Finding Delaware (State of Us #1)

by Bree Wiley

He’s staring down at his phone, smiling as he types away, and it’s my turn to glare. Who the fuck is he talking to? Who has him smiling like that?

Me: You’re a dude. I’m a dude. We only smile at our phones for nudes. That rhymed. I’m a poet, and I didn’t know it.

Me: Saw that did you? Suckslee: The whole lunchroom saw it. Get a room next time.

but the thought of anyone else on my lips other than my fucking stepbrother makes me nauseous.

And then Taylor is there again, emptying his lungs into mine as if our very existence depends on each other.

He tastes like chlorine and bad decisions, but damn if I don’t find myself sucking on his bottom lip like it’s a lifeline.

I let the waves pull me down, closing my eyes and relinquishing to the darkness that has clawed at me for years. It’s euphoric. Weightless. A high I’ll never find agai...

“I’ve dreamt about this,” he murmurs, nibbling on my earlobe as his hand palms my dick outside of my swim shorts.

“What are you doing in my room?” Trying to get off, which you rudely interrupted.

“I don’t like seeing someone else’s marks on you,” he whispers into my skin, pressing soft kisses over my bruises like I’m some precious thing that requires care.

His murderous face flashes in my mind’s eye, gripping my arms when he threw me from the front porch at twelve, and I can’t.

The defeat in those three words feels like a knife to my chest. I don’t want to go.

Why do my eyes sink closed as I savor his taste—mint with the slightest trace of whiskey left? Why is this happening to me?

Am I that ugly to him? Is my touch so revolting that it makes him look like he wants to vomit? My stomach churns at the thought.

The urge to glare down at my dick is strong. So you could get hard at the thought of him touching you, but not when it actually came down to it? Make it make sense, motherfucker.

but when I’m within touching distance, it feels like I’m a satellite that’s finally returned to orbit.

I was knocked out of his gravitational pull, but now I’m back in place.

Jesus, it feels like we’re getting divorced, and he’s taking the baby.

“I mean, I guess we could...share custody or something. Switch off every weekend.”

I don’t care that we’re in the middle of the driveway in broad daylight—I need to kiss him. At least just once, even if it’s the last time.

“You weren’t there,” I accuse softly, gripping the handlebars. He must not have heard me because he tilts his head and steps closer. “I don’t know what we are, Huckslee. Maybe at one point, I did, but all of that changed. And I know I can’t undo everything I’ve done, but I almost fucking died, and you weren’t there.”

“Hmm,” he hums as he grabs my arm, pulling me away toward the stage. “I saw the way he looked at you. Pretty sure your stepbrother is in love with you, babe.”

“We’re still young, babe. You’ve got plenty of time to get your head on straight.”

Over and over, the fears I’ve been running from riddle my body in the form of words aimed at me like bullets from the mouths of a community I’ve been nothing but kind to.

This is the Huckslee whose mother left him, whose father will disown him, whose best friend will turn his back on him. Whose stepbrother just broke his fucking heart. And I hate this Huckslee.

Hate the man cursing a God he no longer believes in for making him this way.

My fist connects with my reflection, shattering the image staring back at me to match my soul, glass, and crimson raining down over the sink.

The minute I saw Huck’s face when he realized I’d opened the curtain, I wanted to take it back. To change it. Rewind time to that night in the pool or when I kissed him on the track; rewrite our fucking stars because we can’t come back from this.

I know I’ve lost him. With that one look, I felt whatever thread of fate that connected us obliterate, shredding my heart in its wake.

Huckslee Davis, jersey number twenty, currently in his fourth and final season playing for the California Golden Bears at CU Berkeley.

He looks...ecstatic. Elated. It’s a look I never got to see with him, and I drink it down like the alcoholic I am, needing my fix.

hope he’s happy—genuinely, authentically happy. I hope life got better when he moved in with his grandparents out there, and I hope he’s been able to find peace.

He was...too nice. How fucked up is that? I’ve broken it off with every guy I’ve ever dated because they aren’t assholes, apparently. I won’t even get into what my therapist thinks about that.

“You broke your rule,” he shouts after me when I hit the backyard. “No fighting in Delaware, remember?”

The cameras do not do Huckslee Davis justice because, holy shit.

seeing him again felt that good. Like I’ve been half alive for four years, and his presence just breathed new life into me.

I find my thumb gently rubbing circles into Huck’s wrist. Telling him that it’s alright. It’s okay, I understand. I’ve wanted to do this to myself, too.

“You watch my games?” He jerks his chin, and I follow his gaze to see Taylor leaning against a far wall, engaged in conversation. “Baby boy never misses any. And if he does, he gets moody as fuck.”

Because I’m a dickhead, first and foremost, but I also wanted to see what he’d do. In hindsight, kissing Logan was not the best way to do that. I fucked around and found out.

And, unfortunately, there’s a small scar on my chin from Huck’s class ring to prove it. Honestly, I like it.

“...said you were borrowing Taylor’s truck, not the whole Taylor.” She lifts her chin up at him. “You brought your best friend, so I brought mine.”

Fuck, even sad, he’s adorable. Makes me want to make him hot chocolate and shit. Tuck a blanket around him. Sit on his face.

Huckslee and I are fucking toxic together. Which is precisely why I’m addicted to him.

but come on. What’s so sexy about corporate greed and tax evasion? Nothing, that’s what.

Mainly because my head is full of someone with dark brown eyes and soft, blond curls…

Realizing I was in love with Huckslee wasn’t as earth-shattering as the books and movies make it out to be. I kind of always knew in the back of my mind. That’s why I couldn’t seem to stay away from him.

You’d think I’d take the hint. Move on, let him go, realize he can’t feel anything for me after our past. But hope still burns inside me, and I refuse to let it die. I can’t.

Dropping his gaze, his breath hitches, and I follow his attention to where it rests on my hard dick poking into his solid six-pack through my sweats. Oops.

Loud stomps come from the stairs, and suddenly, Huckslee is rounding the bed to the other side. “Nuh-uh, no way. If you three get to sleep in the bed, then so do I.”

Then Salem’s sleepy voice breaks the silence. “I’d be in the back with a strap on,” she mumbles, “obviously.” That gets a snort out of me. Logan huffs in annoyance. “But who would you be fucking?” “Huckslee.”