“Come here, kitten.”
He scooted across the bed and buried his face in my neck. I wrapped my arms around him.
“I hate him,” he said into my skin, his voice breaking. “I hate him so much.”
“Fuck, Jules.” I held him tighter and rubbed his back as he sobbed into my neck.
I’d had no idea, and the thought that my mother was the reason Jules’s mom was dead hit me like an anvil in the chest. Ken had abandoned her, but he’d done so because of my mother.
Fuck. No wonder Jules had hated me.
I’d never been close with either of my parents. My mother had been too busy being angry at Dad to give a shit about me, and my dad was a dicknozzle who’d always pretended I didn’t exist.
Their divorce had brought out the worst in both of them, but it wasn’t anything I wasn’t used to.
Jules had lost his mom, and they’d been close.
“I’m so sorry.” I hugged him tighter, shifting onto my back so he was on top of me.
“I miss her.”
I rubbed his back, anger at our parents burning through me like a living thing.
They were so fucking selfish and had ruined so many lives with their stupid affair.
The night they’d told us about Riley was imprinted on my mind.
Two weeks after we’d moved into Jules’s house, our parents had sat us down in the living room and told us we were going to be big brothers.
Neither of us had said a word, and that had started a huge scene where Crystal had burst into tears and run upstairs because we hadn’t jumped up and down for joy, and Ken had shouted and called us all sorts of names for not supporting “our mother.”
Jules had yelled that she wasn’t his mom, which had set Ken off even more, and they’d had a huge row that had ended with Jules running out of the room in tears.
Fifteen-year-old me had thought it was hilarious that Jules had taken the brunt of Ken’s anger, since he was the golden child of the family and could do no wrong.
Twenty-one-year-old me was ashamed that I’d been so cruel to Jules all these years. He hadn’t deserved any of it.
“I’m sorry.” He sniffled into my neck.
“You apologize a lot.” I smoothed my hand down his back.
“Habit.”
“You don’t have to do that with me, okay? Holding you really isn’t a hardship.”
“It seems like I’m always snotting all over you lately.”
“That part is less than awesome.” I put my fingertips under his chin and tipped his face up. “But never feel bad for feeling stuff, okay? Happy Jules, sad Jules, even pissed-off Jules. I’m here for all of you.”
“This is so fucked up,” he whispered as he folded his hands on my chest and rested his chin on them.
“What is?”
“This. Us. I like it,” he said quickly. “Like, a lot. But a month ago, I was setting up a random dick appointment to get over you, and now we’re snuggling and having heart-to-hearts.”
“You did it to get over me?”
He blushed but didn’t break eye contact. “Yeah. I hated you, but at the same time, I didn’t. I liked pissing you off and seeing angry Ash, especially when my dick got to be involved. But I was so confused. I didn’t know if I was the only one feeling anything, and I thought that maybe having sex with someone else would help me get over you.”