Tomorrow he could continue with the war, but tonight he surrendered.
Aaron, freshly showered with untamed damp hair and a tiny, tiny dash of whatever stupid body spray he had bought, was a force June had not been prepared to deal with. And if they had to share the smaller couch while watching Forrest Gump of all things, then June felt all his efforts to be a pathetic, hopeless cause.
Twenty minutes in, he set a large blue popcorn bowl and his dignity aside. Looked Aaron straight in the eyes and proceeded to snuggle the fuck out of him.
They fell asleep together. June curled into Aaron’s warm side. Aaron’s arm lightly around his shoulders. Delicate, shattered pieces of self-control lost to the night.
12
Drive
The day before they were supposed to leave for the Vans Warped Tour, June had startled Aaron so badly he almost called the whole date off.
They’d been sitting outside together on the porch, chatting about their families; particularly the lack of siblings Aaron had and how June sometimes wished he’d been an only child. He’d carefully described each one of his sisters and why they were a pain in the ass while doodling beetles in his sketchbook. Aaron had listened intently, ignorant to how June felt until a clammy sweat broke over June’s forehead.
Aaron had leaned forward, about to place the back of his hand to June’s cheek, and then the boy was gone. Sketchbook and pencil clattered to the floor in a frantic hurry. He had vanished inside the cabin, and it was all Aaron could do to follow.
June didn't have time to lock him out of the bathroom, so Aaron had found him clutching the toilet with white knuckles and hurling violently. When he tried to approach him, June had snarled so viciously at him to get away that Aaron walked himself back into the living room, stood there dejected and feeling a little ill himself.
June had locked himself in the back bedroom for twenty minutes until Aaron finally got up the nerve to find him.
“A-Are you okay?” He rattled the doorknob. It was locked. “June, come on.”
The only response was a weak voice from far away. “Do we have any Pepto or…something?”
Aaron, feeling helpless and clueless, let his head fall against the door. “I don’t think so.” A big pink bottle wasn’t exactly easy to hide. He would have remembered seeing it in either of the medicine cabinets by now.
June whimpered, and it made Aaron weak.
“I’ll go get some!” he offered. “It will…probably take a while, but I can drive into tow—”
“Angie has some,” June said, sounding more muffled. “Thanks...sorry I yelled at you.”
Aaron reassured him it was okay more than necessary and hurried to find his keys. It would be much faster to drive down to the ice cream shop than to drive to a drugstore. It would take him ten minutes—tops.
Aaron had no idea how June had gotten sick so fast. He had been perfectly fine for the entire morning; cooking breakfast like normal and eating it just the same. He’d even been in high spirits today, teasing Aaron about their date every chance he could; so why all the sudden? There hadn’t been any warning signs for the nausea. Unless June was really, really good at hiding them. And even then, why hide them in the first place?
He considered, for a very brief moment, June could also be pretending to be sick. And while he didn't think June was that good of an actor, he might have believed it had he not seen June heaving into the bowl. It would, at the very least, make more sense than him becoming sick out of nowhere.
The idea of having to skip their date haunted Aaron as he drove down to the shop and parked his car at the back of the gravel lot. Angie’s pickup was in its usual spot, and a group of familiar teenager girls huddled together near it.
“Hey! It’s him!” One of them—the youngest one that had sat next to him on the back of the speedboat—called out. “Adam, right?”
“Aaron,” he corrected with a small nod and a forced smile. This wasn’t a good time for small talk, let alone teenage girls doing nothing to hide their attraction toward him. And without being sopping wet from the lake, they were even more…shiny and sparkly and glittery. It was daunting.
“Off to find Angie?” The leader of the pack crossed one tan leg over the other and straightened herself proudly. She sat on an old electrical box, surrounded by the lesser evils. “I saw her kissing that new boy the other day.”
Amused agreement came from the rest of the girls. Aaron wondered if it would be rude just to ignore them completely and hurry inside.
“Hey, why don’t you hang out with us sometime?”
“That would be like, super cool!”
“There’s a bonfire next weekend…”
The thought of June lying miserably in bed tugged at him.
“Ladies. Ladies!” Aaron waved them off, shaking his head back and forth. If this was how Arco felt around females, then Aaron considered himself lucky to always fall in his cousin’s shadow. “I’m sorry.” He waited until all seven of them gave him their attention. “But June isn’t feeling well. I’m just here to borrow medicine, and then I need to leave.”
Honesty, apparently, wasn’t what they were looking for. Slowly but surely, their expressions turned from various degrees of excitement to pouting or down-right sadness. If he weren’t in a hurry, he would have said something else to ease the sting of rejection (not that he considered what he said a rejection anyway. These girls are crazy.).
“That June,” the leader rolled her eyes, “he’s always pushing himself too hard and making himself sick.”
“I thought he was okay now, though?”
“No one ever really told us what happened.”
“But don’t you think he looks better?”
Aaron shifted from foot to foot, baffled by their words and growing more and more irritated by the moment. He shouldn’t even be listening to these girls. They wanted nothing but to cause drama. He glanced at the ice cream shop door, back at the group, and then decided this was a big waste of his time. He turned and left them to argue amongst themselves.
It was rather strange what they said though…June had never pushed himself so hard he’d made himself sick while Aaron was around. Certainly not this morning—all they had been doing was sitting together talking. And what exactly did they mean by he was okay now? Had he been sick before? When? Previous summers? It seemed strange to remember when someone you weren’t even friends with was sick.
It was getting harder and harder not to be included in the history around here. Aaron sighed.
Inside the shop, Angie and Charlie were busy with a group of small children pointing and shouting at toppings behind the display case. Angie grinned, teasing them by pointing purposefully at the wrong topping and then pretended she was going to pour nuts all over their bubble-gum flavored ice cream. Charlie stood just behind her; mouth turned up in a tiny smile. Totally, shamelessly smitten.
Once the parents of the children paid and found a seat away from the counter, Aaron shuffled over to his friends.
“Hey.”
“Hey!” Angie wiped her hands on her apron. “What’s up?” looked around, expectantly. “Where’s June?”
“He’s sick.” Aaron fiddled nervously with his car keys, trying not to think about the incredibly poor timing of it all. Maybe it was just a twenty-four-hour bug? Maybe June would be perfectly fine by tomorrow morning.
“Oh… That’s no good!” Her concern mirrored his own. “Is he puking?”
Aaron scratched at his cheek; eyes cast down. “Just once…I think? I came to see if you had Pepto.”
“Hmm…” She put her hands on her hips, considered the situation, and then told him to hold on while she vanished into the back.
Charlie looked like he wanted to talk to Aaron, but a new customer walked in, and he was nothing if not diligent about his job. Aaron sighed again, waited and hoped when he walked back out to his car those other girls would leave him alone. He could just see them through the shop window—gesturing wildly and bickering
.
He vaguely wondered if he should ask Angie about what they said—if anyone knew June’s history of being sick, it was bound to be her. He looked at the clock hanging above the back door. By now, he felt like he should be pulling back up into the driveway, and he could always ask June himself later.
Angie returned from the back, holding a Tupperware bowl of something definitely not pink enough to be Pepto. Aaron frowned.
“Here.” She passed it to him. “It’s tortilla soup, my mom made it and…just trust me, June will eat it.”
“But he’s sick…”
Angie stuck her fingers into the little pocket on her apron and pulled out a few tablets wrapped in hard plastic. “These first. Then soup.”
It wasn’t that Aaron didn’t trust her—no he really did—but there were so many questions he wanted to ask and so many inexperienced feelings pulsing through him. He didn’t know where to start. Growing up, Aaron had always been the sicker child and Arco the caretaker. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d been wrapped in a blanket on the couch, shivering with a thermometer balancing under his tongue. He wasn’t used to being on the opposite end of that scenario. He wasn’t even sure what to do, aside from delivering the medicine.
Aaron wanted to take care of June, though. Soup and a few tablets just didn’t seem sufficient.
“He’ll be fine.” Angie patted him on the shoulder. “And be sure to tell him he owes me because I was gonna eat that!”
She’d been right. After taking a tablet and sipping water for a while, June heated the soup and ate it slowly, glaring all the while.
Aaron didn’t understand how someone could be angrier that they were sick than actually feel sick. June acted as if it was a curse bestowed on him; destined to ruin his entire summer.
“We’re still going,” he said, balancing the Tupperware on his knee. “I already feel a lot better.”
Aaron had no idea if that was a lie or not, but he didn’t argue. As much as he would like to be the bigger person and tell June it was okay, that he should stay in bed and rest, Aaron wanted to see his reaction when he said the words Warped Tour even more. And it wasn’t like June would listen to him anyway.
“Were you not feeling well this morning?” Aaron asked, leaning back against the headboard. They were fairly close together, thighs touching.
June merely grunted; lifted his spoon to his mouth and sucked at the liquid.
Aaron, only a little relieved, raised one hand and placed it knuckles-down against June’s back. Gave him an affectionate scratch. Slow, gentle circles. “You’re so stubborn,” he murmured, and it sounded like resignation.
If June wouldn’t tell him why he started feeling sick this morning, then he certainly wasn’t going to tell him about…whatever those popular girls had referred to. Like many things, Aaron decided better to let it go than to push.
June floated just under a wave of consciousness; dreaming about walking the narrow path down the street to an old rental cabin with a clawfoot bathtub and spider problem. There had been one summer when June’s extended family had joined them here, occupying the tiny thing, and June vividly remembered what it felt like to climb the rickety porch steps. The stench of musk when you opened the door. The ladder up to the loft and the…overall spooky ruggedness of the place.
In his dream, he sat beside the wooden coffee table in the minuscule living room. By himself. Waiting for someone to get him. He didn't know who he waited for, but he was afraid of being there alone—a very odd feeling for June. The darkness beyond the windowpanes wriggled and shifted with life. Tree branches scratched the exterior of the cabin, threatening to curl their dying limbs around the doorknob and invite themselves in.
June felt like he was suffocating. Like the oxygen was burning up around him. He was hot. He couldn’t swallow.
Something gripped his shoulder, and he jolted out of the nightmare with dizzying speed. He lashed out with an elbow and collided with the solid person next to him.
“Hey!” Aaron huffed.
June blinked, fighting the blaring ceiling light. He groaned, yanked the cover over his face even though it was too warm. “Go away.” His heart still thumped along in his chest.
“June, we gotta get on the road,” Aaron insisted, although he sounded sleepy himself. “Get up.”
June burrowed deeper into the comforter, curled into a tight ball and refused to acknowledge the world. There was no way he’d been asleep longer than a few hours. What the hell was Aaron doing to him at this hour? What kind of date started before the sunrise?
“June, come on!” The weight beside him shifted and vanished. “Don’t you wanna know where we’re going?”
YES.
“No,” he growled. “I’m canceling on you. No date.”
Aaron shoved his arms under the covers at June’s feet, latched onto his ankles, and yanked him hard. June scrambled, trying to grip the headboard for leverage and failing. He cussed, flopped to his other side like a fish and then laid there, a stubborn dead weight until he was released.
“Get up!” Aaron demanded now. Voice tight.
“FINE!” June flung the blanket off him and sat up rubbing his eyes. He felt sweaty and gross. He needed a shower. Hunger prodded at his stomach.
“But don’t talk to me until after I eat breakfast.”
“We don’t have time for breakfast.” Aaron shook his head, stomped over to the dresser across from the bed and pulled open the top drawer. He riffled through June’s newly purchased boxer-briefs, pulled something blue and plaid out, and chucked it behind him.
June stared in astonishment. Not because of how pushy Aaron was being, no, but because he finally opened his eyes far enough to realize how different Aaron looked. He was freshly showered, hair neat for once, and fully dressed in something June had never seen before.
He wore dark, tight jeans (the kind of jeans June would have assumed Aaron steered clear of judging by his usual preppy attire) and a black tank top with a graphic he didn't recognize on the front. The collar was purposefully jagged and ripped, leaving few large, stylish holes placed around his collar bones. Two slender, silver chains hung from his neck. Neither one of them had a pendant or charm.
This was not the Aaron he had a stupid, unwarranted crush on. This Aaron wasn’t fluffy or soft or sweet looking. This Aaron was blaringly alternative. This Aaron was sexy. Even the scar on his jaw looked rougher.
June swallowed. “What…the hell?”
A miscellaneous shirt thrown from the wardrobe struck him in the face.
“June, please. If we want to get to the venue on time, we need to get going.” Aaron returned to the edge of the bed and picked up some of the articles of clothing he’d thrown. “Get dressed and bring something to wear tomorrow. We’re not coming back tonight.”
June couldn’t begin to think of all the horrible, ridiculous things Aaron could have planned away from this mountain. If the guy didn’t look so damn good in black, then he’d be at severe risk of getting elbowed again. This time on purpose. Flustered and helpless, June crossed his arms and legs and snorted.
“Tell me where we are going, and I’ll get up.”
Aaron, obviously done pleading and bargaining, leaned in with his hands pressed hard to the mattress on each side of June. His green eyes were greyer today than June had ever seen them. Aaron didn’t stop until they were face to face. June smelled the toothpaste on his breath.
“If you don’t get up right now, I’m leaving without you.”
Dammit. June grit his teeth. Pressed his palm to Aaron’s chest and gave him a shove.
“Fine.”
Both of them were grumpy and refused to talk to each other until they reached the town just below the mountain and stopped for gas. Aaron bought himself an iced coffee and a Pop-Tart and June settled on a bagel and bottle of water. They ate in silence; driving without even the radio until June couldn’t take it any longer.
He had no idea where they were going, why they were go
ing, or when they would be back. It was obvious this wasn’t a traditional date (not that he minded), but he desperately wanted to know what he was getting into.
“Where are we going?”
Aaron glanced at him; eyebrow quirked slightly. June hated that he proved just as stubborn as him in situations like this. He wasn’t used to someone outlasting his level of will. Like the new clothes, it made Aaron frustrating and far more attractive than he was willing to admit.
“You really have no idea?”
“Of course, I don’t! What the fuck! Even Angie wouldn’t tell me,” he whined.
Aaron’s demeanor shifted then. Grumpiness gave away to something more relaxed. He cracked a smile, eyes flickering back and forth from the road to June in the passenger seat.
“And you don’t want to be surprised when we get there?”
“I swear to God if you’re taking me to Disneyla—”
“Open the glove compartment.”
June’s eyes narrowed at him suspiciously. He didn’t trust it, but curiosity got the better of him. He popped up the little handle and let the cubby fall open at his knees. Inside was a small flashlight, a pouch of insurance information, and a neatly folded piece of printer paper. June reached for it, flipped it around in his hands, and read the text carefully.
Vans Warped Tour. Ventura, CA. July 7th, 2004.
They were tickets.
June blinked. Read it again. And again. All the previous distaste and nervousness he’d felt caught the wind through the crack in the window and fluttered away. Left to be destroyed on the old highway. He didn’t realize it, but he was smiling wider than he had in a long, long time.
“Well! What do you think?” Aaron grabbed his knee and gave him a shake. Voice high with anticipation. All traces of their bickering this morning vanished.
June could count on a single hand the number of times in his life he’d been this unmistakably surprised. And even then, none of them felt quite like this. Going to the Vans Warped Tour was one of the bucket-list things he’d always wanted to do. He could already feel himself swelling with excitement. Spilling over. And maybe, had he not been confined to the passenger seat of Aaron’s car, he would have jumped up and down and screamed like a teenage girl.
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