Silent (14 page)

The magical spell broken, I finally had a chance to realize what I’d been doing.

Jesus
Christ.

I was frightened, confused, sick to my stomach, and yet still fighting an erection. And all those emotions were multiplied times a thousand one second later, when Brandon’s face appeared in the fog.

“What the hell are you two doing back here?”

I instinctively twisted my body to hide the bulge at my crotch, but beyond that, I had no ability to form a clear thought.

“Alex? What the fuck?” Brandon stared at me, waiting for my explanation, eyes narrowing from surprise into suspicion.

I still couldn’t speak. Never in my life had I felt so close to spontaneously bursting into tears. No witty retorts, no clever explanations came to me. I couldn’t think of a damn thing to throw him off the scent.

Meanwhile, as I lay in a quivering pile of nerves, Seb stood. With what looked like deliberate showmanship, he extended his arm toward Brandon, hand closed in a fist. Then, one at a time, he uncurled his fingers to reveal a small, dirty cigarette butt. He flicked it between his index and middle finger and mimed bringing it to his lips.

“Are you fucking kidding me, Alex?” Brandon exclaimed. “You’re teaching him how to
smoke
?”

My brain spluttered back to life. “Uh…he…he doesn’t even like it, so you don’t have to worry.”

“Teaching a special kid how to smoke. God, could you sink any lower?”

I scrambled onto all fours, then pulled myself up the side of the shed, still keeping my body turned away. “Please don’t tell Ms. Loretta…I’ll…I’ll mow the lawn for you tomorrow!”

“Whatever.” Brandon rolled his eyes. “Get your asses inside. Ms. Loretta and Ms. Cecily had to go visit a sick friend, and they left me in charge.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

With one last disappointed shake of his head, Brandon turned and left.

For several seconds, I stood completely motionless, fingers clutching the shed for support. What the
fuck
had I been thinking? Everything…
everything
I’d been doing back there with Seb was wrong, on so many levels.

Why had I developed such a need to talk with a retarded mute in the first place? Not that
talk with
were the right words. And how could I possibly have gotten so carried away as to even
dream
of…

Seb grabbed my hand and tugged me.

Hesitantly, I met his eyes, afraid of what I might find…but all I saw was his same calm, expressionless stare.

At least he didn’t seem angry with me. Maybe he’d pushed me off because he’d been frightened by the sound of footsteps…footsteps I hadn’t heard at all. In any case, it’d been a lucky break for me.

“Hey,” I whispered. “Thanks for that. Brandon wouldn’t have understood…about the hug thing.”

Seb blinked twice, then started walking for the back door.

I let my hand fall out of his and remained still a moment longer, using the time to catch my mental breath and regroup. That had been a close call. Way too fucking close. If it hadn’t been for Seb’s quick-thinking response, I would’ve been totally screwed.

I took two steps toward the house, and then froze again.

Wait…quick
thinking
?

Chapter 11: Up in Smoke

“Wake up!” A pillow hit me square in the face. “You’ve got some mowing to do.”

I peeled my eyes open slowly to see Brandon’s smug grin.

“And really, I think you might also need to mow for me next time, too.”

“Whatever,” I grunted. Wearily, I pieced together the fact that my colossal screw-up of the night before had not been a dream. Damn. “When am I
not
mowing the lawn.”

“Dunno.” Brandon jumped onto my bed, jabbing his knee into my stomach and pushing out my breath. “But we’re
so
glad you joined us! Dwayne and me may never have to mow again.”

He stuck his hand in my hair and tossed it around, ending with a noogie.

“Get the fuck off me!” I gasped.

“Make me.” He pinned my shoulders to the bed, and for just a
split
second, I looked up at him with what had to be a dopey smile.

Then I started struggling appropriately, swinging a leg out to knock him off balance and eventually toppling him to the floor. A part of me wanted to continue the play-wrestling for as long as possible, but if there was anything I’d learned from what’d happened, it was that I clearly couldn’t be trusted.

Brandon left the room whistling, and I immediately rolled around to face Seb’s bed.

He wasn’t there.

Fuck. I needed to see him. There were…things I needed to figure out.

Then again, maybe what I really needed was to avoid him until I had this whole urge-to-feel-up-a-special-kid thing under control.

I got up and threw on some already-dirty jeans and a white muscle shirt, then headed down to the shed to get the mower. Still no sign of Seb.

Before I could rev up the engine, Ryan came toward me holding a tray in his hands. He was walking with exaggeratedly slow steps, his tongue hanging out of his mouth as he tried not to spill a drop of the very large glass of lemonade that balanced there.

“What’s that for?” I asked, giving myself a silent reminder to watch my language. I was in enough trouble as it was.

“It’s to drink,” Ryan responded with an air of superiority, like he’d managed to figure out something I hadn’t. “It’s lemonade.”

“I can see that.” I rolled my eyes and took it from him, smirking when he let out a sigh of relief.

“It’s from Ms. Loretta,” he added. “She said she don’t want to know why you always mowing the lawn so much, but she hopes it’s out of the goodness of your heart.”

Fuck.

“That it?”

“Yeah, she also said she hopes you not quite so good in the future.”

I ground my teeth. It probably wasn’t a good idea to push my luck with this particular payment for favors. At least not now that it was tainted by something I
desperately
had to keep secret. Ms. Loretta cared a whole lot about bad influences—especially on the little boys—and I figured in her mind, Seb probably counted as one of those.

Oh well. At least Brandon hadn’t told.

“Tell her…thanks,” I mumbled, bringing the glass to my lips. It was pretty sweet, but I liked it like that.

Ryan skipped away, and I turned back to the mower. God, I hoped the sound of that clattering engine would be able to drown out my thoughts. I really needed a vacation from myself.

As I began cutting the grass, my eyes wandered over to the steps of the back porch. The last time I’d been mowing, Seb had sat out there and watched. It’d been his new spot to spend the afternoons, after I’d dragged him out to see that basketball game. Second step down, all the way to the left, every day for the last couple of weeks. Seb was a creature of habit.

But today, he didn’t appear. Was it possible he was avoiding me, too? Maybe I
had
freaked him out. What kind of pervert was I…taking advantage of sweet, trusting Seb? And maybe the whole smoking cover-story was actually the last thing he remembered doing back there with me…or maybe he’d been
telling
on me. I had no way of knowing.

The back door swung open, but it was only Andrew who emerged. He was carrying a box with a picture of a dinosaur skeleton on it and wearing his favorite Batman t-shirt. He wore that shirt as many times as he could get away with, which seemed strange for a boy who’d once barely owned a single outfit.

I was almost done with the backyard when Brandon came out. He gave me a cheery nod before plopping down beside Andrew.

“Whatcha up to?” he asked the boy.

“I’m building a dinosaur.”

“Where’d you get that thing?”

Andrew looked up proudly. “My teacher gave it to me for behaving good.”

“Oh, so you mean when you behave good, you get rewarded?” Brandon said a little too loudly, with a smirk in my direction. “And maybe when you behave bad, you get punished?”

I flipped him off when Andrew wasn’t looking.

“Yup.” Andrew nodded.

“What kind of dinosaur is it?”

“T-Rex. The coolest,” Andrew replied. “Could you help me hold the pieces while I put on the glue?”

Brandon hesitated for only a second before shrugging. “Sure.”

They continued to construct the model together while I passed them repeatedly in my left-to-right mowing pattern. I couldn’t help being just a little bit moved by the sight. There were so many sides to Brandon—the smug, confident, maybe a little arrogant side; the playful, teasing side; even the loving, considerate side he showed with Laloni…and now the patient big brother side. He certainly got along with the little kids a lot better than I did.

Why did he have to be so perfect? God. It was probably his fault I was all over Seb. I knew I couldn’t have him, so I just transferred my raging hormones over to the next available person.

Yeah, that sounded about right. I could buy that.

~*~

Fifteen minutes before lights out, I still sat in the living room—an unusual occurrence for me. Brandon had on some CW show while I was mostly watching the clock.

I didn’t know where Seb was, and I’d only seen him in passing all day. I hadn’t heard anyone go out back that evening, but then again, he could slip around like a ghost when he wanted to.

Not that it mattered where he was. I couldn’t go out behind the shed anymore. That place was no longer safe…which meant I had nowhere to hide out here. I’d either have to become a full-fledged member of the household, or leave.

And by this time, I knew I wasn’t going to leave. Not unless my mom showed up, anyway.

Brandon offered me the remote. “Think I’m gonna turn in. Might go in to school a little early tomorrow to hang out with Laloni.”

I shook my head. “Yeah, that’s okay. I’m not really watching.”

He turned off the TV, and we headed upstairs. Andrew and Ryan were already tucked in, and Dwayne was reading in bed. Seb was nowhere to be found.

“Who’s in the shower?” Brandon asked, dropping his jeans and pulling up his pajama pants. I watched, but not really with much interest. I was more concerned with keeping my peripheral vision on the window, waiting for a glimpse of anything blond.

“Seb,” Dwayne answered.

Brandon and I both did double takes. “Seb never takes showers at night,” Brandon protested.

“Well, he is tonight. Who knows what goes through that kid’s head?”

Seriously.

I put on my own pajamas, trying to ignore the strange sadness that haunted me. Seb was changing. I was changing. We’d never have those innocent, peaceful moments behind the shed again, where I could talk through my problems, say things out loud I could never say before.

And it was my fault. I’d gone and taken the innocence out of the whole thing.

The lights went off at the appropriate time and we all settled into bed, but the shower was still running.

“Should I go get him?” Brandon asked. “Maybe he forgot what he’s supposed to do in there.”

Dwayne chuckled, but I didn’t think it was very funny. He wasn’t
that
retarded…right?

A little while later, the sound of rushing water stopped, and relief coursed through me.

That was, until Seb came into the room.

As soon as he walked in, he looked at me like he hadn’t looked at me all day—with that long, deep, uninterrupted stare he had that was so intense, I usually had to break eye contact. Only this time, I didn’t. He finished drying off and draped his towel on the hook behind the door.

Fuck. No clothes. Just a pair of too-loose boxers that fell below his hipbones.

Why today? Why’d he picked today, of all days, to decide to walk around mostly naked?

Because shit, he had a good body. Not that I’d really doubted it before, but seeing it brought a whole new level of appreciation into the game. Definitely no stunted development there.

“Go to bed, Seb,” I whispered, because he was still staring. “It’s already past lights out.”

I wondered why he hadn’t gotten yelled at…but on second thought, I supposed there were special exceptions for the…
disabled.

He climbed into bed, still watching me, but there again he did something completely out of the ordinary. He didn’t pull up the comforter and hide himself in his usual tunnel of blankets. Instead, he gripped the sheet lightly and left it lying halfway up his thigh. Then, with one last, long blink in my direction, he slowly turned around.

Jesus Christ,
why
didn’t he have boxers that fit him properly? These were drooping so far down I could see crack, and the soft starting curve of two perfectly-formed butt cheeks.

I sucked in a gulp of air and held it. Held it for what felt like an eternity. Dwayne’s little snores and Brandon’s deep, even breaths became louder in the silence. Time ticked by, and I grew more confident that everyone was asleep.

But I wasn’t even close. I was still staring at the exposed body lying right next to me. Almost reluctantly, I reached under my blankets to confirm what I already knew.

Yup, I was hard. And touching myself just made me harder.

I was now faced with a moral dilemma the likes of which I’d never had to deal with in my life. Was it wrong to be attracted—in a purely physical sense, of course—to someone who was mentally handicapped? Or was it only wrong if I acted on it?

Or was it only wrong if he
knew
I was acting on it?

My hands were shaking, but all the same I dug into my duffel bag and pulled out the first t-shirt I found. I didn’t have anything great in there, so I didn’t really care which one I selected. Careful not to make a sound, I pulled the t-shirt under my covers and lowered it to right below my waist.

Was I really going to do this in a room full of people?

I looked at Seb’s back side, touched myself again, and wild shivers ran up my spine. Yes, apparently I was. And I knew I could be quiet enough, if I really set my mind to it.