Chapter 4 #2
Knowing better than to question why he was going easy on us, after all, I did let up two hits and Reid struck out once, we just nodded in silent agreement and watched as he followed behind Mom up into his room.
“That was fucking weird,” I muttered when I heard the bedroom door close.
Reid stood from the couch. “Whatever. He’s a fucking asshole. Let’s go. I want to get to the party.”
We thought about telling Mom and Dad where we were going, but once we heard their voices filtering out into the hallway, we decided against it and just got our stuff ready to leave for the night.
A note on the counter would have to do. Besides, by the time we got home the next day, whatever they were arguing over would have passed and they wouldn’t have even missed us.
We both changed quickly and raced back out the door before we were told not to.
By the time we got to Nick’s, the party was in full swing.
Most of the guys hadn’t even bothered to stop home after the game, their parents satisfied with a quick call or text.
That would never pass with our dad, so we didn’t even bother it.
It wasn’t worth the black eye.
Nick came up to us, two cans of beer in his hands. “Here you go, boys.” He tossed the beer and Reid popped his open, not worrying about the foamy spray that hit his shirt.
In my two years of Varsity baseball parties, I’d learned better than to protest when anyone handed me a drink. I just nodded my thanks, cracked open the beer and carried it around with me, never taking a sip from it.
I was too afraid to let my guard down. Too afraid to numb the pain. Because if the pain was numbed, then what else would I have.
“Hey!” Dylan called out to us from the beer pong table where he’d just successfully landed another shot. We walked over to him, bumped fists, and when his teammate sank the last shot, his game was ended.
“I’m up next,” Reid moved into Dylan’s spot as Dylan stepped to the side.
After tossing his empty water bottle in an open garbage bag in the corner, he walked away from me without saying a word. I could tell something was wrong simply by the way he stalked away from me. I watched him slink out the sliding glass door, into the backyard where he could be alone.
I scanned the room, took stock of everyone else, and came to one conclusion: they were all fucked up.
Aside from Reid, who had only just gotten here, everyone else had a solid hour-and-a-half head start.
Most of them would be throwing up in another hour.
It never ceased to amaze me how shitfaced a bunch of high school athletes would get just because they didn’t have practice the next morning.
Fairly certain that no one would see me if I followed him, I slid out the same door and walked across the backyard where I found Dylan sitting under a large weeping willow tree.
I sank down next to him and cringed a little when I saw him shift away from me. “What’s your problem?” I asked, genuinely not knowing.
“Seriously?” He nearly yelled as he squeezed his hands together, draping them in between his bent knees.
“You haven’t spoken to me in fucking months,” he seethed.
“You cut me out of your life. We’ve made it through the majority of the season and you haven’t said two fucking words to me since you…
” The words he wanted to say vanished into thin air as he checked over his shoulder to make sure no one else had followed me outside.
“Found out you were gay.” Quietly, I finished his sentence for him, letting the words I had feared so much actually tumble from my mouth.
“Yeah,” he sighed and hung his head in his hands.
“How long have you known?” I asked. We both stared out at the gigantic in-ground pool sparkling in the moonlight before us, neither making eye contact.
He chuckled, and even though he moved away from me a little when I sat next to him, I could still feel the vibration of his body next to mine.
Chills raced up my arm as his brushed against it when he turned to face me, but the ugly sneer on his face quickly pushed them away.
“Why do you fucking care all of a sudden?” He stood quickly and walked over to the pool.
I gave him a few minutes to get settled on the edge of a lounge chair before I joined him. In all honestly, I needed the time to gather my own thoughts. Was I really about to have this conversation? Was I really about to open up?
When I sank down next to him, the itchy fabric of the cushion rustling noisily beneath me, I puffed out a frustrated breath and just hoped for the best. “Because I’ve been an asshole and a shitty friend and I’m sorry.”
He rolled his shoulders, shrugging off my words with a huffed, “Whatever.” The music playing from the house doubled in volume, and through the sliding glass doors through which we exited, we could see everyone had shifted from playing beer pong to dancing.
We watched as everyone grabbed their girl, or in Reid’s case, any girl, and started grinding together on the makeshift dance floor. Dylan tilted his head to the scene playing out before us and said, “Sometimes, I wish I could just be normal. It’d be so much easier.”
He mistook the flippant “pfft” that accidentally came out as a snide remark and shot me a look of disgust. “Like you’d fucking know,” he sneered once more.
“Maybe I know more than you think,” I whispered, staring blankly at the pool.
He turned toward me slowly and I wondered if he was afraid to fall off his seat. “Like what?” There was trepidation in his voice, an uncertainty of whether he should continue to ask questions.
Losing the battle with my courage, I said, “Nothing, never mind.” I jumped up from my seat and stood before him. “I’m going back in. See ya later.” However, before I could turn away, Dylan reached out and grabbed my wrist, encircling it in his strong grip.
We both stared at his hand and I had to wonder if he felt the same way about touching me that I did touching him.
He broke the spell first, looking up at my shocked face.
“No,” he pleaded, his voice turning a touch softer.
“Stay. Talk,” he quietly commanded and I had no choice but to obey.
Not because he’d yelled at me, or because he forced me to stay there with him.
No, what kept me there was the look in his eyes. The one that said he would understand whatever it was that I was about to say, even if I didn’t understand it myself.
What kept me there was the single stroke of his thumb along the soft skin of my wrist – a touch that told me I would be comforted even when I thought that was the last thing I deserved.