Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
I’ve managed to avoid Janelle’s questions about my date with Levi for most of what was left of the school week. But by Friday, she’s had enough and drags me out to the bar.
I tell her the same thing I’ve told her all week—Levi was sweet, but there was no real chemistry there. She’s not happy with my answer, sulking with her gin and tonic. But I know she’ll forgive me.
If only that was all that happened that night, I could brush it to the side and just focus on my new friendship with Levi. But she can sense something else happened. She’s like a truth-sniffing dog, this one, I swear. “Did something else happen? Levi was also pretty vague when I grilled him.”
“You have to stop grilling people,” I say, sipping my beer.
“Spill,” she says, becoming no-nonsense about it.
I sigh. “Kade was there.”
“On your date?” She looks pleasantly surprised and far too tickled by that concept.
“He burned dinner and brought Elijah to one out of two restaurant choices in town.”
She snorts into her drink but tries to cover it by taking a gulp. “Sorry. That’s just funny and could only happen to you.”
“Sooooo funny,” I deadpan, and she only laughs again, not hiding it this time.
Although, my cheeks burn, thinking about how I laid into Kade.
That’s not me. I keep my cool—always have.
I don’t let anyone rile me up. Not even his friends in high school as they sent wave after wave of insults at me—well, what they thought were insults.
In small-town adolescence—being gay is the biggest insult they can come up with.
The words they used were crude, and the things they said to me—about certain things a gay boy like me would love—were crass. Still, no matter how badly their words hurt or how mad I got, I didn’t fight back. I just silently wished they’d disappear, and then I did my best to stay far away from them.
But it was nearly impossible. I was their favorite form of entertainment. And while Kade was never actually around that I knew of, I’m convinced he had to have known what his friends were like.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Janelle asks, and she’s no longer laughing and having a good time. She’s worried about me, and I feel so small in that moment—thinking about how I let them all treat me. Not that I really had the option.
“Nothing. I just sort of let Kade have it.”
She cocks her head to the side, studying me, clearly confused and unsure what to say about that. “How did it go?”
“Awful. I’m pretty sure I embarrassed myself, and he acted like he had no idea what I was talking about.”
“You told him about the bullying?”
“I yelled at him and basically called him a liar when he said he didn’t know what was happening.” I shake my head, angry tears threatening to bubble up. I hate that I lost control like that.
“Don’t take this the wrong way because I’m Team Spence for life,”—she holds one hand up as if to calm a wild bull—“but are you really sure he did? I mean, you said he never really saw you, so maybe he didn’t see them either. Maybe he really had no idea what kind of hell you were in.”
I think that’s almost worse, but I don’t express it.
I feel like a total loser. They were the worst years of my life.
I couldn’t wait to graduate and get away.
It was constant hell. And if Kade had no idea about it.
.. “You really think he didn’t know what kind of horrible people he was friends with for four years? ”
She shrugs. “People see what they want to see and don’t see what they don’t. Maybe he didn’t know, Spencer. Maybe you should actually talk to him.”
“What’s the point?” I say, standing up and taking one final drink. “This was fun, but I need to get home.”
She stands up too, and I can see the pity in her eyes before she hugs me. Ick. I hate that. Not the hug—the pity. I don’t want to be sad little Spencer Bell. I put it behind me.
“I’m okay,” I tell her, even though I’m so far from it. She squeezes me again and then pulls back.
“I’m going to stay for a bit. Give the husband some more kid time,” she says with an evil smirk.
“Letting him handle bedtime is peak evil.”
She laughs. “I birthed them little monsters and do more than my share of bedtimes. He’ll be fine.”
I smile. “You’re damn right.”
She winks at me and then spins around on her chair, making small talk with a few people at the bar, and I head outside, happy to feel the fresh air on my face. That is, until I see Kade climbing out of his car.
He’s alone tonight, and I have the immediate instinct to duck behind something—anything—but I’m out in the open, and he sees me. His eyes lock on mine with a sad expression on his way too handsome face.
Maybe I was too hard on him. He seemed so lost and confused when I was practically screaming at him—but I refuse to believe he was that clueless. It was a small school. We were a small class. He had to have known.
My humiliation was on display quite a bit and was often the talk of the school. I know because it wasn’t quiet talk. It was cruel snickers and pointing.
“Leaving?” he asks, walking up to me with his hands in his pockets. He looks just as lost as he did the other day when I yelled at him.
I nod numbly because that’s how I feel right now. It doesn’t feel good that I made him feel this way. It doesn’t feel good that I really let him have it. It should. Years of frustration were poured into those words. But what if he doesn’t actually deserve it?
Maybe he really, truly was just clueless. Maybe I was that insignificant to him. Was that really a crime?
“Yeah. Janelle’s inside though. I’m sure she’d love your company.”
“I came here to see you.” He shocks me with his admission, and I nearly stumble over my own feet, even though I barely had anything to drink tonight.
“What? Why?” I ask suspiciously.
He takes a couple of steps in my direction but keeps a reasonable distance between us. “Because I can’t stop thinking about you. About what you said.”
I stand there, completely still for what feels like an eternity, unsure what to say. “Kade...” I start with absolutely nothing to follow it.
“Can I walk you home?”
I think my brain is broken because I’ve lost the ability to form words but do manage a sloth-like nod. I get a glimpse of a smile from him, and it nearly knocks me on my ass. He looks relieved that I didn’t turn him down.
I start walking, and he catches up to my side. “I’m sorry, Spencer...”
“We don’t have to talk about it,” I say, looking both ways before I cross the street with him by my side.
“I need to. I didn’t know that...” Air puffs out of him, and he’s quiet for a moment. “High school wasn’t a good time for me.”
I nearly trip again but regain my footing quickly.
“What? What do you mean?” It almost feels cruel of him to say that.
He was a golden boy. I mean, he wasn’t a jock—but everyone loved him.
He was Kade Mitchell. Truly admired by the entire school—students and staff.
“How can you say that?” I feel my anger ratcheting up, but I manage to keep it under control.
“I know it seemed like I had a lot going for me...” he starts, and I cut him off, stopping abruptly.
“You had everything.”
He looks stricken by that, his eyes haunted as he looks at me, his steps stopping as he faces me. “It was all an illusion, Spencer. All of it. It was like I wasn’t even there. I didn’t pay attention to anything because I was just numb.”
I shake my head at that, a cold chill running down my side. “No.” I shake my head again. “You were always the center of attention. Everyone loved you. Wanted to be you.”
“I would have traded places with all of them in a heartbeat.”
My jaw nearly hits the ground, and I start walking again because I just can’t stay still and process that at the same time. “Why?” I find myself asking as he joins me again.
“My home life wasn’t great. And I guess I kind of internalized it. I didn’t tell anyone.”
Shame curls through me, and my heart rate kicks up. “When you say wasn’t great...” I stop walking again and place a hand on his shoulder to get him to look at me and not at the ground like he was doing. “Do you mean abuse?”
He’s looking at me, but it’s also like he’s not. It’s like he wants to disappear, and I know that feeling all too well. “Not really. My dad left when I was young. My mom...” I watch his throat move with a hard swallow and can feel his emotions going haywire. “She just wasn’t good.”
“I’m sorry, Kade.” And I mean it. There’s nothing worse than terrible parents. Nothing.
“It doesn’t matter,” he dismisses it and starts to walk again, and this time, it’s me catching up with him. “Anyway, I’m sorry I didn’t see what they were doing to you. I should have, but I didn’t really consider them friends. I didn’t have any friends.”
It’s hard for me to wrap my head around this—to put all my memories of him into a different perspective. I was certain he had it all, but within a ten-minute talk, everything has shifted.
We’re getting closer to my house, and I oddly don’t want this to end. “It’s fine, Kade. I’m sorry I was so hard on you. You probably didn’t deserve it.”
That gets a small grin from him. “I probably did. Was it bad?” he asks quietly, and then I see him wince. “I mean, obviously it was. Bullying isn’t ever good, and you’re carrying it today, so I know it was bad...”
“It’s over” is all I can say, my throat tight with the anger and shame I still feel from those days. “It’s over,” I repeat more for myself than him this time.
“Tell me about it,” he says, and I’m already shaking my head in answer. “Please.”
His voice breaks on that one word, and suddenly, it’s like I can’t deny him anything.
“It wasn’t that bad. I mean... it was.
I don’t know. There were days where I convinced myself it was mostly in my head, but the things they called me.
They’d take my books and hold them up high over my head, laughing at me when I’d jump for them.
They’d shove me into lockers and hold the door closed when I was trying to leave the bathroom.
” I choke back a sob, and I hope I hid it well.
I know I didn’t when I feel Kade’s hand on my shoulder, stopping both of us from our walk.
“I’m sorry I didn’t see it.” I’m about to wave it off again, but he takes me totally off guard when his eyes meet mine.
Even in the darkness of the night lit only by the moon, I can see he means every single next word. “I did see you though.”
“Kade...” I shake my head because it doesn’t matter anymore. I was being totally ridiculous. It wasn’t his responsibility to see me just because I was a tad bit obsessed with him. It wasn’t his job to rescue me just because I’d built him up in my head as some hero.
It wasn’t fair to him, and I’m starting to realize I was taking it out on him because I could. After so many years of feeling so helpless, I finally had an outlet—one who didn’t deserve it.
“You think you were invisible to me, but you weren’t,” he goes on.
“I saw you, Spencer. I was so jealous of you, I could barely stand it, and I was in awe of you. I don’t know how I missed everything else.
.. but all I saw when I saw you was someone who was free.
Who was unapologetically who they were. You didn’t play a part. ”
I scoff at that and then realize a tear has fallen down my cheek. I raise my hand to wipe it away, hopefully before he sees it, but he beats me to it. His hand rests on the side of my face as his thumb wipes away the moisture.
“I played a part,” I say softly, but he doesn’t remove his hand. His eyes are on my face, and I’m stuck in this strange trance, staring back at him. “I was the school nerd.”
“Not to me. I liked that you were smart. I liked watching you when you were lost in a book.”
My eyes widen. “You watched me?” There’s just no way. No. I’d have noticed him watching me.
He grins a little sheepishly and drops his hand to his side. And I miss his touch immediately. “All the time.”
My mouth drops as I stare at him, wondering if maybe I tripped and knocked myself out at the bar. This has to be a dream.
“I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you at first when I brought Elijah in. You’ve changed a little bit.”
I blush and snort embarrassingly loud at that. “A little bit? I gained at least fifty pounds of muscle and grew into my ears, thank fuck. And my mouth.”
His eyes go immediately to my mouth when I say that, and every nerve in my body goes on high alert. Why is he staring at my mouth? Even if he’s not the asshole I thought he was—it doesn’t change the fact that he’s straight.
Straight guys don’t stare at other guys’ mouths. Do they?
He clears his throat and looks away, like he caught himself doing something wrong. Like staring at a guy’s mouth. “You’re still Spencer to me. I should have recognized you right away, especially with all the time I spent staring at you.”
I don’t think he’s lying, and if he is—he’s a damn good liar. I don’t really know what to say or how to handle it. To say my entire body is on high alert would be an understatement.
I’ve had many fantasies about Kade throughout the years, and they all involved him actually seeing me. But to know he did? That’s just really not good for my libido, which is totally out of control at the moment.
I start walking again and reach my front porch. “This is me.”
Kade looks at my house with a smile on his lips. “It’s nice.”
Am I supposed to invite him in? No. I can’t do that. Can I? No. Tonight has been a lot. “Thank you for walking me home,” I say lamely.
I watch his muscles flex as he grips the back of his neck—something I’ve noticed he does a lot. Is he nervous?
“Maybe we can hang out again next weekend? I won’t be off on Friday, but Saturday is open.”
Holy shit. He wants to see me again?
Okay. It’s not a date, dumbass. He’s straight.
“Um . . .”
“I just want to be friends with you, Spencer.”
Friends . Not at all what my body wants, but somehow the word also puts my mind at peace.
I nod. “Saturday. Same place.”
His smile is bright when he agrees and then takes off toward the bar again, letting me head inside my house.
Friends with Kade Mitchell.
Never saw that coming.