Chaos

by Jamie Shaw

  “What makes you say that?” I share looks with a snotty girl who apparently doesn’t approve of combat boots or pink Chucks, celebrating a small victory when she looks away first.

  Leti turns around and starts walking backward, pretending to read my aura with his hand again. “Your type is . . . tall, thin, but with . . . black hair. Green eyes.” When he stops walking, I stop too. He closes his eyes in mock concentration. “Name starts wiiith . . . ”

  When he peeks an eye open and flat out says, “Shawn,” I put on the best audition for “deer in headlights” anyone has ever seen. I stare, stare, contemplate running away with my arms flailing, stare some more, and then force my lips to curl up in a slow, amused smile.

  “Nice try.”

  Leti’s thick lashes drop over narrowed eyes, the corner of his mouth pulling up in a skeptical smirk. “You know, it’s not very nice to keep secrets from your new best friend.”

  Satisfied I’ve neither confirmed nor denied his suspicion—and barely resisting the urge to shake him violently while demanding to know what ungodly black magic he used to find out about my lingering crush on Shawn—I walk past him with no idea where I’m going. “I thought you said we were third-best friends.”

  Pink Chucks rush to fall in step beside me. “What if I told you a secret about me?”

  I shield my eyes from the sun as I gaze over at him, and then I chuckle. “You don’t have any secrets.”

  His outfit, his hair, his smile—it all screams that he has nothing to hide, and that even if he did, he wouldn’t hide it. He grins at my assessment. “Touché. But you have a ton.”

  I share none of them as we continue walking—not about my present crush, not about my past crush, not about losing my virginity in an upstairs bedroom at Adam’s senior party. If I had a girlfriend, I might call her up and spill my guts, but instead, all I really have is an overbearing twin brother and a guy in neon Chucks who I’ve known for all of twenty minutes.

  Eventually, the latter admits defeat, switching to conversations about the town and the school and a hundred other safe subjects.

  “Have you been to Mayhem yet?” he asks from his place across the table from me at the college’s closest café. We’re sharing a large order of French toast bites while we wait for Rowan to get out of class.

  I shake my head. “Just for my audition. Rowan invited me this past weekend, but I turned her down.”

  She said everyone would be there, and I told her I couldn’t go because I promised my brothers I’d go home for the weekend. But really, I’d just had my fill of Shawn. I was pretty sure any more would kill me. Or turn me into a fiending addict.

  “Probably for the best,” Leti comments while he checks out a Polo who just walked through the door. “We weren’t there long. It turned into a dram-o-rama.”

  “What kind of drama?”

  He gradually gives me his attention. “I didn’t ask. Just another chapter in the ongoing Dee-and-Joel saga.”

  I frown, remembering what a mess Joel was at the last practice. “He seems pretty wrecked.”

  Leti just shakes his head. “I don’t get those two. Never have, never will. What about you, Kitten? Ever been smitten?”

  I nod enthusiastically with my mouth full of bready, cinnamonny goo. “Mhm. He was gorgeous. Put together like you wouldn’t believe. And old-fashioned too. They don’t make them like him anymore.”

  Leti eyes me for a long while, his golden irises getting clearer and clearer. “You’re talking about a guitar, aren’t you?”

  When I burst out laughing, he laughs too, and we’re still chuckling when Rowan slides onto the stool next to him, her head swiveling back and forth between us.

  “What are we laughing about? And um . . . ?” She gestures to me, him, me, him. “When did you two meet? And suddenly become best friends?”

  “Third-best friends,” I correct, and Leti laughs some more.

  “We ran into each other at Starbucks this morning,” he says, “and it was third-best friends at first sight.” With his chin on his hand, he swoons at me, and Rowan unapologetically steals one of our French toast bites.

  “Weird. How’d you know who she was?”

  “How could I not know who she was?” Leti asks. “You said she looked like a rock star. And”—he uses a cinnamon-covered pointer finger to gesture from my head to my toes—“I’ve never seen a more rocking-looking rock star in my life.”

  I remember the way he smiled at me in line, the way he approached me outside, the way he knew everything about me . . . including about my crush on Shawn.

  “Did you tell Leti I had a crush on Shawn?” I blurt, and Rowan’s blue eyes flash wide. I knew it couldn’t have been Shawn, because Shawn doesn’t remember. And the guys in the band are guys—they wouldn’t notice, much less gossip. That left a girl. That left Rowan.

  Leti yelps when she kicks him under the table.

  “I just said you two acted weird around each other,” she stammers. “It just kind of seemed, at the apartment, like maybe . . . ”

  “Like maybe what?”

  “Like . . . ” Rowan is stumbling over words she isn’t saying, and Leti cuts her off.

  “If you don’t think Shawn is hot, you’re blind. Or gay.” He points a French toast bite at me. “Are you surfing the rainbow?”

  I cock an eyebrow at him.

  “Then you think Shawn is hot. Stop denying it.”

  Rowan waits patiently for my response, but I just roll my eyes. “Okay, sure, yeah, I think he’s super-duper hot.”

  Leti grins at my sarcasm, but Rowan just looks confused, or disturbed, or . . . curious. I’m praying she lets it go—and then she does.

  But Leti doesn’t.

  “What do you like best about him, hmm? Those sexy green eyes? That wind-swept black hair? The way he touches his guitar like he wants it to scream his name?”

  When I blush, Leti’s grin is triumphant.

  “So all of the above then.”

  I roll my eyes as hard as I possibly can, kind of hoping I give myself an aneurism or something else to get me out of this conversation. “Sounds like you have a crush of your own.”

  “Oh, I so do.”

  “I just think he’s really talented,” I lie. “And yeah, maybe I had a little crush in high school, but that was six years ago. If I wanted Shawn now, I’d just have him.”

  Damn, that came off cocky. Confident and cocky and awesome. Leti turns to Rowan and smiles wide.

  “Have I told you I love her?”

  I manage a grin I don’t quite feel, wondering if it would really be that easy—if I could make Shawn like me, if I’d even want Shawn to like me.

  And then I kid myself into believing that I wouldn’t.

  That I don’t.

  It’s another lie I tell myself, one I force myself to believe.

  Chapter Five

  THE FIRST FAMILY dinner after meeting Leti, my brothers give me four tons of shit for not showing up at the last one. My mom does her best to save me, but attempting to derail my brothers is like trying to stop a stampede of obnoxious shithead elephants.

  “Forgetting about us already, huh?” Mason chides.

  Of course, every single elephant is sitting on his lazy ass while my mom and I set the dining table, with Mason reclined in his high-backed wooden chair, his arms crossed over a shirt that’s too small for the muscles bulging in his chest. With his dark eyes, buzzed hair, and bad attitude, most people know not to mess with him, but if he thinks I won’t crack him over the head with one of the spoons I’m setting on the table, he’s dumber than I thought.

  “Were you busy writing music?” my mom asks as she sets a basket of dinner rolls in front of Mason, but Bryce opens his big mouth before I can open mine.

  “She was probably busy with her new boyfriend.”

  “You have a new boyfriend?” Ryan asks, but it’s Bryce’s turn for silverware, and his stupid remark was magic—it turned the metal spoon I’m holding into a weapon. A
satisfying “POP!” sounds against the back of his skull, and his hand flies up to his head with a holler.

  “OW!”

  Mason makes a move to grab the spoon from my hand, but I rap him hard on the knuckles, leaving both boys nursing their wounds and Kale chuckling openly at the other side of the table.

  “No, I don’t have a freaking boyfriend,” I finally answer Ryan, placing a spoon peacefully on the napkin by his plate while my mom returns to the dining room with a big pitcher of water.

  “That’s too bad,” she comments as she begins filling glasses.

  I hold back a disgruntled groan. Every dinner, it’s the same thing from her. Kit, have you met anyone? Kit, why not? Kit, Mrs. So-and-So has a son I’d really like you to meet.

  “How can you expect me to get a boyfriend when I have him?” I point to Mason, who grins ruefully. “And him.” I point to Bryce, who doesn’t even notice because he’s too busy grabbing a dinner roll before we’re all even seated.

  Our mom gracefully circles the table, grabs a spoon, and cracks him on the back of the head.

  “OW! MOM!”

  Everyone except Bryce breaks out laughing, and Mom shoots me a wink from behind his chair before making her way back out to the kitchen.

  “You had boyfriends in college,” Kale comments from the seat beside mine—because he’s a damn cold traitor who probably tried to absorb me in the womb and is still bitter I survived.

  Now everyone’s eyes are on me, but there’s not a spoon in the entire world big enough to fix this. My brain stutters through a million responses that aren’t good enough, and I somehow end up sitting in my chair.

  “And high school,” Kale adds, and I kick him so hard with the heel of my combat boot, he squeaks like a little girl.

  “Who?” Mason and Bryce demand to know simultaneously.

  “No one.” I glare at Kale while he cradles his shin in his palm. “Kale is full of crap.”

  “Am not,” he mutters under his breath—because he clearly wants to get kicked again.

  My boyfriends in high school were just friends I experimented with. In college, they were just . . . fun distractions. They weren’t puppy loves or true loves or any kind of loves. They were just . . . there, and then they weren’t.

  I’m saved from having to lie my face off some more when our dad enters the room, patting his big belly loudly enough to break sound barriers. “Needed to make some room!” he proudly announces, sitting at the head of the table and laughing like he’s the funniest guy he knows. He’s been stationed in the bathroom for God knows how long, exercising his Sunday pregame in preparation for Mom’s big meal—a ham big enough to feed a literal football team.

  “So, Kit,” she begins while the boys practically dive face-first into it, “have you made any friends other than the band?”

  “The lead singer’s girlfriend is really cool,” I answer as I scoop some mashed potatoes onto my plate. “She goes to the school out there. And she has this friend, Leti. He’s awesome.”

  “And cute?” my mom not-so-subtly suggests.

  I nod while scooping some corn into my mashed potatoes—a habit I learned from my dad. My mom does this almost every dinner, so I’m ready for her. “And funny. And smart.” Her face begins to brighten. “And gay.”

  She dims and sighs, her hopes for girl talk squandered again. I’ve never been the type to have tea parties or swoon over boy bands or wear frilly dresses. Instead, I come home with piercings and blue hair and boots. Two words, and her maternal battle is lost again—he’s gay.

  “That’s such a shame,” my mom laments, and I cringe for Kale’s sake. Her words are like an invisible whip that lash right in his direction with no one even knowing it—no one but me, and it takes every ounce of restraint I have to not turn to my twin and throw a protective arm around him.

  If my mom knew her youngest son was gay too, she wouldn’t be so insensitive. Or at least I don’t think she would . . . but I have no way of knowing, and neither does Kale. All he knows now is that she just heard I had a gay friend, and her response was that’s such a shame.

  “I just don’t get it,” Mason interjects. “Why would any guy sleep with other guys when there are millions of gorgeous women just begging for it?”

  “Guys are less drama,” Ryan jokes with a smirk on his face.

  “Are you kidding?” Bryce says. “Gay dudes are the most dramatic of all. Always with the hand motions and shit.” He flicks both hands flamboyantly in the air, his voice a lispy stereotype when he says, “Everything is sooo fabulous.”

  Anger bubbles somewhere down deep in my belly, erupting in my voice when I snap, “You’re an ass.”

  Normally, my mom would lecture me about the cursing, but at the anger in my voice, she settles for a cautious, reproachful look.

  Bryce starts laughing and grabs his third dinner roll. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch, Kit. I’m just playing.”

  Just playing? Just playing? I haven’t spared a glance at Kale yet, but I can already see the look on his face. I can feel the hurt.

  “It’s not fucking funny.”

  “Kit,” my mom warns this time, but I make no apology. Bryce is lucky my fork is still lying on my napkin instead of lodged in the meat of his shoulder.

  Dismissively, he says, “Okay, sorry, jeez.” But it does nothing to cool my temper, and I finish my dinner faster than everyone else, tapping Kale’s knee under the table before excusing myself.

  I’m waiting for him in my old room upstairs when my phone dings and Shawn’s face flashes onto my screen.

  Can I come over?

  And if I thought I couldn’t hate my brothers more right now, I was wrong. I’d give anything in the world right now to be at my apartment, with Shawn just a twenty-minute drive away, but here I am, stuck with a bunch of bigoted jerks who unfortunately share my last name.

  The first time I called Shawn was three days ago, when I had a riff playing over and over on my fingers. My excitement about the sound outweighed how nervous I felt about dialing his number, and it wasn’t until the phone was ringing in my ear that I nearly passed out from the blood that rushed to my head. I knew he wouldn’t answer. I knew he wouldn’t call me back. I knew—

  He picked up on the first ring, showed up at my door less than half an hour later, and stayed until I was almost too tired to keep my eyes open.

  I never would’ve asked him to leave, but sometime after midnight, he ended up on one side of my door while I stood on the other. The good-bye was awkward as hell. No goodnight kiss. No promises to call. No promises to text.

  But I did text—the very next day, and the next. And never once did he leave me hanging.

  Now, he’s texting me, and asking if he can come over?

  God, that shouldn’t make me as giddy as it does, but I find myself smiling down at my phone anyway.

  I’m at my parents’. :(

  Why the sad face?

  I kind of hate everyone right now.

  Why?

  It surprises me how badly I want to tell him all about what happened downstairs, but that would require telling him about Kale, and I’ve never told anyone about Kale. My thumbs twitch over my phone until I finally type, Why do you want to come over?

  Because I want you to tell me what happened at your parents’.

  I smile down at my phone, because that is so not why he texted me in the first place, but the fact that he wants to know why I’m sad makes me feel all tickly inside. I roll my eyes at myself, and when my door begins to open, I wipe the grin from my face and shove my phone under my pillow.

  Kale’s shoulders are slumped, the fight drained from his expression when he closes the door behind him and leans back against it. And just like that, the butterflies in my chest are gone, replaced with a quiet aching that I always feel when I know my twin is hurting.

  “I am so, so sorry about what happened down there,” I say, and Kale closes his eyes and rests his head against the wooden frame.

&n
bsp; “It’s not your fault.”

  “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  My twin sighs and opens his eyes, sliding to the floor with his bony elbows propped on his big knees. “You shouldn’t have to keep secrets just because I do.”

  This is normally where I’d try to convince him to just come out—to be who he is, who he has always been—but after what happened downstairs . . .

  “They’re just being stupid,” I say, like that makes things any better.

  The look Kale gives me says that it doesn’t. I read his expression like a book—one that says in bold italic letters, I don’t believe you. Stop kidding yourself. They meant every word.

  “They’re always stupid,” he counters, and I desperately want to argue with him. I want to insist that what happened downstairs isn’t how our brothers—or our mom—really feel, but Bryce’s lispy impersonation is still fresh in my mind, and maybe Kale is right. Maybe I give them too much credit.

  “Do you know what Leti would have done?” I ask instead of disagreeing. Every morning since we met at Starbucks last week, when he predicted we’d be third-best friends, we’ve met up there, and now I guess it’s become our thing.

  Kale looks up from the floor to catch my answer, and I use my hands to demonstrate. “He would’ve responded extra flamboyantly just to make everyone uncomfortable.”

  When I finish flicking my wrists around like Bryce did downstairs, Kale cracks a smile and lets out a little chuckle. I join him on the floor a moment later, my back resting against the door and my shoulder attaching itself to his.

  “They wouldn’t act like that if they knew,” I say.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “If they did, I’d beat the shit out of them. You know I would.”

  “I know,” Kale agrees, resting the side of his head against mine.