Page 15 of Lies and Other Drugs

Youngblood finally realized how fucking awkward this all was and shook his head, picking up a messenger bag and putting it over his shoulder. “I’m going to class,” he announced.

“I’m going with you,” I quickly responded, running to the spare bedroom to toss on some clothes. I found jeans and an old shirt that once belonged to my brother boasting his favorite band. It was a test of sorts to see if Youngblood noticed.

He was waiting for me, which I found surprising. “You really want to sit through my finance class?” he asked.

“Yep,” my lips popped on thep,and Noah closed his eyes in exasperation. All the while, Samuel was sitting at the kitchen table, chomping on burnt bacon and looking at me like I was the most entertaining thing to ever happen to him.

“Nathaniel and I have a Pike event tonight, so you and Noah can have the house to yourself,” he offered, his voice sly. I remembered our little talk last night and wondered if he was hoping Noah would whisk me away.

“What event?”

“One you’re not invited to,” Youngblood replied for Samuel, giving me a frown.

Oh. I was definitely going now.

“Anyways, tomorrow night, I’m taking you to dinner.” He dropped cash on the table, making me feel like a cheap whore. “Here’s some cash, in case you need anything. And for the record, this isn’t for the fucking amazing sex we had last night; I simply couldn’t afford you if it was.”

“I’m leaving,” Youngblood said, not inviting me but not telling me to stay, either. It was like he wanted me to learn more about him but was too afraid to admit it. Was this what he did to William? Was he always this distant? Never letting anybody in?

“I’ll let you run off and do your little obsessive avoidance thing, but tonight? We talk, Octavia,” Noah said, his voice deep.

I nodded, mostly because I didn’t know how to turn down the man that I wasn’t supposed to love. Then Noah sat down at the kitchen table and ate breakfast with Samuel, neither of them saying a word as I followed Youngblood out of his penthouse.

The moment we hit the elevator, a sense of dread hit my stomach, and I fought the urge to flee.

“Nice shirt. William loved that band,” he said. Damn.

I avoided the conversation. For some reason, I didn’t like that Youngblood actually new things about William. “Wanna skip class?” I asked, not really sure why I was leaning on the man I hated for comfort. The only thing that could make me spend time with him was a greater fear of something else. And I feared what I had with Noah. I feared how addicted I could get to fucking Samuel. And I feared the gun in my purse currently fastened to my shoulder as he answered me.

“Yeah. I’ve got a place we can go.”

* * *

William and Mrs. Mulberry were a lot alike. Both flighty, quirky, yet deep and strikingly beautiful. There were times I used to find myself staring at Mrs. Mulberry, wondering if her inability to remember normal things made her more beautiful. She aged. You couldn’t fight that. But she didn’t carry stress the same way the rest of the world did. There was a carefree nature about her that captivated me. It gave me hope that a person could not care and still be beautiful.

They also both hated coffee. So when Nathaniel took me to a little coffee shop in the arts district because it was “his and William’s place,” I wanted to strangle him.

He and Williamcouldn’thave a “place.” That would mean they actually had a routine and habits and enough experiences to like things together and dislike other things. It would mean that their relationship had progressed to something far more than just the physical. Not only that, but William hated expensive coffee that required a master's degree to order, pretentious dicks that had preferred coffee places, and getting up early. Basically, this wasn’t him at all, and I kind of hated Youngblood for showing me once more that there were things about my brother I didn’t know. I hated that my brother loved someone enough to wake up at the ass crack of dawn and sip coffee with them. Because that just wasn’t who he was. But most of all, I hated that I didn’t know any of this.

“We would meet early on the weekends, while everyone else was asleep,” Nathaniel revealed before taking a sip of his hot cup of coffee, not at all caring how fucked up that sounded. Was my brother his dirty little secret?

“Why’d you have to hide your relationship? Your older brother came out a few years ago, and your mother is in the fashion industry. Despite being from old money, certainly they wouldn’t be against you dating a man.” If Youngblood was surprised by my extensive knowledge of his family, he didn’t show it. I spent many nights studying the Youngblood name.

“You’re right. They wouldn’t care. William wasn’t my first boyfriend. In fact, my parents would have loved him. He was a significant improvement over my ex, Laura.” Youngblood smiled to himself, his lip tilting in amusement at some unspoken joke.

William always had bigger crushes on my boyfriends than I did. I never fell in love, and he always fell too deeply. Broken homes usually produced two kinds of people: those who had completely lost faith in love and relationships, and those who were determined to find it. We might have had completely different views on love and life, but it worked for us. We never had the “talk.” He never came out to me, and he definitely never had to announce to our mother that he liked kissing boys. He just was. We just were.

“I wanted to show him off, Tav,” Youngblood said, his voice barely a whisper as he looked around. I liked how William’s nickname for me sounded in his voice. We were sitting at the cafe’s covered patio in neon orange chairs while sipping Indian Summer coffee. A chalkboard sign behind his head read “Live your best life.”

The irony wasn’t lost on me. I felt the urge to laugh bubbling up in my chest, but Noah once said my unending laughter made people uncomfortable, so I reined in the urge.

“I’ve been thinking about what I should tell you. I’ve been trying to think if you’re entitled to an explanation,” Youngblood began. I could understand wanting to be selfish with memories. When a person died, it was all we were left with. “You know, whenever I’d ask William about you, he’d keep the information very surface level. He’d talk about your art. Your eccentric preferences. The only time he divulged anything of substance about you and your relationship was right here in these seats. He said that you were like one of those snapping plants that ate flies. Beautiful in your own right, but still destructive. He said you grew in the concrete, and he was nothing but a rose.”

William was so much more than a rose. He was the garden. The sunlight. The dirt. The water. “He said you were resilient,” Youngblood continued, “always taking care of him but never really understanding.” Well damn. That hurt. And by hurt, I meant it felt like I was swimming through knives.

“Stings, doesn’t it? Hearing things that make you question everything,” Youngblood took a sip of his coffee then placed it back down on the table. Touché, asshole.

“The thing is, I don’t want to share him with you. ’Cause what he and I had would pluck you from that concrete, Tav. You’re so stuck snapping at flies that you’ve missed the bigger picture. So unless you can handle hearing that, at the end of the day, I loved—truly fucking loved—your brother, then we will never be anything more than enemies.”

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