CROSS (A Gentry Boys Novella)(5)

My brother blew another cloud of smoke and grinned with that kind of all-knowing Stone coolness that made me want to hit him something a whole lot harder than a pillow.

“Shut up,” I ordered.

“Didn’t say a thing, brother.”

“I don’t like what you’re thinking.”

He cocked his head and widened his eyes with mock innocence. “I’m not allowed to think?”

“Not if it’s something dirty about my girlfriend.”

“I wasn’t having any thoughts, dirty or otherwise, about your girlfriend.”

“Bullshit.”

He laughed. “You think I’m into Erin? Forget the fact that she’s wrapped around your ugly ass, I don’t have the patience for that kind of noise.”

My anger rose. “What noise?”

Stone pinched the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, examined it thoughtfully and then set it down on an ancient nightstand that was etched with years of battle scars. He batted his eyes and clasped his hands in front of his chest as he spoke in a high-pitched female voice. “Oh god, I love you. I love you more than ice cream or cheesecake.”

“Knock it off.”

Stone wouldn’t stop. He kept on going in a breathy orgasmic way in a voice that was supposed to mimic Erin’s. “Conway, I love you so much that I’m shitting out pink cotton candy and roses.”

“Stone!”

“And one of these days I might even reward you with my secret female flower so you can stop staining your sheets.”

I shot to my feet. “Get up,” I ordered.

He grinned. “No.”

“You really think you can make fun of my girlfriend like that and I’ll just take it?”

“I wasn’t making fun of your girlfriend, Con-man. I was making fun of you.”

I used my shoulder to knock him into the far wall, which was already cracked and dented from other lesser wars. Stone didn’t push back this time though. He calmly resettled himself on his bed and reached for his cigarette while I breathed fire four feet away.

“You need to be quiet,” he warned mildly. “You’ll wake our loving mother.”

I snorted. “Not likely. You know when she turns the lights out she takes enough sleeping pills to knock out a horse for two days.”

“Maybe. But it’s possible her guest is a light sleeper.”

That caught me off guard. “What guest?”

“Rover.”

I didn’t like the news but there was nothing I could do about it. My mother had always run around with various men, even when my father was still alive. Rover, whose real name was Andy Bowler, was probably fairly harmless as men went. He had a hangdog cartoon kind of face that led Stone to stick him with the Rover nickname. Like much of Emblem’s workforce, he was a prison guard. He hung around sporadically but never got in our way. Still, that didn’t mean I wanted to know that he was lying in bed with my mother down the hall.

Stone watched me with silent amusement. “So, Con-Man it would seem you’re the only member of the household who didn’t get down and dirty last night.”

I flopped back on the mattress, supremely annoyed. “You don’t know what I did or didn’t do.”

“Sure I do. I’m worried about you.”

I folded my arms over my eyes. “Like hell.”

“I don’t like seeing my brother get neutered.”

I took my arms away and peered at him. It was a typical offhand Stone kind of comment but it had a serious edge. Stone was frowning at his cigarette as it continued to burn in his hand. He had the look of a guy who was trying to choose his words carefully. “You guys are just so intense,” he muttered and took another drag.

I shrugged. “Call it love.”

Stone raised an eyebrow. “Is it?”

I sat up. I knew Stone sometimes got annoyed that I was so into Erin these days that I didn’t run around with him as much as I used to. I also knew that he and Erin weren’t the best of friends. But aside from the occasional sarcastic comment he’d never hinted he had a real problem with her.

“Why don’t you like Erin?” I asked with some wariness because I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I couldn’t imagine being pulled between my girl and my brother. They were the two most important people in the world to me.

Stone grimaced and scratched the back of his neck. He started to say something and stopped, shaking his head. “Never mind. I don’t dislike Erin. She’s hot and she’s nice and she worships the ever loving ground you walk on.”

I waited to see if he would say more but he didn’t. He just stubbed the burning cigarette out on the table and promptly lit the next one.

“Look,” I said, “I don’t really want to get another earful from Mom about making this place stink like an ashtray.”

He tapped out a few ashes into an empty water bottle. “You’ll get an earful from her whether it smells or doesn’t smell, whether the place is neat or clean, whether you pull A’s or F’s, whether it’s Sunday or Thursday.”

He was right. Our mother didn’t make a secret out of the fact that she was sick and tired of dealing with two teenage boys. She wasn’t the worst mother in the world. She gave us what we needed and kept a roof over our heads, but she’d always seemed bewildered by her role, forever hot and cold when it came to parenting.