Page 12 of Knock Knock

“It’s part of being an adult, honey,” Mom told Maddox. Like she had any idea. She had a tetra pack of wine with a spout hanging off the edge of the table, and her purple plastic cup with a cat on it that said ‘don’t stress meowt’ kept going down for refills. What’d she know about being an adult? She fucked up more than all of us.

“It’s goddamn criminal,” Maddox scoffed, not looking at her either.

If I had to listen to him bitch about paying house insurance one more time, I’d sic Devon on him. Luckily for me, Devon was already in the process of shutting him up. His hand disappeared under the table, and from where I sat, I caught a glimpse of him giving Maddox’s dick a squeeze through his shorts. Didn’t need to see it, so I shifted closer to Nate.

“How’s the farm, Madd?” I grinned, interrupting his dinnertime handie.

“What? Yeah.” He leaned forward, blocking his lap. “What?”

Nate grinned at me, knowing what was going on. If we hadn’t meddled, they’d still be out for blood. We’d toasted—and continued to toast—many drinks to that monumental accomplishment.

“He bitches non-stop,” Devon answered for him. “But says he loves it. How’re your broken hearts?” he fired the question at me and Nate.

I clutched my chest in fake heartbreak, and Nate leaned in to kiss my cheek. “My poor heart.”

“He watchesTeen Wolfto cope,” Nate said.

We finally had internet at the shop, and we bought one of those Firestick things at a yard sale for six bucks. By some stroke of luck, it’d still been logged into all the streaming apps of whoever previously owned it, so we’d ride that free pony until it died. Still, I didn’t watchTeen Wolf. Even if Stiles was my favourite. Scott and Stiles were our bestie spirit animals… but I thought we might both be Stiles.

Gnat, having given up on Devon and Maddox, finally bumped his nose against my knee, so I fed him the rest of my dinner, helped Dad clean up, and then sat out front with my brother. We didn’t grow up in this trailer, but I liked it for my parents. It came with Dad’s new job as Park Manager, and now a really nice and respectable family of moonshine makers lived in our old place. Seemed full circle.And they competed with the crotchety old bastard, who was the resident moonshiner.

Mom was slowly reverting to the same as she’d always been, and as much as I hated to admit it, I resented her for it. Dad had worked so hard to get sober and become a better person, and even though he chose to get back with Mom, he spent a lot of time taking care of her for our benefit. She needed to step up for once in her life. Loved her, but she didn’t give a shit about the burden she was to those who cared about her. People were who they were, and that was fine, but my mom was a selfish person who tried to make up for it by feeding us shitty casseroles. Balance, I guessed.

“Boxers sticky?” I asked my brother, fiddling with a pack of gum I constantly carried around for Nate, who was trying but failing to quit smoking.

Maddox huffed. “Fuck no. I’ve learned a lot of tricks over the years. Like how not to get cum on my boxers at the table.”

“How?” I wanted to know. Never knew when that might come in handy. For a literal handie.

He ignored me. “You talk to Nate?”

“Yeah.”

“Liar.”

I groaned. “It’s harder than you think!”

The fucked-up part was that I’d never struggled to talk to Nate about anything. I once got a titanium cock ring stuck on my dick and had no trouble telling him. Even when we went to the emergency room and they confessed that their tools wouldn’t cut through titanium, so they had to call the fire department, I didn’t feel embarrassed. I mean, yeah, with the hospital staff and the whole fucking Garron Fire Department, I was mortified, but not with Nate. He kept me distracted, laughing, and in good spirits the entire time the goddamn tiny jaws of life cut a ring off my cock with about thirty nurses and doctors watching. He didn’t even call me out for not being able to get soft enough to pull it off; we blamed it on restricted blood flow and didn’t mention it any more than that. He put a bandage on the little nick they gave me and took a selfie with my dick. He smiled so wide and had his thumb up, which made my dick look big,so thanks for that, bud,but there were people in the background laughing at us—maybe with us? It’d always been hard to tell.

But talking about this weird way we’d gone about dating and possibly wanting to change it? Yeah, that shit was harder than the cock ring incident of 2020.

“I guess we’ll just keep going how we’re going.” I shrugged, pocketing the gum.

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Maddox baited me, but I wasn’t going to take it. We’d figure it out eventually.

Okay, fine. I was totally taking his bait. “What’s that mean?”

“That you’ll both be miserable about it, but by all means, keep it going.” He laughed, and it sure as shit sounded condescending, but not in the same way everyone else made us feel shitty about ourselves. It was like Maddox was on our team, but knew we weren’t playing the right game. “I made a bet with Devon. We give you two another month before you blow up.”

“Blow up how?”

Maddox just grinned. “Go talk to him about this shit, Xav. Not me.”

“Yeah, I tried that. I ended up getting buzzed on cheap rum and coming here.”

“Try harder.”

Fine. He was right. Hated when he was right. “Nate!” I shouted through the open front door. “Let’s go! We’re getting drunk and chatting!”

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