Page 29 of Headcase
“Don’t hold your breath.”
Asa turned to face him as they pulled up to a red light on a nearly deserted street, leaning into his space, tone conspiratorial. “Okay, Lois. I hear you. But when you change your mind—when you wake up so fucking horny you can’t bear to go another minute without me touching you, I’ll be here. And I’ll pretend not to notice how quickly you caved.”
Zane swallowed the sudden lump in his throat, crossing his arms over his lap. “On second thought, I changed my mind.”
A slow grin spread across Asa’s face. “Oh, yeah?”
Zane gave him a slow smile of his own. “Yeah. You should definitely hold your breath.”
Asa fought back a smile the whole way out of the city. Beside him, Zane fumed—arms crossed, cheeks flushed, jaw thrust forward. Fuck, he was sexy. Every time Asa glanced over at that pouty fucking mouth, his dick got a little harder. He wanted to do dirty, dirty things to that mouth. He wanted Zane on his knees for him, putting those plush lips to good use. He wanted to watch tears roll down Zane’s cheeks as he gagged on his cock, making eye contact while he came down his throat.
Asa took a deep breath and let it out, earning another furious side eye from Zane. Yeah, Asa needed to stop that line of thinking or he was going to pull over and test the limits of both of their restraint, and it would be all his father’s fault.
Part of him wanted to snap just so Thomas could see what came of his meddling. So he could look at the consequences of his actions and say, “This is what happens when you take my brother away.” His father would tell him Avi not being there had nothing to do with whatever heinous acts Asa ended up committing, but it just wasn’t true. Not even a day apart from his twin and Asa wanted to do things to Zane that would probably violate the Geneva convention.
He missed Avi, and that metaphysical pain would only deepen and fester like a splinter under his skin. By tomorrow, there was no telling how bad it would be. But that was tomorrow Asa’s problem. Or later today Asa’s problem. Zane needed sleep. His eyes were glassy, and the bruise from where his face hit Asa’s floor was turning a purple black. At this rate, he might have to carry him. The thought held a certain appeal.
“How is it you know so much about suicide statistics?” Asa asked finally, more to keep himself from fantasizing about defiling every part of his passenger.
Zane’s head snapped to him so fast Asa was surprised he didn’t hear his neck snap. Zane’s reasons were clearly personal. The hurt and frustration bleeding from his honeyed gaze made that obvious. He’d lost somebody to suicide, and he was mad at whoever had done it but also furious with Asa for bringing it up.
Zane was a complicated man.
Asa shouldn’t find it as compelling as he did. But most people bored him. When one was raised in a household full of psychopaths, being around people who society considered normal was often painful. Psychopaths really didn’t have time for bullshitting and small talk. Sure, they played the part to hide their secrets, but there was no such thing as dinner conversation in the Mulvaney household. They passed potatoes over talk of severed heads and torture techniques. Compared to the outside world, they were the fucking Addams family. Hell, they were the Manson family.
What would Zane think of the real Mulvaneys? Would they horrify him? Asa didn’t think so. For all Zane’s pearl-clutching, he’d knelt a foot away from a dissected corpse and hadn’t so much as flinched. He wasn’t squeamish about death, just murderers. And judging by how soft and hazy his face got when Asa had him bent over in front of that mirror a few minutes ago, even Asa being a killer didn’t seem to bother Zane’s dick too much.
“Who was it?” Asa asked.
“Who was who?” Zane said dully, turning to stare out the window.
“Who was the person who unalived themselves? They were clearly important to you.”
Zane turned his gaze forward again, and Asa watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard. “My brother.”
Asa sucked in a breath. There wasn’t much he feared in this world, but being without Avi was the highest on his list. Being without his brother would feel like he’d lost a literal part of himself. “Twins?”
Zane shook his head. “He was older but only by seven months.”
“Seven months?” That math didn’t add up.
Zane’s words were thick, like he had to force them from his throat. “They called us Irish twins. My mom got pregnant with me five weeks after Gage was born. I was not planned, clearly.”
There was definitely more to that story. “How old was he when he died?”
“Twenty-one.”
Asa did the math. Zane couldn’t be more than twenty-five or twenty-six. “Where did he go to school?”
“Where your brother teaches.”
Had they had any suicide clusters at August’s school? He’d need to ask about it tomorrow. Was that why Zane had suddenly looked so ill? “And now, you’re wondering about the timeline and whether there really is a game and whether your brother might have played it.”
Zane gave a stilted nod. “My brother was an adrenaline junkie. He liked fast cars and jumping off cliffs and free climbing. Anything dangerous. When he died, they said he wasn’t a thrill seeker but that he’d had a death wish. But it wasn’t true. Gage loved life. He just hated our parents. But I never thought he hated them badly enough to kill himself… Badly enough to leave me behind with them.”
The last part of the statement was muttered under his breath, like he hadn’t meant to say it. Or, at least, like he hadn’t meant for Asa to hear it.
They pulled into the long, curved drive, and Asa threw the SUV in park. “Is this too hard for you?”
