Chapter 21 #2
“You know, I thought you were being a moody bitch all week,” Ty said as he juggled several water bottles and the small map they’d given us for directions to our cabins. “But now that Cal is also being a moody bitch, consider this as me demanding to know what’s up.”
“Politely for a change,” I grumbled beside him.
“My hands are full. If you need me to rough you up a bit, you’ll have to wait.”
I snorted, then glanced around to make sure no one was near enough to hear. Cal and Nick had left right after us but were several paces behind.
“Cal and I sort of hooked up,” I admitted.
Ty jerked to a stop. “Say that again?”
I fisted his shirt and yanked to get him moving, then snatched the map out of his hands so mine had something to do. “You heard me the first time.”
“Okay.” Ty cocked his head and nodded slowly. “Do I need to kick his ass? Give me context here.”
“I started it,” I said, then gave him the short version of me cornering Cal all over school and this last time ending in way more than I could mentally handle.
“He never mentioned it,” I continued. “After he said there was nothing to talk about, I saw red. Maybe somewhere in there, he might’ve wanted to talk, but I was too gone to listen. Then, this last time, I figured out I was gone on him.”
I glanced over my shoulder. Cal and Nick were still too far behind to hear.
“In the library and the bathroom, I’d been messing with him.
I got him hot and left him cold. It’d been fun, you know?
He hadn’t chased me down to beat the shit out of me.
He hadn’t even gotten me back for the sucker punch.
No, he …” He’d melted. He’d moaned. He’d made me see fucking stars.
He’d shocked me so thoroughly, I was now addicted and had no clue what to do.
“So now what?” Ty asked instead of pushing me to continue my last thought. Thank fuck for that. I loved Ty. I’d tell him anything. However, no one needed to think about Cal’s sexed-up sounds but me.
“Now? Hell if I know. Hours of therapy says it’s okay to let people in.”
“If that’s what you want to do. You think he’s into guys, then?”
The jury was still out on that. What if Sasha was right? “Or closeted,” I muttered an alternative.
“You won’t know if you don’t give him a chance to tell you.”
“Think he would? I mean, that he’d tell me? Even if I wanted to let my guard down, let him in, how do I do that when all we do is fight?”
“And make out.” He chuckled. “For real, though? Not sure, but I think you’ll regret it if you never try.”
I sighed and lifted my face to the sky. Huge pine trees clinging to their needles in the colder weather shadowed the wide trail that wove through the scattered cabins.
“I ran away this last time, not to be a dick, but because I was afraid,” I confessed, wishing I were brave enough to say it to Cal.
“Tell him that.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I said and was saved from listing the excuses not to when we came upon our assigned cabin number.
Adam certainly hadn’t been kidding about the size of it.
The room wasn’t bigger than my own at home and had four single beds crowding it. Two against one wall with a table between them and two on the opposite wall. A bathroom was at the far side and looked more like an afterthought they added a few decades after the cabin was built.
“This is cozy,” Ty said as he slung his bag onto one of the beds. I did the same to the one next to him. Ty slapped his hands together and rubbed them vigorously. “Time for ghost stories?”
Nick chuckled as he and Cal moved to the opposite side. “Entertain us, monkey.”
“The fuck you say?” Ty marched over and grabbed Nick. They wrestled for a few seconds, laughing the whole time.
Cal sat on his bed, moving his knees this way and that so as not to get hit. He didn’t even smile.
Eventually, they settled, and Ty went back to his bed and plopped across it. “So what’s the real reason we’re doing this?”
“Y’all haven’t heard about the Wolf Pack?” Nick asked.
Ty scrambled to sitting as I said. “No, what’s the deal?”
Nick sat on the foot of his bed and faced us while Ty and I moved to do the same. Cal even mirrored us so we all sat relatively close in our own space.
“The last few years, there were these four guys on the football team. They were called the Wolf Pack because of the mascot and because you’d rarely ever catch one without the other three,” Nick said.
Ty nodded. “Bullies?”
Nick pointed at him. “Bingo.”
“What happened?”
“They got suspended last year. Since all four were jocks, the school thought it’d be a good idea if we joined this camp.
Teaching us better ways to deal with the aggression we might develop from the competitiveness of sports.
” The last was said with his nose in the air as if he recited words straight from Principal Woodson’s mouth.
Ty snorted. “More likely, it was an answer to raging parents.”
“What was the drama?” I asked.
Surprisingly, Cal answered, expression hardening as he filled us in. The violent tale hit too close to home. Ty flicked glances my way. He’d been a huge part of my support system since my own run-in with homophobes. I was stronger now, but things still got to me on occasion.
One of those things sat across from me, practically taunting me with a piercing glare and a deep voice as if he expected me to be one of those bullies, one of those ass—
Wait.
Oh, fuck.
Fuck!
I’d given Cal every reason to think exactly that.
Fuuuuck. Maybe my intentions weren’t the same, but Cal didn’t know that.
Holy hell, I’d become the bully this time.
This wasn’t cool. This wasn’t tolerable.
The fear of letting him in wasn’t strong enough to overcome this extreme possibility.
Disgust rolled dangerously in my gut. No, I had to clear the fucking air, and if it ripped my heart out with it, then so be it.
I’d made a mess of things, and it was on me to straighten them out.
“Are they okay?” I asked, voice hoarse and wobbling. “Tate and Percy.”
Cal cocked his head slightly, eyes narrowing.
Nick dug his phone out of his pocket, shuffling through it with his thumb before handing it to Ty. “Yeah. Everyone’s fine. Wren’s the big guy, Tate’s the skinny one, and Percy’s the kid.”
“Jesus, fuck,” Ty breathed.
“Yeah. So the Wolf Pack got suspended.” Nick opened his arms wide. “And here we are. Volunteered to join this camp for all the shit we didn’t do.”
Cal stood and moved to the side of his bed. He dug around in his bag for a second, then just grabbed the whole thing and slung it over his shoulder. “Like we’re innocent,” he said, then stomped to the bathroom and slammed the door.