Chapter 46
ISAAC
Jake is slumped over his closed laptop when I walk into his room a few minutes after his online therapy session should have ended.
It’s obviously over. When I talked to the therapist before I hired him, he mentioned it would be normal for things to get worse before they got better, but it’s been three weeks, and Jake has never looked more unhappy.
Which I could maybe tolerate if I weren’t taking him back to his fraternity today.
“I’m fine,” he says without bothering to look at me.
“You can stay, you know?”
“I need to get back to my life.”
“Are you sure you’re ready to move back into the house, though? Because if you’d rather live alone—or with a roommate—”
“That’s where my friends are.”
I want to ask what friends, because no one’s been by since he’s been staying here, but if he says he’s got friends, I have to believe he’s not lying to me.
I sit at the foot of his bed, facing him.
“You don’t have to tell me everything, Jake, but tell me something, please.”
“I really thought I was gonna die,” he says.
I take his hand and hold it tight. “I know.”
“And it’s frustrating that my brain constantly feels like it’s wrapped in cotton. Like am I even smart anymore? This doesn’t feel like me. I’m not like this.”
“The doctors said it might take a little longer for all the concussion symptoms to resolve.”
“I’m not suicidal or anything, I just don’t ever remember hating myself this much.”
That hurts like hell to hear. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Honestly, try not to worry about it.” He lets go of my hand. “You’re stressing me out. If it’s not working out, I’ll call you.”
“Promise?”
“Yeah.”
“Because I’ll drop everything,” I tell him.
“Dude. I know.”
“Can I buy you lunch?”
“Where’s Deacon?” he asks.
My stomach twists the same way it does every time I think about Deacon and Evan being together. It’s a sick mix of dread, hope, anxiety, and jealousy. “Out of town. He’ll be back tonight.”
Tomorrow is Easter, and Jake specifically wanted to move back to campus when it would be mostly empty and quiet.
While our asshole father wants him home and in a church pew next to him, Jake played the concussion card.
I took a little more convincing. I don’t love him being alone in an empty frat house, but he’s got some girl he’s planning to have over to stay with him.
Since he’s been living with me and Deacon for a month, I can’t fault him for wanting some company of the opposite gender. It’s the only thing that convinced me to take him back today.
This conversation has eased my mind some.
I really needed to hear that part about him not being suicidal—so I suggest lunch again, and he agrees.
Once we’re out of the apartment, he brightens up a little, and we talk about Valerie and hockey and his classes.
Maybe one day he’ll tell me what started the fight that night, or maybe one day it won’t matter anymore, and I’ll stop wanting to know.
I just want him to be okay and, most importantly, safe.
After lunch, Jake finishes packing. I drive him through Napa Valley in the rain.
His friend—girlfriend?— is waiting for him on the frat house porch.
She’s the same goth girl I caught him “studying” with a while back.
She’s on the taller side, and when Jake re-introduces me to her, instead of a handshake, I get a curtsy.
He’s grinning, and she’s picking up his suitcase.
He gives me a quick hug and doesn’t invite me inside, but he does thank me for “everything.”
I send him a text when I’m walking back to my car.
Me
You better keep up with your therapy.
Jake
ok
Me
And call me
Jake
Will do
Me
Every day.
Jake
I’ll text you. Drive safe. Love you.
Me
I love you too
The sun is starting to set as I cross the bridge back into San Francisco. Spring is my favorite time of year here. Not because everything is suddenly in bloom in late March, but I can feel it coming. The rain smells different. Greener. Like there’s a point to it.
Acting on a hunch, I go to Deacon’s apartment instead of my own. I have the door code and a key now. It’s quiet when I come in, but I make my way to his room and find him asleep, sprawled in the center of his bed. I let out a breath, relief coursing through me at the sight of him.
Granted, there was a part of me that silently prayed Evan would be here too, snuggled into his side, but this is enough.
I take off my outer layer of clothes, leaving myself in only a t-shirt and my boxer briefs before getting into bed with him.
He stirs, notices me, and slides an arm around my waist, pulling our bodies together.
“Hi,” I say.
He dips his head to press kisses into my neck.
It perks my dick right up, and I make sure he knows what he’s doing.
His hand slides to my ass, grinding his crotch into mine so I can feel him getting hard, too.
We’re the kings of dry humping, although I’m not sure I can call it that since he sleeps naked, and my cock always manages to make its way through the slit in my shorts.
I cup his jaw and bring his mouth to mine.
The kiss is deep, in search of the connection that never takes long to manifest itself between us.
His kisses are like love letters. Like essays on want and need and desire.
“Missed you,” I manage to say on a stolen breath as our hips work in a tandem grind.
“Missed you, too.”
“Where is he?”
“Carmel. He’s close.”
My heart feels like it’s exploding even as my stomach twists again.
“You’ll see him tomorrow, I think,” Deacon says before taking a handful of my hair and tipping my head back to leave a mark on my throat.
“Don’t play with me.”
“Not playing.”
“He could change his mind,” I whisper.
“I know.”
“Are you two okay? Did you fight?”
He shakes his head, moving his hand between us to grip both our cocks in his fist. A strong throb in my core makes me shudder. “You remember that night we fucked him together?”
“Hm?” I ask, losing coherence.
Deacon squeezes his fist. “Was it about this tight?”
“Fuck,” I groan. My forehead crashes against his as I thrust into his clenched hand, precum making us more sticky than slick. “It was tighter.”
“I think about it all the time,” he says.
I do, too, and my body remembers it perfectly, which causes my balls to lose the battle with restraint, and I come suddenly with a curse and a long groan.
He’s right behind me, coating us with his thick release and loosening his grip. I lean into the overwhelming sensation, not wanting to be done yet. “Don’t stop,” I beg him.
Maybe he can’t handle it, because he lets go, but he crawls down the length of my body to suck my cock into his mouth. My back arches, and I cry out, barely able to bear it. He licks our combined cum and swallows his way down my length.
My body is shuddery and frantic. I buck into his throat, and he takes it, still managing to massage my sac and trace my hole with a fingertip. If Evan were here…If Evan were here…
I imagine him straddling my face, my nose and tongue buried in his ass.
The second orgasm is stronger than the first. Deacon hums as he sucks it down. In the aftermath, guilt creeps in. Not because I was thinking about Evan—that too—but because I woke Deacon up and just had him make me come twice.
“Sorry,” I choke out, which is about as much as my vocal cords can manage.
“For what?” He drags his mouth up my abs, stopping to tongue one of my nipples.
“Waking you. You must be exhausted.”
“How’d you know I’d be here?”
“I know you.” I pull at him, encouraging him to return to my arms. He does, and we tuck ourselves into each other.
“Wait—you left Jake alone?”
“I left Jake at his frat house with Valerie.”
“Oh. I guess I missed that memo.”
“Shit,” I mutter. “Sorry.”
“You okay?” he asks.
“I’m trying not to think about it too much.”
“He knows how to reach you,” Deacon reassures me.
“Go back to sleep,” I tell him.
“Are you gonna sleep?”
“After that? Probably.”
He burrows closer. “Tell me you missed me again.”
I kiss the top of his head. The scent of Evan hits me like a train out of nowhere. Somehow I manage to say, “I missed you so much.”
We spend Easter morning at my place, chronically wrapped up in each other while I worry and stress about whether we’ll see Evan tonight. It’s taking a lot not to text him and beg or bargain. If I have one chance to make this work—tonight might be it.
It breaks my heart that Evan barely let Deacon anywhere near him when they were in LA.
Sounds like the closest they got was a hug in Deacon’s car when he dropped him off at his mom’s house, which is the reason he had Evan’s scent on him yesterday.
As evening approaches, Deacon tells me he intends to drive back to Carmel and offer Evan a ride up here.
The thing is, Evan could still say no. Deacon is also willing to drive him back to LA. This only makes me want to go with him, but I’m terrified to put any more pressure on Evan than I already have.
I’m also telling myself that if he won’t come up this weekend, then there’s still a chance. I can only blow it if we’re in the same room together. I’m clearly desperate for any silver lining, but all I’ve got is the fact that I’ve only thrown up once so far today.
Deacon thought it was funny.
He stroked my back while I retched over the toilet, chuckling the whole time.
“You give a whole new meaning to ‘lovesick.’”
He’s right.
“If he shows up, I’m gonna need you to be cooler than this,” my boyfriend says.
“I will be,” I promise him.
He kisses my shoulder. “Take a shower. I’m gonna go check the traffic.”
He helps me up and leaves me to it.
I brush my teeth and rinse out my mouth before getting into the shower.
The nausea has moved to the background but hasn’t disappeared.
It’s not the fastest shower I’ve ever taken—there’s a lot of letting the water fall on my head and staring down at the way it drips from my hair, but I make it through.
I stand in my closet for several minutes afterward, trying to decide what I want to wear. Just in case. Do I want to look casual? Sexy? Unbothered? Like marriage material? It’s something along the lines of all of the above, and I’m not sure what that looks like.
Finally, I reach for my favorite jeans and a navy cotton shirt that isn’t too snug but looks good across my shoulders and down my arms. I slip on some gray socks, run my hands through my damp hair and realize how thirsty I am.
Deacon is on the couch, typing on his notes app, which he uses as a journal.
Sometimes I wake up to one of his entries in a shared online document.
It’s usually about me—the ones he shares, and it’s his way of telling me all the in between things—the ones he has trouble expressing when we’re face to face.
It’s deepened my understanding of him a lot, and the fact that he’s willing to share his raw, unfiltered thoughts with me at all is a big reason I’m in love with him.
He might not be in love with me, but he really, really likes me, and I always seem to make it to the top of his priority list.
I drop myself on the couch, so close to him I’m nearly on his lap, and rest my head on his shoulder.
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
“Better. Sort of. How’s the traffic?”
“Non-existent. I keep forgetting it’s a holiday.”
My dry mouth reasserts itself, and I groan. “I’m thirsty.”
“Let me get you some water.”
I hang on to him, not letting him get up. “What do you think is gonna happen?”.
“I think he’s gonna come home.”
“But he doesn’t live here anymore.”
“Maybe not right now. But you’ll show him where he belongs, right?”
“I don’t know if he’s gonna take my word for it.”
“I’ll back you up.”
“What if—?”
I don’t get to finish the sentence because the elevator doors slide open to reveal the missing piece of my heart.