We stepped into the car park. I was eager to bring the night to a close. “Which car is yours?”
“Sadey, the Astro Blue Chevelle SS. The prettiest girl around.”
“Ah, I should have known.” Why do men name their cars? I was yet to get my head around this.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Was I guilty of pre-judging him? If I was smart enough, I could avoid the night turning into a total catastrophe. “Nothing at all. It’s a sexy car. Of course, it would be yours.” Looking at the car, I couldn’t marry the antwacky name with the sleek style; it was quite the oxymoron.
“I’ve never thought of my car as sexy before.”
The comparison was lost on him, or once more he chose to ignore the obvious.
“Let’s stop this now and call it a night.”
“Your call, man.” I made the rookie mistake of walking to the wrong side of the car. Irritatingly, everything in America was arse about face. “Wrong side.” The corners of his mouth turned upwards.
“Oh, yes.” I felt foolish, more so the fact he revelled in my error. I slipped into the passenger seat, wishing I had gone with my gut and taken a taxi. Now, I had to suffer a ride home with him and his unbearable smugness for company.
“Are you sure you wanna go straight home?”
“Yes, please.”
“You’re sulking.” He seemed to derive pleasure from my darkening mood.
“Children sulk, Milo, and I am not a child.”
“Let’s erase all this and start again.”
“I’m tired.”
“You always unforgiving?”
“The whole night has been a disaster.” I wouldn’t look at him. Instead, I gazed out at unfamiliar sights.
“Fine.”
We didn’t speak another word until he pulled to a stop outside my plush home within the gated community.
I pushed the door open, fixed a smile, and turned to look at him. “Thanks for the ride home.”
“Pleasure, man.”
I exited the car ungraciously and slammed the passenger door.
Squealing tyres signalled his swift exit.
What an unmitigated disaster that so-called date was!
I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. Sleep eluded me because I couldn’t get Milo bloody Garcia out of my head.
Why? He shouldn’t warrant another moment of my valuable time, and by rights, I should still be furious with him, but any ill feeling dissipated as the hours rolled by. Our date, or whatever one would call it, was a disaster. I embarrassed myself because I’d caused such a fuss over a few poorly thought out words on his part. I should have kept my own counsel, but my mouth ran away with me.
Milo was far from blameless, and I stood by the fact he wasn’t used to being challenged, but from my point of view, criticism, when directed at him, was water off a duck’s back. My mum would call it a Teflon hide which niggled at me more because he should take responsibility for his actions.
He had burrowed into my brain, wielding his considerable charm as a superpower. A mask he presented to the world. But behind it, resided an arrogance I found irresistible.
Irresistible or not, my cockiness made certain I delivered my message loud and clear, but what about the person living inside Milo; the one hidden behind the handsome face and sculpted body?
My behaviour was a tad obsessive, but mixed messages confused me. I was hardwired to bypass the bullshit and deal with facts, but I knew Milo was not the type to yield easily, while I was not one to back down from a challenge.
Chapter Five
Milo
The last week passed in a blur of studies, stashing money away from fixing a few buddies broken down cars, working my mother’s nervousness about leaving Dad, and of course avoiding my father at all costs. Scarlett, one of my old one-night stands from high school, slipped through the back fence of our property and found me in the garage working on my Chevelle on Friday night. When I peered up from under the hood, she sat on my grandfather’s horse saddle stand and pushed her tits up and in my direction. With my headphones blasting Thirty Seconds to Mars “This is War,” I missed her shuffling in the door. My eyes took one dip up and down her toned body, Daisy Duke’s sliding up, and exposing her thighs split over the wooden horse.
On any other day, I’d drop my wrench and take her hard up against the weathered garage door, but nothing about her unwelcome presence stirred the blood in my cock. She slid her leg high and stepped off the leather saddle, providing me with the perfect shot of her bare beaver winking at me from the gap in her crotch. Still, nothing sparked my interest, so I returned my attention to the spark plug replacement in progress.
“Howdy, stranger!” She purred on her approach and invaded my personal space as she wrapped herself around my leg like a kitten ready to climb my pole. She had a knack for knowing I refused to attend Friday Night Lights events. My father instilled my loathing every season when he pushed the issue on me. Scarlett knew where I’d be, and my mother gave up checking on me by the time I turned sixteen. The garage stood as a monument to the security I felt with my grandfather, and the dream I held fast to—getting out and far away from this hell hole.
“What’s wrong, Milo? Can’t feel the heat I have for you?” She continued wrapping her hands around my bare chest, her hands traveling closer to the waist of my jeans with each pass.
“What do you want, Scarlett?”
“It’s been a while, babe.”
“We stopped this bullshit when we graduated three, nearly four years ago.” I kept my head down while gapping the spark plug.
She slipped one finger under my waistband. “And I haven’t come close to satisfying my need with anyone else.”
“Then you need to open up your available pool. I’ve moved on.”
“Milo, where are your manners? A girl might think you’ve gone flip.”
“What?”
“Cindy said she saw you the other night.”
“I ate at Hamburger Haven. Big deal, so did a lot of other people.”
“She said you were with some British guy. A very interesting guy. One who ignored her but had his eyes wrapped around you more tightly than a lasso ready to snap up his calf at any second.”
“Cindy is wrong. He’s new, and I ate a burger with him.”
“Gill said he sits up next to you in class at college.”
“What is this, gossip hour?” Irritation coated my brash response. Edward painted my thoughts far more than any person in my life. He distracted me with his string of texts and conversations of trivial means during our class. I tapped my phone and hit Edward's name, looking at his past texts:
Edward: What do people do in this town for fun?
Edward: How do you manage with all this cow-shite in the air?
Edward: Did you finish the reading? Machiavelli’s love versus fear. I wonder how that works behind closed doors?
Edward: Although, Machiavelli has a point with his drivel of ambition, competition, war, and human nature embracing each. I think I prefer ambition over the others. We should chat more about ambition.
Edward: Maybe Nietzsche’s perspectivism outweighs Machiavelli in the manner of truth is not objective. Do we have a gauge for truth? Do people actually tell one another the truth, or is everything skewed?
We spent nights texting back and forth, and I found his perspectives on the old philosophers refreshing compared to Texas’s close-mindedness I’d grown up listening to, wondering if they would actually venture into the twenty-first century at some point.
He even showed up at the library on Wednesday and invaded my space in my reserved study room. Normally, when my friends intruded on me time, I shooed them away. Something about Edward intrigued me.
“You study harder than most our age. What’s behind all the study hours?” His accent and brazen disruption didn’t bother me. I found his honesty refreshing. No bullshit.
I turned around and asked him, “Why does it make a difference
how or when I study if it gets me to the end goal?”
“Well, I have dreams of working with underprivileged children in Ethiopia.”
“I have one, and it is to move away from here and start a new life. I want to venture out and explore the world.”
His forward nature sparked something inside me. Not pity for or sadness for the lost foreign gay boy, but an unusual nervousness of interest in him. His upbringing, his dreams, his unique vision of the world. We actually held similar views on some significant world issues; hunger, homelessness, and humanitarian issues to start with. It refreshed my negative opinions from the stifling, narrowed vision of my upbringing. Sort of the feeling I’m getting from Scarlett as she leeched her lips to my shoulder and sucked down hard, circling her tongue in tandem.
“Scarlett.” A warning which met her with no intention of being followed.
A loud smack of her lips releasing my skin as she feigned innocence, and I turned, placing my hands on her shoulders. “Darlin’ don’t tell me you’re hiding the trouser snake from me. I know how to find it, and you know I’ll make it—” Her big blue eyes filled with lust blinked her fake lashes with a heavy smoldering of headiness, breathing her intentions in my direction.
Despite my disdain for her intrusion, the thoughts of what I desired, or rather lack thereof, with her or any other female, played games in my mind. I decided against my better judgment to prove to her, and her gossip-mongering friends, wrong. I still had enough sexual desire churning inside me to take her offering and put all the small-town rumors to rest—and I did just that.
Backing her into the tall toolbox, I shoved my hand into her waistband and slid a finger through her slick folds. When she didn’t balk at me not washing my hands, my stomach rolled in recognition of how deranged our Friday fuck nights had been.
Not only did I not care about her, but she didn’t care about herself. And with each moment that passed, each rough wrap of my hands around her proffering herself to take what I wished at will, I hate fucked my town, my father, and my life here in Texas with each careless thrust into her. I hated myself more at this moment as the thoughts of Edward, and his command for respect played through my mind each and every second I abused the power Scarlett willingly handed over to me and allowed herself to be disrespected.
I sent her off the moment I came. It dripped from her thighs as she pulled up her tiny denim shorts and left without a word. The same way we had played with fire in high school. She took the pill and allowed me to take her at will. Bile filled my throat as I contemplated the man I faced leaving every day; it seemed I turned into that asshole at every turn—unable to handle myself with an ounce of dignity. He’d seeped under my skin and tainted me. Nothing reminded you of how low you’ve sunk when you see your own filthy father slithering into the fabric of your being. The one being you’ve tried to avoid your entire life to model after, and you exude him to the core despite your efforts.
I slunk disgusted inside the house and flipped the shower on hot to wash away my moment of weakness. A weakness I swore I’d not give in to the day I graduated high school. Unfortunately, a man can take only so much taunting of low brow gossip before breaking. The soap lathered on me and cleaned my skin, but the bastard living beneath the surface wrestled within my mind and heart, and before long, I found myself heaving into the toilet sickened by my actions.
“Hey, mate. You look shattered.” Edward waltzed into my study room Saturday morning with a pep in his step and an extra coffee cup in hand.
I took the cup and closed my eyes when the hot liquid touched my lips. “You’re good. This hits the spot.”
“Rough night? Did you get pissed?”
I set the cup next to my computer. “Pissed?”
“You know.” He placed his finger next to his temple. “Erm, legless, mortalled, sloshed—”
“Drunk. I got it. I mean, no, I wasn’t drinking.”
“Then why so cream-crackered?”
“Cream-crackered?” I cocked my head to the left and thought about how foreign our versions of English were from one another. “If you mean tired. I didn’t sleep so well. I had a lot on my mind.”
“I think you need some fresh air.”
“What are you doing here at eight in the morning?”
“You asked me here last night. Well, this morning around two by text.”
Air left my chest as easily as a child letting go of a balloon. It emptied, and I gasped for a moment. After my shower and a revolt that protested from my stomach, I thought I had grabbed a few Advil. But the pounding in my head, the reckless texting, and the spinning room left me wondering if I took my mom’s painkillers instead. My thoughts danced around mimicking the scene from Dumbo when he drank too much, and all the elephants passed through his thoughts.
“I’m so sorry—”
“It’s fine. I was awake early binge-watching Game of Thrones on Netflix.”
“Huh. I wouldn’t expect that from you.”
“Why? I have varied tastes.”
“I expected something more Downton Abbey.”
“You should come over and watch something with me? We could have a few drinks and relax. You look like you need too.”
I returned my attention to my computer screen, and the online lecture I missed on Thursday. A seething red hue flashed over my vision.
“Where the hell are my eggs?” Dad growled from the kitchen—the one my mother finished cleaning from our shared breakfast before she went back to the bathroom to fix her hair before work.
“Mom left bacon and toast in the microwave for you. There’s fresh-cut fruit in the fridge.” I threw my backpack over my shoulder and shuffled off toward the front door, hoping to miss out on the hungover tantrum my father brewed from behind the refrigerator door.
Unfortunately, Clay Wilcox picked today, Thursday, seven fifteen in the morning, to be the day to pitch one of the worst fits I’d witnessed yet.
“Sandra?” He stomped down the hall after her. I set my backpack down and eased my way through the corridor.
Thwack and a muffled “ugh” echoed out of the doorway of my parents’ room. My heart pounded in my chest with each inch I stepped closer to their door. I knew what he did. This front-row seat wasn’t my first time witnessing his abhorrent tantrums. But it was the first time I gathered my balls and entered the room with my fists clenched and muscles ready for the fight.
“Stop.” My mother’s hissed whispering stabbed my gut. She took everything he laid on her but never wanted me to be involved. “Clay, I’ll go get eggs now if that is what you want. But stop. Milo is still here. He has enough—”
“You baby that boy. I’m surprised he’s not still suckling off your teat. You’ve turned him into a pussy. For God’s sake, he doesn’t even keep up the athletic college tradition from my family. And you can’t even provide for yours anymore. What would your father think of you now, Sandra?”
She turned and brushed past him and me as she scurried back toward the kitchen. Her hand reached out for the handle on the microwave, but my dad shoved my mom into the stove. He roared in her ear about her lack of care for not stopping by the store on her way home Wednesday night for his precious eggs.
“I worked the late shift to bring us home a paycheck, Clay.” The hard c spit off her lips as her inner anger built, matching her tightened physical appearance.
My fists clenched harder, and I approached the kitchen, but not before she stuck her hand out, halting me.
He leaned in close to her ear with his hands gripping her blouse at the shoulders. “Why are you working all these late hours? Is something else going on? My own wife doesn’t seem to know her place anymore.”
Mom worked as an executive assistant to one of the most profitable ranches in the area. The Johnson’s treated her like royalty as her degree in business she acquired over several years of hard work after having me paid off when they needed some extra eyes on their books.
“Stop this. You know exactly what I was do
ing and what I have been doing. I’ll handle the groceries after work. We all have places to be.” She had a knack for turning her fear for him into big brown doe eyes, and normally, he calmed down. But this morning, something more fueled his anger. However, when he glanced in my direction something urged me to stand tall and watch this unhealthy interaction. For the first time, he backed down rather than continue to abuse my mother.
The memory of the other morning, after another night where my dad sat in his chair since dinner watching old game film of himself slugging down beer after beer only to wake up and abuse my mother, nauseated me. That disdain I felt last night after Scarlett left swept through me again, and I reached for the trash can and heaved my one sip of coffee.
“Sorry.” I grabbed the napkin Edward offered and slumped down in the chair with a heavy hand covering my face.
“You sure you weren’t out getting hammered?”
“Yeah. That’s not what happened last night.”
Something struck me odd when Edward pulled up the chair next to mine and laid his hand on my jean covered knee. “You need to chill out. My mum would have my guts for garters if she knew I was here in America with a friend in need and left him on his own. Do what you have to do today and come by my place tonight. We’ll keep it simple. Take-away and nothing fancy. Your poor face will need Botox before you graduate in June at this rate. And if you don’t mind me saying, that face deserves more care.”
“You are different.”
“How so?”
“I’m not exactly good company. I have a lot going on. Things aren’t simple in my world, and you keep at it. You keep trying.”
“Well, you don’t know everything about me. But a friend in need is one who gets what he deserves. Time to relax.”
“Fine. You drive a hard bargain. What should I bring?”
“Yourself. My treat since you paid at the diner the other night.”
Shattered Beliefs Page 4