Masterpiece Theater

My phone chirped. I groaned and reached for it, fresh scabs peeling open as I stretched around Laurel to grab it off the nightstand.

I needed to talk to her about getting declawed.

Jason’s name flashed on my screen. I knew if I didn’t answer, he’d be blowing up Laurel’s phone, and I didn’t want that to happen. She’d had a rough night at work and instead of going home, she had Danny bring her here.

Her car had broken down last week and instead of letting me pay to fix it, she let it sit in the parking space in front of her apartment. She was still trying to figure out a way to get it to the shop and pay for the new brakes, tune up, and near-dead transmission.

I knew it was pointless to argue with her, so I drove her to work and me or Jason usually picked her up. I’d got stuck at Zack’s, rewriting some riffs, so I let her know I couldn’t make it. I figured she would have called Jason to let him know he had to drive, but seeing Danny’s car parked on the street informed me otherwise.

She breezed past my frustration and went straight to the shower to wash off the grossness of bartending by herself all night. We still hadn’t talked about it and she needed her sleep.

As gently as I could, I extricated myself from Laurel and answered it, clutching it between my shoulder and ear while I pulled on sweats. “‘Sup, Jason?”

“Where’s Laurel?” He asked, a bit panicked.

“Asleep. You were supposed to pick her up.”

“Shit.” I heard him curse under his breath. I lit a cigarette and stood to pull the pants up. As I walked out of the bedroom, I heard more cursing from his end.

“What’s going on?”

“I actually, shit,” now he was muttering. I sighed patiently, thumping down the stairs. It was like four in the morning and I didn’t have the patience for him.

“Jason!” I snapped. “Man, come on. You called me, not your sister, so you know you fucked up. She was pissed when she got here, so where the hell are you?”

“I’m in the Hills.”

“What?”

“The Hollywood Hills. There was a party. Shit...I fucked up Gates. I really fucked up.”

“Are you...are you high?”

“Don’t tell my sister! Please. Just come get me.”

“Dude…” I groaned and hit the coffee maker. “Where’s your car?”

“I caught a ride with some friends. Come on man, I’m coming down and I really need to leave. Like ten minutes ago.”

I didn’t waste more time squabbling with him. I poured a to-go mug and finished my cigarette. “Shoot me the address and let me get dressed.”

“Hurry man.” He told me and hung up.

I guzzled my coffee, trying to shock my system. A fresh basket of clothes was on my couch, so I took a shirt off the pile and pulled it on one-handed. My phone pinged as I grabbed my hoodie and walked out the door

He was my girlfriend’s twin brother. I had an obligation to be nice to him, to be there for him like I promised her I would. I’d held up my word by being understanding when he needed her to stay with him and spend time with him. I even invited him to hang out, not just with me and Laurel, but with the guys, too.

Neediness aside, he was actually a pretty cool guy to hang with. Laurel hadn’t really said anything, and it was never brought up, but I knew that she was keeping him on the sobriety train. It meant a lot to her when I didn’t drink around him.

I just wanted to keep her happy.

Which, unfortunately, meant that my happy ass was driving to the Hills at four in the morning to pick him up.

And he wanted me to lie to her.

Talk about fucking compromise.

I set my GPS and sped through the empty streets. After the third message of where the fuck r u???, I tossed my phone in the seat and ignored it. I was going as fast as I could without risking a speeding ticket.

When I finally reached the house, I drove up the winding path slowly, trying to find a place among the dozens of cars to park. The house didn’t look that big on the outside, but whoever it belonged to, knew how to throw a rager.

I called, grateful that he picked up on the first ring. “I’m here, man.”

“Thank fuck.” He hung up and I waited.

Not even sixty seconds later, he was diving into my passenger seat and shouting at me to go, so I reversed, spraying dirt, and sped back down the hill before he even had the door shut.

“The fuck is going on?” I snapped. He didn’t even scramble to put on his seat belt. He just gripped the ‘oh shit’ handle, sitting halfway off his seat.

“So my buddy Rob told me about this party,” he started. I nodded along and lit a cigarette, waiting for him to continue.

“Ian hasn’t returned my calls. I didn’t wanna bother Laurel at work and you were doing band stuff, so I figured I’d just come, hang out, see what my new boyfriend looks like.”

“Right.”

“Anyway, I got here, and no one I’m talking to actually knows whose party it is, or where they’re at, and shots are being passed around and so I start drinking,”

“Jason, man, come on.” My interjections aren’t really necessary, but I needed to do something before I strangled him.

“I know, I know. Anyway, I’m drinking, and lovesick, and looking for Rob, who by the way, ditched me for an orgy upstairs, and wound up in the pool house and they’re passing around acid.”

“Please tell me-”

“I took a couple of hits.”

I didn’t need to hear anymore. In the short time that I’d known Jason, actually spent time with him, I knew he had a flare for the dramatic. He was a total drama queen about every little slight. Without me or Laurel to ground him, he’d completely gone off the rails.

"Damn dude." I mumbled around my cigarette. He sighed, calmer now that we were back on a main road.

I didn’t know what to say to him. Having to be alone with the guy wasn’t exactly on the list of things I was expected to do as doting boyfriend. Since I’d met him, there was always someone else around.

It wasn’t intentional.

At least, that’s what I told myself.

The day I met him, there had been an electric energy. He sensed it, too. When he stepped up to me, to size me up as his sister's boyfriend, we were both surprised.

I hadn't felt anything like it since that night with Matt. Not even with Matt. It had been a one and done deal.

Now Jason was pulsating with the same energy.

"You want me to take you back to the house?" I asked. I tossed my cigarette and slurped more coffee. The sun still hadn't risen, but the sky was getting lighter, the dark blue of four A. M. turning into the soft gray of five A. M. I wanted to go back to bed.

Back to Laurel.

"I can't see Laurel right now. She'd freak. Just take me to the apartment."

I did as he asked, turning on the radio to drown out my thoughts. My own guitar riffs blasted out of my speakers, but Jason didn't say anything.

I had put in City of Evil as a teaching mechanism, figuring out where I wanted to go as a guitarist and what I wanted to trash and keep with the new album. Some would have called it pretentious, and if Jason was sober, he probably would too.

The rest of the drive was blissfully silent. Jason had calmed down and looked kind of serene watching the traffic lights outside of his window. I smoked another cigarette, doing my best to stay occupied.

"Got time to hang? I really don't wanna sober up alone." Jason asked when I pulled up to Laurel's broken down Corolla.

I sighed. I didn't want to be alone with him, and I really didn't want Laurel to wake up in bed alone, but I knew if she found out I left Jason alone to sober up, she'd kill me.

A double edged sword.

Apprehensively, I mumbled, "yeah," and got out of the car. Before I moved up the stairs, I sent Laurel a message, just in case.

As soon as we were inside, Jason reached behind him to pull his shirt up and over his head. He threw it on the ground, flopped onto the couch, and tucked his arm behind his head.

In betrayal, my dick jumped behind my sweats. I hadn't put on anything else.

Fuck. Me.

Jason smirked, as if he knew what I was thinking. I wasn't at full attention yet, but I knew it wouldn't take much to get there. To further prove his mind-reading capabilities, he stretched his legs out and arched his back to pull his pants off.

He hadn't worn anything underneath, either.

Goddamn bastard. He knew what he was doing. I could tell by the way he shimmied out of his pants and kicked them to the floor. He still had a smirk on his face.

I swallowed, trying to figure out why the hell I was still standing next to the door like a dumbass.

"The hell you waiting for, Gates? A fucking invitation?"

The rest of my body reacted. I crossed the two feet it took to get to him, threw my shirt off, and leaned down to kiss him. With our lips locked, I reached between him and knelt down. He didn’t let me get far with my hands, though. He pulled away and shoved my head down, moaning as soon as I wrapped my lips around him.

I didn’t even see the line, I vaulted over it so fast. There were so many things wrong with what was happening, but none came to mind as Jason kept a firm grip on the back of my head, forcing me to do nothing but suck him off, and I gladly did so as his pleasure filled my ears.

And although I knew this wasn’t what Laurel meant by being there for him, I wasn’t complaining.