Nine
Kaleb
I’m left leaning against the tree I was just mauled against—alone and painfully hard—fixated on the moonlit path Avery just disappeared down.
The immediate urge to run after him and demand answers hits me, but I fight it tooth and nail. Knowing I’d probably come up empty handed anyway helps me garner enough self-control not to give in, and God only knows the state I’d find him in if I listened to my instincts. So instead, I rush inside my cabin, grab a change of clothes and my toiletries, and head off to the shower.
The hope is that some time alone to process this, rather than rashly following him, might give me some insight into why in the ever-loving fuck Avery—one of the biggest homophobes I’ve ever met—would pin me to a tree and kiss me like I was the air he breathes.
No matter how many times I work through it, any attempt to understand is in vain.
The cornerstone for all the theories I come up with can’t possibly be true.
Because that would mean…
I shove my thoughts to the side and do my best to focus on the task at hand. But every move I make as I shower is on autopilot, and my mind is pulled back to one single idea. The only one that makes sense.
He’s got the same secret I do.
Did.
The semantics of it all doesn’t change the mere idea from being enough to drive me crazy.
Not more than twenty minutes later, I’m dressed in a pair of plaid cotton pants and a Foltyn baseball hoodie and heading back to my cabin for the night. My time in the shower didn’t do much to wash away the taste and feel of him. They’re both permanently embedded in the forefront of my brain now, and there’s no sign of forgetting anytime soon. These errant and frustrating thoughts continue racing long after I turn out the lights, and no amount of tossing and turning on my mattress has any effect on calming them down. The quiet only makes it worse, the frustrating thoughts from earlier creeping back in with a vengeance.
And I realize if I’ve got any hope of sleeping tonight, I need answers.
Unfortunately, there’s only one way I’m gonna be getting them.
Not bothering to talk myself out of it, I rip the covers off and slip into a pair of shoes before I barrel down the steps to set out deeper down the wooded path. It’s shrouded in quiet darkness, nothing more than the moonlight slicing through the thick conifers to light the way. When I reach Avery’s cabin, I find it in a similar state.
Dark.
There’s no soft glow of a lamp coming through the window. No sound coming from inside either. Neither fact is enough to stop me from storming up the steps and slamming my fist on the door.
“Avery. We need to talk,” I say through the door, still pounding on the wood.
There’s no answer for a minute, but then the door is ripped open hard enough to come right off the hinges.
I can’t see much more than Avery’s silhouette through the blackness, but it’s enough to know he’s there. No doubt glaring at me for waking him in the midst of his beauty sleep.
“What are you doing?” he hisses, though his voice is still riddled with gravel and shards of glass. “You’re gonna wake the kids, beating your damn fist on the door like you’re a deranged maniac.”
“Oh, now I’m the insane one?” I snap, stepping through the doorway and letting the door fall closed behind me. Because I don’t give a shit about anything other than answers right now. If any of the kids wake up—and I doubt they will—we’ll deal with it later.
The second I’m closed in the darkness with him, confined in such close proximity, I realize my mistake.
Because even after the short amount of time we’ve been here, this cabin smells like him. Overwhelmingly so. Ocean salt and citrus invade my nostrils, and when I attempt to focus on something else, I realize I can hear every little breath each of us takes.
The darkness has heightened all my senses, and I don’t know how I can feel him without his touch, but I can. His presence in the room is layered over me like a second skin. Enough to set my every nerve on edge, but the lack of physical connection keeps what remains of my sanity intact.
Yeah, I really didn’t think this through.
Silence lingers between us as I drown in wonder and in him. Then I’m breaking through the quiet like I’m bursting through the sea in search of oxygen.
“What are you doing here?” I murmur into the void.
No sound comes from wherever he is, then I hear the faint click of the lamp, and I’m temporarily blinded as light floods the room. After blinking a few times, I find him leaning against the opposite wall.
Shirtless, with only a pair of gray sweats hanging low on his hips that showcase a spectacular V tapering into the waistband.
Yeah, this really wasn’t a good idea.
Avery crosses his arms over his chest, his muscles moving and flexing beneath his tanned skin. “You’re asking me? You’re the one who just barged in here after midnight like you own the damn place.”
“I meant here. At Alpine Ridge.”
Because the real reason can’t be to kiss me and drive me fucking mad with lust that makes absolutely no sense for me to have.
“You’re back on this shit? Seriously?” His fingers sift through his golden hair, frustration evident in his voice. “Couldn’t it have just waited ‘til morning?”
My teeth scrape over my bottom lip and I shake my head. “I need answers.”
To more than one thing.
The look on his face is one of exhaustion. Physical, but also mental. Like he too has reached his breaking point. Maybe that’s why, for the first time in over a week, I get a real answer from him.
“I’m trying to get back into Foltyn.”
I blink, registering an answer I wasn’t expecting. “And somehow you think spending the summer with a bunch of kids in the woods is going to make the dean, and the entire admissions office, rethink their decision to kick you out?”
He opens his mouth, clearly about to pop off at me, but I’m taken off guard when he closes it again without saying a single word. Then his lips form into a tight line, two tiny dimples popping at the corners of his mouth when he does it, like he’s trying to keep from saying something he might regret. Which is…very unlike the Avery I’ve come to know.
His blue gaze flicks around the cabin, clearly in search of a way out of this conversation. But he must not find a single escape route, because he sighs and mutters, “It was my dad’s idea.”
“Your dad’s idea,” I repeat dryly.
“It sounds insane even to my own ears, but yeah.” The exhaustion on his face gives way to a hint of misery when his attention lands on me. “He thinks if I can get Colin to like me, he might talk to Dean Marshall on my behalf.”
For what might be the twentieth time today, he surprises me. Not only by the honesty in his answer, but how easily he offered it up.
My immediate reaction to this information is to go into protective mode. Specifically for Elijah, who is sure to be nothing more than another pawn in this whole scheme. God only knows the impact this knowledge would have on the kid if he learned the counselor who’s taken him under his wing is only doing so because of some messed-up, self-serving ulterior motive.
He’d be crushed.
“That’s…”
“Ridiculous?” Avery supplies.
“Disgusting,” I say instead, my nose wrinkled up to echo my statement. “It’s disgusting that you’d stoop to this level. And I’m sure now, you’re using a kid to get to his father?”
A sharp scoff comes from him. “Like I said, it wasn’t my idea to start with, but I’m not really left with much of a choice. If I want a degree by the end of next school year, Foltyn is the place I need to get it.”
“And Elijah’s just collateral.”
He winces. “That’s not true, and you know it.”
“Do I?” I counter, taking a single step toward him. “Because you sure as hell were quick to deny it the other day. And that boy, for whatever reason, looks up to you. He thinks you care about him. All you’re going to do is break his damn heart when he finds out it was all a lie.”
The eyes staring back at me harden into ice as his tongue toys with the inside of his cheek. And again, I can see him gaining as much control as he can over his emotions.
“Think what you want, Kaleb,” he finally says, tone flat and empty. “Because I know you just want to keep on living with this image you have of me in your head, not willing to alter it even when I’ve proven to be more than you see me as.”
Wetting my lips, I shake my head. “I guess we’re at an impasse, then, because I don’t think you’ve proven a thing. A few soft moments in the forest while you’re away from the real world doesn’t erase all the bullshit from earlier this year.”
That gets to him, causing the line of his jaw to tic and pulse as he clenches his teeth. “Fine. If that’s the case, we’re done here.” When I make no move to leave, he continues. “You can go now. I’d like to go back to sleep.”
But I still don’t go. Don’t fucking move from the spot my feet are anchored to like a lifeline. I can’t leave until the question—the entire reason I came here in the first place—is answered. Until the burning in my mind is finally put to rest.
“Why did you kiss me?”
And how the fuck are you so good at pretending it didn’t happen at all?
Just like that, I watch as he shutters off. Instantly shifting back into the guarded, hostile asshole I’ve known him to be.
“Call it a momentary lapse in judgment.”
Liar.
My arms cross over my chest, and I shake my head. He’s not getting out of this that easily. Not if I have anything to say about it.
“Try again. With the real answer this time.”
His face takes on the appearance of chiseled stone, but it’s nothing more than a mask. Hard and unyielding, perfectly smooth and showing no way to slip beneath it.
He closes the space between us until he’s directly in front of me, once again trying to use the inch of height he has on me to his advantage. Daggers form in his eyes as they glare into my soul, and he cocks his head to the side.
“What do you want me to say, Kaleb? Tell me what you wanna hear, and I’ll fucking say it.”
Frustration sets in as I realize the only thing this conversation is gonna get me is a trip to the nuthouse. And maybe Avery a trip to the morgue. I’m about ready to send him six feet under if these games he’s playing don’t end soon.
“I really don’t like you,” I tell him suddenly, as if that weren’t completely obvious. “You’re a preppy, rich asshole who thinks only of yourself because you’re under this delusion that you’re better than everyone else around you. And I can’t stand it.”
I’d be doing myself a favor by remembering that.
He doesn’t miss a beat, snarling out his own comeback. “And you’re a smug, overly-confident dickhead who loves nothing more than saying I told you so. And as if that weren’t bad enough, you’re a goddamn narc to boot. So needless to say, I don’t like you either.”
I can feel the anger radiating off him, hitting me in wave after wave. But the tension lining his voice is off. After all, I’ve seen him pissed at plenty of people over the past couple years, and I’m observant enough to realize this is different.
Like it’s not really me he’s pissed at.
And I still feel something else. Something besides the anger.
A current of energy snapping back and forth, cycling in the negative space between us as it creates an electric charge powerful enough to blow the entire grounds to smithereens. It’s the same feeling I got as he pinned me against the tree earlier and kissed the daylights outta me.
“Then why’d you kiss me, Avery?” I ask again, but the edge my tone possessed before is nowhere to be found this time.
And as I watch him—studying every line and feature of his face—a crack forms in that stone mask of his. Torment seeps from the fracture. More and more of it oozes to the surface until he finally lets it fall to the floor.
“I…don’t know.” He pauses, clears his throat. “I don’t know what came over me, because I’m not…”
He doesn’t continue the sentence, and honestly, I don’t have it in me to force the conversation anymore either. I’m too busy fighting off the electric buzzing I felt earlier as it crashes over us like a tidal wave. But try as I might, it’s no use. I’m still drowning in it, sinking under wave after intoxicating wave.
What the hell is happening right now?
I shake my head, knowing here and now is the time to lock up this unfounded attraction for good so it doesn’t see the light of day again.
It’s the only way I’ll survive the rest of the summer here with him.
My voice comes out raw, like it was shredded with a thousand razor blades. “Well, there’s not going to be a repeat. So remember that before you try coming back, begging for more.”
The certainty and finality in my statement has an effect on him. More than he’d like, I’m sure. But he can’t hide it now; no mask can repair itself that quickly. It takes time to piece it back together after being broken and dismantled to this degree.
He sure as hell tries, though, as his words leave him with a bite of venom.
“Never will I ever.”