Misfits Like Us (Like Us #11)(70)

But I have to.

There’s no way to make this right without being here.

“Colin—”

“You know the rules,” he interrupts and lights a cigarette. He motions to me, up and down. “Clothes off.”

Paranoid fuckers.

I grip my T-shirt and pull it over my head. Next, I kick off my shoes, remove my belt, and step out of my pants. Nothing but socks and black boxer-briefs and pierced nipples, I hold out my arms like done.

Colin barely blinks. “All of it.”

I don’t move. Instinctually, my feet plant. Normally, I wouldn’t bat an eye going buck naked, but I hate doing anything under duress.

He blows out smoke. “I don’t want to see your dick, but I’m not about to get reamed out if you have a wire and I was the one that let you slide.” He motions to me again. “Either get fucking naked or get the fuck out of my house.”

Taking a breath, I tear off each sock and then slide off my underwear. Colin evaluates me head to toe. My white pale skin is decorated with ink in random places. Like my elbow. Below my hips. My arm. Over my heart. Along my ribs. My legs.

Scattered, most old and some sorta new. With my socks off, I’m just hoping he doesn’t see the names on my ankle.

“Turn around.”

I do.

He keeps looking for something that’s not there. I’m not here to spy on him or my family.

“We good?” I ask.

“Nah,” Colin says. He scoops up my clothes, including one of my favorite Aerosmith tees. I follow him into the kitchen where he dumps my shirt, pants, socks, and underwear in the sink. He swivels the faucet.

I watch him soak my clothes.

While I’m standing naked in his kitchen, Colin rotates back to me. “Now we’re good.”

“You got a robe or something?” I ask him. “I don’t feel all chatty with my dick hanging out around my cousin.”

“Always the comedian.” He laughs and walks towards his bedroom down the hall.

I scan the kitchen. Same as I remember. Linoleum floors, ugly yellow wallpaper, and a rusted stovetop. Kitchen table has baggies of weed and papers, nothing like the shit my parents usually mess with.

A robe hits me in the face.

There are hearts all over it.

“My girlfriend Kate left it here.” He offers me a cigarette, and I take it. “She’s cute. Your type. She’d probably fuck you, if you want.” He doesn’t know me enough to even guess my type.

Colin, I remember as a quiet cousin around my age, always did what he was told. Only three years older, he’d be in my parents’ living room with other family who’d slip in and out of bedrooms. Where I saw they kept the drugs.

That was before they started cooking meth.

“No thanks,” I say, slipping my arms through the robe’s holes. Something sour is roiling around my stomach. I keep the cigarette pinched between my fingers.

“You sure?” Colin takes a seat at the kitchen table. “She’s a big fan of yours. The Ass-Kicker. That’s actually how I got her in the first place, seeing as how I’m the cousin of such a notable celebrity.” The way he says notable celebrity makes it sound like I’m a dime-a-dozen D-List nobody on the side of the road.

“Got lots of cousins like you,” I say. “Maybe she could fuck one of them.”

“But she likes you,” he says. “It would actually earn me points.” He’s serious, I realize.

I don’t say anything.

“She’d pay you, if you need the money.”

I stare him down. He’s unflinching, staring back.

“You’re used to that, right?” he says, trying to push me down. “Getting paid to fuck people…or get fucked by people.” He tilts his head, waiting for me to crack under the weight of his question.

I’m not giving him the satisfaction. I just hold his gaze. “And your point?”

“Maybe you’d like it,” he says into a shrug.

“Nah,” I say. “I didn’t like it then. Not going to like it now.”

“If you didn’t like it, why’d you do it?” he questions.

I give him a look like he’s outta his mind. “You know why.”

“Maybe I want to hear you say it.”

Finally, I put the cigarette to my lips. He tosses me a lighter, and I flame the end. Blowing out smoke, I tell Colin, “There’s no choice when it comes to this family, and you know that.” There is so much darkness in this house, this place, my family—darkness that I haven’t sunken back into in a long, long time.

I already miss the moon.

The girl who’s bright enough to cast light over the whole darkened world. My world. My universe, the one that looks fucked up on the inside, but it’s about the most beautiful thing that I have. My life.

My friends. Who showed me that living is more than just surviving. That living could be loving, and so I’m sitting here and remembering what matters. Them.

All of them.

“We all make our choices,” Colin says after taking a drag. “I’m surprised you didn’t bring what’s-his-name.” His jaw tenses even subtly bringing up Farrow.

They consider Farrow an impenetrable wall that wouldn’t crumble for anything. I think they imagined I’d come running back, but I had support outside.