Chapter 13
Declan, Present
I watch Javi all the way until he disappears through the trees.
Stepping away from the window, I tell myself that I’m not going after him.
There was something off about him. I could see it in the way he walked. Is that sad? I feel pathetic being able to tell that about him when he doesn’t give two shits about me. He doesn’t know me. Not like I thought.
Does he go there all the time?
“Harold, you don’t know how to fix a dishwasher. Now, let me call the professional for god’s sake.”
Harold and Nancy’s conversation filters back in from where I’m standing at the dining room window. We’ve just finished dinner. Nancy always cooks dinner and has us all eat at the table together, and as usual, they’ve now found something to bicker about.
It’s that kind only old people can do without sounding completely toxic. It’s somewhat endearing, because underneath it all is a fuckton of love for each other.
“Nancy, I can do it myself. I’ve fixed enough crap around this house.”
She tsks back at him. “You’re being a stubborn old fart.”
“I’m not an old fart. You’re going to see when I have it all fixed by the end of tomorrow.”
She retorts with a sarcastic mhm right before she spots me lingering by the window. Her face breaks into a big smile as she walks toward me and wraps her arm around my shoulders, turning us to look out the window again.
“Were you trying to spy on the neighbor boy?”
I scoff and shrug out of her hold. “No. I don’t look at him.”
She tilts her head, a piece of her gray hair falling out of the claw clip she has it wrapped up in, then gives me a look that says she doesn’t believe me. “You really think we never saw you two sneaking off into the woods together?”
Harold chimes in behind us, his voice echoing from where he has it shoved in the dishwasher. “It’s not sanitary to do those types of things in the woods. All the dirt and bugs and such. Not good for the crevices.”
My face heats. I’m sure it’s beet red. “Oh my god. We did not do anything in the woods.”
Nancy gives me a long, blank look. “Are you using protection?”
Now I’m mortified. “No!” I exclaim.
Her eyes widen in alarm. “You’re not?”
“No! I mean I would but there was never anything going on to use protection. We were just friends.”
“You’re not friends anymore?”
Harold pipes up again, yelling from inside the dishwasher. “I told you they broke up. You don’t ever listen to me.”
She turns her head to yell back at him. “That’s because you’re a nosy gossip, you old coot.”
I clear my throat to get her attention back. “We didn’t break up. We just…”
He left me. Deserted me when I needed him.
I don’t say any of that. Too depressing.
“We’re not friends anymore,” I say.
She nods slowly and rubs her hand across my back in a comforting motion. “Well, then I’m sure you won’t be going out there tonight then?”
I squint at her. “No. I’m not.”
She pulls me in for a hug, which I groan through and act like I don’t love it. But I do.
“Good, Declan. I’m glad we’re on the same page.” Then she pulls back and winks at me before walking back to supervise Harold while he bangs around in the dishwasher.
I stand still for a second. Thinking. But then, my feet just carry me. Down the hall. Out the back door and into the night. Through the yard. Until I’m standing right on the edge of the trees.
Nostalgia and dread mix together making it difficult to take those last few steps to go to him.
Because, does he deserve that? Definitely not. He doesn’t deserve anything from me. I know what he thinks. He thinks what they all do. And he never… he never came to me.
Despite all that—probably because I’m fucking stupid—I wrap my arms around myself and keep walking.
I move quietly, staring at each space I step on the ground so it’s silent. Not because I want to sneak up on him. It just feels wrong to be so loud. It’s deathly quiet here. No sounds from the road or the houses. An oasis of serenity.
Until a noise stops me.
I lift my head and see that I’m upon our spot.
He’s there. Sitting on the old log. The moonlight streams down on his form. Like it’s illuminating him for me around the blackness.
His head is in his hands and his shoulders are shaking.
The noise sounds again.
Crying. Sobbing. Wailing.
The kind of crying you do when you think you’re all alone.
I slowly take another step, but this time I’m not looking where I’m going, and I feel a twig snap under my shoes.
His head whips up. He’s still for a moment—sitting and listening to the dark. Then he scrambles up on his feet, facing my direction.
Our eyes connect and he takes a deep breath like he’s about to tell me off. To yell. But instead, he deflates—shutting his mouth and sitting back down.
I walk unhurriedly until I’m sitting on the log next to him. His breathing is loud and uneven, getting faster and faster.
“You have to control your breathing,” I mutter to him.
I hear him try, taking a few big breaths, but each of them comes out too stuttered and fast. “I can’t,” he shrieks, a kind of desperation in his voice as he falls onto all fours on the forest floor. “I can’t!”
I drop to the ground next to him, placing a hand on his back. “You’re okay. You’re just panicking. But you have to breathe until it passes.”
“I can’t!”
“You can. Just copy me. Breathe in.” I take a huge breath, counting to four in my head. “Now hold it. And exhale.”
He won’t look at me, but he follows my directions. I can see his body melting a bit, the panic leaving his body.
We keep going. Just breathing.
Once he’s quiet, we sit in silence for a long time. It doesn’t feel so bad.
Having Landon at school has filled a part of me that Javi left behind, but even then, it’s not quite the same.
Javi and I had a different connection. Something that I’m not sure I’ll get with anyone else.
“Was it your stepdad?” I ask softly.
“Don’t do that,” he grits out.
My guard rises up at his tone. “Do what?”
“Fucking remember things. Be… you.” He looks over at me, his face marred with anger. Then he corrects himself. “Be how you were. I don’t fucking want that.”
“Why not?”
He stands now, hastily pulling himself off the ground as his voice explodes at me. “Because it’s not fucking real. It’s not you anymore.”
My brow slams down as I get up. “Alright. Fine.”
He grabs my forearm as I start to walk away, and when I look back, the anger is gone. Just like that. And in its place is profound sadness. “Can you just stay? For once?”
For once?
I want to say something back. A biting remark. It’s right on the tip of my tongue, trying to escape out of my mouth. But something pulls it back, telling me that’s not what he needs right now.
But I don’t care what he needs. I shouldn’t.
He doesn’t let go of my arm as he sits on the log, pulling me down with him. Somehow, his touch migrates. The calloused skin coasting over mine until he reaches my hand and covers my fingers with his.
Something squeezes in my chest, and I try my best to ignore it. Whatever is going on tonight is a fluke. Tomorrow it’ll be back to normal.
That’s what I tell myself so I can just enjoy whatever the fuck is happening.
He turns his head to look at me. His dark eyes glittering and swollen from crying. “I used to believe she’d leave him. But now, I don’t think she ever will. She’ll just be stuck there—withering away until he’s taken every single part of her.”
A tear slips out of his eye.
“Until he’s destroyed everything.”
My own eyes prickle. Fuck.
My heart is a black hole. Fostered by being passed around like an unwanted nuisance for most of my life.
So why do I care so fucking much? Why does hearing him talk about his pain make me feel it too?
“I’m sorry, Javi.”
It’s nothing, really. But I have nothing else to offer him.
It seems to be enough because he smiles as his eyes wander over my face. “Me too. But I can’t make her save herself. I just thought maybe she’d want to save me enough to walk away.”
I don’t say anything, reaching over and putting my free hand on his knee.
Something changes over his face. It even drifts to the air. I feel it sizzle and thicken.
“I need you, munequito.”
Dizziness descends over my brain. It makes it hard to think straight. But I still manage to shake my head. “No, you don’t.”
He reaches over, running his hand through my hair until it settles on the nape of my neck, squeezing.
My body practically melts. A puddle he can fucking step all over if he wants.
“What do you think then?”
“That you fucking hate me. And I hate you too.”
His eyes stare intently at mine. “Fine. Then we hate each other. Can I have you anyway?”
No. No. No. No. No.
I nod my head.
He tackles me, climbing on top of me once we’ve both hit the dirt.
It’s messy and frantic. His hands roam all over, groping harshly anywhere they can. He bites my neck, sucking and licking through feral growls rumbling in his chest.
Moving to my lips, he shoves his tongue in with no preamble, swirling around mine before sucking on it, gradually moving away until he’s forced to let it go.
The first roll of his hips pulls a moan from me. It’s loud, disrupting the stillness of the night.
“Yes, munequito,” he murmurs against my mouth, harshly pulling my bottom lip between his teeth before moving back down to my neck—speaking his words into my skin.
“This feels so fucking good. You’re my little doll from now on.
Only I get to play with you. I don’t care how much of a slut you want to be. ”
I push at his chest, but he barely moves. “Fuck you, Javier,” I say through clenched teeth.
He presses his body harder into mine. I try to move. To get away. But I can’t.
His hips roll again, harder this time, and the delicious movement stuns me back into submission. He continues his efforts, rubbing our hard cocks together through our clothes.
The smell of earth and Javier commingle into something completely intoxicating.