Max stalked to the fridge and popped the top off a Corona. “You know what I mean. What the fuck’s wrong with you if you aren’t pissed at me?” Silence.
He glared at the back of the couch. “Elliott.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Standing a little straighter, Max narrowed his eyes at the brown tweed. “Wait a minute, does this have something to do with Jenn?”
“Crap,” his brother muttered.
Max settled into a chair at the kitchen table, the weight of his guilt easing off a bit as he turned his mind to something else. “What happened? A fight?”
“No. No fight. Kind of the opposite.”
“Oh? Oh! I see. What the hell are you so depressed about then?”
“I told you I don’t want to talk about it.”
Since his brother couldn’t see him, Max didn’t bother hiding his sudden grin. “Don’t worry, man. I hear it happens to every guy at some point.”
“Fuck off. That was definitely not the problem. Again, just the opposite.”
Well, that was interesting, if a bit disturbing. “Did you take a Viagra or something?” A mud-colored pillow came sailing over the couch and hit Max square in the face. “Good aim. Now what happened?”
“Jesus Christ.” Elliott’s dark voice indicated he wasn’t going to tell the story, but then the words came, as rough as if they were being forcibly dragged from his throat. “Everything was going great until she started crying.”
He set the beer down with a clunk. “Crying?”
“Yes. Sobbing.”
“Er. Some women do that when they come. Did she come?”
Elliott gave a muffled-sounding growl. Max could hear the scraping sound of hands rubbing over an unshaven jaw. “I don’t know. She was pretty quiet about it all. Then she said it was ‘nice.’”
“Oh. I see.” He cringed in sympathetic embarrassment. “So…”
“Yeah. So.”
“Well, welcome to my world of dating crazy women. How do you like it? Pretty interesting, huh?”
“I don’t think this is the kind of crazy you normally date.”
“Oh, you’re wrong about that. You think none of my girlfriends have ever cried during sex? Instability isn’t always the best bed partner. Speaking of which… On the off chance that Jenn is off her rocker, did you use protection?”
Elliott’s feet disappeared and he sat up to glare at Max. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Why?” Max’s blood pressure leaped to a frantic pace at the thought that his brother had done something stupid. “You didn’t?”
“You started stuffing condoms into my wallet the day I turned fourteen.”
He cleared his throat, worried that Elliott was finally going to figure out that Max had a little problem with anxiety.
“Every single time you put a rubber in there, I took it out and threw it away, and the next morning, there’d be a new one. Then you started buying me a fresh box of condoms every month. Remember? Apparently, you thought I was using them all.”
“Er…”
“I was too damn embarrassed to tell you that your expectations were a little premature. I wasn’t quite the ladies’ man you were. But you did start a good habit for me. I never leave home without one, so I guess I should thank you for that psychosis.”
Max inhaled, the air cool and delicious when combined with the relief rising up in his chest. Elliott thought Max’s motivation had been sexual precociousness. “Good,” he said with a forcibly arrogant smile. “Glad to know I passed something useful on to my little brother.”