“I sent you a text.”
“Why’d you grab your phone out?” Brantley interrupts and everyone falls silent. I open up Instagram, turning the screen toward him.
“Tillie told me about this photo app.”
“Did she fucking just—” Brantley glares at Tillie across from him.
“You’re welcome.” She blows Brantley a kiss. Again, I’m confused with the dynamic. I gaze over my shoulder at the group of people all making out in the hot tub, switching partners and kissing each other. Amongst other things. Maybe this is what they all do?
“What are you thinking about?” Eli asks from opposite me.
I don’t take my eyes off what’s happening. “Just wondering if you guys do that, too?” I gesture over to the hot tub.
Eli barks out a laugh and it’s not long until Nate is joining him.
“I fucking wish,” Eli murmurs. “Well, historically speaking, it has been known for us to switch, but seeing as—”
“Eli!” Brantley snaps. “Either shove a cock in that mouth or put a pussy on those lips.”
Eli doesn’t flinch, his smirk remaining on me. “Bran just wishes it was his cock.” Then he leans back, bringing his beer to his mouth and flipping Brantley off.
Bishop stands, and we all watch as he stumbles across the lawn and to the patio. “Will he be okay?” I find myself asking out loud.
“He will be fine as long as there’s no snow in the house.”
I turn back around and my eyes connect with Brantley, who has his beer up to his mouth. His legs are spread, one knee bouncing, while his dark eyes are completely and utterly focused on me. He’s doing that thing where I don’t know what he’s doing again.
He lowers his beer bottle and mouths, “Come here.”
I stand from my seat and take the three steps to him, looking down at what little room there is beside him. I manage to squeeze in, curling my legs up beneath my butt.
“So this is all you guys do at parties?” I ask Brantley, turning to face him. “I hate to admit it, but I don’t think I’ve been missing out.”
Just when I don’t think he’s going to answer me, the corner of his mouth curves. Not a lot, but enough to know that I had said something to appease him.
He swings his arm over the back of my chair, tilting his head to the side to study me. “I’m sure that will change the longer you’re with us.”
“And how long will that be?” I ask, picking at the fray where his knees are cut.
He begins to laugh, which is exactly when I realize I’m touching him. “What’s funny?”
He shakes his head. “Just that you think you’d have a life without me in it.”
My heart sinks a little. “Oh.” The guilt I’ve lived with is intoxicating. Far more deadly than any of the drinks they’re consuming tonight. “Can I ask you a question?”
He doesn’t answer, but his eyes remain on mine, which I’m taking as a go-ahead for me to continue.
“Why did you stop coming home?”
I watch as his whole demeanor shifts. His jaw tenses, his eyes become more guarded, and the muscles in his thighs flex. I already know why. I just want him to say the words. I want him to finally admit that he despises me. That every time he sees me, he sees his nightmare in the flesh. He won’t, though. That’s what Brantley has always done. He has never dealt with his emotions, because he doesn’t have any. As he got older, I watched him transform. He became moody. He stopped talking. He withdrew from the boy I knew and attached himself to a corpse. I didn’t get to witness it for too much longer, because he eventually stopped coming home, or when he did, we never saw each other.
He forgets that I know him, though. Not just his corpse, but the soul he hides beneath it. I know all of him, and I don’t just mean his dark parts, because all of Brantley is dark. With some people, they become this way because of some unfortunate event that made them that way. That’s not Brantley. He was born like this. Nature over nurture, though nurture did not help.
“I had other shit I had to attend to,” is all he says. We sit in silence for a while, and listen as Eli and Tillie go back and forth on baby names. Nate adds in his two cents every now and then. I relax slightly when I realize I’ve warmed up to the setting. Brantley pulls out his phone for a few minutes before the people who were here partying are being escorted out by men in suits. I recognize a couple of them as being around the house at times over the years. Not all the time, but sometimes.
Then it’s just us. But Hunter and Cash come and grab Eli, and Nate and Tillie call it a night, leaving just Brantley and me. Alone. For the first time in what feels like ever.