Page 16 of You Were Mine

Telling him right now just isn’t an option. It wouldn’t be right when he’s sitting right beside me, all bright-eyed while he talks about Brandon.

“Nothing,” I say. “I’m just a little tired.”

Yeah, “Tired of ‘fucking Brandon’.”

I know it’s horrible, but I really want to break his face.

The worst thing about Brandon isn’t that Mark is absolutely besotted and giddy about dating him.

The worst thing about Brandon isn’t that hemightbe both more ripped and better endowed than me, although both of thosearefairly vexing.

The worst thing about Brandon is that he seems to be a fairly decent man. How do you compete with that?

When Mark and I walk into painting, Brandon greets both of us. Leave it to Mark to find the one perfect person on the face of the planet. If I could just find one thing, just one, to turn Mark off to Brandon.

Our instructor has moved Brandon this time, so I’m painting his ass instead of his balls. His ass is also quite nice because, Heaven forbid Brandon have any imperfection. I bite the inside of my cheek. Is this in any way Brandon’s fault? No. Should I think ill of Brandon for being so damn perfect? Of course not.

ButGod, it’s just not fair. If he were a terrible human being, I would question Mark’s interest in him, but I would also have a much easier time both hating Brandonanduntangling my own feelings. Now, I’m stuck. What do I do now? I can’t just turn off the way I’m pining after Mark! Life would be so much easier if I could.

I glance toward Mark painting beside me. I see the way the sun catches the color of his eyes and makes them look like a gold veneer; the way the light from the window hangs in his hair like a halo. My pulse races. Something has to give here, but I don’t know what.

Well, I’ve never been one to back down from anything, though. And I like a challenge. I’m not going to lose to fucking Brandon.

I say that, but I don’t have any real idea how not to lose to fucking perfect Brandon because I’m fully aware that jealousy is a bad thing. And if I’m an ass to Brandon, it’ll make Mark angry. Now what?

Chapter Seven

Mark

Logan seems more energetic than usual. It’s a change I don’t think most people would notice. Not from him, anyway. Nine times out of ten, he’s bursting with more energy than an army of toddlers on caffeine, but there’s something different about this energy. It seems like it’s too much, like he’s trying to overcompensate for something. But what would he need to overcompensate for?

I consider the possibility that he’s upset because I wanted to cancel our yearly Halloween plans. That’s probably absurd and jumping to conclusions, but it is strange that this behavior started right around the same time I went out with Brandon.

I prop my feet up on the edge of the coffee table, my socks tangling in the lacey spiderweb tablecloth that Logan’s thrown over it. “Question,” I say.

He sits on the sofa beside me and holds the TV remote straight out, flipping through channels to find his beloved reality cooking show. “Answer,” is his reply.

“Are you mad at me?”

A pause. “Uh, why would I be mad at you? Did you cook something nasty in the kitchen again?”

“That wasonce.”

To the five-billion times Logan turned all the laundry different colors, I suppose I could at least have cooked one ill-prepared meal.

“And that stink took days to get out,” he points out.

“And I’m sure that you justcouldn’thire a cleaning crew to clear that up,” I say.

And if I’m not mistaken, I’m fairly sure Logan was the reason I got distracted making that meal anyway.

“That’s not the point.”

“Andthatisn’t the point of my question. You’re acting weird. Is it because I asked to cancel our annual Halloween outing? Because if it is, you realize that you can tell me, right? I can go on a date with Brandon another day. I already told him that we might have plans anyway.”

“Don’t be absurd,” he says. “You’re an adult. I’m an adult. You should be able to do what you want.”

That’s still not a straight answer.

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