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“Why are you crying, baby boy?” he asked.
I didn’t realize I was until a sob made my chest tremble. But it wasn’t a sob at all. It was a laugh. “You make me happy,” I whispered.
He said nothing else. Instead, he simply put a hand on the back of my head and held me there, on his shoulder, while happy tears brimmed in my eyes and a grin stretched so wide on my mouth I must have looked like a fool.
The storm arrived early in the morning. The rolling thunder ripped across the sky and startled me awake. Jordan was next to me because we didn’t sleep apart anymore. He would sneak back to his room before “waking up” and heading downstairs. Or, when I slept in his bed, I would tiptoe across the balcony to do the same.
Rain pelted the white and blue tiles on the balcony floor, splashing the windows, drenching the ground, and nearly ripping the leaves off the trees according to the sound it made. The storm was much worse than what I’d expected. The bolts of lightning split the sky and thunder roared so loudly that the glass shook and rang in the window frames.
“Fuck,” I murmured, sleepy after staying up so late and, frankly, a little scared. It was obviously day outside, but the clouds were so thick and dark that sunlight was struggling to get through them.
I only managed to sit up before a stronger wave of rain arrived, washing my windows and door like they were a cascading waterfall. I could barely see the world outside my room.
He wasn’t sneaking over the balcony this morning. I wouldn’t let him, even if he was foolish enough to try.
Jordan muttered something as another roar of thunder rippled above us.
Fear was beginning to fill me. I found Jordan’s hand and squeezed it. My heart was speeding up, pounding against my ribcage. The wind was lashing the house and the rain came down in buckets. It wasn’t that I distrusted George’s construction skills, but this wasn’t the sort of storm you expected.
I grabbed my phone and unplugged the charger, then looked around the room, trying to think if there was anything else I needed to unplug. Before I could get up, Jordan’s eyes were open, and a frown was creasing his brow. But I didn’t have time to say anything. We both knew he had to sneak back to his room before the thunder woke up our parents.
I inhaled a breath of air, as if to say something, when my heart nearly burst out of my chest. For a moment, I had no idea what had happened, except that my ears rang, and all my instincts told me to run for my life. A lightning bolt had struck something so close that a flash of white light with an almost purple edge poured into the room. At the same instant, the terrible crashing sound ripped through my skull.
I yelped in fright, and Jordan sat up, wrapping his arms around me as if he could protect me from a storm. At that moment, I believed that he could.
“George! Boys!” Mom. She called us loudly while thumping up the stairs. A door at the end of the hallway slammed shut.
I jumped out of bed and succeeded in pulling my underwear up my legs before my hands began trembling violently.
“Boys?” George echoed loudly. “Get up. Jordan!” Another door slammed open as I jumped out of my bed and crossed the room. “Jordan?” George was calling while panic entered his voice as if a lightning strike had pulverized his son.
My gaze darted to the window while fear crashed on me from all sides. I could see a blaze out there despite the rain. The flames were winking out under the downpour and my heart stopped for a second. The lightning bolt had struck the old oak in the backyard, splitting it in half.
It was pure luck it hadn’t struck the house itself. But it still could.
As if time itself was slowing down, I still managed to look at the horrified expression on Jordan’s face. It only lasted an instant before the door of my room flew open.
Had I not locked it last night? No. In the night, I had gone to the bathroom. Stupid, stupid boy. How could I have…? But what good would it have done us? Jordan was here and my mother was opening the door after they had found Jordan’s room empty.
“Asher,” Mom hissed in fear, finding me standing in the middle of the room, in my underwear, hair a mess of locks that went in every direction and eyes wide with fear. It took her a moment — a moment that seemed to last forever as my mind raced and raced — before her gaze moved from me to my bed.
I followed it, my mouth opening in horror, and found Jordan holding the plain white sheet close to his chest, a frown contorting his eyebrows, one bare leg hanging off the edge of the bed, his underwear plainly on the floor three feet away.
“Are they there? Eileen?” George stormed in after my mom, his composed gaze scanning the room methodically for damage or fire before he nodded. “I see. I, uh… Eileen?” He turned to my mom as if to invite her out of the room.
It’s not what it looks like, I thought I shouted. My mouth worked, but the silence was all I managed to produce. What good would it have been if I spat out that blatant lie? It was exactly what it looked like. My stepbrother was naked in my bed, and the sheer horror on both our faces was enough to incriminate us, to condemn us.
“What is going on here?” Mom said, her voice dropping so low I could barely hear it over the pelting rain. Thunder rolled over the sky, nearly shaking the roof off the house.
“Not now, Eileen,” George said in pure frustration. “Go downstairs, boys. Both of you.”
Jordan produced a sound as if to protest leaving the bed and the last of his decency in it.
“How could you?” Mom spat. Me? But she wasn’t looking at me. Her furious gaze turned to Jordan. “Don’t you have any shame at all?”
“Eileen, for God’s sake, let them go downstairs,” George snapped angrily.
Mom spun to look at him, the hurt and disgust so visible on her face. “I will do whatever the hell I like!” Her hands closed into fists. Even wearing her white and pink pajamas, she was intimidating, seemingly ready to claw everyone’s eyes out if we asked for it.
