A Place to Run

by Diane Adams

  Clark didn't sound happy, and Jared glanced towards the house with its isolated islands of light. He questioned whether what Clark described was all right, but Alex seemed satisfied and turned to face the front.

  "Home, James," he said with a regal wave in Jared's direction.

  Jared smacked his hand. "Mind your manners," he admonished. "Clark, what's up with your girl?"

  Clark didn't say anything for a long time. Alex stared at the side window.

  Jared's feeling he was missing a vital piece of information increased. "Clark?"

  "It's nothing. Stevie's mom has problems. I was going to talk to you about some stuff tomorrow. The roof's leaking and there's no money for repairs. That's the only thing Stevie told me about, but I think the place is about to fall in. Will you help me fix some stuff?"

  "Yeah, we can do that. Tomorrow, after work, we'll stop by and see what needs to be done. What do you think they need most?"

  Jared allowed Clark’s attempt to distract him, and listened as the boy filled him in on the details of everything Stevie’s home needed to be safe.

  ****

  Alex leaned against Jared's shoulder and slid his hand down his well-muscled forearm and into his hand. He liked listening to Clark and Jared talk about work. He didn't know much about what they discussed, but one day he would. One day he'd be the person telling them what to do.

  He wished he could stay home and work with them for the summer, get some hands-on experience. But remembering what waking up every morning in a borrowed room felt like, Alex knew he'd made the best decision. The right one. He wondered why the right thing always had to be the one he wanted to do the least.

  Alex wished Jared would come to visit him at school, but he knew the folly of harboring such hopes. Maybe when he started college he'd get school visits, but no way would Jared show up at his high school. Too bad. He'd love to show off a bit, no one else had a guy like Jared. Alex turned his head and pressed a kiss against his shoulder. Jared rewarded him when he leaned his cheek briefly against Alex's hair.

  Clark swatted the back of Alex's head. "God, at least wait until we stop," he grumbled.

  Alex ignored him, clutching Jared's hand tighter. The feel of Jared's callused skin against his broke him out in a cold sweat. He ached to experience the rough feel of Jared's hands on his body. Being a teenage boy sex occupied a huge amount of Alex's thought life, and sex with Jared was the only kind he wanted.

  Sometimes he felt like all they'd done in the weeks he'd been home was deal with his mother issues and dance on the edge of very frustrating restraint. When they were hanging out all Alex thought about was being alone with him. When they were alone, he wanted Jared to just relax. The thought of Jared giving into his baser needs thrilled and terrified him.

  Struggling with his self-control, he barely noticed when they arrived home and Clark jumped out of the truck with a quick goodnight to Jared. Alex had only one thing on his mind, and he trembled when Jared cupped his chin and tilted his face to his. They shared a slow, tender kiss which heated quickly into something more intense. Jared's fingers tightened on his jaw, his mouth slanted over Alex's, his tongue searching the deepest recesses of Alex's mouth. When he pulled away, Alex stared at him wide-eyed, panting.

  "Hold that thought," Jared whispered, opened his door and slid out of the truck. Alex watched him, bemused, his brain foggy with lust. His door opened and Jared reached across him to unfasten the seat belt. Jared grabbed his hand and tugged Alex out of the seat, closing the door behind him.

  Puzzled, Alex looked up, unsure what Jared was planning. His confusion didn't last long. Jared manhandled him back against the truck, trapping him against the door with the hard press of his body. His strong hands gripped Alex's hips and Jared captured his mouth in a heated kiss. Their tongues tangled, and Alex clutched him, rocking their hips together. Jared made a sound low in his throat that curled Alex's toes.

  "Love when you do that," he whispered against Jared's mouth.

  Jared's hands slid around to the small of Alex's back, holding him close. "God, I'm going to miss you." He nuzzled Alex's cheek and rubbed their noses together.

  Alex laughed shakily. "You're nuts, you know."

  Jared shrugged, "Maybe. Nuts about you, anyhow."

  Alex reached up and touched Jared's hair, running his fingers through the silky strands. He nuzzled Jared's neck and trembled in his arms.

  It was the closest Jared had come to admitting his feelings aloud.

  "I don't want to leave you." Alex brushed his lips over the soft skin under Jared's ear, making him shudder.

  "I don't want you to go. I thought we'd have all summer." Jared pressed a kiss to his temple. "You're making good decisions. I know it, but it doesn't mean I like it."

  "Dad's taking me to the airport in the morning." Alex buried his face in Jared's chest, breathing in the scent of him. His heart ached at the thought of leaving. Yet, the idea of staying made him want to throw up. His life sucked so much.

  Jared cupped the back of his head. "I know. Early, he said when he called. I promised not to keep you up too late." He kissed the top of Alex's head.

  "It's weird, you talking to Dad." He hugged Jared tighter.

  "Very weird. Kiss me, Alex."

  "Oh God," Alex breathed, lifting his mouth to Jared's.

  All Good Things

  Jared thumbed through the mail, though he didn't have to look to know the lion's share were bills. It was an unending cycle. He landed a decent contract, made a little money, and paid it all out again. Jared was proud he maintained the deposits to his mother's account, not just matching the amount his father gave her, but managing a decent "cost of living" increase.

  Maybe someone else would resent the kind of money Jared moved to his mother's account each month without even thinking about it. Jared never forgot the lesson his dad taught him. One set in motion by the innocent comment of an ignorant fifteen year old.

  They’d come in hot and sweaty from working in the sun, and Jared had mentioned how lucky his mom was to stay home all day instead of working.

  "Is that what you think, son? That your mother doesn't work?" The look on his dad's face had been a familiar one. It said, 'you just stepped in it and you're learning a lesson before you get out'. "Tell you what, I'll give you the week off to spend with her, how's that?"

  Jared had felt trapped without knowing why, and unable to see a way out, he’d agreed. The week that followed opened his eyes. He’d learned to cook, along with a lot of other things, and he had never again entertained the idea his mother didn't work.

  Jared came away from his week with his mother with a different view of relationships. What he'd once seen as his father supporting his mother, he learned was instead a partnership between two people. His parents loved each other, but they didn't build their life on that one thing. They each brought something unique into the relationship. They built a life together, a better one than either of them could have managed alone.

  Amidst the bills was a letter from Alex. Jared tucked it into his back pocket to read later. He could guess what it said. Alex's letters had taken on a sort of mantra over the summer. "I miss you. Why can't my mom just accept me? I want to come home. I don't want to stay with Clark. Why can't I stay with you?" The longer he was away, the more like a whiney teen he sounded, and less like the Alex Jared had fallen in love with. He understood. He really did. But it was just one more thing to deal with. He didn't know why life had to be so freaking hard all the time.

  Recently, he'd begun to realize how much he'd isolated himself. Except for work, he never saw anyone but Clark and Stevie. They worked on Stevie's house every weekend. Jared thought about training Stevie to do his books and giving her a job, but she was so good with her hands he really wanted to apprentice her. She'd make a fine match for Clark, but she kept him at arm's length and, for reasons Jared didn't understand, Clark accepted it without question. Jared enjoyed the challenge of repairing the old trailer, but he realized it
didn't count as a social life. His boyfriend was sixteen and off at boarding school. He hadn't had sex in two years. Jared couldn't help questioning some of the choices he'd made. Sighing, he settled down to read his letter from Alex.

  The sun was bright in the morning sky when Jared pulled up in front of the Ross's residence. Alex's most recent letter lay in the passenger seat. The bottom line? He was miserable. He missed Jared, but he missed his mother more.

  Jared hadn't met Alex's mother, yet he was unconvinced she hated Alex. Mothers didn't hate their children. The idea it could happen went completely beyond Jared's frame of reference. Jared thought maybe what she hated was her son being gay.

  He struggled with the notion. Being gay wasn't the single defining thing about a homosexual's life, but gay or straight, sexual orientation did dictate certain choices in everyone's life. Jared still hadn't decided if the 'gay' could be hated without including the whole person. The subject gave him a giant headache, and he called his mother to tell her he loved her.

  Janet Ross’s thought process was completely foreign to Jared and the lack of understanding made him afraid to face the woman who had devastated her family, but Alex's letter haunted him.

  "I wrote Mom. I thought maybe she might miss me or something. I guess not. She didn't even open it. Just sent it back to me. Seems like she could have tossed it out or something, you know? Guess she hates me so much she doesn't even want me to think she read what I had to say. I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't think she's ever going to want me home."

  Janet Ross was hurting Alex, and Jared wanted her to stop. He thought he could help. Maybe, if she met him, and learned to know him as a person instead of a creep in a picture groping her son, it would change something. He figured he couldn't make the situation worse. Gathering his courage, Jared stepped out of the truck into crisp morning air. He climbed the couple of steps onto the porch with his heart in his throat. The wait after he rang the bell seemed endless, and then the door swung open to reveal the petite form of Alex’s mother. Dressed in a pair of white Capri pants and a red and white stripped T-shirt, she looked almost too young to be Alex's mother.

  "Yes? Can I help you?"

  "I'm Jared Douglas." Jared held out his hand.

  Janet's fingers went to her throat and she took a step back, eyeing Jared's hand as if it were contaminated. "What are you doing here?"

  "I thought I'd stop and introduce myself. Maybe we could talk." Jared kept his voice calm, though his anxiety ratcheted up a notch at her reaction.

  Janet's eyes blazed. "What do you expect me to talk to you about? I saw those pictures. I know what you're doing to him." Janet's mouth narrowed, distaste contorted her expression. "We have nothing to talk about. I can't believe your nerve coming here. Was it Frank? Did he put you up to this?" The force of her accusations drew her forward.

  Jared was driven back by the sheer venom in her voice. "Frank? No I just, it's Alex…"

  "Don't you dare say his name!" Janet screamed at him, before dropping her voice to an accusing hiss. "I know what you kind of people do to boys. The dirty things you teach them so they are never normal again. Alex is perverted because of you. It's your fault." Janet jabbed Jared in the chest with her finger.

  He retreated another step, but she followed him. Her voice raised, she continued to advance on him. "He was normal before he met you. Now, you think you're safe because you didn't get caught until he was sixteen and the law won't do a damn thing. Consensual they call it, if he won't speak against you. I called people. I talked to my lawyer and to the DA. Nobody will do anything." She stabbed him in the chest with her finger as she made each point, hammering her final words home with her fist against his chest. "Fine, I say. I don't need them."

  Jared stared wide-eyed at the raging woman in front of him. He wasn't worried she was going to hurt him. It was much more likely she was going to hurt herself. It was impossible to tell how she felt about Alex, but there was no doubt at all how she felt about him. Or who she blamed. Unable to think of anything to say to derail Janet's rampage, he backed down the steps.

  Undaunted, she screamed after him, "I don't need the law! I can destroy you without ever stepping foot in a courtroom! You stay away from my son. You keep fucking him, and I'll fuck you." Her eyes narrowed. "Pedophile is a word that sticks like glue. I don't give a damn if it's true. Stay away from Alex, or it's going to be stuck to you." She didn't need the additional threat, but her words chilled Jared to the bone. The door slammed behind her before Jared realized she was finished. He stood, stunned, on the bottom step, her voice ringing in his ears. Numb, he made his way back to his truck. He wasn't often wrong, but when he was, it was usually spectacular. Unbelievably, he'd made things worse.

  Much worse.

  Being the Grown Up

  Pedophile.

  The word haunted him. In the age of social networking, Jared knew Alex's mother was right. She could ruin him. Completely destroy his reputation and his business. His father's business.

  It was too much. Jared wasn't like other guys his age, just getting started with no one to worry about but themselves. He owned a business, with people dependent upon him to make the right choices. The kind that kept the paychecks regular and didn't land his employees in the unemployment line. He had a lot of responsibility and he needed to stop playing around and act like it.

  Regardless of how they felt, Jared knew any hope for a future with Alex was unrealistic. Alex's future lay before him, shining and untarnished, while the hopes Jared harbored at sixteen were dust. Life had pared his dreams down to the bare minimum. The death of his father had been a sharp trimming tool. Once, Jared dreamed of working with his dad to create a contracting empire, of falling madly in love with someone he could build a life with, one filled with the mutual love and respect his parents shared.

  Now he only dreamed his business would succeed well enough to support them, and even after meeting Alex, he couldn't be sure love was in the cards for him at all. It wasn't that he didn't want to wait for the boy. Two years were nothing to Jared, he wasn't going anywhere, but Alex deserved more. Jared wanted Alex to experience life the way the young man never would with his heart set on what he'd left behind.

  Alex's mother despised Jared beyond reason, and as long as he was in the picture any hope Alex and she might reconcile was nonexistent. Jared couldn't shoulder that responsibility on top of everything else. It would devastate Alex if she followed through with her threats. Jared couldn't let Alex know the vile things his mother said. The price for the self-indulgence of holding on to Alex was one Jared couldn’t justify. His decision reached, Jared did what he always did in such situations. What he thought was right.

  "Dear Alex,

  This is the hardest letter I've ever written. Things are moving so fast in your life. You have the kind of future ahead of you that once filled my dreams. Well, sort of. I'm no genius and nothing as prestigious as MIT was ever a part of my future, but it will be your springboard to the most incredible things. I want those things for you; I want you to have everything.

  The promising future ahead of you does not include me. I'll be rebuilding and remodeling right here for the rest of my life. You know I'm not complaining. I enjoy my work and my life is good. It's just not good enough for you. Your life is just beginning. You can go anywhere, be anything. Do it, Alex. Grab life with both hands and live it the way I didn't get to. Only go forward. Never look back.

  Jared."

  The letter crumpled in Alex's hand. He forced his fingers to relax and, fighting tears, read it again. Essentially cut off from everyone back home, he didn't know what had happened and couldn't understand what had driven Jared to write such a letter. A second reading didn't help. It was Jared being Jared. Practical, to the point, and doing the right thing, or what he considered the right thing.

  "Stupid jerk." Alex stopped fighting the tears and let them come. He clutched Jared's letter. The missive might seem cold to someone else, but it filled Alex with the
latest example of Jared's love.

  "Oh my God, Alex, are you all right? What happened?" Lisa, the girl formerly known as 'Boobs', had transitioned to a real friend. She hurried in to sit on the edge of the bed. Embarrassed, Alex struggled to staunch the flow of tears and failed. Lisa patted his shoulder and rubbed his back. "It's okay, baby, whatever happened will be okay. Please, calm down." There were voices in the hall and Lisa hurried to close the door before Alex's sobs drew unwanted attention.

  "It's… it's…" Alex hiccupped and buried his face in his pillow. He couldn't make himself say it, saying it would make it real. He shoved the letter at Lisa, though he was possessive of Jared's letters and never let anyone look at one before. Lisa took the crumpled sheet and smoothed it on her leg.

  "Oh, Alex," she whispered.

  No longer faced with explaining, Alex sat up, rubbing his face with his sleeve.

  "He's such a fucking idiot." Alex scrubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands, trying to forestall another outbreak of tears. Lisa looked from Alex's tortured face to the letter.

  "Why's that, Alex?" Lisa asked and Alex met her gaze.

  "He's the only future I want, that's why. I told him my ten year plan, why can't he just believe it?" Frustrated, Alex took the letter back and stared at it, unseeing.

  "Ten year plan?"

  "It's stupid. Jared said a guy can tell if he's gay by what he dreams about for the future, or some crap like that. I don't remember exactly. I remember what I told him and how he looked. It's his dream too, I know it is. God, he's stupid." Alex folded and unfolded the letter. Lisa didn’t interrupt simply waited for him to continue. "Great, you want to hear it? It sounds stupid. When I graduate MIT I plan to go back home and go into business with Jared. He's a brilliant contractor. I wanted to wake up every single morning with him beside me."