Wanna hear your beating heart tonight
Before the bleeding sun comes alive
I want to make the best of what is left, hold tight
And hear my beating heart one last time before daylight

--"Beating Heart," Ellie Goulding (2014)

Rocco had woken Brandon up on Saturday morning around seven, demanding his breakfast. Brandon fed the hungry dog and looked at the mess left behind from the previous nights' party.

There were a few passed-out boys scattered around the house, so Brandon went through to wake up and kick them all out. He was a little upset that he'd missed out on what appeared to be an orgy in the guest room, which had included Emmett.

"Alright, everybody get the fuck out!" Brandon yelled at the group of six or so naked men strewn about the room.

He waited beside the doorway as the boys got dressed and walked out one by one.

"Where did you run off to last night, Baby?" Emmett asked him, his voice slurred from a lack of sleep and possibly too many drugs or alcohol. "We could have had so much fun."

"Get out and take that with you," Brandon snarled at him.

The "that" in question, which was Ted, gave Brandon a dirty look as he and Emmett left.

Brandon did one more sweep of the large house to make sure that no one else was still there and that nothing irreplaceable appeared to be broken or stolen. Except for the assorted trash here and there, the house was no worse for wear.

The only room of the house that Brandon hadn't looked into was Brian's bedroom. The door was closed and there was no sound coming from behind it. Brandon tried the doorknob, which was unlocked. He slowly turned the knob and pushed the door open, looking over toward the bed.

He found Brian and Justin lying under the duvet, with the older boy spooning the younger one. They had their backs to him, so he walked around to the other side of the bed, finding that they were both sleeping soundly. Brian was wheezing with each breath, because of his deviated septum. He knew from sleepovers with his old friend/now step-brother that his wheezing was louder when he was sleeping heavily.

Brandon had tried many times since Brian had come to live at Elaine's house to guess the password on his laptop when he was gone, without success. He also knew that Brian had a numerical passcode on his smartphone, but he normally kept it close to him at all times, like most young people do, so Brandon never had the chance to try to break into it. Indeed, Brian's phone was face-down on the nightstand, plugged into the charging cable.

Justin suddenly moved, rolling a bit away from Brian so that he was lying more on his belly. Brandon had no idea how long the couple had been asleep or how much longer they would stay asleep, so he knew he had to move quickly before either of them woke up and found him.

Brandon delicately picked up Brian's phone and pulled the cable from it. The phone had a fingerprint scanner on the back, which he knew Brian normally used to unlock his phone because it was quicker than typing in his passcode every time. Brandon pressed Brian's right index finger to the circle on the back of the phone, which revealed Brian's home screen with his icon shortcuts.

As quietly as he had come in, Brandon left the room, taking Brian's phone with him before shutting the door. He then walked across the hall into his room and shut the door.

After he had sent the link to Brian's "The Twink" post to Justin, with the flowery parts omitted, of course, Brandon put Brian's phone back where he'd found it and got the hell out of the house. He knew that once Brian discovered what he'd done, his ass would be grass, so he wanted to be as far away from him as possible, for as long as possible.

Brandon didn't know where to go, so he drove in the direction of downtown. He was hungry, but he knew that Brian would probably go straight to the Liberty Avenue Diner to look for him at that time of the day. He found a restaurant that advertised a champagne brunch. The food wasn't the best and the champagne tasted like watered-down Sprite, but it filled him up.

He next went over to Point State Park, where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers joined to form the Ohio River. There were hiking trails where he sometimes took Rocco to walk. To kill some time, Brandon walked along the trails, enjoying the morning sun and the breeze. He wished that he would have brought Rocco with him.

The last place that Brian would ever come looking for him would be at a sports bar, so Brandon went to a burger and wing joint near the CMU campus for lunch. He had some honey barbeque wings with extra celery sticks as he tried to form a plan, one that would at least take him to Sunday night when Jack and Elaine would be back from their honeymoon. With the parents in the house, Brian probably wouldn't strangle him.

A group of guys came into the bar soon after Brandon had finished his meal. Among the guys was Drew Boyd, captain of the football team. Summer training for the team began that coming Monday, so the guys were rowdy in anticipation.

Brandon recalled the story that Brian had told him just a few days before, how he'd ‘turned the tight end into a wide receiver' after fucking him the night of Jack and Elaine's wedding reception. He watched the young man, who was acting like a typical dude-bro jock with his friends, which meant that he was flirting with the waitresses and making loud sexist jokes.

Drew quickly put away a large mug of beer, which soon sent him to the men's room. Brandon followed him in and stood next to him at the urinals.

"Hey," Brandon said, taking a second to check out Drew's cock, which was large even when flaccid.

"Hey," Drew echoed. "You're... uh..."

"Brandon Greene," he answered.

"Right! You're Kinney's brother."

"Step-brother," Brandon corrected. "You went to my mother's wedding, where she married Brian's dad."

Drew looked over at Brandon's cock as he finished peeing. "Yeah."

"I saw you leave that night with Brian. Tell me, did you guys have a suite or a regular room? I hear the suites at the Omni are top-notch."

Drew stuffed himself back into his pants and flushed the urinal. "Uh... we just, um..."

"No need to be embarrassed, Dude," Brandon said as he joined him at the sinks. "You're not the first guy to spend the night with him and you certainly won't be the last. At least he brought you to a party where there were food and drinks, ‘cause usually, he won't even buy a guy dinner before he fucks them."

Drew was meticulously washing his hands as if he was a doctor scrubbing up for surgery. "Look, I..."

Brandon leaned in and gave Drew a kiss, which the man returned for a few seconds before pulling away. Brandon then quickly washed his hands and left the room, all while Drew still had his hands under the faucet with the stream of water flowing over them.

Brandon returned to his table and ordered another beer. He saw Drew go back to his friends soon after. The man's demeanor had dramatically changed, as if he had seen a ghost in the bathroom. His friends didn't seem to notice since they were engrossed with baseball game highlights on one of the many flat-screen TVs around the room.

As expected, Brandon received a Hangouts message from Brian asking him where the fuck he was. He didn't have to see Brian's face to know that the man had probably figured out what he'd done and was none too pleased with him.

Drew made eye contact with Brandon numerous times before he finally got up, telling his friends he had to go and that he'd see them at practice on Monday. He walked past Brandon on his way to the door, dropping a crumpled up napkin on his table. Brandon discovered that an address a few blocks from the campus was written on the napkin.

Sitting back down at his desk, Brian added some more to the bottom of his "The Ice King" doc, including what Brandon had done over the past week to Michael and Ben. He next copied the shareable link to the doc and pasted it into his Facebook status bar. He tagged Brandon, Justin, Michael, Ben, Debbie, Emmett, David, Jack, Elaine, and as many as Brandon's exes and friends that he could think of.

He then hit the big blue "post" button.

"Let's see how they'll like you now, asshole," Brian said.

He hadn't had anything to eat yet that day, so Brian went downstairs to see what he could find in the kitchen. It was then that he noticed how big of a mess had been left behind from his party. Knowing that Jack and Elaine would be back from their honeymoon the following evening, he figured he needed to clean up.

After eating an old Lean Pocket he'd found in the freezer, Brian grabbed some big trash bags and started collecting all of the garbage around the house. He needed to put on the yellow dishwashing gloves he'd found under the sink, because there were several used condoms left discarded around.

Brian's phone started chiming with notifications from people commenting on his post. He only checked to make sure that they weren't from Justin or Brandon before putting his phone back in his pocket and continuing his cleanup.

He realized after an hour that it was going to take him all day to clean. The downstairs guest bathroom was absolutely disgusting and he didn't want to even walk in there, let alone try to clean it. He pledged that this was the last time he'd ever throw a party at his house, because the aftermath wasn't worth it.

Brian was passing by one of the front windows when he saw a purple van parked out in front of the house across the street, which he recognized as being from a local cleaning company that many of the people in the neighborhood used.

He went outside, jogged across the street, and rang the doorbell to the house.

A tiny Asian lady in a purple smock answered the door.

"Hello, I no live here, I just housekeeper," she said with a thick accent.

"I know," Brian said, pasting on a smile. "Listen, uh... I know you probably don't normally do this, but I really need a hand cleaning up my house, just across the street. See, I had a party last night and there's quite a mess-"

"No," the lady, whose name tag said "Min" quickly answered. "You not a client with appointment, I no clean your house."

Brian took his wallet out of his back pocket, opening it to see how much cash he had.

"I have..." he said as he counted. "Two hundred and... forty-eight bucks. It's all yours if you come over and clean for an hour."

A younger white lady peaked around the door. "Hell, give the money to me, I'll clean your shit for you."

Min put her hand out, palm up. "I clean, too. We split money."

Brian held the bills close to his chest. "Finish up your work here, then come over to my house. Number 3610, right across the street. I'll pay you when you finish."

The two ladies came over about fifteen minutes later and went to work. After an hour, there were no signs that a party had ever happened.

Brian split the cash between them. "Thank you, girls, you did a fantastic job, worth every penny."

The white lady, named Krista, pocketed her money. "Thank you, sir. Now, don't be going around to your rich-ass neighbors, telling them we did this for you. We could get fired for taking money under the table."

"You were never here," he said in agreement.

Brian went back up to his room and got on his laptop. By that time, there were many comments on his Facebook post, including ones from Michael, Emmett, and Debbie, all of them filled with outrage and hatred for Brandon.

Still, he'd heard nothing from Brandon or Justin.

Deciding that he couldn't wait for a reply from Justin any longer, he showered, shaved, and got dressed before going over to the Novotny home.

"Tell me why I shouldn't just slam the door in your face like you did to me," Debbie said when she answered.

Brian smiled. "Hey, Deb. Beautiful day, isn't it?"

"You're quite the writer," the woman said, referring to his Ice King post. "Maybe if the advertising thing doesn't work out, you could be a novelist."

"Nah, I don't think I could invent a fictional character as evil as my step-brother. Anyway, could you please tell Justin that I'd like to speak with him?"

"I would if he was still here. He dragged his suitcases downstairs about twenty minutes ago, saying that he was sorry but he had to leave. I tried to get him to stay, but he'd made up his mind and already had a car waiting on him. I'm guessing you had something to do with his departure."

"Where did he go?" Brian asked, feeling like something had just been ripped out of his chest.

Debbie shrugged. "A silver Prius came and picked him up. The driver got out and helped him put his bags in the trunk. I didn't recognize him, might have been an Uber."

"Shit," Brian said as looked down and found another small piece of Justin's broken pottery on the porch, reminding him of their first kiss.

"Do you actually like this kid or was he just another fuck puppet to you?" Debbie asked.

Brian sighed. "I care about him."

"Then go after him. Whatever you did, just tell him that you're sorry and beg for his forgiveness."

"Thanks," he said before turning to walk home.

Later that evening, Brian drove downtown to Liberty Avenue, hitting all of Brandon's usual haunts around the neighborhood. He didn't see him or his car anywhere, and no one he had asked admitted to seeing Brandon that evening. Brian started over and retraced his steps to make sure he didn't miss him, without success.

Despite being a single fag on a Saturday night, Brian went home alone around midnight, worn out and pissed off. He was also mourning the loss of a certain blond twink.

He once again sat down at his desk, firing up his laptop. After scrolling through the new comments on his Facebook post, Brian sent a direct message to Justin.

Brian Kinney: So... are you never going to talk to me again? I still owe you Thai.

He waited for about an hour for a reply, watching a few episodes of The Office on Netflix to kill the time. Still, with no word from Justin, Brian laid down in his bed, which felt very cold and empty, and eventually fell asleep.