Bright Young Things

by Anna Martin

  Things there were still too complicated for Jared to put a label on. He wanted Adam, and he wasn’t sure how much his deal with Clare played into that wanting. There was little doubt in his mind if she decided to, Clare could make his life very, very difficult. She was manipulative to a degree he’d never seen before, and she had access to information on his private life and history. Starting over in Washington was supposed to be a change for something new. The last thing he wanted was his family’s dirty laundry being tossed all over the Academy.

  Out of town meant not having to see anyone from school for a whole Saturday, which was appealing in itself. Since arriving in New Harbor, Jared had spent every day at school, plus nearly every weekend with those people. They were exhausting.

  He took the truck out over the bridge and down to the north side of Seattle, then pulled into the parking lot of the first Starbucks he came to. It was the right one. Dylan had given him directions, but Jared couldn’t see that his tutor had arrived yet.

  Jared ordered an Americano and set up his Mac in a corner with a pile of books from his classes, and went through the assignment list for the rest of the year. It wasn’t too bad; with a few good grades to pull up his bad ones, the college his father was pushing for wasn’t completely out of the equation.

  That was, as long as he could pass chemistry and government.

  When Dylan walked in and looked around, Jared raised his hand in greeting. Dylan grinned, pointed to the barista, and raised his eyebrow. Jared shook his head, pointed to his mug, and Dylan gave him a thumbs-up before heading over to order his drink.

  Jared leaned back in his seat and blatantly cruised his new tutor.

  He wore nice jeans and big, clunky worker’s boots, a white shirt rolled up to his elbows, and a gray pinstripe vest that looked too damn good to be true. There were layers of leather cord bracelets around his wrists and at least one glinting silver ring on his finger.

  It wasn’t that Jared had a particular type, or even that Dylan was it. He liked the guys who were confident, sure of themselves, who owned their look.

  Since he wanted to make the right kind of impression, Jared stood when Dylan came over and offered his hand to shake.

  “Hi. Jared, right?”

  “Yeah,” Jared said, shaking Dylan’s hand, and sat down, shuffling papers to make room for Dylan’s drink. “Nice to meet you.”

  “You too.”

  “So, you know Ryder, right?”

  Jared nodded. “Yeah. And the rest of the Scooby gang.”

  Dylan hid his grin behind a mug of coffee. “I haven’t been across the bridge in a while. How are things?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t like to be presumptuous, but I’m guessing the same as they’ve always been.”

  “You’re trying really hard not to insult my friends, aren’t you?”

  “So hard,” Jared agreed dramatically.

  Dylan laughed. “It’s okay. I’ve been out of the loop for a while now. It’s funny how much perspective you get once you step back from it all.”

  “They’re all batshit crazy,” Jared said. “I’m serious. I know I’m the new guy and all, and I’m messing up their perfect little routine, but….”

  “They’re messing with you,” Dylan said bluntly. “I honestly don’t know what’s going on. All I got was a text from Ryder saying Clare told her to pass on my number. But if I know Clare—and I have since I was about four—she’s up to something.”

  “I wish I knew what,” Jared admitted.

  “You’ll figure it out sooner or later,” Dylan said, which was oddly reassuring. Jared nodded and tapped his keyboard to bring his computer to life.

  “So, chemistry,” he said with a baleful grin, and Dylan leaned over to see the screen.

  An hour later Jared felt like he’d finally found someone in this godforsaken corner of the country he could be himself around. Dylan was easygoing; he joked and laughed frequently but took the time to explain things when they were working in a way that made sure Jared understood, but he didn’t patronize him. It was both reassuring and promising. Dylan seemed to think they could work together a couple of times a week, and Jared wouldn’t have trouble bringing his grades back up.

  “You get all this stuff,” Dylan said, leaning back with his second cup of coffee. Jared had insisted on buying. “It’s just figuring out how to retain those bits of information you didn’t learn last year and how to apply them to the new assignments you’re getting. I think you probably do better in essays than tests, right?”

  Jared nodded. “Yeah. Exactly. How do you recognize stuff like that?”

  “I’m training to be an educational psychologist,” Dylan said. “At least, that’s the long-term plan. I’ve got a long way to go before I get there. But all of this helps—tutoring, I mean. I get to apply what I’m learning and actually help people in the process.”

  “That’s really cool. I’ve got no idea what I want to do.”

  “That’s okay, you know. Figure it out as you go along. Sometimes the best-laid plans go awry, and it ends up being something you never considered that stokes your passion or interest.”

  “What was yours?” As soon as Jared asked, he wished he could take it back. “I’m sorry. That’s way too personal.”

  “No, it’s fine. My younger brother has special-education needs, and I spent a lot of time helping teach him. Especially things his classroom teacher didn’t have time to go over. My parents didn’t want to homeschool him because social interaction is good for kids like Tyler. He just needed the support.”

  “So now you’re building that into a career.”

  “Exactly. I was lucky I got into a college on the West Coast where I could study, because I think being away from Tyler for a long time, or a long distance, it wouldn’t be great for him, you know. So I stay closer to home, and we’re all happy.”

  “It’s so easy to get wrapped up in school stuff,” Jared said with a sigh. “Particularly when there’s Clare and Chris and Adam all wanting to fuck with me in different ways….”

  Dylan grinned. “Don’t tell me Adam’s after you.”

  “Yeah. It looks that way.”

  “Damn kid will never learn.” Jared gave him a questioning look. “Oh, to leave the straight boys alone,” Dylan qualified.

  Jared laughed. “I’m gay, Dylan.”

  “Oh! Oh.” Dylan blushed, and Jared decided it was cute. Really cute. “I didn’t know.”

  “I’m not quite so much of a flaming queen as Adam….”

  Dylan laughed then too. “He said he could always tell I was gay, probably before I knew it myself. I think he talks a lot of bullshit. And I wouldn’t call him a queen to his face if I were you.

  “I wouldn’t dare. He terrifies me.” Jared wondered for a moment, then decided to bite the bullet. “Was there something between you two?”

  Dylan shook his head. “I didn’t come out until after I left the Academy. Adam has been out and proud since he was about fifteen, sixteen maybe. He’s got this aura about him. No one was going to mess with him about being queer. I wasn’t like that, though. I’m still not. It would have made my life hell to be out at school.”

  “I didn’t get that option,” Jared said wryly. “Clare outed me before I even arrived.”

  “Shit,” Dylan said with a wince. “That sucks.”

  “Nah, it’s fine. Saves any awkward conversations.”

  “I suppose.”

  For a moment the silence hung between them, and Jared wondered if it would be really, really weird if he asked Dylan out. Probably, since Jared was currently paying Dylan to tutor him. Maybe in a few weeks.

  “Well, I should get going,” Dylan said, rifling through the notes he’d made while they’d been working. “Will Thursday nights work for you? I come into town to see Ryder anyway, so I could always swing by after.”

  “Yeah, that’s fine. And Sundays here?”

  Dylan nodded. “Great.”

  There was another brief, awkward si
lence while Jared daydreamed about a kiss good-bye, and raised his hand in a short wave instead. Finally… finally he’d met someone here he could trust.

  He hoped.

  Chapter 8

  Gym classes got shook up somewhere in mid-October when the girls were taken out of their cozy, air-conditioned gym and forced to play either field hockey or soccer. The guys were given the choice of soccer or baseball. There would be no crossover between the girls’ and boys’ games.

  Baseball being one of the only sports Jared truly hated, he opted for soccer and wondered who would join him. It was a more aggressive sport for sure, and he’d enjoyed his position as the star goalkeeper at the middle school he’d attended in Michigan.

  When Jared told Coach he was happy to play in goal, he’d been given a funny look, then told to go and find gloves from the kit room. Jared had his own. That earned him another look, as if it was somehow surprising that private school kids could afford to buy their own gym kit.

  Chris opted for baseball, and Adam, after checking the sign-up lists, added his name to soccer.

  “You play in goal,” Adam said as they walked out onto one of the training fields. Jared looked down at his jersey—forest green, instead of the blue and white the other players wore.

  “Yeah,” he said. “My middle school had a soccer academy, and because I was tall, they coached me into that position.”

  “I can think of some positions I’d like to coach you into,” Adam said with a lascivious grin.

  Jared laughed. “I was probably asking for that.”

  His response seemed to confuse Adam, who stood still and frowned as Jared broke into a jog, covering the field quickly as he headed for the goal.

  They ran drills for thirty minutes or so before breaking off into a game. It was a cold but thankfully dry day, and the sun hung low in the sky. Out here it was almost spookily quiet apart from the noise of the ocean behind them.

  Jared was silently amused when Adam fell into an attacking position. It was a rare occurrence when Adam was anywhere other than front and center. The team was woefully lacking in any real skill and didn’t make up for that with enthusiasm. They were lackluster at best.

  “Head up, DJ!” Jared yelled to his central defender, spreading his legs wide and rocking from side to side, ready to dive in any direction if Adam—who was hurtling toward him with the ball—got close enough to strike. The defense on his team was shockingly bad.

  Adam was okay, but nowhere near good enough to put the ball past Jared, much to his apparent frustration. Nor was anyone else. Jared was feeling more than a little smug after the game as they all filed into the locker rooms, sweaty, muddy, exhausted.

  “You’re good,” Adam said grudgingly.

  “I know.”

  Adam scowled and Jared smiled to himself, pleased to finally be the one who was ruffling the un-rufflable Adam Hemlock.

  Once showered and dressed, Jared headed to the cafeteria and made sure to get Chris’s nod before taking his usual seat. He pushed his chair away and leaned back until it tilted up on two legs. With his feet kicked up onto the edge of the table—making Clare scowl—Jared pulled a battered paperback out of his pocket and started to read.

  This was one of his favorite things to do: letting the world around him melt into nothing but background noise as he absorbed himself in a really good book.

  So, naturally, someone had to come along and ruin it.

  “Whatcha reading, bitch?” Adam said, plucking the book out of Jared’s fingers as he passed. For reasons Jared had yet to understand, Adam always took longer in the locker room than anyone else, which made him always late for lunch.

  “Wilde,” Jared said.

  “Dorian Gray. Nice. Is this the first version?”

  “You mean the blatantly homoerotic one? Yeah.”

  Adam grinned and tossed the book back. “If you want dirty books, I can recommend a lot better than some veiled references to anal. Try Nifty.”

  “Nifty?” Ryder asked.

  Jared leaned forward, letting the front legs of the chair thump down. “It’s an online archive of gay erotica.”

  “Oh,” she said, and blushed.

  “Come on, Smooth Ryder,” Adam said, taking the seat next to Ryder and throwing his arm around her shoulders. “You know I’m not one of those safe, sterile gays. I love cock. I love ass. I like to fuck.”

  “We’d heard,” Clare said drily and pushed Adam away. “Leave her alone.”

  “I’m going into Seattle Friday night,” Adam continued, ignoring Clare. She didn’t like that one bit. “You should come, Ryder. Be a fag hag for the night.”

  “I don’t think so,” Ryder said. “Why don’t you ask Jared?”

  Clare smirked into her Greek yogurt and Jared knew, he really fucking knew, there was something going on no one would tell him.

  “Jared?” Adam said, one word enough to send a tiny shiver down Jared’s spine.

  “I don’t have fake ID. My dad found it and cut it up.”

  “Oh, honey,” Clare said, all simpering fake concern. “Don’t let that stop you. I can get you one by this afternoon. What do you need? Driver’s license? Passport? Visa? Immigration papers?”

  “I was born here, you asshole,” he said.

  “I’ll get you a driver’s license,” Clare continued. “Your date of birth, just a few years added to it. That way if you get questioned, it’s easier to remember.”

  “Where the fuck are you going to get a fake driver’s license?” Jared asked, both amused and curious.

  “The DMV,” Clare said without any hint of sarcasm.

  Jared waited a few beats, then shook his head. “Sure.”

  The English class Jared was supposed to attend, rather than the one he’d turned up in his first day, was actually with Adam. That wasn’t particularly surprising. In a school of only a few hundred students, there was a lot of crossover in classes.

  English was one of the few things Jared enjoyed and was good at. The syllabus here was interesting, but a challenge, and he hadn’t read any of the books the teacher assigned. Dorian Gray was something he was reading for fun, but Mr. Parsons was more than happy to discuss homosexual themes in Virginia Woolf and Henry James.

  It was that acceptance and agreement to acknowledge gay themes that had caught Jared’s attention. So many of his teachers in the past had wanted to gloss over anything they considered sordid, which was, in Jared’s view, the best reason to read old books.

  He sat at the back of the classroom because he was secretly farsighted, and it made his life a lot easier if he didn’t have to squint at what was being projected. There were only a few people milling around when Jared arrived, so he found his usual seat and pulled out Wilde again.

  “Are you seriously reading that for pleasure?”

  Jared looked up into Adam’s lopsided, dimpled grin.

  “I’m trying to,” he said.

  Adam plopped down in the chair next to him. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like reading. But I usually go for stuff a bit more… masculine.”

  Jared closed his book and decided to fight this one out. “Are you saying Wilde is, what, effeminate?”

  “Dude. Yeah.”

  “Based on what? He was openly gay in a time when it was literally a death sentence.”

  “I know that. And fair props to the guy. He didn’t have to flounce around London and Paris but he did, born that way and all that shit.”

  “Exactly. So… what’s your definition of ‘masculine’ gay books?”

  “Oh, not gay fiction, just books in general,” Adam said, waving Jared’s words away. “I like things with a bit more grit, you know?”

  “Examples, Adam.”

  “Vonnegut. Hemingway. Nabokov.”

  “That’s an interesting mix. Of men who were known to be assholes.”

  “Maybe that’s why I like them,” Adam said with a grin. “You want to come over later? We can start your French tutoring.” He wiggled his tongue.<
br />
  Jared huffed a laugh. “Keep your tongue in your mouth. No one wants to see that.”

  “Be there by six,” Adam said, turning his chair to the front and pasting an “I’m listening” expression on his face.

  At six-fifteen—Jared didn’t want to set unrealistic expectations—he pulled up outside the Hemlock mansion. With his French textbook tucked under his arm he strolled up to the front door and knocked, appreciating how the sound echoed through the cavernous entrance hall.

  Adam answered with a scowl on his face. He was wearing loose running pants and a close-fitting T-shirt.

  “You’re late.”

  “Yeah. Traffic,” Jared said with a shrug. It was bullshit. There was hardly any traffic at all on the island, let alone enough to get caught in.

  Adam turned on his heel and headed through the house and down to the kitchen, leaving Jared to close the door. “You want a drink?” Adam called over his shoulder.

  “Sure,” Jared muttered and followed him.

  “I gave Lisa the night off,” Adam said at normal volume. It was this sense of entitlement Jared found both oddly charming and incredibly obnoxious—Adam made no attempt to make Jared feel welcome. To hold a conversation, Jared had to hurry to catch up, finally falling into step alongside Adam at the top of the stairs that led to the kitchen. “I can order in if you want to stay for dinner.”

  “Sure,” Jared said.

  Adam crossed to the fridge and pulled out two Snapples, holding one out for Jared, who took it with a soft “thank you” and followed Adam up the back staircase to his little empire.

  Jared had been nervous about Adam turning into an asshole when they got to the actual tutoring part of the evening, and was pleasantly shocked. They sat down on either side of the low coffee table on cushions, books spread out between them, and worked through the written assignment for class that had taken Adam about five minutes.