Page 33 of Haunted Hearts
Zeke: Will. Where are you?
Benji: Again, this is the group chat.
Zeke: I know! Benji, tell Will to answer his phone.
Benji: Will, for the love of all that is holy, please answer your goddamn phone.
Phoebe: I’m going to leave this fucking group.
Zeke’s still up when I get home. He’s lounging on the couch in his sweats, scrolling on his phone. There’s some stupid reality show on in the background. He looks up when he hears me walk in. His blue eyes narrow deviously, and he tosses his phone aside.
“Well, you’re out late,” he drawls.
“Yup,” I say.
I toss my jacket over the back of a chair and head to the kitchen for a Coke. The drive home with only my thoughts already has me wondering what the fuck I was thinking tonight, and I’m really not in the mood to be probed by my nosy, fuckboy little brother. It’s times like this that I wish I drank—but I can’t risk letting my spiritual guard down.
“I smell sex again, Will,” Zeke calls from the other room, his tone taunting. “Did you finally man up and bang the librarian?”
I come back into the living room and lean against the doorway, Coke in hand. I’m clearly not going to be able to lie my way out of this one. And anyway, Zeke’s assertion that it’s somehow unmanly to refrain from fucking anything that moves is irritating as hell.
“Actually, yeah,” I say to him, taking a swig of my soda. “I—how’d you put it?—mannedup and banged the librarian. And you better believe I banged her better than you ever could, because I’m, you know, anactualman in his goddamn thirties and not a scrawny little kid.”
“Oh, ho!” Zeke grins at me. He flexes his pecs, and I can just tell he’s practiced that move before. “Who’re you calling scrawny, bro? But seriously—finally. You needed that.”
“Eh.” I shrug. I’m not about to divulge to him just how right he was. Because what I’m afraid of is that now that I’ve had a taste, I’m going tokeepneeding it. Needing her. And the more I get to know Lydia, the more I understand how raw and vulnerable she is, and how badly I’m bound to hurt her.
“What? It wasn’t good? I thought you said you banged her like a real man.”
“Ha. It was good. It was too good.”
Zeke scoffs. “Ain’t no such thing. If you’re getting some sweet pussy, Will, you just thank the gods and keep on gettin’ it.”
That makes me snort. I sometimes can’t believe how carefree my youngest brother is, like he has no responsibility to anyone. Iwonder, if things had been different, if I would’ve turned out like that. Somehow I doubt it. I’ve always been the responsible one. So responsible, in fact, that I even felt the need to tattle on my shitty dad and wreck our family in the process.
“Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to do that,” I say.
“Why? She doesn’t want it?”
“I don’t know.”
Zeke looks aghast. “Well, make her want it! Sounds like you’re off to a good start.”
“I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Oh, comeon,” Zeke says, rolling his eyes. “What is it with you? She married or something?”
“Nope.” I sip my Coke. “But she’s really nice. Too nice for me.”
“Will, seriously? Look, you’re grouchy and you’re kind of an asshole sometimes, but you’re not ashithead.” He suddenly narrows his eyes at me, like a thought has just occurred to him. “Oh, god. Is this about Dad again?”
“It’s not aboutDad,” I snap, but I can tell my tone has already betrayed me. I just hate that two decades later, my dad is still fucking things up for me. Actually, I thinkI’mjust fucked up. “It’s about the fact that we’re going in two different directions. Ineedto nail this library project and land that contract with Ethan Wilde so I can pay my fucking mortgage and take care of this family. Okay? And that means fucking up Lydia’s dream of turning the library into a landmark to honor her mother’s memory. We can’t have it both ways.”
Zeke looks at me hard for a minute, then puts his hands up in mock surrender. “Okay. I get it.”
“Good.”
“Well, at least you got it out of your system, right?”
