by Anna Martin
“Give it time,” Clare murmured.
Thunderous footsteps on the secret staircase tore Jared’s attention away from Clare’s evil smirking, and he purposefully didn’t look over as Adam skidded into the kitchen.
“Morning, losers,” Adam said, then spanked Jared’s ass. Hard. Then kissed his neck, sucking hard enough to threaten a bruise, and stole the mug of coffee.
Clare snorted with amusement, and people were definitely looking.
“Right. Grub’s up. Help yourselves,” Chris said and stepped away from the stove. There was enough food to satisfy half the school but only a handful of people had stayed over. Chris let the girls go first and waited with Jared while Adam curiously fixed another mug of coffee, identical to the first, then silently handed it to Jared.
“Didn’t know you could cook,” Jared said, to fill the silence.
“Not all of us grew up with silver spoons stuck up our asses,” Chris said.
“I think the expression is ‘silver spoon in your mouth’.”
“Not once it’s been up your ass,” Chris said with a wink. Jared laughed.
Once the girls had filled their plates with far more than Jared expected, considering how little they ate during the week, Chris moved in. It was a small feast of bacon and eggs, pancakes and toast.
“Thanks,” Adam said, clapping his friend on the arm when he was done. “This is awesome.”
“Any time, homie.”
It was raining a little, but Adam went out onto the back porch anyway, sitting down in one of the wide lounge chairs that were scattered along the length of the house. Jared was about to take the seat next to him when he noticed the drop.
“Holy shit.”
Adam laughed. “Sorry, dude. You scared of heights?”
“No,” Adam said. “No. I just wasn’t expecting it.”
From the front, it looked like the house was built into the rock behind it. It was only from the back that it became clear there was a valley in between the rock and the building, and the house was perched precariously on the edge of that. The cliff face was a few hundred yards away on the other side of the ravine.
Not wanting his eggs to get cold, Jared sat in one of the chairs and tucked his feet up underneath himself. Chris was a good cook. There was cheese and butter in the eggs, and the bacon was perfectly crisp, the pancakes deliciously light and sweet.
“So, what’s going on between you two?” Chris asked, setting his empty plate down.
“Nothing,” Jared said, realizing it had probably come out a little too quickly.
“Nothing,” Adam echoed with a shrug. “It got late. We went to bed. Same as you guys.”
Chris nodded but didn’t press. They sat in companionable silence for a while, then the girls filed outside, complaining about the rain but squeezing onto the loungers anyway. Adam ducked back into the kitchen to refresh the coffee, giving Mia the perfect opportunity to steal his seat. Jared tried not to be noticed.
People moved about, from the kitchen out onto the balcony and back again, sometimes disappearing into the bedrooms to change into day clothes, then coming back for more coffee.
Wearing nothing but the pajamas Adam had lent him, Jared moved his truck so Chris could get his ridiculously awesome car out. Chris had forced them all to rinse their own plates and stack them in the dishwasher, then the early morning crowd started to leave in twos and threes. Jared made no move to get out of the comfortable lounger, get dressed, and go home.
Adam stayed on the back balcony, seemingly absorbed in his thoughts.
“Yo,” Chris said, leaning out of the kitchen door. “I’m taking the chicks home.”
“Okay. Thanks for breakfast,” Adam said.
“No problem.” Chris disappeared with a grin.
Jared was still wearing Adam’s clothes. They were too small for him really. He’d rolled the pant legs up a couple of times to disguise how short they were, but the T-shirt stretched over his broad chest.
With a slow smile, Adam beckoned him over. Jared was smiling too as he sauntered to the deck chair, then straddled Adam’s waist, gripping the back of the chair.
“Alone at last,” Adam said in a soft voice.
“It seems that way. Tell me about Chris,” Jared said, sitting back on his heels so all his weight wasn’t resting on Adam’s thighs. Adam ran his hands up and down Jared’s legs and gave him an amused look.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. I don’t get you two.”
Adam laughed. “We’ve been friends for a long time. I think our moms were friends before we were even born, actually. I’ll ask her when I see her next.”
Jared nodded for him to go on.
“I guess I can remember us being friends when we were real little,” Adam said. “I can’t remember ever meeting Chris; he was just always around. He’s always been the cool one, though.”
“What do you mean?” Jared asked, laughing.
“Oh, his parents have always spoiled him, so he got all of the toys all of us wanted when we were little. He got a red bike when we were about seven, I think, and I cried to my mom for a week solid until she got me one too.”
“You little brat.” Jared poked his finger at Adam’s ribs, making him squirm.
“He was the first of us to get his driver’s license, the first one to sneak us booze, then weed, then coke.”
“I’m sure he’s been a great influence on you,” Jared said drily.
Adam laughed. “I suppose you could see it like that. He’s always been there for me. He’s like the brother I never had, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“I know people look at us and wonder what either of us get out of this.”
“Your friendship?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re so different. I guess that matters to some people.”
“People suck,” Jared said philosophically.
“Wallace won’t ever fit in in this town. His family isn’t like mine—Hemlocks have been going to Harbor Academy pretty much since it opened, and he’s the first person from his family to go there.”
“Does that even matter?”
“Here it does,” Adam said, stretching his arms over his head, revealing soft tufts of dark hair under them.
“That’s stupid.”
“I know,” Adam said lightly. “Doesn’t make it less real, though. I spent a lot of time with my mom in Paris over the summer and she made me think about Chris a lot. Like… whether he’s really a friend, or just some hangover from childhood. A metaphorical stuffed animal I was scared to throw away.” He laughed. “My mom likes metaphors.”
He reached down and rubbed his hands up and down Jared’s thighs. “He’s not, though, you know,” Adam continued. “He’s this one constant in my life. He gets it.”
“Gets what?”
“The revolving door of bitches and hoes and backstabbing cunts in this town.”
Jared laughed.
“And that’s just the guys,” Adam said with a dramatic sigh.
“You don’t think much of them, do you?”
“Who, the Academy kids? Fuck, no. I mean, there’s a few of them I can actually stand for more than five minutes at a time. You don’t really have to look hard to see who that is.”
“I get that,” Jared said, catching Adam’s wrists as he tried to push his hands into the waistband of Jared’s pajama pants. “What about next year?”
“What about it?”
“Are you going to go to the same college?”
“Probably not. That doesn’t matter to me. Chris is my brother.”
“Y’all have one fucked-up family,” Jared said, teasing.
“Preach, sister.”
“I like Chris a lot.”
“It’s hard to not like Chris,” Adam said.
“So, what’s with his family? His real family, not the brother-from-another-mother deal you both have going on.”
Adam snorted with amusement. “He had some grandpa leave hi
m a ton of money. Chris is the eldest child, and he’s only got sisters younger than him. Apparently a big chunk of the inheritance was put aside for his education, so the only way Chris could get at it was to go to a good school and a good college.”
“Come on. His family isn’t loaded in the same way other folks are around here, though.”
“Naw. Not everyone in this town is rolling in it, you know.” Adam sounded amused and ran his hands over Jared’s legs again. “Who do you think works in Starbucks? Or cleans our enormous houses?”
Jared huffed a laugh. “I suppose so.”
“Not that Chris’s mom is a cleaner. She works in insurance, I think.”
Jared still didn’t get the friendship, not really, but he let the subject drop. It didn’t matter how long he stayed in New Harbor, he was never going to understand the history of all the families here. Plus, he had Adam pinned beneath his strong thighs, and there were far better things for them to be doing than simply talking.
Chapter 7
Parties on the weekend or not, school still happened on Monday morning. And party people or not, they were expected to show up with their homework. Jared had stayed up late again on Sunday, his hangover a distant memory, desperately trying to finish all his assignments for the week ahead. He wasn’t sure how the other kids managed to throw massive parties and still get the best grades in the school, have social lives, and go shopping and out to dinner and on vacation every other weekend. Maybe it was a learned thing, something he’d missed out on growing up between Michigan and Texas. Maybe someone else completed their assignments for them. Either way, Jared was behind.
By Monday he was tired, not so much that he was unproductive, just feeling the early start and a certain inability to function. It would go by lunch, he was sure, but the rain-streaked glass in homeroom provided the perfect window to daydream through.
The bell rang, and Jared rolled lazily to his feet, only to be stopped by Ms. Bowen as he headed for the door.
“Do you have a moment, Mr. Rawell?” she said in a low voice.
“I sorta have to get to class,” he said, vaguely gesturing but knowing already it was useless. He waited for the room to empty, then sat in the desk opposite hers.
“It has been brought to my attention that your grades have… suffered somewhat in the past year,” Bowen said. Jared guessed she was trying to be tactful.
“Am I failing already?”
“No. Most of your teachers have reported that you’re bright and intelligent. However, a year spent in a less rigorous academic environment has set you back and the work you’re turning in is notably below the standard we expect of students here.” Bowen sat back and folded her hands. “We want you to succeed, Jared, which is why I’m bringing this to your attention this early in the academic year. If you want to graduate with the rest of the class, I suggest you consider a private tutor.”
Jared nodded. “I don’t think my father is going to like that much.”
“I could contact him on your behalf?”
“No. No, I need to do it. The last thing I want is for him to pull me out of here and send me back.” Jared sighed heavily and rubbed his hands over his face, then pushed his fingers through his hair.
“The Academy is willing to support you wherever we can,” Bowen said. “There will be extra credit assignments made available to you to help you pull those grades up, if you want them. No one here wants to see you fail.”
No, Jared thought. Can’t have that blemish on your shining record.
Her words played on his mind for the rest of the morning, and more than once Jared forced himself to stop doodling in the margins of his notebook and start paying attention. Bowen had given him a list of the subjects where his grades were “less than expected,” and it wasn’t really a shock. Government, chemistry, French. Three academic areas that, surprise surprise, there hadn’t been a huge emphasis on at military school.
At lunch Jared bought cookies to cheer himself up, then collapsed into the seat at Chris’s table that was rapidly becoming his.
“All right, losers, who has a tutor?” he asked, splitting the packet open and offering one to Clare. Who turned it down. Like he knew she would.
“Uh, nearly all of us,” she said. “How the fuck do you think we keep up at this place?”
“Okay. Well, I need tutoring. Can someone hook me up?”
“Ryder,” Clare said. “Give him Dylan’s number.”
Across the table, Ryder tore a sheaf of paper from her notepad and scrawled a number on it. “Let him know you’re here, and you’re friends with us, and he’ll make time for you.”
Jared nodded and folded the paper, tucking it into his wallet. “Cool. Thanks. Who is this guy?”
“A friend,” Clare said. “Ryder’s brother. He was in our grade until we were what… thirteen? Then they skipped him, so he graduated last year. He’s at UDub now, but he tutors a lot of people here.”
“He graduated early from this place and ended up at a local college? Why isn’t he at an Ivy League school?”
“Family stuff,” Ryder said with the sort of finality that told Jared not to press.
He nodded and leaned back in his chair, content with his cookies. “All right. I’ll call him.”
More people started to fill the table, nearly all of them looking to Chris first to make sure their presence was allowed. He quietly nodded to some. Others, like Adam, ignored him and sat down anyway.
“What do you need tutoring in, anyway?” Ryder asked.
“The classes they didn’t give at my last school,” Jared said, rolling his eyes. “Chemistry, government, and French.”
“Don’t pay for a French tutor,” Adam said. He didn’t even look up from methodically splitting chicken strips. “I’m fluent. I can help.”
“That’s nice of you,” he said cautiously. The memory of their bedtime kiss flickered through Jared’s mind. “What do you want?”
“Nothing,” Adam said with a laugh.
“You’ve never tutored anyone before,” Ryder said. She looked upset.
“That’s because, darling Ryder, your tits do nothing for me, but his ass does.”
Jared snorted and reached for another cookie, snapping it neatly in half. “When are you free?” he asked Adam, ignoring Ryder’s wounded look.
“Give me your number. We can work something out.”
When Jared got home that afternoon, he was surprised to see a car parked in front of the house. Hadley’s car. He parked next to it, leaving her plenty of space to get out if she needed to, and called out when he walked into the house.
“Hi!” Hadley said, sticking her head out of the kitchen. “Come in. I’m just fixing dinner.”
“I didn’t know you were due home.”
Jared threw his bag on the floor next to the door and toed off his shoes, loosening his tie as he walked through the house.
“Change of plans,” Hadley said lightly. “I’ve got a few friends who want to come and see the area, so I came back to fix the house up.”
“It’s not a mess,” Jared said, feeling oddly defensive.
“I know. Thank you.”
He slid onto one of the stools tucked under the breakfast bar and regarded Hadley with a curious expression. She was wearing jeans, barefoot, with an apron tied around her middle as she stirred a red sauce on the stove.
“What are you making?”
“Lasagna.”
“Oh. Sounds good. Smells good, too.”
Hadley gave him a grin over her shoulder. “Thanks.”
Hadley was about ten years younger than Jared’s mother, making her thirty or thereabouts. She wore her hair long, and had it tied back in a ponytail while she worked. Jared didn’t know much about his aunt; his mom didn’t like her much, and he’d only heard vicious gossip since her marriage and subsequent divorce.
“I wanted to apologize,” she said, turning the burner down on the stove and leaning against a cabinet. “I wouldn’t normally have been
out of town for so long, but I picked up a few jobs down in Cali, and it made sense to stay there for a while.”
“It’s fine,” Jared said. “I like the peace and quiet.”
“Oh, God, I can’t stand it,” Hadley said dramatically. “This place drives me mad after a while. I have to get out.”
“Why don’t you sell the house then?” he asked, hoping to sound genuinely curious rather than confrontational. “You could use the money to buy something nice in a place you actually like.”
She huffed a laugh. “Yeah, fair point. It’s… political.”
“Go on,” Jared said. “Share. I won’t tell anyone.”
Hadley grinned and reached into the fridge, grabbing two Pepsis and handing one to Jared. “Oh, all right. Don’t go reporting back to Mommy, though, will you?”
“Jeez, sister. I haven’t spoken to my mother in about a month.”
“Lucky you,” Hadley muttered. “She’s been on my back for weeks. Well, it’s driving my ex-husband crazy, knowing I still have this place. He expected me to sell it, and he was going to buy it back. Stupid, really; he had to know I’d inflate the price, and he’d pay twice as much as it’s worth. And it’s worth a lot.”
“So you’re doing it to keep it out of his hands.”
“For the time being, yeah. I earn enough that I don’t need his money right now. When I do, I’ll kick him where it hurts and call a Realtor.”
“Okay. What else?”
“I was given a fair incentive to keep it.”
“My dad,” Jared said frankly.
“Yeah. He’s a complete douchebag, Jared, if you don’t mind my saying.”
“Not at all. I can’t stand the man. Has he still got a bug in his ass about me being gay?”
“Just a little bit,” Hadley said. “He palmed you off like a fucking pregnant teenager to an aunt in another state who will look after you so he doesn’t have to see the ‘evidence of his failings as a parent’.”
“He actually said that?”
“Word for word.”
“Bastard,” Jared muttered.
“Sorry, sweetheart. You’re a nice kid, you really are. You don’t deserve the shit he gives you.”