“That was almost two years ago.”
“I know. Jesus. I knew I should leave, but I couldn’t walk away, Gavin. Couldn’t stop looking at…”
“At what?”
“You. I’d have given a million dollars to switch places with Billy that night.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
Oliver had wrestled with that same question ever since that night, but there wasn’t a simple answer. “We’re best friends, Gavin. Brothers. Besides, you were doing a lot of,” he finger-quoted, “‘nights out’ with Billy, and I was dating Lori Matthews.”
“Both of those relationships ended a year ago.”
“So you admit it was a relationship,” Oliver joked.
“Ollie,” Gavin pressed.
“Fine,” Oliver said with a rueful grin. “I don’t know why, okay? Come on, man. It’s not like it would have been easy to cross that line. We still live at home with our folks.”
He expected Gavin to laugh, but he didn’t. Instead, he shook his head, not in denial, but as if he was trying to puzzle out something he’d missed. “You want me?”
Oliver took a deep breath. There was a time for words and there was a time for action.
This happened to be the latter.
He and Gavin were about the same height, both of them well over six feet, so it was the simplest thing in the world to reach out, grab his best friend’s face, and kiss him. He ran his fingers through Gavin’s dark brown hair, gripping it in his fist. Gavin had started wearing it a bit longer since they’d graduated from high school, something Oliver teased him about, calling him a hippie.
Gavin’s shock was brief, and the second he opened his mouth and started kissing Oliver back, it confirmed everything Oliver had always known.
He and Gavin were meant to be. The two of them would find a woman, marry her, have kids, raise them together, and his dreams for the future wouldn’t seem so wild. They’d be perfect…just like what his parents shared.
He pressed Gavin against the closed door to his bedroom, grinding his hips closer, needing him to feel his hard-on, to understand exactly how much he wanted him.
They parted briefly, trying to draw in enough air so they could go back in. They were both breathing rapidly, but Oliver couldn’t resist this. Not a second longer. He resumed the kiss, tasting the beer on his best friend’s breath.
Gavin reached for the knob and opened the door to his bedroom. The two of them backed inside, Oliver kicking it closed behind them. Neither of them was willing to break this kiss, as too many pent-up desires exploded free.
Gavin reached behind his neck and tugged his T-shirt off one-handed as Oliver stepped back to watch. They’d seen each other naked at least a thousand times. They were brothers. They shared a bathroom and clothes.
Oliver also knew he was the only person who’d ever seen Gavin shirtless. Not even their parents had, and though Gavin had told them he had some scars, he’d seriously downplayed them.
Oliver couldn’t begin to imagine what their dads would do if they saw how bad the damage truly was. And their mom would definitely fall apart. Gavin had said as much to Oliver, begging him to keep quiet. Oliver had reluctantly gone along with it, so Gavin had successfully hidden his chest—wearing T-shirts even when they went swimming, claiming he sunburned easily—to protect their parents from pain that he’d suffered. It was so typically Gavin, and one of the reasons Oliver loved him so much.
Now—as always—Oliver’s heart lurched painfully as he looked at the evidence of too many fucking years of abuse. He felt as if he could map the scars on Gavin’s chest, his back, his upper arms, all left there by a cruel woman who knew how to wound where no one would see.
He recalled the first time he’d seen Gavin without a shirt. His foster brother had been living with them for just over a year.
Gavin had seen the inside of too many foster homes, too many group homes, and he’d shown up here at fifteen with a chip the size of Texas on his shoulder, certain this house would be like all the others—temporary.
That first year had been the longest of Oliver’s life, and he was ashamed now to think of the number of times he’d begged his parents to send Gavin away. His parents had refused time after time, insisting that Gavin needed to be with them.
When he looked back, Oliver realized getting sent away had been Gavin’s intention as well. He’d been attempting to beat all of them to the punch, and his cruel, cutting comments to them, his bad attitude, his failing grades, the things he stole or destroyed, were all his way of hurting Oliver and his parents before they could hurt him.
Oliver thought back to the night he’d busted into Gavin’s room after discovering the hundred bucks he’d been saving all summer—earned by mowing lawns in the neighborhood—was gone. He’d been fully ready to kick the shit out of Gavin until he gave it back.
He’d caught Gavin unaware, in the middle of changing his clothes, his back turned to the door. The fist he’d drawn as he’d stormed into the room vanished when he saw the round, puckered scars left from cigarette burns and the thin white lines covering his back, drawn from what Gavin later admitted had been broken beer bottles.
And while his anger had vanished, Gavin’s had erupted.
It was the first and last time he’d ever seen his foster brother lose his temper.
He’d shoved Oliver hard, screaming at him to get the fuck out. Oliver had held his ground, asking, “Who the fuck did that?” over and over as Gavin kept shoving him away. For every step he was pushed back, Oliver closed the distance, moving closer, demanding again, “Who the fuck did that?” until all the rage, all the heat, seeped out of Gavin, and he dropped down onto his bed.
Oliver had never seen a sixteen-year-old boy look so exhausted, so utterly
