Title: Summer Storms
Author: Thomas Grant Bruso
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 09/20/2021
Length: 39900
Genre: Contemporary, LGBTQIA+, high school, grief, coming of age, hurt/comfort, harassment
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Description
Sixteen-year-old Earl Layman is going stir-crazy. Secluded with the flu inside the four walls of his home and only the escape of his video games to help him through, Earl is struggling to keep his sanity.
That is until he notices the boy next door, seventeen-year-old Rex Chambers, raking leaves in the adjacent yard.
Earl’s summer is about to change. Before another torrential rainstorm hits the small upstate New York town of Betham County, they meet during an awkward cell phone exchange. As they start to connect through occasional texts, Earl and Rex enter the throes of adolescent lust.
In the early stages of forging a lasting connection, their family situations threaten to destroy all they are working for.
Summer Storms
Thomas Grant Bruso © 2021
All Rights Reserved
Rex
Rex’s iPhone buzzed on the stoop of the porch.
He stopped raking, tossed the garden tool at his feet on a patch of burnt grass, and stared across the yard at the annoying device vibrating across the steps, the third ring in the past fifteen minutes.
He grimaced, sucked in a lungful of hot, humid air as he walked over to the back porch to answer it. He stared at it. Harry Styles’s song “Sign of the Times” played over and over. Rex’s gut clenched. His nerves thrummed. He sat on the stairs, trembling.
The ringing was as irritating as his mother’s cigarette smoking.
Rex closed his eyes, drew a long breath, waited until the ringtone repeated the song, and yanked up the iPhone. He pressed Accept, jabbing at the green circle with his index finger. “What do you want?”
A furious set of curse words pierced the poker-hot air. Rex stood, jerked a finger outward in an automatic defense gesture. His breaths came in short, jagged gasps. He circled the small area of his backyard, pacing back and forth, from the porch to the edge of the swimming pool and the chain-link fence, and screamed at the caller. “Leave me alone! Stop calling!”
Running a hand through sweaty clumps of his hair, Rex clutched the iPhone to his ear, his long, lean fingers turning bone-white from anger. “I want you to stop calling this number,” he said. “You’re harassing me.” Rex stopped and stood statue still in the center of the yard, the hot, blazing sun baking his skin, the top of his head, his face, to the back of his neck. Sweat trickled down his spine. He pulled a face, bit his lip, and tasted blood. “Stop calling!”
Rex stared across the sunlit surface of the pool, the shimmering light bouncing off the water, temporarily blinding him. He crouched and stretched out across the grass, closing his eyes, listening to the nattering robotic voice of the anonymous caller.
“If I hang up, I’ll be doing both of us a service,” Rex said, fighting to stay calm.
He shook his head. “I don’t care what you think you know about me. If you call again, I’m calling the police.”
But the caller’s distorted voice continued to threaten him with ceaseless gunfire insults.
“My name is Rex, not faggot or queer or killer. It’s Rex!” Repeating the line over and over gave him power, control.
The line went dead, so Rex thought the caller had disconnected.
He pressed the phone to his ear and said, “I can hear you breathing, asshole.” His heart was racing, and the ends of his fingers were slippery with sweat. He trembled. He brushed his hot, tired face. “Leave me alone. I’m not going to tell you again. If you call this number again, I’ll report you.”
Laughter: a cacophony of thunderous cat calls crackled in Rex’s ear like spitting hot flames.
Rex pulled the iPhone away from his ear and pressed End. He knew he’d call back and that the threats wouldn’t stop. He felt unhinged, even after hanging up the phone. Life was coming apart at the seams, like a loose thread or a bloody hangnail, dangling like a skin tag. Rex threw the phone down and stormed across the yard, punching the air in frustration and swearing out loud, the scorching heat on the back of his neck the consistency of melting wax. “Fuck!” He pushed the door open and stepped into the kitchen, slamming the door closed behind him.
Rex ran through the house, up the stairs, two at a time, and disappeared into his bedroom, closing the door and shutting the world out.
But his nerves were frayed, his body buzzing like a beehive; he couldn’t sit still. Fighting to block out the caller’s ongoing threats, Rex recalled the slur the anonymous voice had hissed at him: queer. The voice dripped with hate and ignorance. Rex got out of bed, grabbed his earbuds from the top shelf of his dresser, opened the door, and stumbled down the stairs, almost missing the last step and falling face-first on the floor.
He opened the back door and ran onto the porch, and into the backyard. He had tossed his iPhone on the lawn, next to the pool in a clump of grass. He bent down for it and dialed the number to his mother’s work.
He’d end this cat-and-mouse game once and for all.
He let it ring four times, walking back and forth across the lawn, thinking about what he would say to her when she answered. I thought you took care of these anonymous callers.
When his mother finally came on the line, Rex didn’t allow her to finish her five-second speech. “Why is he still calling me?” he asked, almost yelling, when she announced the bank’s name for which she worked.
“Rex, what is it?”
“I got another call, Mom.”
She sighed. “I’m sorry. I told him to stop calling.”
His voice was rife with anger. “I’m scared.”
“I told him to stop calling,” she said again. “When I get home later, I’ll fix this. I promise.”
“It shouldn’t have happened in the first place.”
“You’re right. And I’m sorry. I’ll fix it.”
He heard her talking to somebody, another coworker, asking the woman to take over her work.
Rex waited, walking around in circles. He stopped, heard his mother’s footsteps shuffling. She coughed, phlegmy from years of smoking. Then a door opened and closed. Traffic sounded in the background and a horn honked. She lit a cigarette. “I will get to the bottom of this,” she finally said.
He clenched his jaw. “These threats are getting worse.”
“I’m sorry, Rex.”
He sighed nervously, shaking. “Is that all you can say? You did this to me.”
“It was wrong. I overreacted.”
“I’m fucking scared, Mom. It’s the third call today.”
“I know. I know. I’ll make some calls. I’ll end this once and for all.”
“Do you know who’s doing this?”
There was a pause. “I have an idea. And if I’m right, I’ll stop it. I made a mistake years ago, but I’ll make it right. I promise.”
Rex pulled the iPhone away from his ear, held it out as if it were on fire. He fingered his brow, swatting at the pearls of sweat dotting his furrowed skin. Rex winced and clenched his jaw at the weight of his mother’s voice. Could he trust her after all these years? Setting the iPhone back to his ear, he said, “I’m going to call the police…”
“That won’t be necessary. It’s my responsibility, and I’ll fix it.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“If he calls again, don’t answer.”
“You and I have had our problems, but this is the lowest.”
“I am sorry for what I did to you. What happened to your brother isn’t your fault. Please believe me.”
“It’s so much more than that, and you know it.”
“I know. I need to earn your trust. I’m working on it. Please, Rex.”
“Just fix it. I’m going crazy. I’m a nervous wreck. Somebody is ruining my life because of something you started.”
“I know. I’m so sorry. I wish I could take it all back. Look, Rex, I’ve got to get back to work. But I’ll deal with all of this when I get home. If you need anything, call me.” A pause. “Rex? Are you there?”
“Yeah.”
“I love you.”
Rex clenched his right hand into a fist, raising his gaze to the clear blue sky. He had not heard those words in a long time. He counted to five, hearing his father’s voice telling him to be brave. “Whenever you’re scared or angry, count to five. You’ll feel better.” He missed his father, who had left Rex after a royal battle with his mom. Rex understood why everyone had left him. His father. His brother, Adam. His life was falling apart.
All of it was because of his mother. She ruined everything, tore the family apart in her web of lies. Maybe that’s why Adam died. Rex was planning to run away from the toxic, suffocating life of this hopeless family.
The pieces were all coming together. Rex knew why he was being threatened. But he wanted to know who was behind the anonymous calls, intimidating him.
He opened his eyes to the silvery light of sun peeking through the trees. Cars sped by the side street and drowned out the anonymous caller’s empty threats and his mother’s aggravating voice.
“I’ll see you tonight,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Everything will be all right, Rex.”
“Whatever you say.” He ended the call and tucked the iPhone back into his pants pocket. He strode to the side of the porch, plugged both of his earbuds in, and reached for the rake, resuming his lawn duties before his mother returned home.
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Thomas Grant Bruso knew at an early age he wanted to be a writer. He has been a voracious reader of genre fiction since he was a kid.
His literary inspirations are Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Ellen Hart, Jim Grimsley, Karin Fossum, Sam J. Miller, Joyce Carol Oates, and John Connolly.
Bruso loves animals, book-reading, writing fiction, prefers Sudoku to crossword puzzles.
In another life, he was a freelance writer and wrote for magazines and newspapers. In college, he was a winner for the Hermon H. Doh Sonnet Competition. Now, he writes book reviews for his hometown newspaper, The Press Republican.
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