Series: Peach State Stepbros Series by Riley Hart
Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 78418 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78418 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
His gaze meets mine, and I see something I don’t recognize there. “I just gotta sort through this, Ash. I’ll be fine.”
As he closes the door, it’s like I’ve been connected to an oxygen concentrator and he just snipped the cord.
The tension that started when he saw the app has intensified, tight bands constricting my chest as my mind spins out, because my whole reality with Colin has just shifted.
Space?
I’m definitely too codependent for this.
6
Colin
Okay, so I can fully admit that a lot of the time, when it comes to stuff that’s not book smarts, I can be a bit lost. This isn’t one of those times, not really, but then maybe it is.
“Ugh!” I groan into my empty room, unsure of what I feel, much less if I have the right to feel it. This soft voice in my brain that doesn’t always speak up tells me I’m overreacting. So Ash jerks off on camera. It’s not the end of the world. To each their own and all that, but then…then that’s not the part that has me in a tailspin, is it?
This whole situation is less about him doing it and more about the fact that he didn’t tell me, that he didn’t want to tell me. He would have actively tried to keep it from me if he could, and that’s what has confusion going wild in my head.
Anyone else could keep this secret from me and I wouldn’t bat an eye, but this is Ash. My Ash. My person. The one who came to me when he was bullied, the boy who helped me hide stray animals when we were young and I tried to sneak them into the house. The one who talks to me about how stuff with his mom makes him feel. We’re a team, and no matter how many mental gymnastics I go through, I can’t figure out why he would commit this Step Don’t with me.
Why didn’t he think he could trust me?
Have I done something to make him feel like he can’t come to me with anything? He’s the only person who could say, Here’s this dead guy I just killed, and I’d be like, What time do we go hide the body?
Despite that, Ash didn’t tell me.
What did I do wrong?
If I could understand why Ash is into it, why he wanted to keep it from me, then all the pieces would fit together.
I think…
Maybe…
Who the hell knows because in the almost ten years we’ve been stepbrothers, this situation never occurred.
I plop down on my bed, unable to find it in myself to care that I’m pouting. I close my eyes, and the first thing that pops into my head is the dejected look in his hazel eyes. He looked like I hurt him, but the thing is, he hurt me too. I don’t care if we’re codependent. This is us, and it’s never caused us any problems before.
But he’s also my Ash…my cuddly bro. My favorite person to talk to and spend time with. A guy couldn’t ask for a better brother, and I’m the lucky one who has him. I don’t have it in me to hurt him, so even though my heart is still banging against my chest and my thoughts are still spinning out of control with questions like why and…well, just why, why, and why? I push to my feet, quietly grumbling while I walk down the hallway to his bedroom.
I knock, and a second later it pulls open. “I would hide a body with you, Ash.”
His brows pull together behind his glasses. “Just to confirm, is there currently a body we’re talking about?”
I huff, annoyed but trying not to smile because he’s Ash and he knows how to make me do that. I squeeze into his room and fall onto his bed, looking at the ceiling. “Remember when I had those glow-in-the-dark stars over my bed when we were kids?”
Ash climbs onto the mattress beside me. “And one day, while you were gone, I wrote my name in them.”
A stupid, annoying grin tugs at my lips. “Yes. I wouldn’t let you change it afterward, and I bought more with my allowance and put my name on your ceiling too.”
“Wow, we’re definitely codependent.”
“We’re brothers.”
Ash sighs. “We’re not normal brothers, Col.”
No, we’re not. Even I get that, but. “I like us.”
He cuddles close, setting his head on my pec. “I like us too.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me? I don’t understand why you would try to keep this from me. Why you thought I would care. That’s what hurts the most—that you didn’t trust me or thought I would what, judge you?”
“I judge me.”
I frown and sit up, and he does the same.
“Why?”
“I don’t really… I don’t know. Did you ever think that maybe I didn’t tell you because I can’t figure out why I’m doing it myself? If I can’t explain it in my own head, how can I explain it to you?”