Trent behaved as if Theo was just a normal twelve-year-old boy. We were sitting at a picnic table under the sun, with Gustav pretending like he wasn’t watching the exchange and coloring a Harry Potter coloring book with a frown. Theo was wearing a Chicago Bears ball cap, a Ren and Stimpy T-shirt, and a smile.

“No, man, no. You can’t root for the Chicago Bears living in California. That’s just not acceptable.” Trent shook his head, leaning across the picnic table, talking animatedly to my brother.

“Y-y-yes, I can. M-m-mike G-g-glennon is God.” Theo slammed the table with his open palm a little too roughly. Gustav and I were used to it, we knew better than to flinch, but the great thing was that Trent wasn’t fazed by it, either. Trent waved his hand around impatiently, rolling his eyes and not doing the polite, whatever-you-say fake shit people usually did in front of Theo.

“Jesus. No. Where is this coming from? Next thing, you’ll tell me you like Tom Brady.”

Theo laughed. For all the love that we’d shared, I couldn’t talk to him about boy stuff to save my life. And he didn’t care about surfing, because he hardly ever saw the ocean, living in a group home for so long. The simple fact that Trent related to him had his face glowing.

“I, I, I like T-t-tom B-brady!” he exclaimed, ecstatic.

“Yeah, well, I think it’s time for me to barf. Where’s the bathroom around here?” Trent made a show of looking around, using his hand as a visor from the sun. He made it a point not to wear his Wayfarers while he was talking to my brother. He gave him eye contact. That was amazing.

Gustav pointed behind him, to one of the small cabins circling the picnic area. There were many families sitting at the tables with food and soda, talking and laughing. For the first time in years, we looked like one of those families. It wasn’t just Theo and me. There was someone else, too. And it both killed and revived me.

When Trent left, Theo’s smile widened.

“W-who is he?”

I gave him a mean side-eye. Special or not, Theo was still my little brother, which meant he could still be a huge pain in the butt.

“He works with Jordan. I babysit his daughter sometimes. She’s really cool. How are you doing, dude?”

Theo shrugged. “G-g-good. Y-you d-didn’t come yesterday.”

Guilt choked me. I was ashamed to tell him the truth, but then, some people you couldn’t lie to. He deserved better than the half-lies I spat on autopilot to my father.

“Trent asked me to help him with Luna. She doesn’t really talk, so sometimes she needs reassuring company when she goes places.”

“A-a-always saving p-people.” My younger brother grinned, his blond hair and blue eyes reminding me of my mother’s ice queen features. I wondered how she could turn her back on someone who looked like a carbon copy of her. Theo was a little heavy from lack of activity—he really hated working out, but other than that, he looked like Lydia Van Der Zee’s mini-me.

Trent got back to the table ten minutes later, dumping what looked like a whole junk food aisle from Safeway onto the table.

“They only had sandwiches and soda in the cafeteria, and no offense, Theo, but the food here looks like some sort of a medieval punishment, but I’m hungry.”

“Yeah, I could eat just about anything right now,” I said. Trent gave Gustav, Theo, and me our sandwiches and opened all of the bags of chips.

After lunch, they bickered more about football, then Trent and Theo arm-wrestled. Trent let him win once, and for that, I wanted to kiss him openly and wildly. Theo had a small meltdown when Gustav hinted at us having to leave, but once he settled and we said our goodbyes, we were out the door and walking to Trent’s car. I felt emotionally drained but also recharged and full at the same time.

We didn’t speak until he reached the traffic light onto a road leading to downtown San Diego. His Wayfarers were on and he looked cool as a cucumber.

“Saint John’s?” he inquired, confirming the hospital was our next destination. I didn’t get it. Why was he doing it? Standing by my side, like he could get something out of it.

“Yes, please. But before…can we stop somewhere else?”

“Where?” he asked.

“Anywhere.” I scrunched my nose, my gaze dropping to my thighs. The only excuse for what I had in mind was that I was still a teenager, and Trent was still the hottest man I’d ever seen. His face was casual, his posture blasé. One of his arms was draped against the steering wheel and he looked a lot like a James Dean picture come to life.

“Why?” The laughter in his voice annoyed me, but also made me hotter for him. I rubbed my bare thighs under the summer dress, feeling my cotton panties already damp just from thinking about it. “You know why.”

“You need to refresh my memory. I’m old, and I don’t take all my Omega-3.”

I laughed, wetting my lips as I tilted my body to face him. “Sunday, we were supposed to, um…” I laughed, thinking about how ridiculous it looked and felt.

“That’s not a sentence, Van Der Zee. You will need to finish that.”

Oh, my God. He was going to make me say it. Fine. Whatever. “You were supposed to take me from behind.” I blushed.

The car stopped with a comic screech.

Where were we? I looked outside. A vineyard between Big Heart Village and San Diego. Other than the birds chirping and golden mountains, there was nothing but fat grapes and thin, wiry trees. I wish I could say I wanted him to take me from behind as a reward for how he’d been with my brother. But the truth was, I wanted him desperately. Like you do water in the desert, in desolate sands.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Fucking up a hundred grand car, probably.” He glanced over his shoulder, reversing his car, his arm slung behind my seat, before driving straight into the vineyard. On the sand, and dust, and everything else a Tesla shouldn’t be on.

The car jerked to a stop a few inches from a tree, and he got out, pulling me along with him.

“Where to?” I asked breathlessly, following his footsteps. I could see what he saw in the distance, and sweat dripped down my neck. No way was I going to do this. There was a cabin at the end of the vineyard. Empty, most likely, since the windows were shattered and the door was wide open. It belonged to someone, and that someone wasn’t us. I pulled him toward the car, but instead of fighting, he picked me up and slung me across his shoulder, sauntering confidently toward the hut.

“You’re insane. Someone could be in there. Someone could catch us.” My hair was in my face and my panties were completely exposed, as one of his arms was pressed on my thighs, making my dress ride up. He bit the soft flesh of my ass in warning, his breath hot, his pulse quick under my leg.

“I meant we should do it sometime today, not right this second.” I giggled.

“Your panties say right this second. They’re fucking soaked and you’re rubbing against my shoulder like you’ve never had a cock in your pussy before. But we both know that’s not true, right, Edie?”

“Right,” I lamented, raking my fingernails down his back, feeling his goose bumps even through his shirt. “Bane fucked me, too,” I teased.

To that, he responded as I wanted him to. With a loud smack to my ass. I moaned, feeling the familiar rush only Trent had ever given me, and spread my legs slightly while he continued making his journey to the cabin.

“He never fucked you like I do, and we both know that.”

No truer words were ever spoken, and as he dumped me onto a stack of hay like a rag doll, towering over me, I inwardly prayed he would kiss me again, the way he had at Vicious’. Like there was no one else in the world but us. Reminding me that we were alive and beautiful.

“Kiss me,” I breathed, blinking. Please, my eyes begged. Now, they demanded.

It was stunning, watching the way he undressed from his anger for me, still fully clothed. How his knee bent in front of me, leaned forward, clasped the back of my head, and brought me to his face, pressing his lips sweetly onto mine. Like what we were doing made some sort of sense. Like this wasn’t going to blow up in our faces as soon as he declared war on my father, or my father found out I’d slept with him.

He opened his lips, his tongue pushing in to open my mouth. I tilted my head, giving him access, holding his stubbled cheekbones in my palms, feeling how alive he was under my fingertips. I kissed him deeper, hotter, leaving a piece of soul behind, making sure that it’d seep deeper into him so he’d never forget me.

He encircled his fingers around my sweaty neck, catching some stray locks of blonde hair that stuck to my skin, and squeezed softly as his tongue flicked against mine. He sucked my tongue hungrily. My eyes rolled back, and I clenched from the inside.

“I should get rid of your ass, Van Der Zee. Already, we’re treading past the point of no return.”

“Go ahead. I’m not going to come begging.” I swallowed against the pressure of his hand, my eyes locked on his, but I could see him releasing his cock. I knew we would do it the way we both liked. Like animals. With our clothes still on, the dry hay sticking to our sweaty skin, hard slaps of skin against skin reminding us there was nothing pretty or elegant in how we wanted one another. We would have sex the way nature intended us to. With no dignity, or pride, or shame. We wouldn’t make love. We’d battle this down like everything else we did with each other.

“You won’t beg,” he repeated, a growing smirk decorating his face. He taunted me, holding his cock in his hand and pressing it against my sex, still clothed with underwear. He drew delicious circles around my lips with his tip, teasing the hell out of me. Again, I found myself gulping down my lust for him.

“I won’t beg.”

“You won’t beg,” he repeated, pushing his whole cock through my panties, penetrating me. The fabric of my underwear stretched along my inner thighs painfully, and I threw my head back, wincing.

I wanted more.

I wanted it harder.

I wanted everything.