God, where to start. “Have you ever wondered, even for a minute, if I was attracted to Danial?”
“Are you?”
“That’s not the point.” I ground my teeth and grappled for a way to explain something I barely understood myself. “The point is, you being around other guys always makes me a little crazy.”
He smiled. “I’ve noticed.”
I didn’t smile back. “But it’s not that way for you. Whatever I do, whoever I hang out with, whoever you find sitting at my desk, everything is just a little too okay with you. Like it doesn’t matter. Like I don’t matter.”
“Everything you do matters to me.”
“Then why do I feel so shitty all the time? You didn’t even know Danial.”
“I knew you.”
“I kissed him.”
Adam grew still beside me, his only reaction, a mild grinding of my knuckles together. The cat got to its feet and moved on down the street. When it disappeared into the shadows, I turned back to Adam.
“Now you are getting a spanking,” he said with mock seriousness. When I didn’t laugh, he sighed and went on. “Nate, Danial is straight. He’s no threat to me, to us. But I am curious. Why?”
“When I fuzzed out my eyes, he looked like you.”
Adam’s eyebrows shot up.
“It was nothing. I made a complete fool of myself, but Danial was a good sport about it. He knew how much I missed you.”
“Is that why you hooked up with Luke? To make me jealous?”
“I didn’t hook up with Luke.” It wasn’t the whole truth, but I saw a brief flicker of relief in his eyes, and I knew it was truth enough. It was all the truth we could take right now. “And I wasn’t trying to make you jealous,” I continued. “I hung out with him because he needed me. I only told you we were dating to hurt you, the way I hurt. Maybe I just wanted a reaction. I wanted you to stop me. To claim me.” What came next was the part that still ate at me. “But you didn’t fight for me. You just let me go.”
“Oh, Nate.” He scrubbed his face with his free hand. “If you’d only known how much that tore me up inside. There was this wall between us that I didn’t know how to get past. I tried to back off, give you the space you needed to figure things out. And then Juliet saw you together, and my mom and Ben. And then you called me on Halloween, and I felt like you were just rubbing salt in the wound.”
“That’s not why I called. But when you answered, there was all this noise and voices in the background.” Are you waiting for me? I tried to clear the voice from my head. “It was like you’d just moved on.”
“I hadn’t moved on. I was just going through the motions, doing what everyone expected of me, but barely getting by day to day. We started another four weeks of rehearsals for the next show. I threw myself into it, but it wasn’t any good anymore. By the time you texted me on my birthday, I was so steeped in hurt and anger ... I guess it was after that that I just kind of fell apart. The show opened the next weekend. I got through it, but I hardly remember any of it. By Thanksgiving I was ready to just walk away from everything.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“When I told Mom and Ben, they pulled Mea out of school early and flew up. Believe me, they never wanted me to go to New York, but they didn’t want me doing anything rash either. I stayed in the hotel room with them. We talked about my future; we talked about you. Friday after Thanksgiving Ben negotiated my way out of both my contract and my sublease. I had to agree to stay until the show run ended last night, and in return they released me from any further commitments. We shipped my stuff home. I’ve been living pretty much with a couple changes of clothes and a toothbrush since.”
Suddenly I understood what he was saying, what he’d been trying to say all night. “You’re not going back?”
“I’m not going back. I doubt I would have gone in the first place if you hadn’t pushed me with that cockamamy bullshit about needing to know who you are without me. That was bullshit, wasn’t it?”
“You’re not going back?” I said again, still trying to grasp what that meant.
He reached up and touched my face and shook his head. “Acting and singing and dancing, that’s all fun, but it isn’t my life. My life is right here. With you. Ben pulled some strings and got me an eleventh-hour admission to UT for the spring semester. I’ll be in Austin, but I’ll be home every weekend.”
I dropped my head back and closed my eyes, feeling the tight knot of anxiety unravel in my chest and wanting to cry like a baby at the release. He let go of my hand and pulled me to him. “Call your mom and tell her you’re staying with me tonight,” he said huskily.
I already had.
Chapter 47
My ringtone woke me. I squinted at the window and the early daylight seeping around the edges of the blinds as I slid out from under Adam and fumbled for the phone on the bedside table.
“Mom?” I answered, my voice groggy. Adam stirred next to me. I smiled to myself and walked my fingers through the valley between his shoulder blades. He groaned pleasantly.
“Nate. I need you to come home.”
The terseness in her voice got my attention and my fingers froze in their trek. “Is everything okay?”
Adam rolled to his side and nudged his knee up between my legs and opened his eyes.
“Baby, it’s Luke.”
I sat up. “Luke?”
“He’s here, Nate. I found him on the front porch when I went out for the paper this morning. I think he was there all night. He’s really upset. It sounds like he had a fight with his dad.”
Adam propped himself up on one elbow, watching me, his face etched in concern.
“Don’t let him leave. I’ll be right there.”
Adam came with me. From the car, I called Danial, waking him up. When he heard Luke’s name, though, he was alert and getting dressed before I even hung up the phone. I filled Adam in on the drive over. Until then, I’d told him almost nothing about Luke, except that he needed me. In the five minutes it took to get from his house to mine, I told him why.
I burst in the door and Mom got to her feet and headed for me. On the couch, Luke nervously picked at his cuticles, his elbows on his knees, a blanket thrown over his shoulders. He didn’t look up. “I called his dad,” Mom said in a low voice. “He knows he’s here. He’s not happy about it. He’s on his way to pick him up.” Then she embraced Adam. “It’s so good to see you.”
I went and sat next to Luke. I took his hands in mine and held them still. They were ice cold. It hurt to think about him sitting all alone on my porch all night while I was wrapped in Adam’s warm arms. He wasn’t wearing his hoodie, just a thin, faded band T-shirt, and the night had been chilly. My heart broke for him, and I couldn’t help feeling like I had done this.
“Tell me what happened,” I said gently.
He took in a shuddering breath. “I told him,” he said in a barely there voice.
I didn’t have to ask what. I knew. Instantly.
He sniffed and pulled one hand free to swipe at his eyes. “Oh, Luke.” I let go of his hands and pulled him to me. He gasped and arched his back. I released him and searched his face. He turned his head away and wouldn’t look at me, even when I said his name again and eased the blanket from his shoulders and let it drop to the couch. His blue shirt was speckled darker blue randomly across his back. I tried to pull it up, but he stopped me. “It’s okay,” I said quietly. When I lifted it again, he resisted, then quit, dropping his head in shame.
The shirt was stuck to his back at the speckled points, and I had to tug gently to release it. Vicious welts, maybe six of them, sprayed across his back. The skin had split on some of them and had leaked blood, already dry and crusted along the raised lines, but bleeding again where the scabs had stuck to his shirt. What the hell? I looked back at Adam, his face red with fury. Mom stood frozen, her hand to her mouth, her eyes wide. “I’ll get something to put on that,” she said when she got over the initial shock, then hurried out of the room.
Adam let Danial in when he knocked a moment later. Danial crossed the room in six long strides and took the armchair my mom had been sitting in when I got home. He pulled it up close to Luke, taking in the sight of his back, his face tense.
He looked at me. “He came out to his dad last night,” I said.
Danial grabbed Luke’s chin and turned his face to him. “Did your dad do this to you?”
Luke nodded.
“What happened?”
As Luke began to tell his story, Mom brought in a refrigerator-chilled bottle of aloe vera burn relief. This was no sunburn, but I knew the aloe vera had antiseptic and analgesic properties. It would help. She offered to put it on his back, but I wanted to do it myself. I took the bottle and squeezed some of the green gel into my hand and squished it around some to warm it.
“I didn’t think he’d get so pissed,” Luke was saying. “He wouldn’t stop yelling at me. Finally I just gave up trying to explain things to him and went up to my room.”
He winced as I dabbed the still-cold aloe vera onto his welts.
“But then he followed me. I was brushing my teeth in my bathroom and he was yelling at me, calling me all kinds of awful names, and his face was all red.”
He winced again and I backed off for a moment. I noticed Danial had Luke’s hands now, holding his eyes steady with his own.
“He just totally lost it. I’ve never seen him like that before. He grabbed this toy arrow that my brother had left in my room and just started hitting me with it. He cornered me in the bathroom and I couldn’t get out.”
“What about your mom?” Danial asked.
“She’s out of town. At her annual zit conference.” I remembered that Luke’s mom was a dermatologist. I wondered how she’d react to both his news and his dad’s reaction. I didn’t have time to think much beyond that when I saw Adam glance out the front window. He looked back at me, his face worried, and I knew Luke’s dad was here.
My mom handed me a couple of ibuprofen and a glass of water. Danial took them out of my hand and coaxed Luke into taking them.
Adam opened the door before Luke’s dad had a chance to knock. All eyes locked on him. He was dressed in a suit. A suit? I thought, wryly. He’d just beaten the crap out of his son, then didn’t know where he was for hours, and he was dressed for church?
“I’m here to get my son,” he announced tightly.
Adam pushed the door open a little wider, and Luke’s dad took in the scene in the living room. Luke’s shirt was still off while the aloe vera dried. I was still sitting close to him, my hand cupped on the back of his neck. Danial was still across from him, still holding his hands tight in his own.
“Get away from my son, you perverts.” He took a threatening step toward us. “If I ever catch you anywhere near him again, I will tear you apart limb by limb.”
“My son is not a pervert,” my mom said, drawing herself up and claiming every inch of her five foot four frame. “And neither is yours. Don’t you ever threaten my son again. And how dare you strike this boy.” Her face was angry, and she was breathing heavily through her nose. I had never seen my mom so riled up.
“Mind your own business, lady.” Mr. Chesser looked like he might punctuate that demeaning line with a wad of spit on the floor, but Danial was on his feet and in the suited man’s face before the last word was out of his mouth. He shoved him, hard, and Luke’s dad stumbled back into the door.
Adam stepped in front of Danial, and placed his hands on his tensed arms.
“Don’t,” Luke croaked. He grabbed his shirt, pulling it over his head. “I’ll go.”
He tried to stand, but I grabbed his wrist and held him back. “You don’t have to go with him, Luke. You can stay here, with me.” I darted a look at Mom. She nodded her head and I mouthed a thank you.
He tried to get up again. “I can’t stay.”
“Luke, don’t.” I was panicking now because I didn’t know what this angry man would do to this sweet boy, and I didn’t want to find out.
“You’re not fucking my kid anymore, faggot,” his dad spat.
Danial lunged at him again, but Adam held him back, urging him to stay calm in a low voice. Nobody thought to hold my mom back though. She crossed the distance between them and slapped Luke’s dad in the face so hard it left a red handprint.
He looked stunned and then seemed ready to retaliate, but Adam and Danial were both poised, fists clenched, ready to take him down if he made one move toward my mom.
“Luke is spending the day with us,” Grandma announced from the kitchen doorway. Her sudden appearance, her matter-of-fact attitude, and the fact that she was old seemed to take the heat in the room down a notch.
“I’ll bring him home myself,” Mom said, her rage barely contained, “when he’s feeling better and after I’ve had a chance to take some pictures of his back. In the meantime, I suggest you calm down unless you want to spend some time in jail.”
“That’s my son and I will deal with him however I see fit.”
Mom pointed at Luke. “That boy has done nothing wrong. And he doesn’t deserve to be treated like this. Get over it, or I swear to God I’ll see to it you’re arrested for abuse.”
My heart swelled with pride for both of the women in my life.
There was a tense moment when I had no idea what would happen next. Then Mr. Wolf was at the doorway, and I knew immediately by the calm look on his face as he took in the defensive postures in the room that Mom had called him.
He smiled at my mom, then turned to Luke’s dad. “John, let’s talk outside.”
Luke’s dad stood taller and yanked down on his jacket to straighten it. Then with a huff and a dark, threatening look, he followed Mr. Wolf outside.
I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath until he left. I exhaled and squeezed Luke’s arm.
“Adam, this is Danial.”
The two clasped each other’s hands and then Adam surprised me by pulling Danial in for a hug. The two embraced for a long moment. Adam only let go when Danial patted him on the back.
“And this is Luke.”
Adam settled into the chair opposite Luke and took his hand. He smiled at him and then surprised me by kissing the top of his head. They looked at each other for a while, and I felt like some secret understanding was passing between the two of them. The tiniest of smiles tugged at the corners of Luke’s mouth. I breathed a sigh of relief.
“I’m going to help your grandmother make some coffee,” Mom said, getting up. She followed Grandma to the kitchen, leaving the four of us alone to start figuring out these new bonds we were forming with each other.
Danial sat on the arm of the couch on the other side of Luke.
Luke looked up at him and then at me. “This is kind of embarrassing,” he said.
Danial laughed. “Nate stoned—that’s embarrassing. This is nothing.”
Luke smiled sheepishly. “Nate told me he tried to kiss you.”
“Tried?” Danial said, his eyebrows raised.
Adam looked at me, his brow furrowed, not because kissing Danial was news, but perhaps because telling Luke about it was. Danial nudged Adam’s knee with his foot. “He was stoned. Give him a break.”
“I didn’t know you smoked,” Adam said to me.
“He doesn’t,” Danial said. I wanted to tell him to shut up, but he just kept running his mouth. “Well, he did, twice. Does that mean he smokes? Or he just smoked, but he doesn’t ‘smoke.’ ” He made those stupid finger quotes when he said the word smoke.
Adam just looked at him like he was cracked in the head, but that didn’t deter Danial. Why wasn’t I surprised?
“But I have to say, Adam,” Danial continued, “you’re a lucky guy. Nate’s a pretty good kisser.”
“Yeah, he is,” Luke said innocently.
I groaned. I was going to kill Danial later. But then I got the feeling he was baiting Adam, testing the waters to see if our relationship was really big enough and strong enough to all
ow other friendships like his and Luke’s.
Adam glared at him. “You may have gotten a sample, but the dish belongs to me.”
I stared at him, shocked at such an un-Adam-like statement. And then I realized he was trying to be the jealous boyfriend I’d wanted. Not exactly a verbal spanking, but close enough, and I loved him for it, but I still cracked up at the intense expression on his face.
I couldn’t stop the giggles, and tears were soon leaking from my eyes. Adam looked at me, a grin spreading across his face. “Was that too much?” he asked.
“You’ll have to forgive him,” I said, swiping at my eyes with the heels of my hand. And then I cracked up again. Luke was laughing too. Danial just shook his head and rolled his eyes, but the smile gave him away. Adam had passed the test.
Mr. Wolf must have thought we’d all lost our minds when he came back in a few seconds later. We knew he had serious business to talk about, but it still took a few more minutes of hysterical laughter before we got control of ourselves. It was cathartic laughter though, and when it finally calmed down, I think we all felt a little more capable of dealing with the crap that had just hit the fan.
Mom came in with a tray holding six mugs of fresh coffee along with spoons and cream and sugar. Mr. Wolf took it from her. They exchanged a brief but meaningful look. How long had that been going on? I knew they’d had dinner together a couple of times, but I’d been too wrapped up in my own crises to pay much attention to her love life. It was hard not to approve. Mr. Wolf was what I’d always wanted my own dad to be—open, gentle, willing to hold his own prejudices up to scrutiny when they were challenged, willing to stand up for what was right even when it went against all he had believed to be true, willing to change and to love. It occurred to me that Mr. Wolf was very much like Jody’s Uncle Bill. He set the tray on an end table, and we all helped ourselves.
Mr. Wolf pulled up a chair, and we waited expectantly for him to tell us what had happened outside with Luke’s dad.
He took a sip of his coffee, then set it down, clasping his hands in front of him. “Your dad’s been on the school board for quite a few years, Luke. We go back a ways.”
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