CROSS (A Gentry Boys Novella) Read Free

and frenzied. 
    In the end we didn’t get there. 
    Courtney moaned and Stone roared as they pounded out a tribal rhythm.  But Con put his head on my chest and sighed, replacing the condom in his pocket before he even unwrapped it.  I threaded my fingers through his hair and kissed his forehead, grateful that the boy I loved knew me better than I knew myself sometimes.  Our first time shouldn’t be in the back of a rusty scrap heap while his brother screwed with abandon not twenty feet away.  But when I put my hands on him he guided me lower so I could get him off like we’d done dozens of times before. 
    Conway had already done everything with other girls before we got together.  I never asked him how many there were.  It didn’t matter.  Yet sometimes I got jealous of the idea that anyone else had ever touched him. 
    The power was still off and the house was still silent.  My breathing quickened as I thought about the way Con had panted and shuddered as he finished in my hand.  Then I thought about the way he’d touched me to return the favor and I had to press my legs tightly together to stifle the sudden ache between them. 
    “MOTHERFUCKER!” 
    The shout came from next door.  Sometimes I couldn’t tell Con’s voice from Stone’s. 
    I hopped off the bed and took two steps over to the only window in the small bedroom I’d lived in since I was born.  Pushing the eyelet curtains away and sliding the window open, I had an instant view of the Gentry’s property. 
    The Gentry house had started to look somewhat shabby these past few years.  My father commented on it often enough, even offering to help Tracy Gentry repaint the exterior and do something about the landscaping.  She told him to piss off and mind his own fucking business.  Con’s mother was not my favorite person. 
    The shouting had come from Stone.  His back was to me and he seemed to be yelling at a closed window.  He wore nothing but a pair of loose boxers and growled another curse as he pulled a cigarette out of his mouth and crushed it against the stucco.  If the sharp gravel covering the heavily weeded yard hurt his bare feet he gave no sign.  Their house had the same exact layout as mine and the bedroom the brothers shared was the same one my two younger sisters occupied here.   The boys shouldn’t have had to share a room; I knew there was an empty one, the same room that was mine.  However it had been closed off and unused ever since their father died in it. 
    I watched in silence as Conway’s brother stalked over to the front door, tested the knob in vain, cussed another blue streak and then grabbed a cheap plastic lawn chair that had probably blown into his yard during last night’s storms.  I recognized the chair.  It belonged to us. 
    He paused there for a moment, leaning on the back of the chair as he shot a moody glare at the closed bedroom window.  The brothers were closer than brothers usually were.  Practically twins, they were only ten months apart and in the same class, but they were always hassling each other for some reason or another.  I didn’t have any brothers, only sisters, so for all I knew that’s just what brothers did.  In any case, Stone had likely jumped out the window to pollute his lungs in the yard and Conway had used the opportunity to lock him out. 
    Suddenly Stone yawned and stretched, causing his boxers to slip a few crucial inches and almost offer an x-rated view.   Ordinarily I would have averted my eyes right away.  Stone was my boyfriend’s brother.  He was also a total dog.  There was nothing tempting about him. 
    At least that’s what my heart said. 
    Apparently the rest of me wasn’t so sure because my eyes wouldn’t budge and my breath caught before a sharp inhale. 
    Maybe he’d heard me in the midst of the unusual silence or maybe the fluttering of my curtain caught his attention. Stone stopped in mid-stretch and zeroed right in.  I saw his gaze travel