3. Chapter 3
Chapter 3
JASON
“ Y ou do not get cookies.” I moved the plate closer to Ricky and away from Agent Asshole.
“Don’t be rude, honey.” My mom, the traitor , pushed the plate of cookies back toward him. She’d gotten coffee for all of us, inviting Whitmore in like his presence was not the government’s stamp of disapproval on my existence.
“Thank you, Mrs. Bosco.” Whitmore turned a smile on my mom that he’d never given to me and claimed a cookie. He even tore it in two and dunked one half in his coffee like a boss.
Dickhead.
I did not like tall, dark, and hunky eating my mother’s cookies!
“As I was saying, my presence here is not meant to be an invasion, just a precaution. The randomness of my check-ins is an unfortunate necessity, but I will never drop in too late or too early unless given probable cause.”
“Probable cause,” I repeated. “Like I’m some criminal.”
“You are the one who decided on ‘parole,’ Mr. Bosco,” Whitmore said with implied air quotes, “instead of full cooperation.”
I huffed. I knew there was no point in arguing, but I still really wanted to.
“For today, besides getting to see your lovely home,” Whitmore returned to my mother with that smile again, “all I need is for your son to download a surveillance app.” He wasn’t even wearing his Men in Black suit today but a turtleneck sweater and long jacket like whenever Bond went casual.
Wait. Surveillance app? “What app?” I flattened my hand over my phone before Whitmore could grab it. No wonder he’d asked for me to take it out.
“An ankle monitor is also an option,” he said.
I hated this guy. But he had me cornered. I had to let him take my phone. “Why didn’t we do that before I left?” I shoved it at him.
“A lot could have happened between there and here.”
“You were testing me?”
“And you didn’t deviate from the plan but followed everything as agreed. Well done. The app is your reward. As minimally invasive as we can offer.” Once done, Whitmore slid the phone back to me with the app launched. From my side, it looked like a map with my location marked by a blue pin. Then he showed me his phone, and the difference was his version showed two pins, one blue and one red.
“Can you hack my phone with this? See my emails, other apps—”
“No. I can simply see where your phone is in relation to mine.” He pointed to each pin, his being the red one. “Of course, we wouldn’t need this if you were to change your mind—”
“Not happening.”
“Your choice. Don’t attempt to uninstall the app, by the way. Doing so requires a password. Mrs. Bosco, might I trouble you for some cream for my coffee?”
“Oh! I am so sorry. I take it with cream myself and completely forgot. Jason, why don’t you help me fill that plate of cookies with more.” Mom hauled me out of my chair, leaving my phone on the kitchen table—and Ricky alone with Agent Asshole.
“Mom—”
“We’ll be right back.”
It wasn’t as if I was going to fight her dragging me into the kitchen but come on! There wasn’t a door between the kitchen and dining room, but I still didn’t like Whitmore leaning toward Ricky with a hushed voice like he was passing a trigger word to a sleeper agent.
Mom thrust the plate of cookies into my arms, which only had one remaining, since everyone had eaten at least one and I’d had, like, three listening to Whitmore give Mom the same bullshit speech he’d given me in Edgewind. In the kitchen, I started throwing cookies onto the plate from the baking sheet, trying very hard to use my enhanced hearing to catch whatever Whitmore and Ricky were talking about, but it was as if Whitmore knew the exact volume I couldn’t overhear.
He probably did, that fucker.
“Jason, stop. You’ll break the plate, let alone most of the cookies.” Mom had already gotten the creamer out of the fridge but was taking her time pouring some into a tiny pitcher she only ever used with guests. “I know this is difficult. I know you’re upset. But please… ” Her voice hitched, drawing my attention to how much her hands were shaking while she poured the creamer. “Please do not do anything to convince them to take you away from me.”
Shit.
Shit .
I was being a dick again.
“I’m sorry, Mom.” I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, feeling all the tension in them that was also in mine. “It’s like my whole life is out of my hands, ya know? And I get so mad. After I got my visa, I stupidly thought that was going to be the hard part. Then they dropped that bomb on me that I’m not what I thought and…”
“I know, honey. I know.” Mom turned and hugged me full on. I wondered if she knew how much it meant to me that she could do that even though I wasn’t the same me anymore. “And I understand why you don’t want them to test you. But if that is your decision, you need to play nice. Please, do not let them send you away. If I lost you…” Her voice hitched again, and I could tell she was trying very hard to not cry while we had company.
I hugged her tighter. Why did I always have to do this? Get too upset or too in someone’s face and get myself in trouble. I always made the wrong decisions. I always fucked things up. At least enough to get grounded or detention. But if I fucked this up, it could mean my whole life was over.
Before it even started.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I said again. “I mean it. I’ll do better. Just promise me something.” I let my eyes slide over to Agent Whitmore, still talking too hushed to Ricky for me to eavesdrop. “Do not fall for that guy.”
“Fall?” She choked on a laugh.
I’d partially wanted her to laugh, but I also meant it. “Do not become some Hallmark channel rom-com and give in to how dreamy and smoldering he is.”
She laughed again and wiped the last of the tears from her eyes. “Sounds like you’re the one at risk of falling.”
“It’s objective recognition of hotness!” I argued. “I only want Ricky.”
“Aw. That’s sweet. He is so perfect for you—”
“Don’t start gushing over him. It’s still too new. I don’t want to scare him off.”
“I won’t.” Mom reached up to wipe my mouth like I had cookie crumbs there. I hoped I hadn’t. I had a feeling she just needed the connection. “You know, sometimes, when it’s the right person, no one else can compare, regardless of another’s, um, hotness factor. I’ve had my love and loss. I am not looking for a second round.”
Her tears might have dried but that seemed even sadder. “You know you could, right? Not him . Please, not with him. But I’d be okay if it was someone else. You know that, right?”
“Of course, honey.”
“I guess I always figured the only reason you didn’t find someone while I was growing up was because I was still at home. I realize I’m still technically at home but—”
“Jason, it wasn’t you. I just never met anyone I wanted to have fill the empty space left by your father. And I will try my absolute hardest to make sure Agent Whitmore doesn’t change that.”
“Thank you.”
“Now, come on.” She turned back to the creamer and plate of cookies, straightening the mess I’d made until the snickerdoodles looked more presentable. “We are being terrible hosts.”
I maintained that Whitmore was a terrible guest. He was nice to my mom at least, but whatever he’d been talking to Ricky about had him looking tense. I did not like that.
“Would you like a tour, Agent Whitmore?” Mom asked. “Feel free to bring your coffee and cookies. I’m not picky about crumbs. I raised this one, after all.”
“ Mom .”
I tried to tag along, but I kept getting madder seeing this interloper in my house and worried I’d snap again. By the time Mom was showing Whitmore the outside, I decided I was done, but I made sure he saw me sit on the back porch. See. Me. Staying here. I gestured with exaggerated pointing. I even waved my phone at him to prove I had it on me.
Ricky had gotten a call from his scientist team a few minutes earlier and disappeared into his room. I heard when Whitmore drove away. I heard Mom shuffling around in the kitchen afterward, cleaning up our dishes, and leaving me to myself for a while. Which I needed, but all I did was sit there on the porch, staring at the woods.
The deck connected to a sliding glass door into the dining room, went down some stairs, and ended at the porch area at ground level. The door to my bedroom was behind me. Perfect for sneaking in and out during high school, right? Only I hadn’t done much of that. I’d been a chore for my mom in plenty of other ways, but I’d always been home when I was supposed to be. I hated it when she was alone. I hated ever leaving her alone. I’d almost not gone to college because of it, especially since it had been in another town, even if not that far away.
I had to suck it up and do better, like I’d promised her, so I didn’t leave her alone forever.
The door to my bedroom opened. “There you are! Did Whitmore leave?”
“Thankfully.” I peered over my shoulder at Ricky. At least he was here, but it would be better if there weren’t secret agents and surveillance apps involved. “Everything okay with your internship?”
“Great! They just wanted to nail down more of tomorrow’s schedule. I guess they want to take me out for coffee first, as a little welcome to the team thing. I’m going to meet them at, um… Beastly Brewhouse?” He sat down beside me.
“Where is that? Is it new?”
“Sounds like it. Took over some diner?”
“Probably Petey’s. That place sucked , so yay I guess. Why Beastly?” The likely answer hit me right before Ricky spoke.
“It’s monster run. The first fully monster business in town.”
“Wow. You’d think all this added monster presence would make me feel right at home, but I’m a mess.”
“Hey.” Ricky leaned against me, which was nice, warm, and filled my nose with his unique scent. The earthiness from him was better than the smell of spring grass. “It’s not quite the same town you grew up in, and you’re not quite the same you. But neither of those things are bad.”
“Thanks. At least Whitmore didn’t overstay his welcome. But now, everywhere I go, he’ll know exactly where I am and could show up at any moment.” I wanted to take my phone out of my pocket and chuck it into the woods. “What was he talking to you about when you two were alone anyway?”
“Oh… um…”
“He was trying to convince you to convince me to do the testing, wasn’t he?”
“Maybe?”
“ Dick .”
“Can I ask you something?”
“What?”
“Are you so against testing because you’re afraid to find out what you are?”
“I… I just don’t want to be something that has to be studied to make sense.”
Ricky took my hand between us and laced our fingers together. “It wouldn’t be like Species , you know, keeping you in some plastic tube, testing you twenty-four seven.”
“I’m sure they’d promise me that right up until they stuck a bunch of electrodes to my balls.”
Ricky laughed.
“I don’t want to think about that right now, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And that movie would have been ten times hotter—”
“If the alien had been a dude, I know.” Ricky said. “I’ve heard your pitch for circa ’95 Brad Pitt, and I still raise you George of the Jungle Brendan Fraser.”
“Wait, where have I heard that before?”
“From me . Freshman year. We watched it in my room, remember? You went on and on about how a male alien would have made more sense because he could have spread his seed to more hosts. Therefore, a gay main character could have saved the day, because he couldn’t be seduced. Or, well, not in a way that ended in more aliens. You wrote your college entrance exam arguing all the movies that could have been saved by, and I quote ‘The Queer-ening’.”
“You remember that?”
“Of course. I listen.”
“I listen!”
“I know you do.” Ricky sat up from leaning against me and squeezed my hand. “Who’s my favorite Smash Bros. character?”
“Kirby.”
“Why?”
“’Cause you’re cheap .”
“The real reason.”
I did know the answer to that. “Because he was the only character you could ever beat your brother with.”
“Yep. But then our abuela —”
“—could slaughter you both with Princess Peach!” I overlapped him. I would have loved to see that in person.
“See?” Ricky’s smile was seriously too pure, too perfect for a mess like me. “One of the best parts about dating a friend is that we are way past the ‘getting to know you’ portion of a relationship. I already know you. All your silly high school stories, like how everyone on the football team tried to grow mustaches senior year but yours looked like blond twinkie crumbs on your upper lip.” He laughed as he recounted it, which damn , was as pure and perfect as his smile. “And then everyone called you twink for, like, a month and it almost got one of your friends suspended when a teacher thought—”
“ Hello , right?” I lifted the arm not attached to Ricky to show off my guns. “So not a twink.”
“I also know you lost your virginity to a girl who hates you now because you shrugged afterward when she asked if it was good for you.”
“I was figuring myself out!”
“I know you wanted to be a veterinarian when you were a kid, like 90% of second graders.”
I couldn’t argue with that one. Every second grader wanted to be a veterinarian at some point. Or an astronaut. Or a secret agent.
I wondered if Whitmore had wanted to be an agent back then.
“And I know we have almost the exact same coming out story,” Ricky continued. “Your mom took you out for ice cream. And mine—”
“Made homemade cinnamon ice cream with churros. So unfair.”
Ricky laughed again. I wanted to taste that sound way more than ice cream. “You know our moms are Facebook friends, right? If your mom knows we’re dating, they have so been talking about it over Messenger.”
“Oh shit.”
“Right?”
We laughed together and Ricky snuggled closer to me, but before I could try tasting that laugh, he looked forward and rested his head on my shoulder.
“Feels like rain.”
“It does?” The sky was a little overcast but not too ominous. “Oh right. You have magical storm sense along with your monster radar.”
“It's not magic. Some people are just more sensitive to things like changes in pressure and other environmental factors. It’s not magic that I can sense Cael and when other monsters are around either.”
“I wish I’d had that sense before I got attacked.”
“Those are the infamous woods, huh?” I felt Ricky’s head nod toward the trees.
“Yep. I haven’t been in there since.”
“You haven’t?”
“We were at school. When I came home for holidays, I couldn’t bring myself to go in there. I lucked out that I was never home around the full moon.”
“The moon affected you? Even though you’re not really a werewolf?”
“The people at the base back in Edgewind said maybe it was, um… psychosom… psycho-something.”
“Psychosomatic. You think you should change, so you do. It makes sense.”
“I can shift any time, but it’s harder to control when I see a full moon, like on the night I first changed. We got a couple weeks until the next one.”
“When that happens, this time you’ll have me with you.”
“Thanks.”
“Or…” Ricky lifted his head, eying me like he was thinking something devious. “If you wanted to show me now, or any time before the full moon, you could.”
“You want to see me like that?”
“You’re my friend. My boyfriend . I want to know all of you. Every part of you. And the scientist in me is really curious, I won’t lie,” he finished in a rush.
It actually felt pretty good that Ricky wanted to see that side of me. “Excitement is better than fear. Okay. If you mean it.” I stood, squeezing Ricky’s hand before I released it. “But I need to get naked to avoid ruining my clothes, so, um… turn around, and I’ll go change in the woods. Gotta go back in there eventually.”
“You want me to turn around?”
“Well, yeah. You haven’t seen the goods yet.”
“It’s cute you think I never snuck a peek in the locker room.” Ricky snorted.
“You did not!”
“Maybe a glance.”
“With or without my underwear on?”
Ricky bit his lip with a guilty side eye.
“You freak!” I pushed him center chest, teetering him backward. “ I refrained, and you peeked! Oh, you so owe me some, um… tat for tat!”
Ricky laughed. But he didn’t look discouraged. “Show me the wolf. Then we’ll see about tat.” He lifted his feet from hanging off the porch and spun around to face the house.
Now tat was motivation.