INICIAR SESIÓNThe lawn was already loud before the first name was called. Families packed the rows in every colour of cloth they owned, programs folded and unfolded until the paper went soft, phones held high like they were trying to catch a blessing. Julian stood in the line of black gowns with the gold cord of honours around his neck and kept his eyes on the back of the person in front of him because if he looked at the crowd he’d find Enzo and then he wouldn’t be able to stand still. Charlotte went first. Best graduating student. She walked like the stage belonged to her and when she reached the microphone she didn’t rush. “Four years ago most of us didn’t know if we’d make it to this lawn,” she said. “Some of us almost didn’t. Some of us had to fight for the right to even sit the last exam. Today we walk anyway.” The clap that followed was thunderous. Then the names started. Julian heard his own before he was ready for it. “Julian Kingsley. Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery. With
JULIAN He was still looking at me when I licked the last of it off my lip, and I stayed on my knees with my jaw aching and my jeans too tight, waiting to see what he would do with the rest of the night now that we were actually out. “Come here,” he said, voice wrecked. “Stand up. I want you in my mouth.” I stood. He pulled me in by the belt, kissed the taste of himself off my tongue, and got my jeans open with both hands. My cock sprang out already wet at the tip and he made a low sound and sat back on the couch and pulled me forward until I was standing between his knees. “Hold the back of the couch.” I did. He licked a stripe up the underside of my cock and then took me in, hot and wet, no teasing about it. I swore and my hips jerked and he pinned them with one hand and sucked me deeper, spit running down to my balls. “Enzo—fuck—” He pulled off just enough to talk, lips shiny. “You’ve been hard the whole time I was in your throat. I felt it. Now you’re going to stand there a
JULIAN We were still on the couch when my phone rang. Enzo had made toast and I was holding a piece I hadn’t bitten yet, and the picture was still sitting in every chat we’d refused to open. I looked at the screen and it was Mom. I almost let it go to voicemail because I already knew why she was calling, but Enzo saw the name and nodded once, so I picked up and put it on speaker without saying I was going to.“Julian.”“Hey, Mom.”“You and Enzo need to come to the house. Right now.”“I’ve got clinic later. I can come after—”“Don’t. I said now. Both of you. Dante’s home and he’s seen it, and if you make me repeat myself I’m going to drive there myself and I’m not doing that in front of the street.”I looked at Enzo. He was already standing.“Okay. We’re coming.”She hung up. Enzo didn’t ask what she’d said. He’d heard all of it. We got dressed without talking about the photo or the ward or Alex. I pulled on the first shirt I found and he grabbed his keys and we went down to the car a
JULIAN It had been a week and life was good. I did my rounds the way I liked them, moving from bed to bed with the chart in my hand, checking vitals, asking the same questions, writing the same notes, and for seven days nobody looked at me like I was a problem. Enzo and I had gone back to the apartment and eaten and slept and gone to class and come home again, and the aunt and the packet and the slap had sat in the back of my head without climbing into the ward with me.I was halfway down the corridor outside 4B when I felt it. People were staring. Not the usual glance you get when you are late with a file. Full looking. A nurse by the station stopped talking when I passed. Two interns near the lift went quiet and then started again after I turned the corner. I kept walking because I still had three patients left and I told myself it was nothing, that I was tired, that I was imagining it.Alex came around the corner so fast he almost hit a trolley. He is never serious. He makes jokes
ENZOHe pulled out of the drive and I kept my hand on the gearstick under his and neither of us said much on the way home. I locked the door behind us. Julian dropped his bag by the wall and stood there for a second like he was waiting to see what I’d do next, and I put my keys on the counter and opened the delivery app because neither of us had eaten since the mansion and I wasn’t going to cook.“What do you want?”He came up beside me and looked at the screen over my shoulder, close enough that I could feel the heat of him through my shirt. “Thai. Same place as last week. Extra rice. I don’t want to think about it.”I placed the order and set the phone down. He didn’t move away, so I put my hands on his waist and kissed him, and he opened his mouth immediately. The kiss went from short to deep in one movement, my hands under the back of his shirt, his fingers in my hair, both of us staying against that counter like if we stopped we’d have to talk about the slap and the courier slip
JULIANWe got to the Romano house before noon. Mum was already in the sitting room. The pages were on the table. She’d laid them out before we walked in. Dante wasn’t in the room. Enzo stayed by the doorway. He didn’t sit. I sat next to her because she’d asked us to come and I wasn’t leaving her to do this alone.Lila came in wearing a coat like she’d just stopped by. She looked at the table and her mouth went tight.“Elena. You called me here to wave paper at me in their house?”“Sit down,” Mum said.“I’m not sitting in a Romano parlour so you can accuse me—”“Sit down, Lila.”She sat. She looked at me, then at Enzo, then back at Mum.“Julian shouldn’t be here for this.”“Julian’s the one you mailed,” I said. “I’m staying.”Lila’s eyes went to the folder. “You’ve been listening to them.”“I’ve been reading,” I said. “That’s not the same thing.”Mum pushed the courier slip across the table. “Look at it. Your account. Your send. Don’t tell me it isn’t.”Lila barely looked. “I did what
JULIANI sat there on the kitchen slab for a split second, cock still twitching, mind reeling. Cum and saliva glistened on my skin. Panic hit me like a truck. I shoved off the counter, legs shaky, and practically ran to the sink. Cold water blasted from the faucet as I splashed my face and hands, s
JULIANI used my full strength to shove Enzo away from me by pushing both of my hands against his chest. I told Enzo to stop because of his drunken state. The situation had become insane. My shove barely moved him an inch. I actually wanted to push him away from me. My body craved his touch. Enzo
The homeward journey to the new residence proved to be an extremely uncomfortable experience. I remained seated in the back seat while I fixed my gaze on the Boston roadways. My stepbrother was Enzo. The same Enzo who had fucked me senseless in the back of his car just hours earlier. The same Enzo
A sudden knock on the window of the vehicle brought me back to consciousness. My heart began to race when I opened my eyes. The first light of day came through the foggy window but the rain had finally stopped falling. Enzo's body remained draped over my body because we were both squeezed into the







