AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The month he’d come home, the full moon had occurred only a day or so before his flight when he was still in Tokyo. He’d spent the next few weeks trying to settle in, contacting the office daily, as well as a handful of his peers and other freelancers, reacquainting himself with his hometown after such a long absence. It was fun at first. He’d hung out with Owen, had attempted to sit at the table with Trapp and Liam as they reviewed a medical school textbook until his fidgeting and chatter had earned Trapp’s stinkeye, and he’d gone off to console himself with attention from his mother.
Even though Cambric Creek boasted more businesses and nightlife every time he saw it again, the town seemed to be shrinking. His parents’ house was the same. The big Tudor had felt like a castle when he was a child, with endless rooms, staircases, and places to hide. That first full moon he’d been home, however, it had felt like an impossible chore not to turn around and trip over one of his brothers, the rooms all seeming so much smaller than what he remembered. The invitation to join Trapp and Grayson for dinner had never come in those initial few weeks, and his first full moon home was also the earliest opportunity to be in a room with Grayson since his arrival.
“Trapp said you have a new job?” It wasn’t the first overture he’d made since Gray and a petite, dark-haired woman had arrived, but it was the first time he’d managed to get his brother alone in the kitchen, trapping him.
“Yes.”
“Oh. Well, that’s-that’s good? You like it so far?”
“No.”
He’d swallowed hard. Grayson never made anything easy. He hadn’t been able to fathom why his brother had left his own lucrative law firm, unless it was for something important.Or something for dad.
“New jobs are always like that, though, right? Once you settle in, things even out?”
Grayson kept his back to Lowell, examining the contents of their parents’ refrigerator as if a movie had been playing inside, pausing for an interminable amount of time before responding.
“I’m nearly at that six-month point where things are allegedly supposed to be getting easier to swallow, but I’m not convinced it’s going to happen.”
“Wait, six months?! I’ve talked to you a million times in the last six months! Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
Gray had never looked up from the cheese he’d located on the top shelf, unwrapping it and making several deft cuts into the wax without ever raising his head. Everything about his older brother was intimidating and meticulous — his size, his immaculate clothing and expensive-looking accessories, the icy cold exterior he presented when he wasn’t being charming, right down to the perfectly coiffed woman he’d brought with him, another pretty accessory, hanging from his arm like a designer bag. He’d always felt like a rumpled pillowcase compared to Grayson, and the feeling had not abated, despite his satisfaction with his life away from Cambric Creek.
“Because you don’t ask questions about anyone else, Lowell. I call you to make sure you’re not dead, and you proceed to talk at me until you get bored. I send you money and I let our mother know that you’re still alive, since you never remember to do her the courtesy of calling her once in a while. Anything else? Or are we done playing catch up?”
He’d sucked in a wounded breath as if Gray’s overly harsh characterization of their phone conversations had been a physical blow, watching as his brother turned away from the cheese board to drop the wax into the garbage and wash his hands silently, striding out of the kitchen a moment later as if Lowell had vanished from the room. Grayson had left shortly after the tense encounter in the kitchen, his companion receiving a phone call necessitating their early departure, and Lowell had not had the opportunity since to either make peace or push back.
His second month home, the morning after the moon had found him groggy and sore, as it always did, dragging to his parents’ house to find the atmosphere unusually somber. Grayson and Vanessa — the girl who’d been there the previous month, who evidently had a name, indicating she was more than just a temporary accessory; a shocking turn of events, he thought — wouldn’t be joining them that month. Gray had a bad turn, had been in the midst of a cluster aura when the change happened and was still unwell.
Trapp had left brunch at one point to go and check on him, mumbling about the hospital, and their mother attempted to smile and make conversation with Victoria and Owen’s coolly reserved girlfriend, although it had been clear she was fretting. Jackson hadn’t known what to do with himself without their father as a captive audience, hovering in the doorways of rooms as if he wasn’t quite sure if it was the one he wanted to enter. Their father had never come in from his position on the deck where he sat brooding, radiating fury over a situation involving a member of his family that had the audacity to be outside of his control, swirling the same glass of bourbon around for much of the day without ever taking a sip. Lowell escaped the oppressive atmosphere of the house, taking little Jack to the back of the property, kicking rocks into the creek, and searching for salamanders.
It annoyed him that Grayson still managed to engender sympathy from people, regardless of how much of a dick he was the vast majority of the time. His brother had suffered from severe migraines all his life, and several times a month throughout his entire childhood, Lowell would be practically threatened with life and limb by their father if he didn’t find someplace to play quietly, far away from Jack’s study, the room behind it being what they all referred to as Grayson’s second bedroom, kept cold and dark and silent.
That had been almost two weeks ago. Two weeks more of Jackson and Victoria’s waning hospitality, two weeks of feeling trapped like a bug under glass, the guest suite of his brother’s home seeming to shrink as the days went by. The sound of his own voice was overloud in his head, desperate for company. He was bored, he was depressed, and he was not going to last if things continued on as they were, and no one, he realized, was going to get him out of this mess for him.
Being Jackson’s best little brother had never really netted him anything valuable. Being Grayson’s junior toadie, on the other hand, had provided access to cars and occasionally alcohol, his first sexual experience as a teen at an out-of-state party thrown by his brother, expensive camera equipment as Christmas presents, his first dabble with recreational drugs at another party, and the name and number of his very first agent, met at one of Grayson’s annual Lupercalia celebrations, a night that had ended with his first threesome.
Grayson was hard and professional, had been the valedictorian of every school he’d ever attended and was an uptight overachiever in every arena, but he was a fan of over-the-top excess and nihilistic debauchery, and Lowell had benefited from all of the above over the years. He’d had visa trouble his second year overseas, winding up in a temporary holding cell in a place where he barely spoke the local language, for a minor,teensytiny transgression so inconsequential he refused to take responsibility for it, and rather than contact the Embassy as he was meant to, he called his brother. The entire thing had been fixed and washed away, and their parents had never needed to find out.
He had been taken in by Jackson’s call, he accepted now; had forgotten how conniving both of his eldest brothers could be, particularly against each other, and had been too excited over the prospect of getting to know his young nephew. He loved spending time with little Jack, but he couldn’t go on another day feeling like a naughty child who’d been sent to their room indefinitely, and the only way to course correct was to get back into Gray’s extremely haughty good graces, a place he’d always comfortably lived.
The windows of Grayson’s silver sports car were tinted, and Lowell was unable to see his expression as he came loping down the driveway in Jackson’s stead, throwing open the passenger door and sliding in before Gray had a chance to run over his foot.
“Jackson said he’ll be out in five minutes. You should’ve seen Victoria’s face when you honked, that was great. Are you done being pissed off at me yet? I’msorry, okay? I’m sorry I let Jackson trick me into coming here. I’m sorry I didn’t ask about your new job. I’m sorry that I’m such a burdensome shit all the time. I’m fucking miserable if it makes you feel any better. I’m never going back to work, I’m not qualified to doanything, and I’m going to wind up being the first Hemming to work at Blinxieburger. I’ll probably have to be the mascot. I’m pretty sure I have the kind of clinical depression they put you in the hospital for, and Jackson seems to think I’m supposed to be happy being locked in my room all day and night. I don’t have anyone to talk to, I haven’t had sex in like four months, and I feel like I’m going to die. What more do I have to do? Tell me how much I have to kiss your ass to make you talk to me again. You wanna bend over and let me give you a rim job right here?”
Grayson’s chiseled face had been screwed up in a scowl when Lowell began speaking, but by the time he was offering rim jobs, his huge shoulders were shaking in laughter.
“You’re such a fucking punk, I can’t stand you. She was mad?”
Lowell nodded enthusiastically.
“Oh yeah, they both were.” He attempted to hide his laughter in his arm when Grayson leaned on the horn again, at the same time Jackson came out the front door. They were still children, and some things would never change. “Trapp said the two of you have dinner together often, and I’m inviting myself along, so let me know next time, okay? I’m not asking; I’m telling you. Do you have the day off or something? Did you have to go to the hospital last month? Why don’t you like your job? Is that girl actually your girlfriend, or just your flavor of the month?”
Grayson huffed in exasperation.
“Lowell, get the fuck out of my car. I’ve been at my office since six. Jackson and I are pulling away to take care of something for dad, and then I’m going back to work, where I’ll be until sometime this evening. Not exactly a day off. The rest of your twenty questions are going to have to wait. The Pickled Pig, ten p.m. on Tuesday night, if you come in dressed like a fucking slob, you’re not sitting with us. Have fun kicking rocks around town all day, kid.”
Jackson glowered at him as he exited Grayson’s passenger seat, tossing a smile back over his shoulder. It was stupid of him to have forgotten what the two of them were like, but it was a mistake he would not be making again. He had spent the majority of his childhood and teen years playing against his two eldest brothers and had forgotten the pros and cons of being aligned with either of them.
