56. Kieran
KIERAN
Producer: “What are you most excited about for your life with Jace after the show ends?”
Kieran: “You not being around all the time.”
Joey’s words replay over and over again in my mind.
“Why he came out to his dad after he punched that kid who threatened you.”
He chose to come out to his dad? He punched David? Joey said it so casually, it must be true. I turn to give Jace my full attention, feeling like my world just shifted on its axis. Like everything I wholeheartedly believed was a lie.
My eyes are wide as I slowly blink, attempting to focus on the man in front of me, to not get lost in the memory of the one I thought I knew back then. I have to force my jaw to close as I try to process the thoughts flying through my head.
Finally, I remember how to speak. “You punched David?” I ask. Still completely confused by why he would’ve punched his best friend. Joey said it was because of what David did to me. But that doesn’t make any sense at all when Jace was the one who sent him there.
Right?
“Uh, yeah. You didn’t know that? I thought Liv would have told you about that,” he mutters.
“We agreed to not talk about you,” I admit. “And you came out to your dad voluntarily?” I’m unsure what to focus on when I apparently had so many details wrong.
“Wow, would you look at the time,” Joey says. I hear their chairs scraping against the floor, but I can’t look away from Jace.
“Yeah, so late. We’ll just go back to our place now, byeeee,” Patrick calls out before the front door closes.
Jace and I are still standing in his kitchen across from each other, gazes locked as I wait for him to elaborate on what I don’t know.
“Yeah, I came out to my dad voluntarily.” He finally answers my question, but I can tell there’s more from the way he’s cautiously eyeing me.
“Why?”
Jace bites his lip, staring at me for another long moment before finally taking in a deep breath. “Because he insulted you.”
“I’m sure that wasn’t the first time he insulted me, or other kids like me. So why did you decide to randomly come out to him after being so against it for so long? What am I missing? That’s a huge jump.”
Jace looks nervous, taking a steading breath before speaking.
“My dad implied that you deserved to be attacked by David, to end up in the hospital, because you’re attracted to other men,” he admits.
I knew Jace’s father was an asshole. He’d made it clear that his dad was the one he was the most concerned about finding out that we’d been together.
So why would he suddenly come out to him?
“I was a mess after not knowing why you weren’t in school the two days after I was held up at practice and showed up super late to our meeting,” he continues.
“I thought maybe you were mad at me for standing you up. But I didn’t have your number to text you.
I also knew you wouldn’t have missed school for that, so I was concerned you were sick or something.
Then I found out David hurt you, and I punched him in the school hallway.
I would have done more but my dad pulled me off him.
When he was lecturing me about staying out of trouble, he made that comment about you deserving it, and I snapped. ”
“What did you do?” I whisper, picturing the eighteen-year-old Jace in a whole new light.
“Said something about belonging in the hospital too, because I enjoyed having your dick in my mouth.”
A shocked laugh escapes from my chest, breaking some of the tension between us. “You did not.”
“I did.” He laughs, posture relaxing a little bit. “I was done trying to live my life imitating such an awful man.”
“And he kicked you out?”
“He told me he didn’t have a gay son, so I wasn’t his son anymore.”
“Holy shit, Jace, I had no idea.”
“You had a lot going on at the time,” he reminds me gently. “Including a concussion.”
I shake my head. “No, Jace, I mean I had no idea about… so many things. I thought you sent David to end things. That you had told him to threaten me, maybe even to beat me up.”
His face immediately falls, he looks horrified, shaking his head as he responds.
“No! Kieran, no. I had no idea for days that he’d even gone there that night.
He said he followed us another time and had seen what we were doing.
That he was looking out for me, but I swear I had no idea.
Apparently, that’s how he knew where to find you.
He suggested my dad hold me late at practice that day.
As soon as I found out, I punched him. I wish I could have done more,” he insists.
Holy shit.
When we were eighteen, after all those times in the woods, I’d forgiven Jace for his past bullying even though he’d never apologized.
I’d seen firsthand how confused and scared he was about his feelings for me, and I’d moved on from our negative past. I’d even started hoping we might have a future beyond baseball season.
So, when I’d thought he sent David to hurt me, everything was made so much worse by the thought that I’d been such a fool to think he’d ever changed.
It felt like I was an experiment for him, and he discarded me when he was done.
Now, thirteen years later, I’m finding out that I was wrong.
Jace has changed. He probably even tried to tell me. He’d wanted to talk to me, and I wouldn’t let him.
But I believe him.
I fully and completely believe his side of the story. There isn’t a single part of me that doubts this new-to-me version of the truth.
“Wait, what were you trying to apologize for when you showed up at my house that day if you didn’t send David?”
“I felt horrible that David inserted himself between us, and that I hadn’t realized he was on to us before it was too late.
I felt like it was my fault that you got hurt because it was someone who I thought was my friend who’d caused it, but I never even considered that you would think I told him to go there.
” He sounds panicked trying to explain. “Holy shit, no wonder you wouldn’t hear me out that day.
I can’t believe you talked to me at all once you realized who I was in Atlanta. ”
“Fuck, Jace. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to what you had to say back then.
At the time, I was so hurt, and I tried to rationalize what happened between us.
In my mind, it made sense that, since it was your last baseball game, that you were done with me.
Sending David to threaten me not to say anything made the most sense. ”
My chest feels like it’s cracking wide open right now. I wasted over a decade holding hate in my heart for Jace, and yeah, he did some really shitty things to me, but the man before me has proven he’s become so much more than his teenage mistakes.
“No, you have nothing to apologize for. You were hurt, and we were so young. I should have just blurted it out. I even tried to get your number from Liv to text you, but she must’ve blocked me too.”
“Uh, yeah. We both blocked you on everything,” I say, which reminds me of something else I should admit to Jace in the name of honesty.
“Also, I did tell her about us… after the hospital. I didn’t know you’d come out to your dad at that point, obviously, but I was so hurt, and I just needed to talk about you with someone who’d get it. ”
He gives me a small smile, reaching for my hand, and I take his confidently.
“It’s okay, darli—”
“Baby,” I plead. “Call me baby.”
“Fuck, baby, come here,” Jace says, tugging me toward him and wrapping his big arms around me. I sink into his embrace, needing his comfort, and without my permission, tears start flowing down my cheeks.
“Jace, I’m so sorry.”
“Me too, K. I’m so fucking sorry for all the pain I caused you, intended or not.”
I press my face into his chest, tears soaking into his shirt as I shake my head. “We wasted so much time, Jace. Thirteen years. I hated you for something you didn’t even do. And I don’t know what to do with that. I don’t know how to forgive myself for all the wasted years.”
His arms tighten around me as he tries to hold me together. “I’d give anything to get those years back, but we can’t. We probably needed that time to grow individually, and look, baby, we get a second chance. We can start over now.”
I pull back just enough to see his face, his eyes shining with the same grief I feel.
“I’ve wanted you since I was sixteen, back when I first called you Sparkles. And I never fucking stopped, Kieran. Not once.”
I’m pretty sure I’ve cycled through every human emotion since I stepped onto this show, but this one—the weight of hearing him say it out loud after all these years—feels like it might crack me open completely.
Wait.
Something else he said registers. “You said you were late that day? You still came?”
His shoulders sag, and he nods. “Yeah, I was so pissed off. Of course, the day I’d been planning to kiss you, I’d be almost two hours late.”
That’s the final crack.
His words shatter the final barrier I’d been hiding my heart behind.
He’d been planning to kiss me when we were eighteen? He showed up that night, and was upset, not that he’d missed out on a blowjob or his good luck charm before a game, but because he didn’t get to kiss me?
I’m done holding back. I shift slightly, grab both sides of Jace’s face in my hands, pull him down to me, and crash my lips to his.