His Plaything(22)

After a minute of awkward silence, I said, “I think I'll … go check out the food situation.” Duh. How smooth, Avery.

But Logan didn't seem to mind my total lack of social graces; he just dipped his head and went to reclaim his spot on the couch. At once relieved and nervous, I stepped outside, shutting the balcony door behind me.

Four huge steaks and a tinfoil packet of potatoes covered the grill. Nixon cocked his head to look at me while still monitoring the food. My stomach fluttered; even that small eye contact felt explosive. Laden with promise.

“So,” he said quietly. “Did you think about last night all day today, too?”

Whoa. I guess we're cutting right to the chase. “Y-yeah,” I admitted without hesitation.

“Then I should come to your room tonight,” he replied. It was a statement, not a question.

Everything I'd struggled to keep at bay during class—all those overheated memories, already blending and deepening into fantasy—came rushing back. Earlier, I had wondered how it would've felt to let Nixon take me. Now my chance to find out was here. As soon as his friends left … all I'd have to do was ask. Or beg.

Despite the warm, windless evening, I shivered hard. All my doubts, my anxious questions about what all this meant and how it would affect our relationship, suddenly felt very far away. As long as my stepbrother's eyes stayed on me, nothing else mattered.

Just as I opened my mouth to respond, the door flew open, and Fox and Logan crowded out onto the balcony.

I liked Nixon's friends. I really did. But in that moment, I kind of wanted to punch them.

Fox plopped into a patio chair. “Hey, are the steaks done yet?”

If Nixon was annoyed at the interruption, he did a good job of hiding it. “I don't know. Are the green beans on the stove?”

“What's that got to do with steak?” Fox cracked open his can of Guinness.

“Not a damn thing. Is one of those beers for me?”

Twisting his smile into mock outrage, Fox looked between me and Logan in rapid succession. “You seeing this? You see what he puts me through? Don't hoard vital intel, man. Information wants to be free.”

“We just put them on,” Logan offered, setting a tall can down on the grill's side shelf.

“Holy hell, a straight answer. And booze! Thank you, sir.” Nixon turned over the steaks and they hissed loudly. “Your services to this great nation will not go unacknowledged.”

Logan chuckled as he sat down. I would have laughed, too, if I weren't so frustrated. I'd been tied up in knots all day, and just when I started talking to Nixon, his buddies had barged in. How long would I have to wait to finish our conversation? Fox and Logan showed every sign of camping out here until the food was done. I gave up when Nixon opened his own Guinness. While the steaks sizzled away on the grill, the guys drank their beers and I tried my best to enjoy my wine.

Eventually Nixon turned his head to announce, “I'm gonna check on the vegetables and get some plates. Can someone hold down the fort?”

Logan stepped up to watch the grill and Nixon went inside. With a crooked grin, Fox immediately turned to me, as if he'd been waiting for this window of opportunity. “Ah, alone at last.” He ignored Logan's snort. “I think there's some things you oughta know about your new stepbrother.”

Unbidden, images from last night flashed again in my mind, and the word stepbrother suddenly sounded like nails on a chalkboard.

“So what do you want to hear about first? Maybe the time he almost got arrested for public indecency?”

My mouth fell open. “W-what?”

Over his shoulder, Logan shot an unreadable glance at me. I must have looked as shocked as I felt.

“Oh, yeah. We were all at this restaurant, and our order was taking forever, so he went to go find the waitress. Then he disappeared, too. Turned out that he'd found her, all right … in the alley out back.” Fox guffawed. “He'd pulled off plenty of exhibitionist shit just fine before, but I guess karma finally caught up with him.”

I was beyond horrified. Sure, Nixon was far from inexperienced with women—I had known that much since we first met. But I'd never thought he was a freaking sex maniac. Someone who lived just to grab exciting new pieces of tail. Someone who would do anything to get laid… I’d thought he’d had some restraint, some standards.

“There was also that year where he got all obsessed with threesomes,” Fox continued. “Some pretty great stories there. Not sure which is best, the one about the contortionists or the one about the identical Swedish twins.” He drummed his fingers on his lips for a second. “Well, I say twins, but they probably weren't really. Not sure why they needed another schtick when they could already play ping-pong with their—”