany go stay with someone else?”
“Fuck if I know,” Kent growled, his lip curling up at the corner. “She can do whatever she wants.”
