Fighting For You (The Callahans #5) - Monica Murphy Page 0,1

means he likes to suck dick, and that’s disgusting.

Marty notices me standing near them and he smiles, waving his hand. “Diego! Come here!”

“No,” I tell him defiantly, my voice hard.

I sound exactly like my brother, and the realization makes me stand a little taller.

Marty frowns. “What’s wrong with you?”

We’ve always been close. Like I said, we’re the same age. We’ve been in the same classes together at school. We used to have the same friend group, but as we get older, we’ve drifted apart. I don’t think I want to hang out with him anymore if he’s gay. Mateo’s told me that before. He said if I spend too much time with Marty, I might end up gay like him.

I don’t want to be like Marty. I want to be like Mateo.

“Diego,” Marty says. He’s still laughing. He has no idea what’s about to happen. “Let’s go get some cake.”

“No way. I can’t hang out with you anymore. You like to suck dicks,” I tell him, freezing the moment the words leave me.

Marty’s mouth pops open, his brown eyes going wide with shock. He’s shorter than me, and super skinny. My mom says my Aunt Lisa needs to fatten him up.

“What did you just say?” Marty asks when he finds his voice. It’s trembling.

He’s trembling.

“You like to suck dick. Because you’re gay.” I spit the last word out like it’s a curse. “Have fun sucking dicks!”

Before I can apologize or stare at Marty’s crumpled face any longer, I turn and run to my brother and his friends. My chest is tight. My eyes sting. That was…

That was awful.

“You did it! We could hear you all the way over here!” Mateo says when I rejoin them. He holds his hand up for a high five and I slap my palm to his, pleasure coursing through me at his obvious approval. His friends all give me high fives too, and I’m standing in the center of them once more, though this time I’m not scared.

I finally feel like I belong.

“Didn’t think you had it in you,” Mateo says, his hand clamping around my shoulder. I tense up for a moment, like I always do, but I realize he’s giving me a friendly shake instead of a mean shove. “Good job, little man. Keep that shit up.”

That’s all it takes, I realize, to earn my brother’s approval. I act like him, and he likes me. And that’s all I want.

Is for my big brother to like me.

That Night…

Jocelyn

“Come on.”

His voice is urgent, with a hint of demanding in it. That’s how he’s been operating lately, and most of the time I don’t mind.

Like now.

I take his offered hand and he links our fingers together, whisking me out of Tony’s house through the back door and into the still warm night.

“Where are we going?” We’re wandering through Tony’s large back yard, passing people we know. I nod and smile, but don’t really say anything. I’m too keyed up, too excited. The football team won tonight, which means my boyfriend is in a great mood. His good moods are hard to come by lately, and I’d give anything to keep him happy tonight.

Anything.

“I think his back yard is as big as my entire neighborhood,” Diego mutters, and I silently agree.

Tony Sorrento’s house is a freaking mansion that sits directly on the lake. My father’s a lawyer, so we’re pretty well-to-do, but our house isn’t nearly as opulent as this one. There are so many rooms, I get lost every time I go in there. And it’s only Tony and his mother who live there.

What’s sad is, most of the time, Tony is completely alone. His parents divorced a few years ago, and his dad moved out. He lives in San Francisco now. Or Los Angeles—I can never remember. His mother is never around. She’s constantly going out of town. I think that’s why Tony has so many parties.

He’s lonely.

“Let’s check out Tony’s guesthouse.” The wicked grin Diego flashes at me from over his shoulder makes my stomach bottom out. And not in a bad way.

In a very, very good way.

“Diego.” I come to a stop and so does he, a questioning look on his too handsome face. “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”

He nods, hope and expectation written all over him. “When do you have to be home?”

I grab my phone out of the back pocket of my denim shorts and check the time. “Midnight. We have maybe an hour before you need