22
It was because Gabriel had said “me too” that Will stopped fighting. Gabriel said he liked kissing him. He wouldn’t have said that if he was just going to cut him out. Plus, he said he wanted to talk. That was what Will had wanted from the start.
Gabriel was parked in the same lot as the team, but thankfully none of them were in sight. Will drank the entire bottle of water that Gabriel gave him, determined to sober up before they got to his house. It wasn’t easy with sleep fighting to take hold of his body. He rubbed his hands together before he turned the heat up in the car as he shivered.
“What did you take?” Gabriel asked as they left the town. He flicked a switch on the dash so that the hot air was getting blasted straight at Will.
Will gnawed on the inside of his cheek. He could still taste the bitterness of whatever Shawn had given him. Not even the water diluted its taste. “I don’t know what it was.”
Gabriel shot him a look. It was a mixture of frustration and worry.
“I don’t do drugs.” Will felt compelled to defend himself. He didn’t want Gabriel to think badly of him. Well, any worse of him.
This time, Gabriel looked alarmed. “Someone drugged you?”
“No, no. I mean—” Will struggled, and Gabriel pulled the car over on the side of the road. He turned on the overhead light and it stung Will’s eyes. He took in a deep breath to get his words to come out even, because Gabriel was looking less happy and more worked up by the second. “Everyone knows what’s going on at home. They were trying to help me take the edge off.”
Gabriel found his hand in the dark. “Did they tell you that?”
What had Shawn said? “Not exactly.” He blinked a few times but had to squint through his lashes to keep the light out. “But—”
“Do you know who it was?” Gabriel asked. “Can you give me a name?”
“Sir—”
“Gabriel,” he corrected in a low voice. “Not sir. Not after that.”
Will blushed and sank down in the seat. He decided he’d rather have stinging eyes than not be able to see Gabriel. Gabriel faced him, one arm rested on the dash, the other held Will. His stubble was a dark shadow over his jaw in the poor lighting, and he looked pale and worried. Still handsome, despite that.
“Gabriel,” Will began. “He took the same thing I did. I’m floored because I drank way more than I should have on top of it.” As he said it, he realised that was the truth of it. Will could barely have a can without getting drunk from it, so shots and straights all taken in quick succession? No wonder he’d lost the ability to function.
Gabriel let out this long sigh. He squeezed Will’s hands and gave him a serious look. “You need to be careful. I know you’re young and strong, and you don’t hear people talking about guys getting drugged at clubs very often, but it happens.”
“Gabriel,” Will deflated at his earnest tone. “I wasn’t in any danger.”
Gabriel squeezed his hand tighter. His calloused fingers easily wrapped around Will, and he involuntarily recalled how they’d felt roaming his body only a little while ago. He fought off another blush, which he thought might annoy Gabriel since he was trying to have a serious conversation. Will nodded.
“I promise to be more careful,” Will relented. “But don’t be getting on my case about it, alright? From what you’ve told me, it’s not like you’ve never done the same thing.”
“Okay. You have me there. But—”
“But nothing,” Will pushed. “It’s stupid, and it happened anyway.”
Gabriel looked like he really wanted to argue with Will, but couldn’t seem to find an angle to take. “You’re not going to do that again though, right?”
Will turned his face away with a huff. “Right then, Mom , when are we getting home?”
Gabriel made this sound in his throat. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m not trying to lecture. I’ve done it, my friends have done it, but seeing you do it? It’s making me so worried just thinking about all the possibilities that could lead to you getting hurt. I’m pretty sure I developed anxiety tonight.”
Will snorted.
“I’m serious.”
“Just drive, before your bad boy image is completely gone up in smoke.”
Gabriel did start driving again, and despite himself, Will was smiling.
Gabriel kept his hand over Will’s and only let go to shift gears, and that wasn’t often. The car engine roared from Gabriel leaving it in the wrong gear. Knowing he did that to keep a hold of him filled his stomach with a delicious warmth. Gabriel checked on him every few seconds, which didn’t feel as romantic to Will as the handholding.
“I’ll tell you if I pass out,” Will told him after a series of corners where Gabriel paid him more attention than the road.
The ghost of a smile curved Gabriel’s lips. “How do you plan to do that?”
Will covered Gabriel’s hand with his free one and traced circles around his knuckles. “There. If I stop, it means I passed out.”
“Or you got bored.” Gabriel looked at him with raised eyebrows.
“It means I passed out,” Will repeated. “And since you don’t have to worry about me, you can look where we’re going and focus on not crashing the car.”
Gabriel did just that and only looked at Will occasionally. But he stopped taking his hand away from Will to shift gears. They stalled once, and Will snickered as Gabriel restarted the engine. But he still drove the car the exact same way. When they got to familiar grounds, Will was sure Gabriel had ruined the engine. He also was sure he’d memorized every scar and bump on the back of Gabriel’s hand.
Will felt mostly sober when they pulled into Gabriel’s driveway. “You can hop straight in the shower. I’ll let you borrow some clothes,” he said as they went inside. “I’d prefer if you kept the door unlocked, just in case.”
“Okay.” Will followed him into the bathroom, wondering why Gabriel wanted him to take a shower. Did he smell? When Gabriel wasn’t looking, he lifted his shirt. All he could smell was lavender. Lavender seemed to be Gabriel’s grandmother’s favourite smell because all the soaps in the bathroom that weren’t for men were lavender-scented.
The bathroom had two doors connected to it, one to the living room and one to Gabriel’s bedroom. Gabriel put a small pile of clothes on the toilet and then handed him a towel.
“Are you hungry?” Gabriel asked. “I can make dinner.”
Will chuckled. “Isn’t it like three in the morning?”
“I always get hungry when I drink,” Gabriel said, and then the worried look came back. “And it might be better to get food into you before the morning.”
“I’ll eat whatever you cook up,” Will said with a smile. Even if it was a full plate, he would do his best to finish it. He got the feeling Gabriel wanted to take care of him right now, and he wasn’t going to tell him no.
“Call if you need me.”
Will got into the shower with the intention of only taking a few minutes, but as soon as the warm water was on his back, he got stuck in there. His joints hurt, and the muscles in his legs ached as if he’d been running. The hot water helped them. It didn’t do much for his swollen lips.
He was dead tired when he finally dragged himself out of the shower. Gabriel’s shirt was massive on him, and he had to pull the drawstrings on the shorts in tightly to get them to stay on his hips. He was too tired to care much about that, but he did check that his stomach looked flat before he went out to the living room.
Gabriel was sitting on the couch with a plate of pizza rolls in front of him. The start screen of a movie was on the TV. Will sat, keeping distance between him and Gabriel, and reached for the pint of water before anything else.
“Here.” Gabriel held out a hoodie. “I forgot to give this to you.”
Will set the water aside and gratefully accepted it. The cold shivers hadn’t left him even when he’d gotten out of the shower.
“Do you feel okay?” Gabriel asked.
Will nodded. “Cold, but I don’t think I’m…” High? He tried to think of a less crude way of putting it. “…under the influence anymore.” He winced at his word choice. There wasn’t much he could do to lessen the sting of what he’d done. He braced himself and turned to Gabriel. “About tonight, I’m sorry for—”
“Okay, okay.” Gabriel put his hands up and interrupted. “Let’s eat first, put on the movie, and we can talk after.”
Will stopped in confusion. Gabriel didn’t want to sort this out first? “Okay?”
“But you should text your parents and let them know you won’t be home tonight.” Gabriel nodded to the coffee table where Will’s phone was sitting.
Will wouldn’t be home tonight? It excited him for a few seconds, as his thoughts branched out in several directions. Then Gabriel was wrapping a throw blanket around his shoulders, and Will understood. Gabriel wouldn’t let him go home in this state. “Nobody’s expecting me.”
“In that case, you should text whoever you were meant to stay with,” Gabriel said. “Let them know you’re okay.”
Will winced. “No, that’s not why. Mom moved out, and Dad won’t take any notice if I come back or not.”
Gabriel was quiet, and then he bridged the gap between them. He pressed against Will and wrapped his arm around his side. The blanket was between their bodies, but he could still feel Gabriel’s warmth. “I’m sorry.” He sighed against Will’s neck. “Let’s eat before we get into it, okay?”
“Okay.”
Gabriel pressed play on the movie and rested the plate of rolls on his lap. Will managed two, and after Gabriel triple-checked with him, he ate the other four. Neither of them tried to talk when the food was gone. Will relaxed against his side, watching the movie and enjoying Gabriel’s presence while he could. He kept the fuzzy blanket close to his body and wondered if Gabriel was used to taking care of people like this.
Will was almost asleep when the credits rolled. The only thing that had kept him awake was the hand massaging his side for most of the movie.
Gabriel broke the silence in a low voice. “It was meant to be a night out with a few friends from college.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You can stop apologizing,” Gabriel said softly. “It’s not that I was angry with you, just the situation. And I can understand how that situation came about. You haven’t exactly been having a good time lately.”
Will didn’t know what to say if he wasn’t allowed to apologize.
“If anything, I’m glad you acted out,” Gabriel continued in a lighter voice. “You can be cheeky sometimes, but I still felt like I was turning my back on a saint.”
That made Will half-smile. “You don’t think I’m a saint anymore?”
Gabriel chuckled. “A saint wouldn’t send his tutor flirty texts in the middle of class.”
“Good point.”
Gabriel traced circles on Will’s side. “I was angry at myself. I liked you, but I’d done the appropriate thing when I pushed you away. But it hasn’t felt like the right thing to do even once, especially when you came by my house.” His hand went still. “And then I saw you with that guy, going upstairs to hook up, and—Jesus, I’m a selfish dick for it, but I was so jealous I was following right after you before I could even think it through.”
Will watched Gabriel’s expression, reading the conflict and the changing emotions as they flitted across his face.
Gabriel shook his head. “I was the one who pushed you away. I have no right to be jealous.”
“So…” Will braved speaking. “That’s the reason you were mad? Because you were jealous?”
Gabriel pulled back enough so they could look at each other. His eyes were soft, and Will was relieved. “I was also worried.”
Will stared into the soft brown of Gabriel’s eyes before summoning even more courage for the next question. “And you’re not angry that we kissed?”