Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 101764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
I shut my eyes and then rubbed my fingertips back and forth above my eyebrows where the ache was brewing. Please don’t let that be what it is. Despite my earlier thoughts, Kenny’s congealed jizz would have been preferable.
When I opened my eyes, my stomach plummeted, and my shoulders sagged.
Still there—a burned spoon, lighter, and a length of rubber tubing. The scene was right out of every cop drama ever aired. Cliché and accurate.
Every inch of my skin flashed hot and prickly. I snatched the pillow off the floor and brought it down on Kenny’s head as hard as I could. “Wake the fuck up, you selfish shit.” I hit him again. And again.
“Jesus, what the fuck?” The slurred words were heavy with sleep and remnants of a powerful high. “Alex? Ow! Stop fucking hitting me.”
I whaled on him again. “Doing this shit in Mom’s house? What the fuck is wrong with you?” As I lifted my arm to hit him again, he rolled over, giving me a prime view of his junk. “Oh, come on.” I tossed the pillow at him instead of hitting him. “Cover that shit up.”
“Hey, watch the goods.” The pillow landed on his crotch. “You sure you’re a gay dude? It shouldn’t bug you out this much to look at a dick.” He covered the offending appendage with the pillow as he shoved hair out of his face.
I grunted. “I just don’t wanna look at your pencil dick. Who’s your guest?”
“Huh?” He blinked up at me from flat on his back.
“Your guest.” I pointed toward the end of the couch, where the girl was still sleeping. Knowing my luck, she’d overdosed and wouldn’t ever wake up.
Kenny struggled but eventually got himself sitting. Thankfully, he was kind enough to keep the pillow over his crotch. “Huh. Who is that?”
Seriously?
“You’re naked and asleep on the couch with a woman, and you have no idea who she is?”
He shrugged. “Some bitch I picked up last night, I guess.”
I smacked his bare shoulder so hard he yelped.
“Ow, what’s that for?” he asked, rubbing his upper arm.
“Don’t be fucking disrespectful. Since when do you call women bitches?”
“She can’t hear me. She’s fucking sleeping.”
“Kenny…” I pinched the bridge of my nose as I tried to control my breathing.
“Oh my God, you’re so annoying.” He shrugged, then let out a loud belch. “I’ll get rid of her.”
I sighed as the muscles in my neck knotted until they practically cramped. Kenny hadn’t always been like this. A few years ago, he’d been the damn golden boy of Carson High School. Somehow, despite our mother’s neurological disease, no fatherly influence, and my complete inability to catch anything smaller than a beach ball, Kenny excelled at sports, baseball in particular. He’d made the varsity team in ninth grade, the first to do so in two decades, according to the athletic director, and ended up team MVP. College scouts were already talking about him during his sophomore year.
He’d been going places.
Then, one gorgeous, sunny, warm morning of his junior year, the kind of day Massachusetts rarely had in early spring, he flipped over his handlebars riding his bike to school. It was a freak accident that left him with a shattered tibia and ruined dreams. He’d been coasting downhill at a crazy rate of speed, the way only a cocky high schooler could, when a damn black cat ran out in front of him. On instinct, Kenny squeezed his brakes, bringing his bicycle to a jarring halt. Unfortunately, the momentum of the abrupt stop sent him sailing over the handlebars.
Since that day, Kenny had been on a downward trajectory full of apathy, self-pity, and drugs. His body healed, though not well enough for college-level baseball, but he’d never been able to pull himself out of the black hole of despair that losing baseball tossed him in.
“Can you get rid of that shit too?” I pointed to the table where he had his drug paraphernalia scattered around. “Then, when you’re done, you owe Mom an apology. She’s the one who found you, her, and this shit,” I said as I pointed to his paraphernalia.
Kenny paled, and instead of feeling guilty for rubbing his bad choices in his face, triumph surged through me. If the thought of disappointing our mom caused that reaction, some of the old Kenny must be hiding in the shell of my brother. It didn’t take more than a second, though. He sniffed and rolled his shoulders as his fuck-the-world mask fell back into place. “Screw you. Stop trying to be my fucking father. I’m an adult, Alex. I don’t gotta do shit you say.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “An adult. Right. An adult with no job, no education, and no prospects, who’s living in his mom’s house rent-free while disrespecting her every chance he gets. You’re one goddamn bump away from an arrest or a hospital stay. Good luck paying for that shit with no insurance.”