Page 3 of Knock Knock

We got shit on and gossiped about because our brothers were together, called stupid because we defended their relationship even when everyone else called it domestic abuse.

Attempt after attempt at a three-way bond, searching for a woman who would fit our dynamic as well as we fit together, failed. It always fucking failed because the sex was hot shit, but apparently, we weren’t. We laughed at dumb stuff and didn’t get too worked up about much. You sure as shit couldn’t sit us side by side at a funeral.

And while we were best friends who got compared and blamed for the same reasons, we were totally different people who should have been seen as individuals.

Xavi took things seriously, but he didn’t get that credit because I laughed too often.

Big picture wise, after my upbringing, I didn’t feel like a failure, but we both got stuck in that category because we weren’t ‘settling down’ with the love of our lives.

And it started with Kaylee. The chick we legitimately dated. It started before Maddox’s jail time, cooled off a bit during, and then picked up again after. But in the end, Kaylee succeeded at one thing and one thing only: diminishing our self-worth. All because she got pissy that we were more focused on Maddox’s trial than her. Like, fuck off, woman. Who do you think you are?

But whatever. We were better off without her anyway. Even if our attempt at finding someone new had failed every week for months, it was me and Xavi, and I felt proud to still be at his side.

“Or we don’t change anything because we’re confident in who we are,” I said. I spit the gum out the window and sighed, annoyed at myself for pulling a cigarette from my pack. My dead lighter barely sparked, but it got the smoke down my throat, and that’s all I needed.

Xavi scoffed. “Are we?”

I’d never worried much about anything like confidence. Devon was a dipshit and took me at face value, didn’t give a shit about pleasing my parents while growing up, and Xavi loved me for who I was. Hookups came and went, but they were mostly looking for a good time between ten and two, so those became my effort hours. But Xavi was around my pathetic ass twenty-four-seven, and I mostly took pride in the fact that he didn’t complain about it.I had a grocery list of insecurities, but I tried to hide them from most people. Xavi always knew, but I didn’t feel too shit about that.

“You know what really pisses me off?” Xavi asked. “Andrea.”

Oh, here we fucking go. The Andrea debate again.

The very same Andrea who saved our asses over the past few years. The one who patched up my brother and helped organize Maddox’s case. The Andrea who always had our backs and our best interests at heart. She was more perceptive than we thought, and it was her who started asking thought-provoking questions after Kaylee had already made us feel like shit about ourselves.

Because we got drunk and stressed out and tried to hook up with her.Fail!She shot us down like we were joking. Then she laughed when she realized we were serious, but instead of sending us on our way, she sat us down and made us think! The goddamn audacity of her.

She claimed we were in the ‘babies and marriage’ phase of life, then said she was in the ‘don’t even whisper the word pregnant around me’ phase. To be honest, I was in the same phase as her, but Xavi hadn’t made up his mind about it.

She was right in the end. She was only forty-two, which was a bee’s dick of an age gap, but she really had become our mother figure. Ain’t nobody wanna mix mommies with kinkies. Right? …Right?Regardless, she sat us down, told us we were being reckless, and then started the whole ‘phases of life’ chat that somehow turned into Xavi not being able to say yes or no to having a kid, and me locking up like a chastity belt because… I’d never goddamn thought about it before.

That was weird, right? People usually had dreams or, at the very least, thoughts about big things like that. But, other than the shop, I’d never realized I hadn’t until she straight up asked me about it. Like, I figured there was no way in hell I’d ever be a dad, but that was about as far as my thought process went. I’d thought about the past and the here and now, but fuck me for not putting a ton of stock into my future. Wasn’t even sure I’d survive this long.My efforts went to my brother, and since he became settled, I had no idea how to think about myself and my dreams.

“Like, why is it some crime to maybe sorta think about a distant and not at all clear future that in some small degree might possibly have a kid in it?” Xavi asked.

I loved his wishy-washy dreams. He barely knew what he wanted for dinner, let alone for life, but if a kid was potentially on the table for him, I’d help him pull up a chair.

“It’s not. She shut us down because of who we are, not what we want. Jesus, Xavi. Snap out of it.”

“It’s like she knew something about us before we knew it. And I still don’t know it. Do you?” He looked at me. “Do you know things? Does she?”

Truthful answer was, ‘yeah, she noticed my dick got hard for you and I begged her not to out me, so she pushed us to chat about life things in the hopes that it’d make me confess all my sexy thoughts to you and get us to talk.’

Instead, I said, “She’s just wise like that.” I shrugged. “We were more into Kaylee at the time anyway, right?”

“Yeah, that whole thing was a clusterfuck.” It was. For a multitude of different reasons. Timing. Priorities. Maybe even a little resentment on my part, because for the first time in my life, I was keeping a secret from Xavi.

Fucking sucked at it, too. Like any minute, it’d come flying out of my mouth to smack him in the dick because I sucked at processing shit and Xavi was the one I typically vented to. I needed to vent! Or to at least let off a little steam. Crack the pipes to release some pressure. Devon was a shit option for chatting, but he’d do if I couldn’t blurt all my sketchy secrets to my sketchy bestie.

But how the hell was I supposed to tell the guy who’d been my ride or die since I met him at the dank Garron Park community grounds, surrounded by hypodermic needles and a stolen bag of candies, that he got my dick going and I perved on him more often than sometimes? The guy hated shirts, and my dick noticed. Even now, with his chest bare and his abs out, my cock gave a half-hearted throb, just a little twitch of the dick as a taunt to remind me I wanted someone I wasn’t supposed to want.

The chat about sexualities was so far from my mind. Me and my dick had surpassed that about thirty hookups ago. We were over the fact that the dudiest dude-bro got us going, and we chose to focus on the fact that it was Xavi.Xavi!No matter how many times Devon gave me cock-minding advice, I didn’t want to listen.

“We’re a shitshow, bud.” I shrugged.

“Yeah, but what else is new? I just feel like a dipshit for wanting—”

“Xavi, if you complain about wanting a kid one more time, I’ll—”

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