Chapter 24 Jack
Friday night, a crowd of us went bowling. Our group connected in the parking lot, and from there, Cal didn’t leave my side.
He’d been cool about my desire to keep our new status on a need-to-know basis. Not being at each other’s throats was shock enough. No need to headline for the gossips again just yet.
Ty knew, obviously, and Cal was fine with that. Asher had figured it out, and oddly enough, I trusted he wouldn’t say anything. Other than that, the news would storm the school whenever people bothered to notice. Hopefully, that wouldn’t happen until we were ready.
Of course, anyone with a set of eyes should’ve been able to see the difference.
At least, I thought we were being obvious about it.
Cal and I exchanged the silent conversations, only now, I had a better idea of what he said.
Especially when the long seconds ended with a pretty blush on his tan cheeks.
Cal did these little chivalrous things whenever possible, like holding the door for me, and maybe that was a product of his upbringing. But even when he called me Princess, I wasn’t his damsel. Though for now, it was adorable, so I allowed it.
Why did I keep calling him princess? That fucking blush …
That week as we worked on finding a new normal between us, Cal filled me in on—everything.
Mostly through text, slowly, because it was easier for him to get it out that way.
He told me about his mom’s cheating and his dad’s withdrawal.
He told me about Sasha too. Not just the harassment since they broke up, but how she’d hurt him, humiliated him, and even forced herself on him.
I still had no idea what to do with all of the pain he’d trusted me with. He made me promise not to get mad about it, but that wasn’t a fair request to make. Hell yeah, I got fucking mad about it.
Through hours of therapy, I’d learned how to handle bullies.
But shit you not, none of those lessons had included how to handle a smaller bully.
Cal had already taken the high road and tried to be nice to her, but I struggled with more violent responses.
Were I the person I was now back when I got jumped, yeah, I’d probably have given as good as I got.
Violence wasn’t the answer, so they said, but man did I want to mess her up.
What a fucking bitch.
Sasha lying low this week was the only thing keeping me out of her face.
Fuck! I got re-pissed every time I thought about it.
But not tonight. She wouldn’t ruin tonight.
Cal was in a good mood, driving me insane with his smiles and silent promises.
The bowling alley played club remixes loud enough my heart caught the rhythm easily.
The wild thump kept time with colored spotlights streaking across us in a tangle, the madness too eerily similar to how Cal and I were together.
Heavy, fast, a jumble of arms and snapped jaws …
By the heat in his not-so-subtle stare, he thought the same.
From hours and hours of trying to hate him so deeply, I learned to read him so well. Every tick of muscle, every slight flutter of his lashes and twitch of his lips, told me all the dirty things flirting in his mind.
I smirked and mouthed, Later.
His chest swelled, and though I couldn’t hear it from the noise, he hissed on an exhale, gnashing his teeth and glancing away.
After we paid for our lanes, we moved to the shoe counter. When Cal asked for thirteens, he threw me a wink, to which I rolled my eyes.
Ty and Asher went to get drinks with Cara and her friend Kitty. The rest of us found our lane numbers and started plugging in names for the players. Cal entered his as BigC. He stood from the little station where the info was entered, a shit-eating grin on his face, then sat beside me.
“I saw it,” I muttered without looking his way.
Cal laughed, then startled when I grabbed his quads and smoothed my hand high enough to sit just below the growing bulge in his jeans. The others were hunched over the little kiosk, not paying the least bit of attention to us.
I licked my lower lip, then dragged it between my teeth. “Think I can get a taste of that Big C before the night is out?”
Cal nodded quickly. “Anytime you want it.”
“Y’all are so cute,” Asher said as he roped an arm around both of our necks. He had a soda in each hand, and we took them. “So be honest,” he whispered. “Was all the fighting just some alpha foreplay?”
Cal shrugged. “It worked, didn’t it?”
I scrambled from my chair before anyone could wonder what the three of us were doing and entered my own name in the list: OwnsthatBigC.
Nick laughed the loudest, then said, “Y’all won’t ever give this up, huh?”
Cal shrugged. “We’ve grown to tolerate each other enough.”
And that had been the general rumor. With the faculty breathing down our necks and no more fighting or pranks between the football and soccer teams, Cal and I, enemies, had drawn a thin truce to get through the year. No one needed to know how we maintained that truce.
The subject changed rapidly and thankfully never came back to us.
Once everyone was settled with drinks and their names in the list, we got started. Right away, it was obvious no one was going to win against Nick or Michael. Both were sinking strike after strike.
“Good grief,” Cara cried. “Are you two in a league or somethin’?”
Jamie, who wasn’t playing but sat huddled on a chair, watching everything from the black hole that was all of him, said, “Michael used to play a lot with our daddy.”
Michael didn’t hit his strike the next time. He didn’t seem mad about it either. After his turn, he sat down, stretched his legs wide, and plopped an arm along the back of Jamie’s chair, who reached out, almost unconsciously so, and played with the frayed edge of a rip in Michael’s jeans.
Nick won the first round. Kitty came in last. Ty offered to help her with a few quick lessons.
Her score was even lower the second round.
Cal and I couldn’t stop laughing.
Ty tried his hardest to be nice, but it was painfully clear that his good intentions were wasted since the girl was deep in her crush on him and paying more attention to how close he stood to her than where she placed the ball.
During the third round, Cal and I snuck off, leaving them to play while we hit up the arcade room. It had the classics, and we messed around on Ms. Pac-Man. And by messed around, I meant I lamely acted as if I was doing something while Cal scoped the place for dark corners.
I’d almost gotten into the game when he tugged on my sleeve. Ms. Pac-Man was quickly eaten as I followed him into a shallow alcove next to a busted sit-down version of Pole Position.
“I don’t know about this, Princess,” I hissed. There was no telling how long we had until we were found or made to leave by an employee.
“No one’ll see.”
Cal didn’t waste a second.
He crowded into me until my back hit the wall with a thump.
As hot and heavy as always, Cal tried to dominate my mouth just as I did his.
He straddled one of my legs and rubbed himself off against me.
I blindly found the bottom edge of his hoodie with my fingers and lifted until the bare skin of his abs warmed them.
“Cal,” I whispered, a plea he could do nothing about here.
“I want you so fuckin’—”
“Cal?” a chorus of voices said behind him.
He froze, but I peeked around his shoulder, expecting our friends, and readied several explanations. However, I didn’t recognize the guys behind him, and my first instinct was trouble. Homophobes who couldn’t handle two guys kissing.
“Shit,” I mumbled, fingers tightening into fists.
Cal turned with a jolt, uncertainty in his eyes and open mouth, then stumbled out of his stupor and stepped closer to them. “Jesus, Wren, Tate, how are you guys?”
Wait. Seriously? As the shock faded, a couple of them became familiar. Right, from the picture Nick showed us at camp. These were the guys outed last year. Tate, insanely gorgeous, and Wren, the fucking beast. With them were a pretty boy and a kid.
“You’re gay?” the kid all but yelled.
The pretty boy rolled his eyes. “Inside voice.”
Cal spun to me, hands wide as if he might need to stop me from running. “This is okay. Don’t … I’m sorry, don’t be upset.”
I nodded, not sure what else to do. We’d talked at length about how to handle being found out. Cal respected my need for not shoving our relationship in the face of others, but if they saw, they saw.
“Uh, this is Jack.” Cal moved so I could stand at his shoulder, not hidden behind him. “My boyfriend.”
I swayed with those two words, the first time he’d said them.
He snaked his arm around the small of my back and kept me steady while I dipped my chin and smiled at the ground.
Quiet didn’t mean shy, and shy wasn’t me.
I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why I was acting this way. Maybe just too shaken to do otherwise.
Boyfriend? Sure, but, okay, yeah. Hell, yeah. I’d own that shit in a heartbeat.
I lifted my head high and smiled for all to see. “Hey,” I said.
Each blinked at me, and then Wren nodded in greeting with a lopsided twitch of a smile that highlighted the scar on his cheek.
“I had such a crush on you,” the kid said.
Tate and the pretty boy laughed.
Cal rubbed the back of his neck. “How’ve you been, Percy?”
Oh. He’d been in that picture too. I’d forgotten his face but remembered his unique name.
Percy fluttered his lashes and sputtered, “Y-you know me?”
“Of course,” Cal laughed. “You seemed a little skittish, so I never said hello or anything, but yeah, I knew you.”
Percy, who had bratty twink on lock, blushed so prettily and ducked his head.
“Wait,” the pretty boy said. “All of you went to high school together? What the fuck is in the water down here?”
Cal and Tate laughed. Wren grinned, and after Tate bumped Percy’s shoulder, he did too.
“Thought you weren’t into football players?” Tate asked Percy.
“I’m not.” Percy sniffed, confirming a little of the brat in him. “That crush was back in seventh grade before he got all—” Percy scanned Cal head to toe, then gestured with a wave. “—big.”
I snickered, and Cal nervously rubbed the back of his neck again.
“This is Dorian, by the way,” Percy said and pointed over his shoulders at the pretty boy.
“Nice to meet you,” Cal said and nodded with him.
Dorian gripped Percy’s shoulder and shook him. “We met this semester, and I can’t seem to get rid of him.”
“Are you two together?” Cal asked.
Percy elbowed Dorian in the stomach. “He wishes. I’ve tried convincing him gay is the way, but he’s very stubborn.”
“Not gonna happen, brat.” Dorian grinned.
“Once you go gay—” Wren started, but Tate interrupted him.
“That’s not how that goes.”
Cal laughed. “It’s great to see you guys. You live around here?”
“Percy’s on campus at Cressmann U, but we’ve got an apartment—”
“Shithole,” Wren corrected Tate.
“—near Auburn. This was halfway for all of us,” Tate finished with a smile.
“Enough about that,” Wren said, then pointed between Cal and me. “When did this happen?”
We glanced at each other, then laughed.
“Uh, I guess right before school started,” Cal said.
“Dude.” Wren gave Cal a high five. “That’s great. Honestly, though, I thought you were straight.”
“I thought I was too,” Cal agreed.
“Just takes the right guy,” I said.
“Thank you.” Percy peered over his shoulder at Dorian. “Didn’t I say the same thing?”
Dorian shook his head but couldn’t hold in his laugh.
“Hey. We’re here with some friends. You wanna come hang out for a moment?” Cal asked.
“You guys done?” Tate pointed with his chin at the corner behind us, lips twitching.
“Uh.” Even though it was dark in the arcade, the blush across Cal’s cheeks wasn’t.
“He’s fuckin’ with you,” Wren said. “Yeah, man. Who all’s here? People you trust?”
“Yeah,” Cal said. “Everyone here’s cool. Things have changed a bit since you guys graduated. The faculty are still uptight dickwads, but the students are a bit more relaxed now.”
“Well, maybe after the pranks,” I added.
“Oh, right.”
“Pranks?” the four of them asked at the same time.
As we walked to our lanes, Cal filled them in on the rivalry we had going at the beginning of the year. They got the short version but were entertained.
When we reached everyone else, Michael and Nick had big grins and hugs for Wren. Ty mumbled a “holy shit” as he got a good look at Tate, which didn’t surprise me. Dude didn’t even seem real.
All of them, except Dorian, Ty, and me, at least knew of each other since they all went to high school together at some point. Jamie and Percy were almost the same size and seemed to gravitate together because of it.
Asher gave Dorian an upnod when introductions were made, then couldn’t keep his eyes off the pretty boy. In all his pops of wisdom and butting his nose into others’ business, Asher hadn’t mentioned being into guys himself, but I’d given up trying to read him like he did everyone else.
The four of them hung around for about fifteen minutes, then went their own way to play.
“I’m glad those two are happy,” Asher said.
“No kidding,” Nick agreed.
Ty shook his head. “Only an idiot would pick a fight with Tate knowing he had Wren in his corner.”
“Those bullies gave stupid a bad name,” Jamie said.
“Are we done playin’?” Cara asked.
Michael glanced at Jamie just as he hid a small yawn, then said, “Yeah, let’s head out.”
Nick high-fived Cal, then loaded up with Michael, Jamie, and Asher. Cara dragged Kitty to Cal’s truck, and Ty hopped in our BMW, leaving Cal and me alone in the parking lot for a minute.
“We got interrupted,” Cal said, leaning against his tailgate.
“Maybe for the best. I was about two heartbeats from shoving my hand down your pants.”
Cal grinned. “Cara is staying at Kitty’s for the night.” He leaned toward my shoulder, keeping enough distance for public spaces, and said, “You wanna come over and not talk about shit?”
My dick perked up with interest, and I swallowed hard to regain control. “Your dad?”
“Never comes out of his office or his room this late. I could sneak you in when I take the dog out.”
“You’re sure?”
Cal sighed and leaned away. “Yeah. He’s been too busy to care for a long time.”
As sad as that was, it also opened the way for us. We had nothing to talk about and entirely too much pent-up frustration over it too.
Cal read the acquiescence in my expression the second it happened and nodded.
“Text me when you’re on your way.”