Naughty November

Prologue

PROLOGUE

IGGY

“Kee is home! Kee is home!” My heart leaped into my throat and became temporarily stuck there as I looked out my bedroom window. The silver sedan braked hard in the driveway. He’d been driving fast again, and Stepdad would argue with him about it, but I didn’t care. After watching the street for the past hour and a half, after not seeing him for the past four months, after only speaking to him on the phone, he was finally home, just like he’d promised.

The car door opened, and he stepped out, stretching to his full height. As much as I wanted to run to welcome him, I waited. And watched. He made his way to the front door without letting anyone else out of the car. The last time he’d brought a leggy blonde with skimpy outfits that’d raised Stepdad’s blood pressure.

He’d come alone!

I wouldn’t have to share him.

Light-headed and giddy with excitement, I dashed out of the room, my bare feet slapping on the hardwood floors, and bolted down the stairs two at a time.

“No running in the house!” Stepdad shouted .

“Yes, sir!”

But I kept running. I’d been grounded so often it was nothing new, and Kieran was worth it.

The front door opened, and I halted instead of throwing myself into Kieran’s arms like I wanted. I was no longer ten years old. At thirteen, I was aware of certain things, like my crazy hormones making my older stepbrother seem more attractive than I had any right to notice.

Or that my stepbrother was the reason I figured out I was gayer than a peacock in a field of rainbows.

“Kee, you’re home!”

He grinned, his bright blue eyes crinkling at the corners. My heart fluttered.

Good, it’s no longer lodged in my throat.

“Hey, squirt. Come here.” Unlike me, he didn’t hesitate to grab me by the shoulders and pull me into a headlock. He ruffled and kissed my hair. I shoved at him as if my insides hadn’t turned all mushy and soft from his affection.

“You’re messing up my hair!”

Didn’t he know how long I’d spent getting the curls to look just right?

“Since when do you care about your hair?” He let me go and placed his hands akimbo. “You have a girlfriend?”

“Of course not.” My face heated. I hadn’t told him I was into boys. I hadn’t told anyone—not since Stepdad had argued with Kieran about being bi. He wasn’t tolerant at all. Sometimes I thought Mom married the worst husband, but he was good to her, and I couldn’t regret their marriage when it meant I had Kieran.

Kieran was the best thing that had happened to me. Other kids in my class had stepbrothers and stepsisters who were mean to them, but not me. Kieran was the coolest. The first moment we met, he’d thrown one of his game controllers at me and told me to sit and play with him.

“You have a boyfriend, then?” Kieran asked.

“Don’t be absurd.”

He tapped my cheek. “I think you’re protesting too much. Anyway, look what I have for you. ”

He dug into his front jeans pocket and took out a tiny clear poly bag. “What is it?” It looked like a button.

“I found it. Didn’t you tell me you’d started a button collection?”

My cheeks burned as I took the bag from him. I’d lied about the button collection after he caught me stealing a button off his shirt. How was I supposed to tell him I wanted to add it to my collection of Kieran’s Stuff? Then he would know I had a crush on him, and that would be awkward.

I wasn’t stupid. My little crush probably came from him being the coolest guy I’d ever met, but it would go away soon, like all the other times I’d had a crush on someone.

“Right, thanks.” I shoved the bag into my pocket. Now I would have to start an actual button collection.

“Aren’t you even going to look at it?”

“I will later. Wanna play the new game you sent me?”

“Sure, but first, I have a question.”

I perked up. “Yes.”

I loved our trivia.

“What is the tiny piece at the end of a shoelace called?”

“Hah.” I rolled my eyes. “That’s easy. An aglet.”

“Damn. I thought I had you with that one.”

“Nice try. But I know everything.”

Not everything but most things he knew. My brain absorbed information like a sponge absorbed water. I had an eidetic memory and read a ton of books.

“One day I’ll know something you don’t.”

Stepdad entered the hall, frowning, but he didn’t say anything to upset Kieran. I dragged Kieran’s suitcase up the stairs, staggering under its weight. Then I sat on the bed while he unpacked and threw items at me he’d brought back.

A magazine landed on the bed, and I grabbed it, always eager to find something interesting to read. I dropped the magazine as if it were on fire, but couldn’t tear my gaze away. On the cover, Kieran sat on a couch, smoking, while a slender guy with pale limbs and not a stitch of clothes on perched on his lap. Smoke curled around their naked bodies, the guy’s head tilted back with Kieran’s hand on his throat. Kieran stared directly at the camera…at me.

“Hey!” Kieran snatched the magazine from the bed and bopped me over the head with it. “This ain’t for your eyes, all right?”

I nodded and scrambled off the bed.

“Where are you going?”

“I just remembered I gotta help Ma with something.”

I ran straight to my room and shut the door. If I’d stayed a second longer, I would have embarrassed myself with my hard-on.

Later that night, Kieran went out despite Stepdad arguing with him over dinner that this was his first night back from college and they wanted him to stay home. I waited until Mom and Stepdad went to their room, then slipped across the hall into Kieran’s. I knew it was wrong. My hands shook, but I had to look some more. I must have been mistaken. Maybe it was a man who looked like Kieran. Didn’t they say that everyone had a double? There was no way Kieran would have done that sort of thing.

I found the magazine in one of the drawers, buried beneath his T-shirts. Nope. It wasn’t a doppelg?nger at all. It was Kieran doing adult stuff to that guy. I tucked the magazine under my shirt and rushed out of the room.

“Uff!” I ran into a solid body. Stepdad. I shrieked and jumped back. The magazine fell to the ground. Eyes wide, I froze.

“What’s this?” Stepdad bent to retrieve the magazine. He clenched his jaw, his nostrils flared, and his face turned red. He stumbled back and clutched his chest. “Where did you get this?”

“I-I-I?—”

“I knew it!” he said fiercely. “The minute he came out, I knew everything would go wrong. This! This filth is the reason he became bi.”

“I-I don’t?—”

“Go to your room,” he snapped. “You, I’ll deal with later. ”

Terrified, I ran to my room and shut the door. Tears rolled down my cheeks. It was all my fault. I’d gotten Kieran into trouble.

I scrubbed my cheeks with my shirt, picked up my phone, and called him. The call was cut off twice. Then a text message came in.

Kieran: Call me back in thirty. I’m busy.

Me: It can’t wait.

My phone rang, and I hit Answer. Kieran’s face came on the screen. He didn’t wear the dark blue T-shirt he had during dinner. In fact, he didn’t wear a shirt at all. His bare chest had red marks on it.

The screen blurred, and a sob tore from me.

“Iggy, what’s wrong?” He hopped off the bed he’d been lounging on.

“But what about?—”

“Shush,” he said to the girl in the background. “Iggy, what is it?”

“I’m sor-ry.”

“Sorry for what? Iggy, what did you do?”

“You’re going to be mad at me.”

“I won’t. I swear. Just tell me.”

“Stepdad saw the magazine.”

“What?”

“I didn’t mean for him to see it.”

“What the fuck, Iggy? I told you not to touch that.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

He heaved a sigh. “I’m on my way. This shit’s not going to be pretty.”

He wasn’t kidding.

Half an hour later, I sat on top of the stairs, listening to the row between him and Stepdad. It was the worst fight they’d ever had since I came to live with them two years ago.

“Is this what I’ve been sending you to college for?” Stepdad was screaming at the top of his lungs.

“I told you I didn’t want to go.”

“And I said you didn’t have to as long as you had a plan. Is this your plan? To fuck your way through college? Where is your decency?”

“I made good money from that shoot. ”

Flesh connected with flesh, and I gasped, clenching my hands into fists. I wished I could cover my ears to block out the sound, but it was too late. Ma had boxed my ears many times, but she’d never slapped me before. How could Stepdad physically hurt Kieran?

This was all my fault.

“Don’t put your hands on me ever again, old man.”

“You brought it on yourself. Are you going to stop doing this filth?”

“As a matter of fact, I just signed a contract for a year to be their new fuckboy. Did you think I was going to ask your permission?”

“Get out! Get the fuck out of my house. You’ve not only defiled yourself but also your little brother.”

It’s not his fault. I was the one who wanted to look at it.

“I hid it, all right? I had no intention of letting him find the magazine, but that’s not really what bothers you, is it?” Kieran’s bitter laugh drifted upstairs. “You’re a hypocrite. What about your dirty magazines I found in the garage when I was fourteen? You’re only mad because it’s with a guy.”

“I was prepared to live with it if you ever brought a man home, but this is going too far. No son of mine is going to sell sex for entertainment. If you insist on doing this ridiculous thing, I’ll stop funding your education. You can kiss college good-bye.”

“Fine. I’ll make more than a fancy degree can anyway. I’ll drop out.”

“And don’t you show your face back here. You hear me, Kieran? You’re dead to me. This is no longer your home.”

“No problem, Harrison. From now on, you’re not my father anymore.”

Footsteps stomped up the stairs. I wasn’t fast enough to run back to my room. Kieran almost tripped over me. He caught the railing and frowned.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry. Please don’t go.”

He shook his head. “I can’t stay here, squirt.”

“I’ll take the blame.”

He tugged a lock of my hair. “You can’t take the blame for this. Didn’t I tell you not to touch that stuff? It’s for adults. You’re a kid. ”

“I’m not a kid!” I scrambled to my feet.

“I used to tell myself that when I was your age. Look, Iggy, I have to go.”

I shook my head, tears streaming harder. I didn’t care that he saw them. He couldn’t leave.

“Hey, it’s not like I’ll be dead. You got my number. Call me anytime you wanna talk.”

“Where are you gonna go?”

“I don’t know yet, but I’m going to get a place. And when you’re ready to leave here, you can stay with me. Would you like that?”

I wanted to say yes, but I didn’t want to leave my mom, but she wouldn’t leave Stepdad either. She allowed him to be the disciplinarian and rarely stepped in.

“You have a lot of time to think about it, okay?”

Kieran packed up his belongings. We loaded everything into his car way too quickly. How could he leave me in half an hour? What was I supposed to do? I looked forward to him coming home every holiday.

There would be no more holidays without him.

“I’ll see you around, kid.” Kieran got into his car, and I blinked back the tears, lowering my gaze. “Hey, Iggy?”

I snapped up my head. “Yeah?”

“Next time I see you, I’ll have a trivia question you won’t know the answer to.”

I smiled, my lips trembling. “I’ll study hard, then.”

And I did.