Chapter 29 Vale
Vale
Late Thursday night, I’ve just finished my homework and migrated to the bed when the music playing from my Bluetooth speakers cuts out with an incoming call to my phone.
A quick glance shows it’s coming from a familiar unsaved number, so I hit End, sending it straight to voicemail, before locking the screen and setting it on the charging pad.
Grabbing the football that I’d tossed on top of the bed earlier, I flop back against the pillows shoved up against my headboard just as the Yung’cid song that was playing fades back in.
I toss the football toward my ceiling, catching it mid-yawn. I’m just about to repeat the action, when the music cuts out again. The phone and charger rattling noisily across the wooden surface with another incoming call.
It’s the same number.
With a sigh, I scoop it up, hit Answer, and bring the phone up to my ear.
I don’t say anything.
I don’t have to.
“Do you like scary movies?” The breathing over the phone is heavy and choppy, like he’s fighting a cackle.
Rolling my eyes, I hang up and toss the phone on the bed. Grabbing the football once more, I squeeze it between my palms and proceed to throw it up at the ceiling. More harshly each time, counting every catch.
One, two, thre—
And there it is.
I blow out a sharp breath and hug the football to my bare chest. Feeling around for the phone, I blindly hit Answer, again not saying anything when I bring it to my ear.
“Well that was rude, Valeykins,” Aston murmurs. “I asked you a question.”
“What do you want?” I ask flatly.
Through the phone, he makes an obnoxious sound that I think is meant to reflect a gameshow buzzer, not unlike the one he made in the locker room. “I asked first.”
“Asked me what?”
“Oh, Vale,” he says softly. He tsks. “Come now, don’t be dense.”
I sigh. “Sure, yeah, whatever.”
“Sooo… which one’s your favorite?”
Head rolling back, I close my eyes. “I don’t have one.”
“Li-ar,” he sings. “Everyone has one. Unless you don’t actually like scary movies. In that case I’d have to call you a psychopath.”
My eyes fly open at that, brows creeping toward my hairline.
“Wanna know what mine is?” he goes on without missing a beat.
“Not really.”
“The Omen.”
A grunt escapes me before I can help it.
He gasps. “I made you laugh!”
“That wasn’t a laugh.”
“Do you want to know why it’s my favorite?”
“No.”
“I find Damien to be a kindred spirit of sorts.”
“The Antichrist? Why am I not surprised,” I say dryly.
He chuckles, and it’s a raspy, edged thing. I grit my teeth, hating the way my dick fills at the sound of it. It reminds me of the laugh that spilled out in the locker room that day, my blood dribbling from his lip.
Balancing the phone between my ear and shoulder, I reach down inside my shorts to adjust myself.
Only…I don’t let go.
Swallowing back a groan, I throw my head back, glaring at the ceiling as I fist my cock. Giving it a long, languid stroke from base to tip.
“No, silly goose,” he says in a soft, almost childlike voice. “Because he too was abandoned at a church as a baby.”
I turn my head toward the window, staring far-off as my mind starts playing through memories filled with blood and glass.
My hand starts to move slowly up and down my cock. Tingles race across my shoulders and down my arms. I bite my lip. The images mingle with newer, brighter memories. Of empty locker rooms and swollen, cum-stained lips.
“This one time, at Ashwood, a couple guys cornered me in the bathroom.”
I freeze, my insides turning to granite. The hand I was using to lazily stroke myself flexes, clenching so tight, I flinch. The vein in my temple throbbing. But he keeps going, not missing a single beat, blissfully unaware of what his little story time is doing to me.
“We had just watched the first Omen—it was only my second time seeing it; the first was with you. Don’t you remember?”
My brows crash heavily over my eyes, my dick forgotten as I sit up.
“You were so scared! But I held your hand and made jokes the whole time, and we ate candy we stole from the gas station down the street…” His voice fades, succumbing to the dull roar filling my head.
That…that didn’t happen.
Stealing candy, yes.
But we never watched this movie together. Ever.
The Baders only had one television—one of those old box types with a wooden frame. There was no cable, just a shotty antenna that provided us with a handful of local channels that played the news and re-runs of procedural dramas. Not much else.
Not to mention we weren’t allowed to watch it often, especially just the two of us. The candy would’ve been confiscated in a heartbeat, unless Rick was drunk…maybe…
“…so glad I got to see it with you first,” he finishes with a laugh, pulling me from the memories threatening to surge forward.
There’s an odd, almost hysteric sort of quality to his laugh, like it’s forced, and it has my hackles rising.
“And to think, I didn’t even realize back then how much Damien and I had in common! ”
I shake my head. “Aston,” I rasp before I can stop myself. My voice is so quiet, so faint though, and he’s still talking, so at first I don’t think he picked up on it.
But then he sucks in a sharp breath.
My eyes close. I already know what’s coming.
“You said my name.”
I slide my hand free from my shorts, and sit up, switching the phone to my other ear. “Yeah, and?”
“Nothing. Just… I missed it…” His voice trails off, but I hear what he holds back all the same.
I missed you.
I shift around on the bed, suddenly feeling uncomfortable in a way I’m not accustomed to. For a long moment he doesn’t say anything else.
Hang up. Hang up now.
The phone creaks in my grip.
What the fuck are you doing? that annoying little voice demands.
A throat clears in my ear. “Anyway…what was I saying? Oh, right, those guys who cornered me,” he jabbers on as if nothing transpired. My heart pounds. “So, they got the upper hand.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I run my fingers through my damp hair, despising the way they tremble.
I don’t want to hear this shit.
“One held me down as the other took clippers to my head and started chopping away. No idea how they got their hands on that, seeing as it could easily be used as a weapon, and while sucking off the orderlies goes a long way, most—”
“Aston,” I grit.
“R-right, right, focus. Anywho, so yeah, much to their disappointment—and mine—I did not in fact bear the mark of the devil on my scalp. So then, of course, they decided to check elsewhe—”
I bite out a string of curses and jump to a stand, storming toward the sliding glass doors to my balcony. Throwing it open, I rush toward the railing, gripping it in my fist. Head hanging.
“Relaxxxx, shnookums,” he drawls. “We were interrupted before they could have too much fun with me.”
“That’s not—” I bite out before catching myself.
A raspy chuckle fills my ears, and this time, it has about the effectiveness of an ice bath.
“I’m hanging up now,” I say unnecessarily.
He hums. “Are you?”
“Do yourself a favor and delete my number.” I pull my phone away, about to hit End, when his whiny voice bursts out.
“Nononono, wait. Don’t go. Not yet.”
Gritting my teeth so hard my jaw aches, I shove the phone back up against my ear. “What do you want?”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Killing the mood. I do that sometimes. Let’s start over.”
Shaking my head, I glare out at the surrounding woods. From up here on the third story, in the distance I can just make out the shadowy columns of the Furnaces sticking out from rows and rows of maize.
Beyond that, the skeletal skyline of downtown Crowley glints under the nearly-full moon.
“So what’s your favorite scary movie? You still haven’t said.”
My jaw ticks, and for the millionth time in a span of two weeks, I wonder what the fuck I’m doing. I can end this. Easily. And yet I keep playing into his little games.
Or is he playing into mine…
I twist my neck, cracking it, and say the first movie that comes to mind. “Scream.”
“How convenient,” he drawls.
“And why do you say that?” I say suspiciously, not missing the forced lightness in his tone.
There’s a moment of hesitation, then, “Well, for one, I did call you up to ask you what your favorite movie is. Planted the little seedlings and all. For the record, though, Scream is hardly scary. It’s more of a comedy.”
I scratch my jaw. “Whatever. And?”
“And what?”
At this point, my eyes are going to get stuck facing the back of my head. “You said for one. Implying you have at least one other reason.”
“Oh yeah! Well, aside from the obvious, I don’t really have another one.”
“And the obvious being…”
He tsks. “Come on, Vale. Don’t be dense. Ghostface is all the rage these days. And for good reason.” He sighs dreamily.
Another unexpected snort escapes me. Fortunately, this time Aston decided to keep his commentary to himself. Instead, he changes the subject. Though I can’t exactly say this new topic is any better.
“Speaking of getting carved up…”
I stiffen.
“I never asked—how’s your arm?” He says it so casually, lightly, as if the confrontation that led to me fucking the shit out of his face, followed by nearly beating in said face with a knife, is synonymous to going out for ice cream.
“It’s fine,” I say tightly.
“Couldn’t say the same for my throat…”
My teeth click together.
“It hurt to swallow for days.”
Jesus.
“Next time, we’ll have to take it a step further.
I imagine it will pair quite nicely with the ache you leave my hole with when you finally shove that big cock all the way inside me.
” He moans, and I picture him rolling his eyes back, licking his lips, stroking a hand down his chest. “I can’t wait, baby. Who knew you’d be such a tease?”
I mutter a silent curse into the night. “That’s never fucking happening.”
“Mhmm, sure. It’s a good thing I love the chase.”