Twin Ties 1: My Brother's Lover (26 page)

But it really did feel like falling, to give into the pull of allure and connection, to dare to love. Once you leapt, there was no scrambling back over the safety of the precipice. There was only the rush, the wind, and the hope of a gentle landing.

Soon the sun was resting on the horizon and the bright blues of the sky were gone, shifted into dusky violets. Alek’s fingers brushed idly through the soft hair at Evan’s temple. Evan looked relaxed and comfortable.

Alek was trying to memorize the precise curves of Evan’s profile when, with downcast eyes, staring right at the sinking sun, Evan asked, “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

Alek blew out a breath. His fingers stilled their restless movements, his hand dragging down to rest flat over Evan’s heart. He could feel it beating fast, thudding against Evan’s ribs.

“Hmm. Wow,” Alek sighed, thinking it over.

“Bet you a million dollars that mine’s worse than yours.”

Memory buffeted Alek, slamming into him. He knew what his worst thing was. It was the thing he’d been trying to make up for every moment since it happened.

“I don’t think so,” Alek retorted. It was obvious Evan had a troubled past, especially with the way they’d met, but Alek believed it wasn’t possible for Evan to have committed a crime equal to Alek’s own. But he wanted to know. Maybe if he got access to that part of who Evan was, more of his quietness, his seriousness and fragility would make sense.

Alek asked, “Do you want to go first or should I?”

“You first.”

There was no easy way to say it. “Total honesty?”

“Please.”

“Okay. I had a threesome with my brother when we were seventeen. The other guy, Marcus, was about forty. I was really into it. Luka really wasn’t, but he went ahead with it because I wanted to.

“It went too far. Marcus tied Luka’s arms behind his back, tied his ankles together too. He was on his knees between us on the bed. There was a blindfold on him, and a gag. Luka said no before the gag was pulled tight.”

Alek gave it a second to sink in before continuing, watching Evan’s reaction. “
He said no
, but we were both too high on ecstasy to be rational. Marcus was whispering to me, telling me how good it would feel, how hot it would be to fuck Luka. Luka heard all of it, and later, once it was over and I was untying him, I felt how soaked the blindfold was with Luka’s tears. But, you know, I did it. I raped him. As much as I want to pretend otherwise, that’s what happened. He could have fought more, he could have tried harder to stop me, but he didn’t. And you know why? He
trusted
me. He bit his tongue and let me do that to him because he trusted me
that much
. We’d never done anything like that before. It had never gone that far. It was all always just a goof, messing around, kissing, heavy petting, using our mouths. Guys loved to watch that stuff.”

Alek fell quiet. He had taken his hand back, and twisted his fingers together. Evan reached out and overlaid Alek’s hands with one of his.

“It changed everything. It changed both of us, our personalities, our outlook on relationships and hell...
life
.” Alek set his jaw, and knew he couldn’t hide how close tears were for him. “Nothing was off the table after that. We did everything with each other—drugs, extremely kinky, dangerous sex with people we barely knew—like maybe if we kept pushing our boundaries farther it would make what I did to him that night seem less horrible, but yeah. That’s the worst thing I ever did.”

His brow creased with his concern, Evan wrapped a strong hand behind Alek’s neck and drew him down for a gentle but fervent kiss. Alek was the first to pull away, turning his face into the warmth of Evan’s hand cupped against his jaw.

“Luka forgave you,” Evan told him.

“Yeah, he did,” Alek said sadly. “Doesn’t change anything. Doesn’t undo what I did, or what a horrible person I am, to do that to the one person who is my whole world, the only one that ever really loved me and believed in me.”

“I believe in you,” Evan said, dragging his thumb over the shaved-smooth skin of Alek’s jaw line. “And everyone is allowed to make shitty choices sometimes. It’s kind of expected. You’re a good man. The fact that this still eats at you is proof of that.”

“So did I win? Is mine worse?” Alek asked sorrowfully, thinking,
God, I hope it’s worse.

And, just like that, Evan started to recede, pulling away from Alek mentally, emotionally, even physically. Alek didn’t let him, though. He fearfully held on and put his hand back over Evan’s jackrabbiting heart.

“
Evan
,” he moaned.

“You gotta understand, I don’t talk about this. I didn’t even have the balls to tell Brennan myself. I made him find out through a stranger. My own father had me locked up in a psych ward for months, I was so unable to talk about it.”

Cold, tight fear focused Alek. He put as much force into his voice as he could muster and said, “Tell me.”

Evan said it in the simplest way he could. “I tried to commit suicide when I was fourteen. I was dead for three minutes.”

The confession hit Alek harder than it might have otherwise. Already in an emotionally raw place from his own confession, the discovery that he almost lost Evan before he ever found him was like a razor-sharp knife to the gut. Envisioning Evan younger, desperate and dying, dead, if only for a moment, Alek gasped softly and fought with tears that sprang to his eyes. Then a sense of helplessness, anger and betrayal started to hit him next, but Evan just pulled Alek closer, not letting him leave him there alone when he’d just left himself so bare and exposed. Alek lay down half on top of Evan, arms wound around him in a wounded hug.

“Tell me about it,” Alek murmured.

Evan took a deep breath.

“I never felt right. I always felt like something was wrong with me. Kids picked on me a lot. I wasn’t as good at standing up for myself when I was really little and when they’d try to cut me down, it usually worked.”

“You were naturally sensitive,” Alek guessed.

“Yeah. And Charlie tried to help. He taught me to fight, so I fought. I fought all the time. And when I realized I was gay—that was long after kids were calling me homophobic slurs. But knowing in my heart that they were right? I thought that was what was wrong with me. I thought it was something shameful to be gay, so I hid it. I never told anybody, and pursued what I wanted, except with drunken strangers who I wasn’t even attracted to and who pretty much pushed themselves on me. I didn’t even tell my dad. He still doesn’t know I’m gay.”

“But that’s not what was wrong with you. Was it,” Alek sighed.

“No,” Evan said, choking on the words. “It wasn’t.”

God
, Alek thought,
all that time and no one knew. No one could see it. And it’s so obvious....

“You needed him. You needed Brennan.”

“What are you supposed to do, when you know in your heart you’re missing something that big? The hole he left was like this wound that couldn’t heal. But I didn’t know I
was
missing him! It didn’t make
sense
. They never told me about him! It would’ve helped. I would have made sense if I knew he was out there somewhere, that there was this person who used to be mine and then wasn’t. I never made sense without him. It drove me insane. I decided it would be easier to be dead. I wouldn’t hurt anymore. There would just be... nothing. No pain. No misery. I crushed up a couple of bottles full of these pain pills Charlie had a prescription for from when he threw out his back. I dumped the powder into a bottle of gin and drank it down.”

Evan took a deep breath. Alek held him, caressed him tenderly and tried not to feel the rising anger at Evan’s parents for depriving him of his other half and causing him such confusing, elusive heartache. “They told me Jimmy, my neighbor, is the one who found me. He’s the reason I’m alive. He did CPR and called for the ambulance. They shocked my heart after it stopped. I upchucked some of the poison and almost asphyxiated on it. All of that just seems like a story about someone else. I don’t remember anything after lying down in that field behind my house and falling asleep. I woke up a month later from my coma. Everyone wanted to know why. Why, Evan? Why would you do such a terrible thing to your father? I didn’t leave a note, because I didn’t even know how to explain it to myself let alone other people, so they were baffled. But....”

Alek murmured, “It didn’t fix anything.”

“Nope. I was still fucked up. Then I was this poor kid who tried to off himself and everyone felt sorry for me and scared for me, but I was still miserable. The stay in the mental ward didn’t last too long. Dad was smart enough to realize it wasn’t helping. So he tried to give me more reasons to be happy I was alive. It was crazy, how much stuff he did just for the sake of doing it. I mean, he didn’t know. He was clueless. Sure, it sent some mixed messages, like he was changing all of this stuff about me and my life, so it just reinforced the idea that it was bad enough to warrant changing. But it was enough, I guess, to see how much he needed me to be there with him. He was so desperate to find some way to make me happy. And so what if he never did make me happy? He cared enough to try.”

Evan told Alek about the Lasik, the car, the training in mechanics, the hunting license, and also the things Jimmy had given him, like helping Evan get involved at the homeless shelter, making an active difference in the lives of others much worse off than himself. Since Alek never had a parental figure go out of their way to try to make him happy, he could see how the affection in the act itself could lend comfort, even if the results weren’t ideal. He would have loved for his mother to put a little more effort into showing her affection. But he wasn’t sure he would ever trade Luka for his mother’s love, if that was the only way to get it. Either way, it was a shitty situation.

Alek rolled off of Evan and grabbed a bottle of rum, opening it up and taking a long drink.

“Can I? Thanks,” Evan said gratefully, taking the bottle from Alek for a small sip from the bottle’s mouth. “That’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. I think I win.”

Alek frowned at him. Carefully taking the bottle out of Evan’s hand, he set it aside and surged toward Evan, straddling his hips and holding down his arms. Kissing him passionately, with all the fear of having someone so precious and irreplaceable stolen away when he’d only just been discovered. Alek poured his heart into every moment, every touch, cherishing Evan, being grateful to have him. The fear did strange things to Alek’s heart, though. It broke down walls he never wanted to have to do without. He could feel Evan getting inside him, changing Alek’s heart and making a home for himself there. That was scary too, as wonderful as it was, but caused Alek to just kiss Evan more passionately. Needing to touch, to feel him, vital and alive, Alek’s hands slid upwards. His fingers spread as they got to Evan’s hands so they could lace between his fingers.

“Don’t you dare even think about hurting yourself again, you hear me? It’s selfish and stupid and the pain something like that causes in the people that love you—that’s unforgivable,” Alek said, trying to make Evan see how it wasn’t just Charlie anymore who needed him healthy and living. There was an echo of panic as Alek imagined he knew why Charlie tried so hard to affect basic things about Evan’s life, using pathetically material things to erase his child’s soul-deep pain. Alek would do anything, too, to keep Evan from slipping away like he once did.

“Okay,” Evan said meekly.

Alek asked, “Are you glad you told me?”

“Yeah, I kind of feel lighter,” Evan admitted.

“You’ve gotta talk about things. Maybe if you’d talked more to Charlie, he would have told you about Brennan before it got that bad.”

Realization lit Evan’s eyes. Alek watched the look on his face as he realized for what seemed the first time that if he’d just bothered to say something to his father, his pain could have been vanquished before anything happened.

“Oh.
Oh
. I never really thought about it like that.”

“So if something is bothering you,” Alek cupped a hand over Evan’s heart, beating more gently now. “Promise me you’ll tell me, or Bren, or someone. Anyone.
Please
.”

“I promise.”

“Is anything else bothering you?”

Evan blurted it out. “I feel guilty about being attracted to Brennan. He kissed me last weekend, like
kissed
me. I mean, he did it because I accidentally got hard when we were, um, wrestling a little bit, and he was afraid I was freaking out. I
was
freaking out, so he had reason to be concerned, I guess. But he kissed me. And I liked it. And I kissed him back. Now it’s making me feel fucked up again.”

“Did Brennan like it?”

“Yeah.”

“Because I’m pretty sure he and Luka were in the hallway listening when I stuck that plug in you, tonight, and that they were going at it in the bed when we walked by because it turned them on. Clearly that’s not a bad thing, Evan. I know our society frowns upon the whole incest thing, but then look at how much straight guys get off on the idea of dating female twins. Look at all of those people who fall in love and get married only to find out later they’re long-lost relatives. It happens in every country, in every part of the world. The way the world works is never clear cut, black and white, no matter how much politicians or religious people want to believe otherwise. It’s always shades of gray. People act on feelings, need, and instinct, not rules. If you’re into it, and Brennan is into it, you’re consenting adults. That’s all that matters. Trust me, I know.”

“So you’re really not mad? I mean, besides the whole brother thing, I kissed someone else. I confessed I’m attracted to someone else, too.”

“That’d be kind of hypocritical of me, don’t you think? Luka and I have kind of taken a break from each other out of mutual respect for our new relationships, but if you want to mess around with Bren, I’m okay with that. Just use protection if things go that far.”

Evan’s eyes widened. “You really think they’d go that far?”