The last thing I expected later that evening was a severe dressing-down from my father. At first, I couldn’t even guess what tipped him off, but it all became obvious the more he managed to annoy himself, while shouting at me.
Apparently, I hadn’t been as keen on my church-going and other related activities as he wanted me to be. If you ask me, I don’t know, to this day, why my dad cared so much about religion. You’d expect him to be a religious man himself, and he was, to some degree. Only that he wasn’t what you’d normally find in a God-fearing person. He liked his bourbon a bit too much – the money going in had to go somewhere and it wasn’t spent on me. He enjoyed eating, too, and now that he had Adrian’s mom as his partner, by the way they stared at each other, you could tell that they were going at it on the regular.
So, what gives? I have no idea.
“You saddled me with a new family, all of a sudden,” I interjected once he stopped for a breather. He was getting red in the face, and I was starting to feel resigned about my fate. I might get a physical correction tonight. And you’re wondering why I have a thing for pain? It comes in the same package. Funny how religious people don’t behave at all like the saints they cherish and adore. Or maybe they’re never as religious as they say; they like to cosplay as good Christians because that gives them the reason to get on a high horse and stare down at sinners with moral superiority.
I didn’t have a good opinion of them after getting to know them from too up-close. I didn’t have a good opinion about my father, either.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He made a move and I tensed automatically. One day, I fantasized, I’m going to strike him down. Yeah, smite him like the hand of God for being such an asshole.
“It means that I need to find it in my heart to love my brother,” I said, looking him square in the eye.
I often challenged my father’s authority with words. It wasn’t much, and otherwise, I did whatever he wanted and expected me to do, but I kept to it like a miser to his only treasure, no matter how meager it might be.
That made him mad, but it worked for him, too. It gave him a justification, a righteous one, for putting me in my place. He hated me – it occurred to me at one point – and I hated him back with the same fierceness. That didn’t mean that we didn’t tolerate each other on most days, which meant ignoring as much of the other as we could possibly manage.
“Are you still complaining? You should be happy. Grateful,” he said, closing his fists.
The large dining room table was between us, which meant that I’d get a proper heads-up if he decided to take a swing at me.
“Kindness doesn’t come easy to me,” I reminded him. If he wanted to make me out as the villain under his roof, the least I could do was to offer him a good reason to think so. “Gratefulness even less so. I need more time with my own thoughts.”
He snorted. “Your own thoughts. If I hadn’t put your life in order and forced you to behave, you would’ve turned bad, Jordan. Really bad.”
Are you sure you succeeded?
I kept such a remark to myself, as well as the smile that threatened to curl my lips.
“He is different from me,” I continued. “He likes to drink and hang out with the cool kids. I, on the other hand, am not supposed to do anything like that. How do you expect us to become friends?”
I crossed my arms and stood my ground.
Dad rubbed the back of his neck and winced. “Madeline raised him by herself. He’s not a bad kid.”
Whatever.
“What do you want me to do? Hang out with him and get drunk?” I liked pressing an advantage, seeing how so rarely I got one.
“No. You must take him with you to bible study.”
No. Fucking. Way.
“Wipe that grin off your face,” he snapped at me.
Fuck, the shock of hearing that crap had been too much for me to control my facial muscles as I usually did when in the presence of my father.
“Surely. Is he coming, though? He’s stronger than me, and it’s not like I can force him to do what I tell him to.”
“I will tell him. And he will listen.”
Wow. A miracle in the making. Right before my eyes.
“Let me know when he’s ready to go,” I say. “May I be excused, sir? I have a lot to read for college.”
Reading for college was as vague an expression as it could possibly be. My father hadn’t furthered his studies beyond graduating from high school and ran a local pub. Surprised? Maybe he prayed before each shot of the cheap tequila he kept behind the counter and served to his regulars. Just saying.
Would Adrian get to know my father a bit too well? Would Dad hit my stepbrother? I somehow doubted that Madeline would like that. After all, Adrian was her son, and she’d raised him on her own, according to my dad.
We were alike in that regard. Since my mother’s leaving when I was around four or five, I’d lived in that house only with my father as a guardian. Should I say ‘jailer’ instead? It’d fit him to a tee.
Now the jailer had another prisoner to torment. I wanted that little thought to make me happy, but instead, I found myself worrying. Adrian did look like a bad boy, and he must’ve gotten into fights in his life, but it was one thing to throw with guys his age, and another to go against an older man, sixty pounds heavier and with a mean streak in him. Routinely, I challenged my father enough to make him use his fists and calculated my chances to go against him. I wasn’t an idiot. I didn’t want to end up hurt or worse.
Adrian wouldn’t stand my father’s righteousness. Maybe he’d throw a punch himself. Then Madeline would discover that my father was an asshole, grab her son and leave.
It was a good outcome, I told myself. I wasn’t doing a good job convincing myself of it, though. So, as I left the dining room to head to my room, I worried Adrian might get hurt.
***
How on Earth had this happened?
You see, we were right in the middle of passing the holy book around and reading our verses, when he walked into the fellowship room like he fucking owned the place. He still wore his ripped jeans, but at least he had a baggy black t-shirt on, so he didn’t look like he’d just stepped out of a sinful dream.
To my utter surprise, our pastor welcomed him and even brought a chair for him. Adrian took it, smiling apologetically. It looked like the sinner knew how to behave like a good choir boy, after all. For a full minute, he managed to make everyone move around so he could place his chair directly across from mine.
For a moment, our eyes met, and our hearts skipped a beat. Mine. I meant mine. I have no idea what his did at the time. I like to believe it did the same.
If anyone else in our group thought something unholy about him, I wouldn’t know. My head, however, was full of impure thoughts.
At any moment, I expected him to do something untoward. To pull out his phone, snicker to break the solemnity of the place, but he did nothing of the sort. Instead, he showed complete deference and even read from the holy book when handed to him. It was a weird habit, not for everyone to have their own bible, but it was how our pastor liked to do things. Or he was a cheapskate. I always leaned toward the latter.
For me, that evening was a terrible experience. Suddenly, I became hyperaware of myself and my surroundings. My breathing turned shallow and I couldn’t look away from him. I guess I was fortunate to live among pious people, because they didn’t notice us at all. It only took Adrian to shift in his chair a smidge, and I stopped breathing altogether.
He attended the bible study until its very end. As people trickled out, he stayed back, asking the pastor a few questions and pretending to be invested. I got busy putting back the chairs and tidying up the room, curious of what he could have to tell our pastor.
Nothing untoward, unfortunately. Adrian even expressed his desire to attend again, and the pastor sounded delighted to hear it.
For fuck’s sake.
I walked out, determined to put as much distance between us as I could. He was playing some weird game, and I didn’t want to be a part of it.
The evening was setting late, but it was twilight by the time he reached me from behind. He threw his arms around me and whispered in my ear, “Do you ever get hard during bible study?”
“You’re a moron,” I hissed, trying to shake him off. Our house was already in sight, and I didn’t need anyone to see us like this.
Adrian, on the other hand, wasn’t at all worried. He continued to hold me, forcing us both to walk awkwardly, swinging left and right like a pair of drunkards.
“What’re you playing at?” I asked. “If Dad finds out that you’re taking the name of the Lord in vain, it’ll be hell to pay. And no, I’m not just throwing words around in case you’re wondering.”
“I don’t take anything in vain,” he assured me. “Your dad told me that I should build a bridge between you and me. And told me where I could find you. Bible study is boring as hell. How do you live through it?”
“I manage,” I said. “Stop pretending to be a good new son, Adrian. My dad will catch on, sooner or later. He’s a mean asshole, and you don’t want to learn about it on your own hide, okay?”
“Does he hit you?”
The question came out of left field, so I didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds.
“Mine did,” Adrian said. “When I was little. He did it when my mom wasn’t home, and then told her I fell. He fucking hated me, that asshole. He was jealous and said that my mom was cheating on him, which wasn’t true. She just had to work double shifts because he was a loser. The moment she discovered the truth, she grabbed me and left his sorry ass. We’ve been on our own ever since.”
“Wow, is this sob story true?” I said, stifling the wave of sympathy toward him that I felt at hearing those words. He had to be playing me.
He laughed. “Got you, didn’t I? Well, brother, you need something to work with, so you can find that you can relate to me, your unwanted brother. I thought if we both compared our scars, that might just work.”
“Clown,” I hissed, renewing my efforts to get rid of him. How could he lie about such things? And all of that because he wanted to get under my skin? It made no sense.
He was already there.
“Dinner’s almost ready. Hold my hand while we say grace, and I’ll be good to you tonight.”
“Quit it,” I warned him again.
The front door opened when we were close to it. Dad was there, staring at us.
“How was bible study?” he asked.
“Interesting,” Adrian said, getting away from me slowly and ruffling my hair hard. He did everything so naturally that no one suspected him of foul play. That’s why I couldn’t believe a word that came out of his mouth. “I’ll go again if Jo goes.”
“You boys are good boys,” Dad said, making room for us to walk in. “Jordan, take Adrian fishing this weekend. I’ll give you the keys to the shed.”
The shed was a place I particularly hated. There’s nothing more boring than waiting for fish to bite in my opinion. Not even bible study. Or maybe I just hated how suffocated I felt to spend so much time alone with my father, not talking for hours.
It did cross my mind once that he was trying to create a bond between us, by taking me on these fishing trips. It took about one hour and a half by foot to get to the lake where this fishing spot was, along with our shed. It yielded few fish, and it wasn’t a nice place at all. Maybe only if you liked mosquitoes and how vicious they could be at night.
The shed didn’t deserve to have keys. It was made up a single room that included a small sleeping area with a narrow bed, and very few other amenities if you didn’t include my dad’s fishing supplies.
The same bonding attempt my father had envisioned for the two of us waited now for Adrian and me. How Dad expected this type of thing to give different results was beyond me. But he’s always been a stubborn mule, and if he believed that men should bond over fishing – aka not talking to each other while waiting to catch some stubborn fish that refused to get caught – it had to be so.
“I think we should first ask Adrian if he wants to go,” I said, grasping at straws. I threw a pointed look at Adrian, hoping to convey without words just how much I hated fishing, but the fiend was back in the game. All that bible-reading had done nothing for his pitch-black soul.
“I’d love to,” the fiend in question replied enthusiastically. “Jo can show me the ropes, and I’ll learn how to fish.”
“You’ve never done it?” Dad asked.
“Nope,” Adrian replied.
“I’d love to go down with you boys, but your mom wants us to go to a knitting fair or something of the kind.”
For a moment, Adrian’s smile faded upon hearing my dad’s wish to join us. But he was back in high spirits once he understood that the danger was averted.
“Go wash and come down to dinner.” My dad let out a good-natured laugh, catching me completely unawares. I didn’t even know he could laugh like that. He never laughed much when it was just the two of us, to begin with. “There’s nothing better in the world than dinner in the family.”
I had a few ideas about things that were a lot better than that. Like having my stepbrother pushing his tongue in my mouth, jerking me off, and eating my cum. Yeah, plenty of better things than dinner in the family.
tbc
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