Chapter 14 Cal
“Raul’s got his face in the pie toss contest at two. I think I’ll sign up,” Nick said.
Michael chuckled, but it dropped when Jamie joined us. He didn’t wear eyeliner every day, but today, he and Asher were decked out.
“Did you eat?” he asked Jamie, gripping his hand when he gave Michael their shared phone.
“Caramel popcorn.”
“That’s not eating.”
Jamie jerked his arm free. “I’ll eat later, Daddy.”
Nick and Asher hid their laughter as Michael scowled. I should laugh. I should be normal. Before yesterday, I would’ve laughed. Today? I had no fucks to give for appropriate behavior.
“Quit that shit.” Michael seethed.
“Why? You act like him sometimes.”
“Cal? You good?” Nick asked, ignoring their bickering.
I nodded, lying.
The spot just under my ribs on the left side was still sore, but breathing was much easier today. They should make shirts for surviving a run-in with Jack. Though I wasn’t sure I’d survived yet.
Thankfully, Nick left me alone in the face of my lie. I wasn’t ready to talk. There was too much thinking to be had.
Once I’d picked my lung off the floor yesterday, I’d lifted my head to an empty basement.
I’d kissed a guy.
A person with a dick.
A very hard dick I’d had pressed against my own very hard dick, and the moment had been—perfect.
Until it wasn’t.
Washing in with the same tide of clarity had been anxiety. And not for any of the reasons I might have welcomed. Like someone finding us.
No, in those heated seconds with Jack stealing my common sense and the world around me, he’d also fed the starved parts of my body and soul I hadn’t realized were so needy, filling me with new ideas, cravings, and—lust. Thick.
Wanting. Thirsty lust. Something I’d never felt before, and so yeah, I’d freaked out at the intensity of it.
I wasn’t pissed about the punch—I’d been asking for it—but did he regret it? Any of it?
Answers weren’t here. They weren’t anywhere except with him, and he might not even want to see me.
With a sigh, I turned from my friends, turned from the noise I was too distracted to decipher, but didn’t make it far at all.
Jack stood at the booth across from us. His pale face was as blank as ever, fringed with dark bangs as we stared at one another.
This moment had plagued my mind since yesterday.
I’d hoped to have been able to read something in his expression today.
More hatred, maybe nervousness, or the hunger that had been clawing at my insides.
I wanted to kiss him again. In fact, I had wanted to kiss him again yesterday too.
Even wheezing on the ground, I’d wanted to man up, get to my feet, push him against the storage room wall, and kiss him until my lips fell off, kiss him until shit made sense again.
This normal indifference was not what I wanted to see. How could he stand there, as cold as ever, when I was boiling? Indifference couldn’t have found its way on my face if it tried.
Ty bumped his shoulder, and Jack lowered his eyes, but before either of us could flee to safety …
Fucking Trent.
“Great, I found you two together,” he said, jogging toward us as if some festival emergency needed our attention.
I shifted on my feet, the urge to tell Trent that Jack and I weren’t together rising in my throat, but the denial never made it to my mouth.
“Mrs. Montgomery wants to thank you both for all the hard work you put in this week.” Trent bumped his elbow with mine as if we were good buds. “She heads the booster club, you know.”
No, I didn’t. Or maybe I did and couldn’t think, couldn’t care.
“Come on.” Trent waved his hand for us to follow. “It’ll only take a moment.”
Jack glanced at Ty, who jerked his head toward Trent before spinning around and heading the other way. My friends had slunk off into the crowds as well. Only he and I were left, standing here together, almost deliberately, as if one of us wanted it that way, but neither of us wanted to admit it.
With a dramatic fall of his shoulder and a sigh loud enough to be heard against the backdrop of screaming kids, Jack marched after Trent.
What a good little princess. I snickered before I could stop myself, earning a glare from Jack.
Trent kept on with purposeful strides, no doubt assuming I’d follow as well.
I did, of course. Not because of Trent, though. Right now, I’d follow Jack anywhere. The problem was why. For another kiss? To piss him off again? More? Both?
Mrs. Montgomery stood behind a long table half filled with caramel apples, and when her flushed cheeks lifted with a broad smile, I did remember her. Her kids were younger than me, but this woman spearheaded a lot of things to raise money for each of the sports programs.
“Oh, Trent, sweetie, you didn’t have to bring them over here.”
“Hello, Mrs. Montgomery,” I said with a nod. “Nice to see you again.”
“Ooo, Calvin Winters.” She grabbed my shoulder and shook me. The woman was tall and stocky, and I didn’t have to pretend to move with her jostling. “You’re just so sweet, sugar.”
Jack furrowed his brows and glanced at me as if I’d never been nice before. When Mrs. Montgomery turned to him, he shook off the half grimace and tried to smile. Tried. It failed.
Mrs. Montgomery huffed a laugh but wasn’t fazed. “Well, you boys did a great job. Thank you so much for all the help.” She patted Trent’s shoulder but winked at me. “I think we better make this a tradition come next year.”
“It was no trouble at all, ma’am,” I said quickly as Trent stumbled over his words. Tradition or not, I wouldn’t be involved next year. And just to fuck with him, I patted Jack’s shoulder as she had Trent’s and winked at her. “We get things done.”
Jack rotated his shoulder, probably trying to knock me off, but I dug my fingertips in nice and hard before I let go.
Thankfully, Mrs. Montgomery didn’t seem to notice a thing.
“You boys want an apple?” She gestured at the trays.
“Oh, no, thank you, ma’am.”
“No, thank you,” Jack said softly.
“That was all,” Trent said and shooed us like kids on a porch. “Y’all go play.”
That earned him a glare from both of us, but we left. As soon as they were out of earshot, as soon as it was only Jack and me walking side by side as we made our way through the crowds, the short distraction evaporated, and Jack bloomed in my mind again, which was nothing I could make sense of.
His solid presence beside me kept on like a wall, like a guide keeping me steady as my mind spun.
Now that the lust had abated, shame took its place among the many things I didn’t understand.
But why should I? He started the kiss. Jack had pushed me against that shelf and kissed the hell out of me.
Should I be ashamed for getting excited? For wanting another go?
I stopped suddenly, and so did Jack. As if he was in my head, listening, he turned to face me, expression as surprised as my own. We’d really just walked all this way together. Like kept pace and brushed shoulders and neither of us had punched the other or screamed or hurled shit.
Unease leaked into my shoulders, and I blinked several times. The fuck? What was this? What were we doing?
Jack licked his lip, right over the bruise I gave him. “We should—”
“Cal!” Cara appeared beside us out of nowhere, halting Jack’s words. “Hi, Jack,” she added, all bright and cheerful.
“Hey,” he muttered, then spun on his heels and charged off.
Disappointment fell heavily around me, which I didn’t manage to hide before Cara noticed.
“Did I interrupt somethin’? Y’all weren’t fightin’, were you?”
“No. No, it was nothin’. What’s up?” Jack disappeared around the end of a booth, and I turned to Cara.
“Sasha’s at the face-paintin’ tables.”
On cue, Sasha’s laugh pealed across the hum of conversations. She’d been blowing up my phone with texts. The last thing I wanted to do was see her, much less talk to her. She ranked lower than Momma and Daddy right now, and that was saying something.
Cara hadn’t asked what was up after being dragged into Sasha’s bullshit, but she was smart enough to figure it out.
If only Sasha would. I’d repeated it over and over. We were done. I’d keep my word and hadn’t said anything—like I’d go run my mouth about our breakup anyway—but Sasha just wouldn’t accept it.
I pulled Cara’s ponytail and smirked at her, forcing myself to be normal for her sake if nothing else. “Thanks, sis.”
“No problem, bro.” She glanced around, jumping on her tiptoes as she peeked around Nick and Michael, who’d joined us. “I lost Kitty somewhere. You seen her? She needed a ride home.”
The guys helped me search for Cara’s friend, taking one side of the festival so I could stay away from Sasha.
We found Kitty not long after, and both girls were ready to leave.
I fist-bumped the guys as we made plans for them to come over later to discuss the homecoming game tomorrow, and then we were gone, home before our normal time, which apparently Momma hadn’t thought of.
“What is she doin’ here?” Cara said as I pulled onto the driveway and around Momma’s car.
Snooping was my best guess. She did that sometimes when Daddy wasn’t around. They’d argued about it once, Daddy threatening to change the locks, but Momma had said she needed access to her kids. Ha! Yeah, we’d go with that.
She was already at the door, unlocking it, when she turned around.
The relief on her face said she’d been up to no good and happy it hadn’t been Daddy catching her.
She kept going too, opening the door like she had every right to be here, and we followed shortly after her.
Momma gave Cara a hug, but I didn’t bother with it.
She held a file in her raised hand when I met her glare straight on. “I brought some paperwork for your daddy to look at.”
Paperwork. Right. She’d used that excuse too many times for me to believe it.
Momma headed toward Daddy’s office, scanning every inch of the house as she passed it. Did she think it’d changed? Did she think we’d had the motivation to do anything besides live here?