22. Chapter 22
On Sunday afternoon, I was still high from having sex with Nate. I’d never felt more whole in my life. Loving him from afar made me realize how incomplete I had been, like missing bits and pieces of myself until we had sex. Nate had put me back together without even realizing it.
Our crew headed over to the indoor skating park at Old Town Mall. Well, it wasn’t an actual skating park, but one all of us had contributed to building over the years, filled with halfpipes, graffiti, and lighting.
The area was filled with gutted, abandoned shopping buildings.
They were all falling apart and probably weren’t the safest to be in, but we loved them, making them our own.
I hoped they’d never sell the buildings off, but eventually, some business would buy them up.
We came here whenever the weather was too cold or wet outside, and sometimes, we’d use them for parties.
Perhaps we should celebrate Nate’s birthday here.
We partied here last year, too, but I wanted to do it again.
Now that we were together, perhaps I should do something different for him.
We could always go back out to Federal Hill and see a movie again.
This time, I would get him some nachos to munch on.
Was there a restaurant that served special, fancy nachos?
What would he like as a gift? We didn’t have much money to blow.
I could get him a cool T-shirt or something.
I needed to think quickly since his birthday was coming up in April. I didn’t remember shit about birthdays, but I remembered Nate’s. Still, I always kept the special day on my phone’s calendar.
I looked around the skate area in search of Nate and found him doing his tricks with Stix and Alpha. Alpha rarely spent time with us nowadays since he was always too busy at the bar and running a business, but today, he showed up. I was glad he finally made it out and could chill with us.
“Why are you so fucking quiet?” Cueball asked Blaze, yanking my attention away from staring at Nate.
I looked at Cueball, who had a freshly shaved head.
What would his hair look like if he grew it out?
He wasn’t balding, so why did he shave it?
Was it as smooth as it looked? Did he have curly hair like Nate?
Was it straight? I bet it was as dark as Nate’s.
And why was he asking Blaze about being quiet when Cueball rarely spoke himself?
That was why he suddenly grabbed my attention.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Blaze huffed. “I’m talkin’.”
“No, you’re off. Something’s going on with you. I’ve noticed your mood all day.”
“So! What's it to you?”
To my complete shock, Cueball grabbed a fistful of Blaze’s dark brown hair and forced Blaze to look at him. “Your face is fucking red. Why?”
Blaze scowled and shoved Cueball away, saying nothing, which was odd. Blaze never stopped yapping and bitching, especially at Ajax.
“Fuck off!”
Cueball took no offense as he scanned Blaze again before moving his eyes to Ajax, who I just noticed was huddled into himself, trying to hide behind Jazz and Blondie.
His face looked… sad. What the hell? I didn’t always pick up on bodily or social cues, but Ajax always stood out to me as strong and dominating.
He never cowered to anyone. I didn’t recognize this Ajax.
Cueball’s eyes grew wide. “You… holy shit, you and Ajax? Did you two…?”
That got everyone’s attention as they stared back and forth between Blaze and Ajax.
“Fuck me. I was joking when I said you two should bang. I didn’t mean it literally,” Jazz said before she snorted a laugh and ended up in a fit of giggles.
“As if! We didn’t fuck! I fucking hate you all!” Blaze stood, yanked out his smokes from his jacket, and lit one up before he stormed off outside.
Then Ajax stood less angrily than Blaze and walked away with his board. His shoulders drooped, and he looked depressed or something. He also left the building and headed toward the back alley.
“Nice, Jazz. Ajax looks like he’s gonna cry now,” Blondie scolded his sister.
“What? Cueball started it. Besides, Ajax never cries.”
Cueball now looked completely disinterested as he smoked a cigarette and scrolled through his phone.
“Fuck, I hate talking about this shit.” Stone stood, pulling out his own smokes. “I’ll deal with Blaze and see what the fuck is going on.” Then he pointed at Cueball. “You’re coming with me since you started this.”
Cueball shrugged and stood. “Whatever.”
Nate and Alpha were so much better at these things than me, but they were busy skating, and the twins didn’t move a muscle to talk to Ajax, so I guess it was up to me.
“I’ll go,” I said and stood to chase after Ajax.
When I reached outside, my face got hit by the spray of rain, bouncing off the rooftop, where it cascaded down onto the split concrete, forming little miniature rivers and lakes through a jungle of weeds. It was fucking cold, too.
Days like this had me flashing back to when Nate and I lived on the streets.
We’d huddle together in sleeping bags under a bridge filled with garbage and other homeless people.
No matter how close we got or covered ourselves, we could never find enough warmth.
Yet I didn’t completely hate it because Nate held me so close, and I always felt safe with him.
My body shuddered from the chill, grateful those days were over and thankful to Alpha, who helped get us off the streets. But most of all, I was grateful to Nate, who’d never abandoned me.
“What do you want?” Ajax said, pacing back and forth, aggressively smoking a cigarette with his other arm wrapped tightly around himself. His voice sounded despondent and so unlike him. Ajax was vibrant, a mixture of rage and joy. It was odd, but weren’t we all?
“I just wanted to check on you and see if you want to talk.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t.”
“Okay.”
I leaned against the brick facade of the building, which had cracked windows and was covered in graffiti, pulling out a smoke from the pack Nate and I shared. We couldn’t afford cigarettes too often, so we didn’t smoke a lot. Usually, it was when we were skating or drinking because our crew did.
“Just go,” Ajax huffed, but he had no bite to his words. Something was definitely wrong.
“Nah, I’m good.”
I almost always avoided confrontation, but I trusted Ajax not to lash out at me. He could be as protective as Nate, and he’d never been cruel to me despite his sometimes scary demeanor.
He kept pacing back and forth, smoking, running his hands through his thick dark brown hair, tightly wound, but not happy or angry. Ajax clearly needed to talk to someone. I didn’t speak to anyone either, but I also had Nate. Ajax didn’t have anyone special in his life that I knew about.
“Blaze kissed me,” he blurted.
My eyes popped out of my head from his admission. So, Cueball had been right. He was observant, more than the rest of us. It was hard to tell anything about Cueball at all, since he rarely said much and showed nothing on his face. He sat there and just observed.
“He kissed you? I have to admit, I didn’t see that coming. You two are always at each other’s throats.”
He sighed and took another drag. “I know. It was… weird.”
“What did you do?”
“I fucking kissed him back. What do you think I did?”
“How do you feel about that?”
Ajax dropped his head, sighed, and put out his half-finished cigarette under the heel of his boot. Maybe I should get Nate some boots. I bet the thrift store had some nice ones. He’d look good in them. That would be a cool birthday gift… maybe.
“I weirdly liked it. And so did he, or so I thought.”
I shoved out thoughts of Nate’s birthday present and tried to focus on Ajax. “But he didn’t?”
“I must have done something stupid because we were really getting into it, and our hands touched everywhere. He’s so short, and I had to bend down, but he didn’t seem to care despite me making fun of him all the time about his height.
Hell, I never really cared, but I like needling Blaze.
I love pissing him off. He’s like a feisty, angry gremlin, so easy to get riled up. ”
“What did you do that was stupid?”
“I don’t know… that’s the problem. As we got into it, I lifted him, and he wrapped his legs around my waist. I got so fucking… Anyway… All I can think of is that he felt… me against him, and it freaked him out.”
Ajax’s face turned beet red, reminding me that maybe our entire crew was all a little bit inept when it came to sex and love. Hell, I hadn’t seen Alpha with anyone either. We had so little of it in our lives. It made Ajax more vulnerable than I’d ever seen him or expected from him.
He pulled out another cigarette and lit it, blowing out a thick stream of smoke mingled with his warm breath in the cold air, surrounding him like a dense fog.
“Then, I said his name. Blaze fucking freaked out, shoved me off him, and looked at me like he could stab me with his cold, black, soulless eyes.”
I took a drag of my cigarette as Ajax slumped lower and lower with his story. “You two just kissed? You didn’t do anything else?”
He scratched the tip of his nose with his cigarette hand and nodded. “That’s it.”
“God, Nate is so much better at this shit than I am. I know he would have some answers or sage advice for you.” What did I say to him to make him feel better? “Uhm, did he say anything else?”
He shook his head.
“Do you… like him?”
His dark brown eyes with furrowed brows met mine.
“I don’t know… I was really into it, but fuck, I want to punch the fuckhead sometimes…
all the time. Or just lift him over my shoulder and toss him into the harbor.
But… Shit, I’d never been kissed like that before, Pip.
It was so… hungry. God, I still feel him tingling on my lips. ”
“Is he… into guys? I mean, I guess he is if he kissed you, but maybe it surprised him that he did it, and when he came to his senses, he got mad. Maybe he’s not mad at you at all but at himself.” That made sense, right?
His eyes grew wide, and a small smile quirked on his lips. “Do you think so? Like maybe he could be into me after all, but he got scared?”
“It’s kind of what happened to Stix and Stone.” I shrugged. “Do you want him like that? You may have liked the kiss, but is he worth pursuing? If so, you need to talk to him. One thing I’ve learned from Nate is to talk about shit.”
“We never talk unless it’s to trash talk each other. In fact, we were doing it yesterday. It got really heated before he lunged at me and yanked me down for a kiss. I was fucking stunned before I gave in to him.”
“You should try to talk, but only if you want to pursue this.”
Ajax squared his shoulders, smiling more and looking better. I smiled in return, patting myself on the back for pulling him out of whatever he was feeling. Perhaps I’d learned something from Nate after all.
“Maybe I will.”
“So you like him more than hate him then?”
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair again. “I hadn’t thought so until that kiss. It was fucking explosive, man. I went from hate to lust in seconds. So, yeah, I would like to see where it goes.”
“Good, I’m happy for you then. Well, I’m going back in because I’m freezing my nuts off.”
Ajax lumbered over to me and lifted me off my feet to give me a hug that may have cracked some ribs. “Thanks, Pip.”
“You’re welcome,” I wheezed.
After he set me down, we both put out our cigarettes and headed back inside.
When I saw Nate standing there, suddenly turning to me as if we were drawn together like magnets, my breath whooshed out of me.
His smile tugged at me, forcing my legs to move faster toward him.
I needed him. I needed to kiss him right there, right now, to finally claim him in front of everyone. It was time the world knew.
When I stopped in front of him, his gorgeous brown eyes grew large, as if he could read my mind.
Maybe he could. I cupped his face and pulled him into a deep, heated kiss full of sloppy tongue.
Nate’s cold hands slipped under my shirt, sending my cold skin into even more chills.
I trembled under his touch. My hand reached behind his head and gripped his curls, ignoring all the whoops and cries from our friends.
When we pulled away, we rested our foreheads together. “What was that for?” he asked breathlessly.
“To show everyone how much I love you.”
Nate melted into me, pulling me into a hug. I held him back and rested my head on top of his.
“It’s about fucking time,” Jazz yelled.
“Finally!” Alpha said.
“Thank fucking god!” Stix said.
I huffed a laugh into Nate’s hair. “Apparently, our friends have been impatient for this.”
When we parted, all our friends rushed in for a group hug, and Stone even smiled and got involved. Cueball and Blaze were nowhere to be found.
This was my family—all of them, not just Nate. The love pouring from these people made my eyes water a little. Their support and caring were everything. Maybe one day, I would finally get the balls to come clean with them about my past, to finally allow them to get to know the real Sampson Maguire.