Bound by Lies (3 page)

“Ahh! Please.
Please
.”

It seemed to be all that Andre needed. With two twisting, corkscrewed squeezes up Brayden’s cock, he brought him off. After Brayden spilled thick and hot over his roommate’s hand, he was let go and slowly staggered away to get cleaned up.

“Brayden,” Andre tried.

Brayden just waved him off.

The talk they should have had never happened, because Brayden wouldn’t talk. For the next couple of weeks, things continued and progressed down a dangerous path. Their friendship remained paramount, but it was never quite the same.

Then, at the worst possible time, the call came, the one that removed Brayden from Andre’s life for the foreseeable future, giving him an out and letting him escape revelations only just beginning to bloom.

Sitting at a traffic light, only an hour from his hometown, Brayden looks at himself in the rearview mirror. His face is a classically handsome one, though he doesn’t see it that way. All he can see is the boy he was, called pretty in mocking ways, always with laughter and sneers. Tucking a stray tendril of his shoulder-length brown hair, laced with sun-kissed streaks of blond, behind an ear, Brayden examines the person in the mirror, a stranger to him. Fear and misery sit right beneath the surface, in the glassiness of his eyes, in the pout of his lips. He wonders if he’s running toward something or away.

The call came a week ago. Brayden could not ignore it, no matter how much he might have wanted to. His peaceful life on the beach was interrupted.

He quit his job as a lifeguard, gave Andre notice that he’d be moving out, packed his Jeep and prepared to migrate back to everything he thought he left behind for good. The years he spent growing up in Robertsville, Pennsylvania were miserable ones. They were all about survival. Survive school and the ravenous rumormill of that too-small town, escape, find happiness—those used to be his goals.

And he did. He did what he set out to do and he was so close to finding happiness. For the first time, things had finally started to make sense. It was a miracle, that elusive understanding. He got a real glimpse of it, like the twinkling of a star. Then it was snatched away as the dark closed in.

Because Brayden’s Nana can’t keep up with her bills anymore.

She admitted, humbly, to having a hard time providing for her ward, Brayden’s young cousin, Emma Leah. There is no one else left who can help them, only Brayden. Lara’s Brayden. Lara, who exists as more of an idea than a mother, or a daughter, though she is those, too. Brayden is Lara’s son, but he is his father’s son as well, and Brayden suspects it was the latter that got Nana to pick up the phone, and to hope. Even at twenty-two, he understands what it must have cost his Nana to do that much.

Max shouts with exasperation, “You coming? Hey. Parrish! Are you coming?!”

“Hmm?” Jenner Parrish grunts in response to her pestering, too fixated on his prey to be bothered with actual eye contact. The tip of his index finger is pressed thoughtfully to his mouth. The gi hanging from his tall, tapered frame merely hints at the power contained within it, draping over broad, thickly muscled shoulders and biceps impressive enough to melt panties clear across the county. As he swallows and taps the seam of his lips with the finger, his naturally sunken cheeks hollow even more, framing the mouth nearly every girl that sees him wants to kiss, but, oh-so-tragically never will.

Begrudgingly admitting the sexy picture he makes, Max continues, “Yeah, your highness, I’m talkin’ t‘you.”

Max, short for Maxine, lets the full force of a borrowed Staten Island accent, one she learned from her parents who were and will always be New Yorkers at heart, pour into her words. It has the effect she desires. Jenner Parrish smiles and shifts his gaze to look at her. She’s down the hall from where he’s lingering near the double doors leading to the indoor lap pool at the neighborhood YMCA.

“Hey babydoll,” someone yells obnoxiously to her from the other direction. It’s a voice she recognizes even as she shares a knowing look with Jenner and smiles bitterly. “You busy tonight? ’Cause if you’re not, I can help you with that.”

“I’m keeping her plenty busy, Todd. Thanks,” Jenner answers for her, before she can decide exactly how she’s going to disable the asshole she would bet a week’s worth of tips is making lewd gestures behind her back for Jenner’s benefit.

Todd Flemming is one of Jenner’s old buddies from the football team—a beefy, square-faced fullback who couldn’t find his ass with two hands and a flashlight. Five years later and it’s the same bullshit every time, without fail. Their bodies get older by the day but for some, they’ll always be in high school, making jokes about what a whore she is just because one of her ex-boyfriends from freshman year felt bitter about their breakup and started telling stories about her as revenge.

“I’m sure you will, Parrish!” Todd cackles, his voice echoing more as he walks away. “You fucking animal! Leave some leftovers for the rest of us!”

Receeding footsteps tell Max that the asshole is gone for now. She tries to let it roll off her back, as usual. It’s not worth her time. Never is.

Jenner’s dark, sapphire blue eyes fix on her, sweeping over her body, head to toe in an appraising way, maybe trying to see her the way that Todd and the other guys do, maybe just pretending to because he knows people could still be watching them, eavesdropping, and whispering. Though she’s also wearing a gi, hers is tied to accentuate her ample breasts and tiny waist. Hand braced on one cocked hip, she tosses the inky black curtain of her hair back over her shoulder, eyes sparkling with wicked impatience.

“Hey, beautiful,” Jenner tells her, “your Bronx is showing.”

Though she was born in New York, she never got to experience life there. One day she’s going to go back. Mimicking her parents’ accent has always been a fun way to pretend she’s not really from this awful little town, Robertsville, at all, but just a visitor, passing through on the way to somewhere better.

“You’re my ride. Can ya get yer head out of your ass and get your shit already?”

She loses his attention. He looks back towards the pool. “Have you seen this?” he asks distractedly, pointing through the doorway.

Max sighs dramatically and stalks over, “What? What are we looking at?”

“That,” he says, speaking low so that only she can hear, gesturing with a tilt of his head. Her gaze lingers on him a moment longer, though, and the way his short dark hair and naturally pale coloring enhance the sinister appearance of his stare. It astonishes her as much as it always has, the power Jenner has over people, able to intimidate men into fearing him, able to make girls swoon. As one of Jenner’s best friends since second grade, and not even of the same sexual orientation as he is, she is constantly, and very annoyingly, unable to resist him.

She follows his gaze and sees.…

“Jesus Christ,” she breathes.

“Mm, maybe if he grew in a beard, but with a face that pretty, it’d be a sin.”

“Who is that? He can’t be from around here. No one has a natural tan that perfect. He doesn’t even have
tan lines
. Does he?”

“No, I’ve checked,” Jenner murmurs.

“Yeah, I bet you have.”

The pair of them gape at the bronzed god climbing out of the pool, water cascading almost in comically melodramatic slow motion like they’ve stepped into a bad porno. It flows down over an impeccable swimmer’s body, the muscles all long and lean and flawlessly sculpted, from the ripples of his washboard abs to his mouth-watering bubble butt barely covered by a teeny-tiny, itty-bitty suit. He tosses his long hair back, spraying water in a glittering arc, revealing the face of a model, with wide, captivating, brightly colored eyes. The suit is wedged in his butt crack, and when he uses a finger to pluck at the edge and momentarily peel back the edge of his super-small bathing suit to unstick it, Max notices Jenner zero in on the spot, even turning his head for a better angle, like it might help him see underneath what’s barely keeping the man decent enough to be out in public.

Jenner sighs, “Do you know how
badly
I need to take a bite out of his ass?”

“I can imagine. But I’m calling it. He’s mine. No way he’s queer.”

Jenner laughs maliciously, his bow-shaped lips curling. “Obviously you aren’t paying attention. Look closer.”

She rolls her eyes at him again and huffs. Humoring him, she endures the hardship of staring at the gorgeous newcomer a little longer. “What?”

“He doesn’t have a single hair on his entire body. Well, you know, except for on his head but that goes without saying.”

“So?”

“So, how many straight guys do you know that endure a full-body wax on a regular basis?”

“He’s a swimmer! Swimmers wax. It’s, you know, aerodynamic.”

Jenner laughs again. She doesn’t like it. It sounds too much like the way he laughs when they’re not alone and he’s pretending to be an asshole like everyone else.

“Stop that, I’m serious,” she pouts. “Hey, I just thought of something. You know that weird light blue Jeep with the surfboard that’s been parked on our street since the weekend? I saw it in the parking lot,
here
, when we pulled up. Surfboard, super tan, super hot swimmer.…”

“No, it’s not possible,” Jenner scoffs, but slowly, doubt creeps into his expression. He starts to piece it together. “Hey, what’s the name of the old lady that lives at that house?”

“Clare. Ms. Clare.”

“Holy shit.”

“What?” She watches, oblivious to the reason for Jenner’s revelation as his mouth falls open with shock. “What?!”

He hisses, gobsmacked, “Do you know who that
is
?!”

“Who? The hotass over there? No. Why would I—”

“That’s
Brayden Clare
. He was a year behind us.”

She stares confusedly at Jenner, scanning her memories of time-faded faces from high school.

“I think I’d remember him if he looked like
that
.”

“He didn’t look like that in high school! He was…” Jenner gestures, mapping out an invisible body in the air before him with his hands “Short. Skinny. Pale. Pimply. Forgettable. Come on, you have to remember. That’s the kid whose dad died. Those assholes always called him Cry Baby Braydy.”

Now Max’s mouth falls open, her dark lipstick outlining the perfect O it makes, “No fucking way! He… he’s.… He got… taller.”

“Taller? He’s sex on legs. That’s a little more impressive than a growth spurt. That’s a
miracle
.”

“Cry Baby Braydy isn’t gay,” Max protests, staring at him from across the pool again, with renewed, changed curiosity, comparing the past to the present. “They just said that stuff because he was small and girly looking.”

“If he’s not gay, he fuckin’ will be after I get
my
hands on him.”

Despite Max’s repeated attempts, Jenner doesn’t let her pry him away from the door to the swimming pool until Brayden exits, walking right past them as they quickly face the other way and pretend to be heavily in conversation with each other. Jenner stealthily follows him to the locker room, with Max singing quietly in his ear, “Someone’s got a stalker!”

As Jenner stands at his locker, changing out of the gi while stealthily watching Brayden peel the tiny bathing suit off, Jenner actually gets dizzy from the sight of Brayden’s bare ass. All of the blood in his head plummets south, as if it’s decided that filling the hugest hard-on he’s had in months is much more important than maintaining brain function. Lips parted around an unvoiced moan, leaning against the row of lockers, he helplessly stares at the dimples in Brayden’s lower back and tries to fix into his memory the glorious sight of his perfectly shaped, perfectly tanned butt cheeks. It’s only a glimpse before a towel hides the marvelous sight and Brayden absconds to the showers, leaving Jenner with a major case of blue balls.

Realizing that there’s no way he’ll be able to speak actual words to Brayden under the circumstances—it’s not like Jenner can waltz right up to him in the showers without seeming a total pervert—Jenner makes some attempt to get control of himself and gets dressed.