Shatter (True Believers #4)(11)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“I just want to lock it in a box labeled ‘Awesome Sex with a Nice Guy’ and keep it safe there. Right now he’s the only one in that box so he has plenty of room to move around.”

Rory laughed. “I can understand that.”

“Was he circumcised?” Jessica asked. “I’ve always wanted to know what dealing with an uncircumcised guy is like.”

She made it sound like you had to be animal tamer to handle an uncircumcised penis. Circle it carefully, hands out, so you didn’t spook it.

“Of course he is,” Rory told her. “He’s Jewish.”

“He’s Jewish?” I asked blankly. I had to admit I had not given one single thought to his ethnic or religious background. Not a single one.

“Well, presumably. Professor Kadisch is and their last name is German-Jewish.”

“You scare me,” Jessica told Rory. “How do you know shit like that?”

“What? It’s common knowledge.”

“Not in my world.” Then she glanced back at me. “So he was circumcised?”

I nodded. “Definitely.” I hadn’t gotten that up close and personal with it, well, not with my eyes, but I had stroked him with my hand and that soldier had been wearing a helmet.

The front door opened and Jessica whispered, “Shh!” urgently like we were twelve and someone’s mom was coming in to the room.

Which was why we all looked totally guilty when Riley, Tyler, Jayden, and Easton came into the living room, a gust of cold air following them. They were talking when they first stepped in, but Riley paused in the middle of kicking off his boots.

“What? Why do you all look so guilty?”

Rory bit her lip and shook her head. Jessica pretended to be studiously looking at her book. “What are you talking about, honey? How was the movie?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Fine.” Then he turned to his brother. “Ty, are you with me on this one? Don’t they look like they’re either talking about something that is going to embarrass the shit out of us, or they are planning something that involves me doing manual labor?”

Tyler had kicked his boots off, too, and he padded into the room on his socks, dropping to the floor beside Rory. “I agree with you.” He kissed his girlfriend and starting massaging her shoulders, clearly trying to butter her up. “Come on, Rory, be honest. Were you guys talking about us?”

“No,” she told him and it rang with sincerity because it was true. “Ah, keep doing that. It feels good. I’m all in knots from studying.”

He made a face but he kept doing it.

Jayden, Riley and Tyler’s younger brother who had Down syndrome and was basically a laugh-riot all the time, hung his coat on the hooks Jessica had installed by the front door. “Man, I’m glad I don’t have to study.”

“Me, too,” Riley said, going over and kneeling over Jessica on the chair to give her a kiss.

“Ow, get off of me,” she said. “Your knee is crushing my shin.”

Riley completely sprawled across her just to annoy her, kissing her neck with obnoxious sounds.

“Stop it,” she said, laughing, trying to shove at his chest even as her head bent to give him better access.

Two weeks ago, watching both my friends with their boyfriends would have sent me from the room, unable to deal. But now I really didn’t mind. I just pulled my feet up when Easton, who was only eleven, decided to flop onto the couch with me, worming under the blanket. In a minute, he was parallel with me, moving into the crook of my arm. I know his brothers thought it was weird that Easton really dug both Rory and me. I didn’t. Rory volunteered at an animal shelter and I loved kids, having spent every summer in high school as a camp counselor. It seemed natural to me that a kid who had a negligent mother before she died, and none now, would want some affection. Tyler and Riley tried really hard to fill that void, but their way of showing love tended to involve a lot of fist-bumping and hair-rubbing.

Easton said, “Can I have a sip of your pop?”

“Sure.”

But Tyler had eagle ears when it came to Easton. His head popped up from the other side of the coffee table. “No, it’s too—”

“Too what?” Easton asked, already reaching for the can.

“What the hell are you two doing under a blanket together?” Tyler asked. “No. Uh-oh. Hell no.”

Riley looked up from Jessica’s boobs and sighed. “Oh my God.”

I got totally offended. “What? He’s just sitting next to me. He misses his mother.”

“Our mother never hugged him and you are not a forty-year-old woman.”

“So what?” I asked, exasperated. “He thinks of me like a babysitter. Don’t you, Easton?”

Easton nodded.

“A babysitter he’d like to bang if he knew how,” Riley said with a snort.

“Oh!” I gasped. “You’re disgusting!” I actually covered Easton’s ears with my hands. “You shouldn’t say things like that in front of him. He’s just an innocent child.”

Tyler’s eyebrows just about disappeared. “As much as I wish that were the case, he’s seen and heard a lot worse than what Riley just said. Is he innocent in terms of girls? Of course he is, technically. You’re right, he’s only eleven. But in terms of life? Sorry to say he isn’t even close to innocent, Kylie. He has a bit of a breast obsession right now and I think he is playing you, taking advantage of your sympathy.”

“He does,” Jessica confirmed.

“Oh.” She should know, she lived there, even if I had a hard time thinking of an eleven-year-old as anything other than a child still. “Sorry, I didn’t realize.” I released Easton’s ears and thumped the blanket down between us so our bodies weren’t touching. “Better?”

Tyler just laughed. “Uh. Maybe not quite, but thanks.” He kissed the top of Rory’s head. “You ready to go home?”

“Yes. It’s going to be an all-nighter, though.”

“I’ll make you coffee before I go to bed,” he told her. “Kylie, you want a ride home?”

“Yes. Thanks.” Though the idea of returning to my poop apartment didn’t make me happy. I sighed, wishing things had worked out differently. Tyler had moved in with Rory and Phoenix had moved into Robin’s room, so now it was couple city over there instead of the four of us girls the way I had pictured it, the way we had planned it last year. Jessica lived with Riley in the house he’d inherited from his mother. Or been saddled with, as he liked to put it.