“What the hell? How can his parents not see how much of a snake she is?”
I shrugged, stopping at a red light. “Don’t ask me. I just hope he’s doing alright. Nate says he’s still quieter than usual, but that he at least doesn’t look like he’s going to break down any moment.”
Liam, who was absentmindedly sipping my coffee, nodded. “I noticed. He looks better since you started talking again.”
“He’s always looking good.” I grinned, to which he rolled his eyes. “What? It’s true! Have you seen his hair? And his eyes? His smile? Have you even looked at him?”
“Yes. Of course, I have, but I don’t swing that way.” He groaned. “He seems nice though.”
“I suppose he does.” I laughed. “So…when are you gonna ask Emily out?”
His eyes widened in horror. “How do you know I like her?”
“Well, first of all, you almost threw a party when Jules broke up with her—”
“I was just happy that he didn’t lead her on any longer! She deserved better than that—”
“Then there’s the fact that every time you see her, you look like you’ve never seen a girl before…”
“Oh, come on. You have to admit she’s…pretty.”
I shrugged. “She’s cute. Not really my type though.”
Liam rolled his eyes again. “I know. Your type is slutty and conceited.”
“Jules isn’t like that though.”
“Yeah, okay, but he’s the first. All of the others were simply annoying,” Liam said.
Looking back, I knew that he was right. Quite frankly, I knew they weren’t for me when I invited them over. I was only hoping for an easy lay and maybe a few breaks spent making out in the janitor’s closet.
Jules was an entirely different thing. From the first moment I met him when he spilled his coffee all over me, I had been strangely fascinated by him. Not by his body or the thought of getting him into bed, but him.
Deep in thought, I didn’t even realize how much time had passed and was surprised to see we were already pulling into the school’s parking lot. I instinctively looked out for the rusty green Peugeot and tried not to be too disappointed when I didn’t find it anywhere.
Before I got out of the car, I asked Liam, “Hey, do you have a sharpie?”
Liam rummaged through his bag for a moment and handed me a marker. I took it gratefully and began scribbling a note on a napkin from Starbucks that I had taken with me for this purpose.
Good morning, junkie. Here’s some coffee to fuel your addiction. I’ll pick you up at the gas station on 5th street after school. Emily agreed to tell your parents that you’re with her today so they don’t get suspicious.
I hesitated for a second before I added.
P.S.: I dreamt about you last night.
When I looked up, I saw Liam grin. “Well, would you look at that. Hunter Adams is becoming a romantic.”
I ignored his comment and got out of the car instead, finding myself getting tackled in a hug as soon as my feet hit the cracked pavement.
“Morning! How are you?” Alex asked cheerfully as she clung to me.
I smiled down at her and hugged her back, careful not to spill any of the coffee. “Honeybee, you don’t have to act so damn excited every time I’m around.”
She shook her head and looked up at me. The wide smile slowly diminished into a worried curl of her lips. “I read somewhere that it’s uplifting for someone going through a hard time to be with someone who acts happy.”
“I’m not going through a hard time.” I groaned, ignoring Liam’s snort. “Jules is. I’m fine.”
Alex let go of me and planted herself in front of me, her hands on her hips and a scolding look on her face. I struggled to stay serious as I looked at her. Every time she was mad at me, I compared her to a yapping little Chihuahua.
“Hunter, just because someone else is having problems, doesn’t mean that yours are less significant.”
Here we go again. “The queen of self-care has spoken,” I said sarcastically.
“Hey, this is serious! You need to talk to us about what’s going on. Just refusing to acknowledge that you’re not as fine and dandy as you like to pretend won’t make anything better.”
I bent down slightly so I could look her in the eyes. Then I slowly said, “I’m fine, Alex. I won’t be any help to Jules if I’m a self-pitying mess.”
“You won’t be any help to him if you keep bottling things up until you explode either,” Liam butted in.
Alexis nodded, sending him a grateful look. “Exactly. I just think it would do you good to deal with your feelings rather than deny them.”
“But I have no right to complain! Alright, so I can’t see my boyfriend, and I miss him, and it’s a shitty feeling.” I took a deep breath. “Jules is the one people should be worrying about. His parents…I don’t even want to imagine what they’re doing to him. Everything he’s been trying to come to terms with is now the reason for this shit.” During my rant, my voice got increasingly louder. Now I sighed and closed my eyes, remembering his breakdown in my kitchen when he saw the Advil pills. “And I think there’s more to that. Something must’ve happened to him in the past, but I have no idea what it is.”
Alex’s brows furrowed as she listened to me. “After hearing about his parents, I’m not surprised, to be honest.”
I nodded silently and tried to shake off the bad feeling that crept up on me. “Anyway. What I’m trying to say is if you want to make a fuss about someone, make it about him. I’m okay if he is.”
Only when Alex and Liam stared at me speechlessly, I noticed how much that sounded like a cheesy Nicholas Sparks book.
To escape their bewildered faces, I turned around and entered the school. I didn’t have to turn around to know that they were following me. It took longer than it should have for me to get to Jules’s locker because everywhere I went, people seemed to gather, shouting greetings and fake smiles for me. Since I wasn’t with Jules in public anymore, they had started to assume we weren’t together anymore. This week, I had already gotten a couple of messages, offers from people I knew briefly. I deleted all of them without a second thought. The chance of inviting them over had lost all its appeal. On my way to the locker, I met Adam, who followed us wordlessly.
Once I was there, I frantically looked around for Victoria, and when I didn’t see her anywhere, I opened the lock with the combination Nate had told me. After I placed the coffee and the message inside, I made a beeline to my own locker.
To say I was surprised to find Victoria and Sean there would be a lie since recently, they liked to follow me around. Not sparing them a single glance, I opened my locker and made quick work of stuffing my books into my bag. But of course, that didn’t stop them from annoying me.
Victoria was leaning against the locker to my right, pushing her chest out and batting her eyelashes at me. “Hey, Hunter,” she purred. “I thought maybe I could come over tonight?”
“You thought wrong,” I said flatly. “I have other plans.”
“Oh? And what are those? What is a guy like you doing at night when he’s not in bed with someone?” Sean huffed.
“Oh, you know, the usual. Contemplating how to kill both of you and make it look like an accident, for example.”
Victoria looked genuinely offended. “Just because we got rid of that annoying, inexperienced twat for you?”
“Sorry, I think you meant ‘we destroyed your first healthy relationship,’” I retorted. “Seriously, Victoria, you don’t want to annoy me, or this could get ugly.”
Alex immediately put a hand on my arm as if to stop me from punching Victoria and said, “Victoria, you’ve done enough already. Leave him alone.”
Liam nodded and stepped between us. “Why don’t you just throw yourself at someone else? There are more than enough guys who wouldn’t mind getting laid—”
“I don’t care about any of them,” Victoria snarled. “I want Hunter.”
; “Victoria, sweetheart,” Adam suddenly said in his deep, gravelly voice and bent down a little so she could look him in the eye. “You’re a fucking moron if you think that ruining Jules’s family life will help you get Hunter back. Seriously, what kind of stupid idea is that? Of course, he’ll be pissed when you hurt his boyfriend.”
Sean narrowed his eyes at him. “What’s up with all of you lately? Since when are you the Jules Hatcher Fan Club?” He turned to look at me. “What’s so special about him, anyway? How is he better than everyone you dated before?” Sean stepped even closer until we were almost touching. “I hope his parents send him to Church Camp. Maybe that’ll teach him to stay away from you.”
Before he could finish his sentence, he suddenly stumbled away from me, howling in pain. I grinned when I saw Adam standing behind him, one hand mercilessly dragging him away from me by his hair, and eventually slammed Sean face-forward into a locker. Sean gasped and turned around, fists raised and ready to punch Adam.
What he didn’t know was that Adam had been boxing in a sports club for the better half of his life. His punch was hard and precise. Sean was down in seconds, leaning limply against the wall with blood gushing out of his nose. He stared up at Adam with nothing but hatred across his features.
Instead of talking to him, he looked at me and sneered. “Letting your lap dog fight your battles, huh? You’re so pathetic, Hunter. I can’t believe no one at this school can see what a fucking—”
Adam was back at his side in a heartbeat, gripping Sean’s collar, one hand already raised to knock him out. But Alexis was just as quick and put a hand around Adam’s fist.
I could faintly hear her saying, “He’s had enough, Adam. C’mon, let go of him. The teachers will be here in a second…”
Surprisingly, Adam groaned and let Alex pull him away from the quietly cursing Sean.
I thanked him absentmindedly and kept my eyes trained on Victoria as she kneeled down next to Sean and started to wipe the blood away with a handkerchief from her purse.
Alexis looked down at Victoria with narrowed eyes. “Did you plan on stepping in or were you just going to let him knock your friend unconscious?”
Victoria frowned and continued to clean up Sean’s face with a disgusted expression, trying hard not to get any blood on her hands. “What was I supposed to do? Let them brawl. Boys will be boys.”
I knew that Alex was going to get worked up over that last sentence even before she opened her mouth and said, “But they’ll still be responsible for their own actions. How does their gender justify anything?”
The other girl looked taken aback for a moment. Then she shook her head, and the scowl was back on her face. “Whatever. Get out of here.”
We didn’t need to be told twice. Adam and I strolled to the gym, where our next class was, while Alex and Liam went elsewhere. The first few minutes passed in silence, which wasn’t exceptional. Adam and I usually didn’t talk much and enjoyed the comfortable quiet between us.
But at some point, I asked, “Adam…You know you didn’t have to do that, right?”
Adam looked surprised. “But I wanted to. He has no right to talk like that.”
“Since when do you care about Jules?” I asked.
“Since you started caring about him,” he shot back, smiling faintly.
I laughed and bumped him with my shoulder, which he returned. “Thanks, man.”
Afterward, we both dwelled on our own thoughts until we reached the boys’ locker room, where we both went to change into our sports clothes.
My heart skipped a beat when I saw Jules standing at his locker right next to mine, his curly head bowed down as he laced his shoes. He wasn’t wearing a shirt yet, which made it even harder not to stare at him.
“Hey,” I whispered as I dropped my bag on the bench next to him, casually brushing his hand in the process.
Jules looked around nervously, but I didn’t miss the faint blush that crept onto his cheeks as he quickly pulled a shirt over his head.
“Don’t worry. I don’t think Sean will come here anytime soon,” I said.
Jules looked up in surprise, finally daring to glance at me. His cheeks turned even redder when he saw that I was currently topless. I made sure to flex a little more than necessary as I put my shirt on.
“Uhm…” Jules muttered as he tore his eyes away from my body and looked at my face instead. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“Anytime, sweetheart.” I grinned. “So, do you think you can meet me there after school? We could hang out at mine or something.”
Jules’s face lit up at that. “Definitely.”
I smiled back at him and grazed his cheek fleetingly with the back of my hand. “Okay. Can’t wait.”
“Yeah…I need to talk to you about something,” Jules said and chewed on his lip.
It took all of my emotional strength to keep myself from pushing him against the lockers and bite his lip. Just looking at him was nearly too much for me to handle.
Why did he have to do stuff like that and make it even harder?
“We can talk about anything you want later.” I promised before the shrill noise of the coach’s whistle rang through the room, and we went back to pretending we didn’t even know each other.
***
The next two periods felt like days, so I skipped the rest of class and went home instead. I spent the free time working out at home. The physical activity momentarily distracted me from thinking about Jules too much.
Afterward, I took a quick shower before I got into the car and drove to the gas station. Jules was already waiting there, hands in his pockets and leaning against a wall. I pulled up right next to him and pushed the passenger door open for him to get in.
As soon as he was inside the warm comfort of my car, I took his face in both my hands and smothered his attempt of a greeting with my lips. A surprised noise escaped his throat, but only seconds later, he edged closer and reached out to frame my face with his hands.
I chuckled quietly as I saw his expression when I backed away after only a few seconds. He didn’t seem sure whether to glare or pout, so in the end, he settled on frowning in disappointment.
“Don’t worry. There’s more of that to come,” I muttered before I turned to face the street and started the engine.
Jules seemed somewhat satisfied with that promise and settled back into the leather seat, fiddling with a loose thread on the hem of his oversized shirt.
“Why weren’t you at school for the last few periods?”
I looked over at him, surprised that he even noticed. “I’m the bad boy, remember?” I said jokingly. “I need at least a few hours of detention to keep my image up.”
“I, uh…heard about what happened with Sean,” he said while carefully studying his hands in his lap. “Can you thank Adam for me?”
“Why don’t you thank him yourself?”
Jules grimaced a little. “I don’t really think he likes me.”
“He does,” I said confidently. “If he wouldn’t like you, you’d notice. Trust me. Adam is the pettiest person I know when it comes to people he can’t stand. I remember in fifth grade when he cut Lindsey Smith’s ponytail off just because she stole his granola bar two weeks earlier…”
Jules chuckled, leaning back in the passenger seat. I immediately smiled. Jules’s laugh was easily one of my favorite sounds in the entire world, but it was gone too soon, as he said, “I can only stay with you until eight. Emily called my parents and told them we were spending the afternoon together. Of course, they believed her, but they told me to come home for dinner.”
“Hey, that’s at least three hours. More than we had all week,” I said, trying not to sound bitter.
Jules was unusually quiet for a few minutes.
At some point, the silence got so aggravating that I reached for his hand and asked, “Is there anything you want to talk about?”
Jules finally looked up, though he still seemed insecure. “About the boyfriend thing…�
��
I froze. I had been worried that he might not like the idea of being in an actual relationship with me since that was kind of a big step for someone who had only just accepted the fact that he was gay. Or maybe he just didn’t like me that much. Maybe he—
“We haven’t really talked about it much, but I want you to know you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” he said, interrupting my thoughts.
His words didn’t make any sense. “What do you mean?”
“I know that you’re not really into relationships and all that.” Jules explained. “I don’t want you to think that you need to do it. Because we don’t have to if it makes you uncomfortable or feels weird or—”
“Jules, I want this,” I simply said, surprised by the truth in my words. “Even though, I might be a crappy excuse of a boyfriend because I…uh, I’ve never been in an actual relationship before. So I might not really know how all that works…”
Jules snickered in delight. “So it’ll be me showing you something new for once.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” I retorted as I pulled into the driveway and got out of the car. “There’s still a lot I can teach you.”
I knew that he picked up the double meaning in my words as his cheeks turned scarlet. Holding a hand out, I waited for him on the porch. Jules hesitated for only a second before he jogged up to me and slipped his hand into mine.
Something about that gesture made me ridiculously happy. A few weeks ago, he hadn’t dared to even really look me in the eye. Now he kissed, held hands, and hugged without giving much thought to it.
Once we were inside and had taken our jackets and shoes off, I dragged him upstairs and into my room, where I gestured at the bed, making him blush yet again. Chuckling, I shook my head at him.
“Jules, what a dirty mind you have…”
He glared at me but sat down on the bed nonetheless, while I turned on a bunch of fairy lights and small lamps that were occupying any free space in my room, drowning everything in soft golden light. Outside, the sun was about to set.
Why You Shouldn't Lend A Bad Boy Your Clothes Page 30