Page 7 of Wrath

I'm stepping onto the second floor landing, and I nearly trip. "What?" I whirl around to face him. My heart's pounding like a damn drum.

"God hates fags, yeah? ThisisAlabama,” he says.

"You're from Virginia."

"Yes." He gives a deadpan blink, and my heart misses some beats.

"Is that what you think?" I manage.

"What do you think?" He smirks, but it's mean now.

"I don't know."

"Cat got your tongue, Joshua?"

I realize with a jolt that I don't like him. We're three feet from my bedroom door—the door on the right just after you top the stairs—and I don't like him at all.

I blink, trying to set my face to neutral. "No, Ezra. That's not what I think."

He smirks like he's just been teasing.

"Well" —he waves at the second-floor hall— "get on with it."

I grit my teeth, fighting down a heavy, roiling feeling in my stomach as I step into the hall.

“My room.” I wave at it. “Closet.” I nod at the door directly in front of us. Then I walk leftward down the short hall, pointing upward at the square punched into the ceiling. “Attic.” I wave toward my right. “And right here is your—” room, I’m going to say, but his raspy chuckle interrupts me.

“Check this out.”

I turn to him with a glare, narrowing my brows as he smiles faintly at a framed portrait of mom and Carl and me at their wedding.

"Joshua in tux."

"My name's not Joshua."

"No?" His lips twitch.

"Everyone but my mother calls me Josh. All my friends call me Miller—because there's another Josh. Josh Byrd."

"Another Josh?" He quirks a brow, smirking again, and I can’t do this for another second.

"You realize you almost fucking killed us both? I hit my head on my boat?"

His face hardens as I point to my head. "I don't even remember getting into the boat. Then you just left. I was passed out. My fucking back is sunburned."

"Yeah, because I rolled you over face-down. Pretty damn pale for a boater boy,” he says.

"Then why'd you roll me over, exposing my largest land mass to the sun?"

"So you don’t sprout more freckles."

I search his face for some flaw, wanting to snap back like we're in third grade.

"Yeah, I don't have freckles, boat boy." He smirks.

"Also don't have a brain.” I throw up my hands. “What did you think would happen when the train came?"

"How do you think I'm standing here?” he asks. “I stepped out on one of the side rails, wrapped myself around it. Would have been fine except I had to jump in afteryourass."

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