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“Hey!” I yell, trying to cover my butt and lifting my head to look to Sebastian for help, but I get none. He shakes his head at Eros’ antics as I’m carried ou...
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“Great. This is Evan. Evan, this is Lathan and Tres.” Tres has a baby face with short, dark hair, dimples, and a friendly smile. Lathan has the same dark hair, eyes like coal, and a don’t fuck with me vibe radiating from him.
“Evan,” he starts, moving into my personal space, and I decide that I love the way my name sounds coming from his mouth.
“Do you trust me?” Sebastian asks, his arm still outstretched, waiting for me to take the helmet.
What an absurd thing to ask of a stranger.
“Yes,” I surprise myself ...
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What an even more absu...
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Sebastian straddles the bike and reaches down to grab my right ankle before bringing it up to rest on his lap. “No pegs,” he explains, reaching down for my left foot. I’m wrapped around this stranger, his back flush to my front, and he’s completely unfazed.
“Hold on tight,” he warns, and I snake my arms around his torso without hesitation, locking my ankles around his waist. There is no buildup—no easing into it. We shoot off like a rocket, kicking up dust in our wake. I can’t tamp down the squeal that escapes my lips. For a second, I think I’m lucky enough for Sebastian not to hear it, then I feel more than hear him chuckle at my reaction.
Eros appears to our left once we’re on the main road, riding in the wrong lane. A semi barrels around the corner, and this time, my scream isn’t one of excitement, but fear. He looks over to me, eyes dancing mischievously. I scream for him to move, but he doesn’t. Just when I think he’s going to end up in tiny pieces all over the asphalt, he swerves in front of Sebastian, following it up with a wheelie.
“Show off,” Sebastian yells back to me. I remove a shaky hand, pressing it to my chest as I wait for my heartrate to return to normal. Sebastian lets go of one of the handlebars and grips my calf, rubbing my ankle with his thumb. If ...
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“You’re all brothers?”
“Cousins. But yeah. We’re brothers in the way that it counts.”
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see,” he says cryptically.
An old, decrepit house comes into view. House isn’t a big enough word for what this is. It’s more like a mansion. It used to be white at one point, but it doesn’t look like anyone’s set foot in it for decades. Sebastian slows to a stop.
“What is this place?” I ask.
“Let’s go find out,” Eros says, killing the bike and hopping off excitedly.
“He likes to trespass on private property to lurk around inside abandoned b...
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“It’s called urban exploration, dipshit!” Eros yells ...
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“It’s called asbestos,” Sebastian counters. “And he won’t be happy until w...
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“The circus keeps their animals in cages. We let ours run free,” he says, with a glint in his eyes. The insinuation is clear. They are the animals.
“You’re afraid of a lot,” he accuses with a wolfish smile.
“Maybe you’re not afraid of enough,” I shoot back, surprising even myself.
“Dangerous stunts, breaking and entering…got a death wish...
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“Everyone’s gotta die sometime,” he says, shrugging. “At least I’m actually l...
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“Oh, so I’m not living, because I was a little hesitant to waltz into something called the Globe of Death? Or because I’m not keen on breaking and entering? Sorry for my pesky self-preservation instincts.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. You may be scared, but your self-preservation instincts are lacking. Otherwise you wouldn’t be out here with us. And you damn sure wouldn’t be thinking you’re safe right now with me.”
“I see your pulse jumping in your throat,”
“Am I scaring you?”
“Are you going to kiss me?”
“Do you want me to?”
Sebastian smirks, as if he can hear the thoughts in my head. His thumb moves from my neck to my lips, and I suck in a breath as he traces them, first the bottom, then the top, applying more pressure than he did to my neck, probably smearing my berry-colored lip stain from earlier.
“Tell me no.”
I d...
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“Evan…” Sebastia...
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Instead, I push up on my toes, closing the distance between us. Right before my lips land on his, his eyes screw shut. I kiss his closed mouth, and he stands t...
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“I can feel you seeping through your underwear,” he says, but his voice sounds too pained to be unaffected.
“Little girls shouldn’t wander off by themselves at night.”
“Be careful, Princess. You’re wrapped in a pretty package, but you’re rotting from the inside out.”
I lie on my bed, tapping my bare feet against my bookshelf headboard as Something Corporate sings about wanting to save a girl, loud enough to drown out all thoughts of mysterious boys on motorcycles. I open my eyes, the fairy lights strung across my headboard slowly coming into focus. The ones that are so similar to that night, bringing Sebastian right back to the forefront of my thoughts.
Focus on the lights, Princess.
I put these lights up shortly after coming home, and it was Sebastian’s voice I heard in my head, tel...
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The Jessup Brothers Carnival is back in town, and once again, like a moth to a flame, I’m drawn to it.
IT’S AN ODD FEELING, KNOWING you’re going to die.
I might not know exactly when or exactly how, but I can almost guarantee two things: I won’t see twenty-five, and when I do go out, it will be in some catastrophic way. A fire. A car accident. Maybe I’ll get struck by lightning. It’s my curse to bear, and I’ve known it for as long as I can remember.
We all have—Eros, Tres, Lathan, and me. We’re doomed to die young. Just like our fathers and...
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how much tragedy can surround one family before people start to realize there’s something else going on there? Curse or coincidence?
I feel a sense of déjà vu that has me pausing mid-autograph. I look up, the cap to someone’s Sharpie between my teeth, searching for what, I don’t know. And that’s when I see her. High, blonde ponytail. Skintight, pale pink dress with jacket tied around her waist—just like the last time I saw her—long, tanned legs, and white tennis shoes. Evan.
She looks so fucking pure, and she was, I think, when I first met her. I can still remember how she trembled against me. The smell of her skin. The way I got hard as a fucking rock when she was pressed against me on the back of my bike.
