Heat Stroke (Beach Kingdom 2)

No one moved for long moments. Jamie couldn’t hear anything but the damaged beating of his heart and the breeze coming in off the ocean in the distance. Finally, he forced his feet to move, taking Andrew by the shoulders and propelling him toward the car, before any of the neighbors called the cops. Rory and the girls seemed to get the message, too, piling into the backseat with Jamie, although Jiya was staring at Andrew in the rearview mirror in shock.

“What’s wrong, Jiya?” Andrew said, a muscle popping in his jaw. “You didn’t know I had any violence in me?” He paused. “Well now you do.”

Andrew started the car and Jamie sensed in his gut that it wasn’t over. He was proven right a second later when Marcus appeared in the window beside him, taking up the whole thing with his bulky frame.

“Don’t go. Don’t.” He pulled on the door handle, biting off a curse, before pounding in the window with his fists. “Get out of the fucking car, Jamie.”

“Drive,” Jamie shouted, closing his eyes.

They did. With every block they drove farther away from Marcus, Jamie let the numbness take over, let it block the pain, the memories, the traitorous spark of hope that refused to be doused. He deadened himself as a means of survival.

And as much as he needed to, he didn’t look back.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Marcus was underneath his bed. It was the only way to escape the light.

He couldn’t remember when he’d oozed out from beneath the bedcovers and wedged his gigantic ass under the king-sized Ikea frame, but it had been the best decision of his life. Surrounded by darkness, he couldn’t see anything. And nothing could see him. There he lay, his face in a puddle of his own tears, his boxers stuck to him from being worn a full week straight. Maybe he’d go for some kind of boxer-shorts-wearing world record. It would be his second title, since he was already going to end up in Guinness as The Shittiest Human Being Alive.

How long did he have to starve himself before he just died already? He’d stopped feeling hunger pains yesterday and now he was just an empty shell that didn’t have the strength or will to move. Just stop beating, heart. Please just stop beating.

How could he live with the memory of Jamie’s bloody face?

Even if Jamie had stayed and let Marcus clean him up and smother him in a mountain of blankets and make him soup, Marcus still wouldn’t want to live just having seen Jamie like that. Hurt. Red soaking into his shirt.

It might as well have been Marcus who decked him.

Everything, start to finish, was on Marcus’s head.

How could he? How could he ask Jamie to be in a relationship based on a secret? At the time, it had seemed like the only option, but now? As soon as Jamie had stepped in front of Joey to protect him, the big picture had become so clear. He was honestly worried about what his family would think of Jamie? They should be fucking worried about what Jamie thought of them. Everyone in this world should be worried about that. Jamie Prince was the best man alive and Marcus had broken him. Jesus, he’d looked so broken.

My arms are too tired to pick up the pieces now.

Marcus wrapped his arms over the back of his head and moaned, wishing the earth would just accept his decomposing body already. Did it want a fucking invitation? Oh my God, he couldn’t close his eyes one more time and see Jamie’s injured face, it was like a knife twisting in his stomach over and over.

A familiar song came on, drifting from his television speakers to where he lay under the bed, haunting him. Moving only his arm, he picked up the remote and angled it toward the television, hitting stop and play, starting the movie over again. The same one he’d been watching all week since the morning Jamie left. Since the morning his world crashed down.

Marcus wasn’t sure how much time passed between starting the movie again and hearing footsteps in the bedroom, because he drifted in and out of consciousness. But when his brother’s face appeared, Marcus learned he had some life left in him. His lip curled in a snarl and the floundering organ in his chest started to rap against his ribs. At least his brother’s eye was still a mottled purple. There was some justice in this world.

“Get the fuck out.”

“Nope. You get out from under the bed.” Joey’s face screwed up. “For chrissakes, I’m a garbage man and I can barely tolerate this smell.”

“Go home. I’m not moving.”

Joey’s face disappeared and a moment later, Marcus felt a hand grip his ankle. Then he was pulled unceremoniously out from beneath the bed, leaving a trail of sweaty filth behind, like a slug. As soon as Marcus’s head cleared the frame, he flipped over and swept a leg under Joey, knocking him onto the ground.