by Piper Scott
Stay
Piper Scott
Stay © Piper Scott 2017.
Amazon Kindle Edition.
Edited by Courtney Bassett.
Cover design by Terram Horne.
All rights reserved. No part of this story may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the copyright holder, except in the case of brief quotations embodied within critical reviews and articles.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
The author has asserted his/her rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book.
This book contains sexually explicit content which is suitable only for mature readers.
First LoveLight Press electronic publication: September 2017
http://lovelightpress.com
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Stay is set in the USA, and as such uses American English throughout.
Contents
Prologue
1. Sterling
2. Adrian
3. Sterling
4. Sterling
5. Adrian
6. Adrian
7. Sterling
8. Adrian
9. Adrian
10. Sterling
11. Adrian
12. Sterling
13. Adrian
14. Sterling
15. Adrian
16. Sterling
17. Adrian
18. Sterling
19. Adrian
20. Sterling
21. Adrian
22. Sterling
23. Adrian
24. Adrian
25. Sterling
26. Adrian
27. Sterling
28. Adrian
29. Sterling
30. Adrian
31. Sterling
Epilogue
Bonus Scene
About the Author
Also by Piper Scott
More from LoveLight Press
Prologue
Adrian
Four Years Prior
Adrian wanted to fuck him. There wasn’t any sense in denying it. With his stark black hair and his cocky grin, Cedric Langston was hot, and according to the rumors at school, the knot he popped was worth groveling over.
Adrian would make it his.
The only problem with his plan sat next to him, avoiding his gaze.
Gabriel.
Adrian’s lips twitched as he looked at his younger brother. Gabriel was on his phone again, the tiniest smile on his face. His eyes were distant and dreamy, and every now and then he covered his mouth with his hand to hold back a laugh. If Adrian didn’t know better, he would have thought his brother was talking to someone he liked, but no one liked Gabriel. He was too quiet, too meek, and too annoying.
And that afternoon, Adrian was convinced that Gabriel was doing everything he could to sabotage Adrian’s chances at going home with Cedric Langston.
“You’re doing it on purpose, aren’t you?” Adrian’s hands tightened around the steering wheel, the leather covering sturdy against his palm.
“Doing what?” Gabriel looked up from his phone. The quiet, shy way he spoke was a fabrication—Gabriel’s underhanded attempt to win the position of favorite son. Adrian saw right through him, and it annoyed him to no end. The first infuriating twitch of agitation teased the hairs on the back of his neck until they stood on end.
He hated Gabriel’s innocent act.
“You’re coming out with me because you want to ruin my time with my friends.” Thank god they were parked far enough away from the mall that no one would be able to see them. How embarrassing would it be if Cedric knew Adrian was babysitting his little brother? “You could have said you didn’t want to come when Mom told me to take you along.”
“I wanted to go out.” Gabriel shrugged a single shoulder dismissively, then looked back down at his phone. The smile on his face grew, and his thumbs flew over the screen to type something.
Adrian gritted his teeth and held back his anger. Gabriel could deny all he wanted, but Adrian knew the truth—he wanted to sabotage Adrian’s social life. Ever since Gabriel’s first heat a few months ago, he’d been insufferable. If he wasn’t following Adrian around, trying to worm his way into Adrian’s group of friends, he was glued to his phone, grinning like an idiot.
All Adrian wanted was to be left alone.
“You’re sixteen. Why don’t you get your damn license and go out on your own?” Adrian scowled. “I shouldn’t have to babysit you anymore. You’re not a kid, Gabriel. It’s time you learned to be independent.”
“Yeah. I think so, too.” To Adrian’s surprise, Gabriel set his phone down. The screen was dark. “That’s why I wanted to come out to the mall with you today. I’m going to do my own thing, okay? And you can do whatever it is you were going to do.”
There had to be a catch. Adrian looked Gabriel over suspiciously, eyes wandering from the long, regal bridge of his nose to the high, feminine bones of his cheeks. Gabriel was already unbuckled, and the way his hair caught the fading afternoon sun highlighted the gold in his dirty-blond locks. The shirt he wore was a closer fit than most of the baggy atrocities he insisted on wearing, and the look on his face…
Adrian’s lips twitched. “As long as your own thing means you stay the hell away from me and my group of friends, that’s fine. When I’m done, I’ll text you, and you’ll meet me at the stairs by the food court, okay?”
“Okay.” Gabriel’s smile grew. It was too docile and sincere, and it riled Adrian in ways he couldn’t fully comprehend.
What reason did Gabriel have to be so happy? There was nothing to be happy about. Not after what they went through at home.
He had to be planning something.
The clothes he was wearing and the blissful, serene vibe he gave off were different somehow, like Gabriel didn’t care anymore about the hell they’d return to in a few more hours.
Did he know about Cedric? Was he planning to intervene?
The plastic click of the lock and the pop of the door handle drew Adrian back into the moment. Gabriel was leaving the car. Before his ass so much as lifted from the seat, Adrian grabbed him by the arm and held him in place. Gabriel looked over his shoulder and met Adrian’s gaze. The setting sun’s light turned the pale blues of his irises gray.
“And when I say you stay the hell away, I mean it. I don’t want you talking with any of my friends, okay? Not even people you think might be my friends. We’re all graduated and going off to college or whatever, and you’re just a scrawny junior. No one wants anything from you.”
Gabriel’s smile spoiled, but the frown that replaced it was just as small and heartfelt. “Someone wants something from me.”
“No.” Adrian narrowed his eyes. “You need to leave my friends alone, Gabriel. Go make friends of your own.”
“Why do you have to be such a jerk all the time, Adrian?” Gabriel tugged his arm away, then rubbed at the spot Adrian’s hand had grasped. “I’m not trying to get into your stupid group of friends, okay? All I wanted was to come to the mall. I’m going to meet up with my own friends, and we’re going to have a good time.”
“Good. Fine.” Adrian unbuckled. The seatbelt snapped back into its holster. “So just keep an eye on your phone, then. I’m not going to wait for you fo
rever when I decide it’s time to go.”
“Yeah. Fine.” Gabriel’s brows knitted together and the sorrow left his eyes. “I wish you would be nicer to me. We’re both going through the same problems. I’m not your enemy.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The lie hung between them heavily, crushing Adrian’s lungs and twisting in his stomach. Gabriel didn’t call him on it. With a small shake of his head, he faced forward again and stepped out of the car.
“Where are we meeting?” Adrian asked before Gabriel could shut the door.
“Food court, by the stairs.”
“And when?”
Gabriel’s shoulders tensed, and from the way his jaw shifted, it looked like he was holding back a sigh. “After you text me.”
“Good. So… go have fun doing whatever.” Adrian didn’t make a move to leave the car yet. He watched Gabriel. “I’ll see you later.”
“Adrian?” Gabriel bent at the waist just enough that their eyes locked again.
“Yeah?”
“What Mom and Dad think of us doesn’t matter.” He paused and looked aside, as though ashamed. “Omegas serve a purpose too, you know? We’re learning that in school. I’m sure you learned it, too. It’s like… we can be successful if we want. We can do whatever we want. We don’t have to be ashamed of who we are—we should embrace it.”
“Can you please go?” Tears stung behind Adrian’s eyes. It wasn’t the talk he wanted to have right now. Right now he was supposed to be thinking of the best way to get into Cedric Langston’s pants, not having soulful discussions with his younger brother.
“Beautiful flowers attract bees to pollinate them,” Gabriel said softly. He refused to meet Adrian’s eyes, but he didn’t need to. Adrian saw how his hand trembled as it held the car door. “Beautiful omegas aren’t any different. We shouldn’t be ashamed of it.”
“Go.”
Gabriel shook his head, then stepped back from the car to close the door. The clap of metal meeting metal as the door slammed was sharper than usual, but Adrian was too caught up in his thoughts to care if there was damage.
He didn’t mean to lash out. Not like that. Gabriel was annoying, but he had a point. The suffering they went through, they went through together.
Adrian needed to apologize.
He drew in a noisy breath through his mouth, then emptied his lungs in order to start fresh. The door lock fell beneath the pressure of his thumb, and he swung the door open. By the time he’d closed the door and surveyed the parking lot, Gabriel was already gone.
“What the hell?” Adrian squinted against the setting sun. The low light was angled directly at his eyes, and it blotted out distant details.
Gabriel had just left the car. He couldn’t have made it far, so where was he?
With a touch of a button, all of the car doors locked. Adrian left the parking space, squinting against the sun to see if he could spot Gabriel in the distance. Far ahead, past rows of parked cars, Adrian spotted him making his way toward the mall’s main entrance. He must have taken off at a run.
Keys clutched in his fist, Adrian took off across the parking lot at a leisurely jog. At this pace, he was confident he’d catch up with Gabriel by the time he made it to the doors, and he’d be able to apologize for his behavior before they split ways for the night.
But Gabriel didn’t head for the doors. He came to a stop at the drop-off point in front of the mall and buried his nose in his phone once more.
Confused, Adrian slowed down in order to observe. Gabriel had mentioned meeting up with his own friends, but Adrian didn’t think he had any. Most of the time, Gabriel kept to himself.
A black Camaro rolled to a stop in front of Gabriel, blocking him from Adrian’s view. The windows were so darkly tinted that Adrian couldn’t see the driver—but even from the distance he stood at, he heard the car door close.
All the hairs on the back of Adrian’s neck stood on end, and a slow, creeping dread spread downward from the nape of his neck to infect his chest and tie his stomach into knots.
Something was wrong.
Adrian picked up the pace. The sound of his soles hitting the pavement echoed in his ears and drowned out the rush of his pulse. He moved faster.
“Gabriel?” The cry parted from Adrian’s lips, raw and sudden. An uncanny feeling diffused through his lungs. Something wasn’t right. He could feel it. “Gabriel!”
The black Camaro with the tinted windows rolled away from the curb.
Gabriel no longer stood by the drop-off point.
Adrian broke into a sprint.
He breached the last row of parked cars and burst onto the street in front of the mall. A car horn blared. Brakes screeched. The front bumper of an encroaching car nudged Adrian’s leg, but he kept moving. The black Camaro was close, but it was gaining speed. Adrian leapt for it, but his fingertips only grazed the brake lights.
The Camaro drove away, its paper license plate flapping upward in the wind, unreadable.
Stunned, Adrian watched it go. Someone was yelling at him, he realized, and someone else was leaning on their horn. He was blocking traffic.
He didn’t care.
Gabriel was gone.
“Get the hell off the road!” a man shouted. “Do you want to get hit?”
No.
But Adrian couldn’t bring himself to look at anything else than the brake lights disappearing on the horizon. The Camaro made a turn and disappeared around the back of the mall.
Someone grabbed Adrian’s shoulder and pushed him aside. “Kid!”
Adrian’s heel caught the edge of the sidewalk, and he stumbled. Whoever had him by the shoulder corrected his course and set him straight.
“Kid!” This time the utterance was a little more forceful, but Adrian couldn’t stop looking at the spot where he’d seen the Camaro for the last time. “Hey, kid! I came to check on you to see if you were okay. I think I hit you.”
“I’m fine.” Another lie. Another rotten word left to fester inside of him. “Thanks for checking up on me.”
“Weirdo.”
The hand parted from Adrian’s shoulder. Footsteps distanced themselves from his position. For a while, Adrian stood alone by the side of the street, too shocked to know what to do. Desperation and hope rose as one and spread hideous notions through his head—thoughts that were toxic, but that he couldn’t help but cling to.
Maybe Gabriel had gone into the mall. There was a chance Adrian had missed seeing him step away from the car. If Adrian could only find him, they could leave together. It was going to be okay. Their parents didn’t even need to know.
Hand shaking, Adrian took his phone from his pocket and sent Gabriel a text.
I’m sorry I said those things to you. I didn’t mean them. I don’t think I want to go to the mall tonight after all. Come meet me at the front doors instead and we’ll go home.
The text sent and was received by Gabriel’s phone, but it wasn’t marked as read.
Adrian watched the conversation for the next fifteen minutes, too jittery and nervous to do anything else. Every time his screen began to dim, he worked his thumb across it and brought it back to life. To let the screen turn off felt wrong, as though by letting it happen, Adrian was accepting that Gabriel would never respond. If he waited just a little while longer, he’d see the speech bubble appear in the bottom right corner. Gabriel would send him one of his stupid frustrated emojis, then come out to join Adrian by the doors. They’d go home together.
Right?
Right?
An hour and a half later, seated on the edge of a flower bed not far from the front doors, Adrian sent Gabriel another text.
This is a prank, right? I’m going to go home and you’re going to be there waiting for me. I’m gonna kick your ass when I find you. :P
Another half hour went by. The texts remained unread.
Heart heavy, Adrian looked up from his phone and let the screen turn off. The parking lot had em
ptied out. The mall was closed.
Gabriel hadn’t come to find him.
He slipped his phone into his pocket and trudged back across the parking lot, too numb to do anything else. In a daze, he sank into his seat and started the engine. The smell of Gabriel’s omega—still so new to Adrian’s nose that it stood out against the pine-scented air freshener suspended from his rearview mirror—clung to the passenger seat.
With a final glance to the mall, hoping to see Gabriel waiting for him at the drop-off point, Adrian backed out of the parking space and headed home. Why was he worrying so much? At sixteen years old, Adrian had done tons of stupid shit. He’d broken out of his room late at night without anyone knowing. Sometimes he’d disappeared for days when the atmosphere at home grew too toxic. He’d always come back.
Gabriel was his brother. They were cut from the same cloth, even if Gabriel was quiet and introverted, and Adrian was anything but.
There wasn’t anything to worry about.
Come tomorrow, Gabriel would be back in his room and the world would keep turning like it always had. They’d spend their summer goofing off and hating each other as usual. They’d weather life in the Lowe family home, and when the school year started, Adrian would drive Gabriel to high school before starting his classes on campus.
It would be fine. There was nothing to worry about.
But in the morning, Gabriel’s bed was still empty, and his text messages remained unread. And the next morning, as the police grilled Adrian for hours about what he’d seen, and where, and when, Gabriel’s bed was still empty.