Broken Pretty Things by Amber Faye
Chapter 38
I float through the day.Avoiding evening meals with the Raynes is usually easy. Preston is always busy, but he makes sure to schedule two or three dinners with his sons every week. Tonight is no such night, and I am able to charm Greta into giving me a plate to take up to my room instead of to the dining table.
I snuggle into my bed with steak and potatoes, switching on one of the old monster movie DVDs piled up in the cupboard in here and texting with Ulla about my parent situation. Apparently my mother is ping-ponging between furious and distraught back at home, and our exchange student wishes very dearly she had been placed somewhere else. Oops. I get another text just as I set my phone down on the bed.
Gunnar: Be ready to leave 10 mins earlier tomorrow.
It’s the only thing he’s said to me since the morning. He drove me home without a word and went straight to the basement. I don’t answer him because ‘OK’ doesn’t feel like it deserves its own text. Instead, as the movie hurtles to its climactic claymation fight scene, I pause it, take my plate downstairs and text Ransom instead.
Andie: Do you still play Smash Bros?
I regret sending it immediately, because I feel like it’s going to seem strange if I try to bond with the younger Rayne, but he responds fast.
Ransom: Yup. You want a game?
The three of us used to play fighting games together after school. We’d sit in the basement and sneak shots of scotch that, to us, was horrific, but in hindsight must have cost more than my phone.
Andie: Please.
It takes me a minute to reorient myself and remember where exactly his bedroom is, but I knock and let myself in at the same time. When I do, I get hit by a wall of weed fog and I waft my hand in front of my face. Ransom has the windows open, curtains blowing, and is leaning back on his bed, black covers, with his shirt off and a joint between his lips. When he turns to me, he plucks it from his mouth and holds it out to me without a word.
“I’m good,” I say, but he shakes it at me so I take it anyway and plop down on the edge of his bed.
His room is a lot more lived in than Gunnar’s. I take in the posters: a print of the painting ‘Saturn Devouring His Son’, a poster for the death metal band Lamb of God, a pinup of Kate Upton eating a popsicle.
He gets up with a deliberate stretch, eyes glassy and a smile on his face, and switches on his TV. I’m not sure what I’m doing in here, really. He’s not a kid anymore — and neither am I — and the last thing I need is to give anyone the wrong idea. Again.
“I like what you’ve done with the place,” I say, then take a short drag … just to be polite. I cough before I exhale and he gives a slow laugh, turning to face me. I have to force myself not to look at his shirtless body, suddenly almost as broad and defined as his brother. “Put on a shirt, dude.” I cough again and hand back the joint.
“You sure?” he asks, running a hand down his chest.
I stare him out for a minute. “Remember that time JJ shoved your face in your birthday cake and you got a nosebleed and Gunnar and I helped you scrape cake and blood out of your nose in the bathroom for, like, an hour?”
He pauses, a little confused, and then he starts to laugh. When he doesn’t stop laughing, I gesture for the joint. “I’m gonna need more of that,” I say. That only makes him laugh harder, and he hands it back.
“You’re alright, Andie,” he says, crawling lazily over his bed and slumping back into the pillows. I take a bigger drag and hold it in my lungs for longer before coughing. “For the record, I don’t give a shit if you’re a ho.”
I blow out smoke and put the joint in his hand, lying back on the pillows beside him with my hands folded on my stomach. “Thanks, I guess.”
“Can I ask you something?” he asks, turning his head to face me. I nod, looking up at the ceiling. “Did you fuck Chris Barkley?” I shake my head, still looking up. Ransom looks up at the ceiling too. “I always thought you two would fuck.” He waves his hands in the air, then, as if to reset his thought. “Not Barkley. You and my brother. Did you really never?”
“That’s totally none of your …” I glance over to see he’s looking expectantly at me, eyebrows raised. “No, never,” I answer instead. “Hey, did you ever kiss Cady? Wasn’t she your huge crush before I left? It was all you would talk about.”
“Oh, yeah.” He laughs, then takes a long drag. “I did a whole lot more than that, actually.”
“Gross,” I say, swatting at his bare shoulder. Then, hit with a weird pang of nostalgia, I want to know so much more. “You dating?”
“No way, she’s a bimbo.”
“That’s rude, Ran,” I tut. “But I guess she is kind of a bimbo.”
He runs his hand over his jaw, a dumb smile forming on his lips. “Twins, though.”
“Wait, both of them?” I ask, my voice climbing an octave. He gives me a languid sideways smile and for a second he looks exactly like his brother, back when he liked me. I swat him again. “Disgusting. I swear, all the men in your family ...” That makes him laugh again.
“He’s not so bad,” he says after what feels like a few minutes. “He can get pretty preachy. He went all Mr. President on me about drugs, drink, girls recently, but I know he’s done shit.”
“Hell yeah, he’s done shit,” I laugh, my head light and swimming. I don’t remember the last time I smoked. “Don’t let his speeches get to you too much.” We exchange a meaningful glance, and then we laugh ... and then we keep laughing. Gunnar loves to get going on a topic whenever possible. He did great on debate team, student government, whatever involved a good speech.
“I know, I know. He’s been drinking more since that night at the Palace. And girls. Used to have that girl come over here a couple times a week, when you were gone, but that stopped. Thank god.” I don’t want to ask. Don’t want to ask.
“Who?”
“The one with the whiny voice and the huge fuckin’ …” He wrinkles his nose, hands poised to cup at his pecs. “The redhead. Aura.”
I shift, suddenly uncomfortable on this soft bed. “Oh.” Then I hear the rest of what he said, delayed. “It stopped, though?”
“Yeah, I overheard this super awkward conversation.” He puts on a gruff, terse voice that actually does sound a lot like Gunnar’s best matter-of-fact tone. “‘This is just sex, don’t wanna mess up our friendship by calling it anything more than that.’” Ransom snorts a helpless laugh.
“So they are having sex,” I say slowly. I am so dumb. I don’t know why I let myself think he might actually have some feelings for me. “I can’t believe he actually gave in and had sex with Aurelia.”
“I mean …” Ransom gestures through the air, oblivious to how tight my throat feels right now. “She is, like, sex, you know? She has those blowjob lips and that ass. Fuck. I hate it when he gets hotter girls than me.” He turns and flashes me a huge, charming grin. Definitely a Rayne. “Least he never got you.”
“Thank you, Ransom,” I say, patting his arm. He turns over and leans in close, his smile becoming less sweet and a lot more snakelike. His voice drops to a soft rumble.
“You know …”
Nope.
I sit bolt upright. “I love you, kid, but I need some air. That stuff was strong.” I ruffle his hair, which leaves him frowning, and I hop off the bed and escape his room.
And, again, instead of continuing through the hallway when I get to the right wing, I stop and listen at Gunnar’s door. Nothing. He’s either using headphones or he’s still hanging out in the basement.
I’m a little stoned, and a little incensed at the (vivid) thought of him and Aurelia fucking, though I can’t exactly pinpoint on what planet I have a right to be confused or pissed about that. He doesn’t owe me anything. He hasn’t asked for any loyalty from me or pretended we were anything we aren’t.
But I have a lot of thoughts, some of them on a loop, and I stomp down the stairs and into the foyer, once again needing a second to reorient myself after I take a wrong turn in the dark and end up in one of the two kitchens. I hear voices, Preston, I think, and I’m about to turn around and excuse myself before he engages me in some shallow but pleasant conversation, but I recognize the second voice. Spencer Rayne, my teacher, and the only Rayne who doesn’t seem to have enough baggage to fill an airport.
Feeling like it wouldn’t be so bad to say hi, therefore letting him know that I’m having to live here among the enemy, I hover awkwardly by the breakfast nook. I crane my neck to spy them standing by the back door, holding tumblers lit by the patio lights and staring away from me, towards the yard. It probably isn’t a good time for me to wander over to them, while they’re talking low.
Just as I figure that it’s a better idea to talk to Mr Rayne tomorrow in class, maybe update him on my situation then, I catch the tail end of some comment.
“... just feel too guilty to even look at him these days, Spence, what’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing’s wrong with you, Preston.”
“Clara loved him.” Preston’s voice catches. Shit. They’re talking about Ransom. “But this? Drugs, alcohol, partying. He’s going down the same route as—”
“Don’t,” Spencer says gently. “I’ll talk to him.”
“She wasn’t even his mother. If he goes too far down this road, addiction will be the only significant thing she ever passed onto him.”
“That’s harsh,” Spencer says. “Take it from me: Teenagers get into stuff. Stupid stuff. It’s normal. And you know I’ll be able to get more of a handle on what our kids are doing once I get on the school board. That plan hasn’t changed.”
“I think you’re right,” Preston sighs. “I just can’t handle more of this. Alcohol, sure, but drugs? I don’t know what to do about it. I never had any of these problems with Gunnar.” I wish I was involved in this conversation, because I want to ask him why he’s so scared that his newly seventeen-year-old kid is smoking a little weed. It’s not even illegal here anymore. But then he answers my question. “It’s the pills, Spence. They worry me. It’s exactly how it started with Clara. I can’t go through it again. I—”
It’s too much now, too personal. I duck low and edge backwards, out of the kitchen and back into the foyer. I’ve forgotten where I was even headed to before, and it’s not until I get turned around and accidentally end up at the basement door that I remember. I reach out before the question in my mind is even posed, let alone decided, and turn the handle.
It opens inwards, steps descending into inky black. The bassy sound of a movie score reaches me, and I feel my way down the stairs.
The basement hasn’t changed one bit.
The only difference is the totally definitely ironic Madonna poster we bought together at a music festival, one of my favorite memories with him, has been torn down. Forcefully, I can tell, because the ripped corners are still stuck to the exposed red brick walls.
The long, squishy grey cough is still in front of the big wall-mounted TV, two expensive speakers on either side. The only light comes from the television. A young woman wearing a dirty tank top and no bra is screaming, bouncing boobily through a dark forest. We cut to a masked killer stalking her through the trees. Violins screech.
Gunnar is stretched out on the couch, leaning back, one knee up. The movie reflects in his eyes, and I see them flick to me.
“Missed it down here. I wanted to see it,” I say.
He looks at me for a few seconds in silence. “You smell like weed.”
I stick my hands in my pockets and walk slowly over to the couch. “Your brother sure is growing up fast,” I say.
Wasn’t I mad about something?
“Come here,” he says gruffly, and my brow scrunches up.
“I’m right here,” I say lightly, knocking my knee against his foot. He nods at the floor in front of the couch, the thick rug we begged to have put in over the cold concrete.
“Come here.”
I hesitate, but take a couple more steps and stop in front of him, blocking the TV. He leans his head back to look past me, but wraps his long fingers around my wrist and pulls me into him. I half-fall, half get down on my knees so our faces are level, and wait for him to turn to me or speak, but he doesn’t.
Eyes still on the TV behind me, and one hand still around my wrist, he pushes his sweats and boxers down and pulls out his semi-hard cock. “Gunnar,” I say, shocked, moving to get back to my feet. I realize now that I smell beer. He pulls me crashing down again.
“What’s the basement rule?” he asks.
“Huh?”
“Only us, only the people we like, remember,” he says, and grips the base of his cock. “If you want to be down here, I have to like you.”
I snort, and his grip on my arm tightens to get ready to pull me back again, but I don’t get up. “Why are you being a pig?” I ask him instead.
He doesn’t answer, but his eyes move to catch my gaze, the TV still flickering in his gold-brown irises. The second our eyes meet, I see him twitch and stiffen in his hand. He squeezes his cock, his other fingers on the quickening pulse in my wrist. I can’t help the way my body reacts when he starts stroking himself. His teeth work his lower lip, turning them pale and then blood red, and he rubs precum into the head with his thumb. I move away, and this time he lets go of me.
“Shut the door on your way out,” he says, letting his eyes close. His fist still slides up and down, turning in when he reaches the top, moving his hips. Being as slow, showy, and obscene as he can be.
His eyes shut, I wait a second, and then I lean in and lick the beaded moisture from the tip. His eyes flutter open wide and his hands stills. I move up his body and then, while he’s still frozen, I thumb his lower lip open and lap my salty tongue inside his mouth. He breathes heavy against my lips and just as he reaches out for me, for more, I get up and leave, ignoring the raw ache inside me.
If he’s going to try to freak me out, push me, mess with me, I’m going to do it right back.