14. CHAPTER 14
Thanksgiving came and went in a blur. The Monday after was what really mattered: the day of Easton’s dad’s hearing.
Being on break made it easier to slip out of the house unnoticed. No questions, no explanations, only the quiet click of the front door as I left.
The ride was quick; I sang with the radio to Taylor Swift like nobody was watching. But only because, literally, nobody was watching.
After I parked (and dug for quarters to feed the meter), I tightened my tie and stepped toward the courthouse.
An employee sat in the front lobby, and I ran off as soon as she finished telling me where to go.
I took the stairs two at a time, not wanting Easton to wait alone today.
The hallway forced a sharp left out of the stairwell, and then I stood in front of a pair of huge mahogany doors.
A black sign hung dead center that read “Courtroom C.” I pushed right through, not thinking about what lay on the other side.
The church-like room had two rows of pews on each side.
Easton sat on the right as far from the entrance as possible, his elbows on his knees and his eyes on his dress shoes.
I slinked into the aisle and sat down next to him.
There were only a couple of people in the room, and no one within earshot of us.
We’d hooked up again last Friday night after Zach’s game. We hadn’t talked much, but for the first time, he hadn’t said it was the last time.
But afterward, when he’d rolled away from me without saying a word, I’d lain there staring at the ceiling, wondering why I kept doing this to myself.
Now, sitting in the courthouse, the silence still hung between us. Silence, my old friend.
His hand sat on the seat between us. I moved my hand to put it on top of his, but at the last moment, I moved it to my thigh. He probably didn’t want me doing that in public; I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do that in public.
“How are you?” I whispered. Even though I knew no one would hear me, this was the kind of place where you didn’t talk loudly.
“They cancelled the hearing. My grandparents already left.”
“You could’ve texted me.”
“I needed to be here. I needed you here with me.”
I tried to put myself in Easton’s shoes.
Why did he have a desire to sit in this room?
If we had switched places, I would have wanted out as quickly as possible.
He had decided, though, that he’d rather let the world take more jabs at him and sit here thinking about the night he had lost both of his parents.
After a minute or two, he moved his hand and rested it on top of mine. He didn’t glance over when he did it, only allowing the slightest movement of his body. I sighed, allowing a breath at the touch.
We sat like that for a couple of minutes.
I didn’t want to be the first one to move—hell, I didn’t want to move, period.
Eventually, though, Easton got up and started walking to the door.
I caught up to him, and we trudged through the building.
Pictures of judges lined the walls; they all seemed so old, so out of touch with life.
When we got to the courthouse exit, I took a risk and grabbed his hand again.
He flinched when my fingers locked into his, but he didn’t pull away.
We walked to the Durango with our hands still linked, our shoes scuffing the sidewalk.
The world moved somewhere far behind us, muffled and indifferent.
“Do you want me to drop you off at your house?” I asked, letting the engine rumble to life but staying in park.
“I told my grandparents I was spending the day with you.”
“Do you want me to see if Zach and Gavin want to do something?”
“Only us today.”
The words hung as I put the Durango into drive. A small flicker stirred in my chest.
“You down for a bit of a car ride?” I asked.
“Depends on where we’re going.”
“Perfect,” I smiled.
The drive stretched out in patches of road and silence, the kind where you don’t need to talk because the motion said enough.
Easton fidgeted, rolling the window up and down, checking his phone, then glancing at the dashboard clock like it might give away the destination.
Every few miles, he asked again, each time with a little more edge to his voice.
I didn’t answer. The mystery was part of the distraction.
When we finally rolled into the stone-filled parking lot, confusion spread across his face. The building looked half-forgotten—sun-faded letters spelled out Adrenaline Park above the entrance.
“What the hell is this place?” he asked, already halfway to the door.
“My business inspiration,” I said, catching up to him quickly and walking in.
On the right, a gray rock-climbing wall towered over us, and on the left, a winding go-kart track curved feet away.
Straight ahead, a line of batting cages stretched along the back wall, nets swaying slightly from recent hits.
Engine noises throbbed in the air, the metallic clang of baseballs meeting bats, and the easy laughter you only heard in places like this.
Easton looked around, and his smile built slowly, like the noise was pulling it out of him. I was already grinning.
“No hitting today, though,” I said. “We’re here to relax.”
“Never thought I’d hear you say that,” Easton said. “What first?”
“You’re going to love this.”
At the counter, a college-aged girl thumbed at her phone with the vacant detachment of someone who’d already given up on Monday. After I paid, she led us down a hallway that throbbed with the distant sound of something breaking.
“What the hell is a smash room?” Easton asked me.
I shot him a grin. “Exactly what it sounds like.”
“So, we get to smash stuff?”
“If you keep asking questions like that, I’m going to start calling you Gavin.”
College Girl handed us gear and rattled off the rules in the bored cadence of a part-timer who’d done this a hundred times already.
The changing area was cramped, the bench lining the back wall worn down to the grain.
As I pulled on the protective suit, my boot caught on the leg fabric, and I toppled backward, landing hard on the bench.
I heard the crunch before I felt it.
“I think I need new glasses,” I said, holding up the two broken pieces.
Easton barked out a laugh, sharp and sudden, the sound bouncing off the concrete walls like something let loose. It was good to hear him laugh, especially today.
“You know we haven’t started yet, right?” Easton said.
Once we were fully geared up—blue overalls, steel-toed boots, and bulky helmets—we looked like we belonged in some off-brand alien invasion flick.
“Alright,” College Girl said, “you’ve got a half hour. One person at a time, the other behind the fence.”
She didn’t wait for a reply before turning on her heel and walking out.
The room looked like a garage someone had given up trying to organize.
A knee-high table stood in the center, stacked with two old TVs and a dented printer.
To the side, a battered crate overflowed with boxes of glass and ceramics.
The left wall was covered with jagged boards, stained and splintered from repeated impact.
“After you,” I said.
Easton didn’t hesitate. He immediately chose the sledgehammer, surprisingly ignoring the bat.
His first swing on a TV landed with a crunch that made me flinch, glass spraying like bullets.
He swung again and again, each hit more forceful than the last. The remnants of the TV scattered across the floor in pieces too small to recognize.
Then he dropped the hammer, picked up the metal bat, and stepped up to the second TV like he was back in the batter’s box.
His stance was automatic, and when he swung, it wasn’t careful.
The TV sailed, landed with a thud against the back wall.
He didn’t even pause. He retrieved it, reset it on the table, and hit it again, harder.
My hand twitched toward my phone. This would’ve made a great video. But something about the way he moved, like he was chasing a goal no one else could see, made me leave it in my pocket. This wasn’t a moment that needed shared.
When he got to the glass, he picked up a mason jar and held it like a baseball.
His stance mirrored that of the thousand games of catch we’d played.
His feet were shoulder-width apart, elbow tucked, wrist loose.
He wound up and let it fly, the jar smashing into the wall with a pop that startled even him.
One by one, he threw every piece at the wall, the sound of glass breaking forming its own rhythm.
I never picked up a thing. I just watched. He didn’t need a partner; he needed a witness.
By the time we peeled off the gear, sweat had soaked through our suits, and dust clung to our arms like chalk. He didn’t look at me right away; instead, he stared at the floor as he undid the clasps on his helmet.
“Sorry about that,” he said finally, voice rough around the edges. “I really needed that today.” Then he looked up. “You always know what I need.”
College Girl joined us before I could respond. She took the gear from our arms without a word and gave a small nod toward the exit, like we were students being dismissed at the final bell.
“Grandma gave me some money for food,” Easton said. “You want a milkshake? Cookies and cream, right?”
My favorite. “Yeah.”
I sat awkwardly on a stool as I waited for him to come back; I probably should have followed him to the concession stand.
“Can we go outside?” Easton said.
The milkshake was cool to the touch as we found sunlight. Nobody was around; the two of us took to the sidewalk. He led the way but didn’t seem to have a destination in mind.
“I saw him today.”
“Your dad?”
He nodded once. “They had him in handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit. The whole thing.”
“That’s crazy,” I said. I wasn’t sure what else to say; my words felt thin and useless the second they left my mouth.
He stopped in front of a quiet house with closed shutters and a lawn too neatly trimmed. A dog barked from somewhere distant enough that I couldn’t tell which house it came from. We stood close enough to touch but didn’t.
“I can’t tell you how much I needed that,” he said. “But I do want to tell you something else.”
I turned slightly, waiting.
“My dad is…not like your parents.” Easton’s jaw tensed. “He spanked me until I was twelve. He gave me my first beer at thirteen. You know about what he did to Mom.”
He paused long enough that I almost spoke.
“He’s also very…” his voice trailed off.
“Very what?” I said. I instinctively reached for his hand. Our fingers met briefly before he slipped his away, slowly this time, like he wasn’t sure if he should.
“He hates gay people,” Easton said finally, his voice steady—too steady—while his fingers tightened at his sleeve. “Like, really hates them. Says they’re all trying to convert straight kids. That they’re broken.”
The words lingered, brittle and ugly.
“I don’t—you know that.” He sped through the words, like they were an apology.
“But the other stuff…" he exhaled. "I need time. Can you…can you give that to me?”
I pulled out my phone and glanced at the screen without processing. He wasn’t avoiding the truth, but he wasn’t exactly saying it, either.
“That will work. For now. But I need you to stop acting like it means nothing. You don’t have to act like things are perfect. We don’t have to tell anyone, it doesn't have to be some big thing. I just need you to stop acting like you regret it after. Like you regret me.”
He didn’t answer right away. We kept walking, slowly, until we reached a stop sign at the end of the street. He turned but not enough to face me fully.
His right hand lifted and gripped his opposite shoulder, fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt like he was trying to ground himself.
“I’m sorry. I didn't mean to,” he said. His voice was rough, filled with more gravel than apology. “I don’t regret anything about you. I just…I’ll try to be better for you.”
A breeze picked up and brushed against us, cool and quiet, tugging at his shirt and kicking dust along the edge of the sidewalk. The milkshake in my hand had gone warm, the cup slick with condensation that dripped in slow, steady lines down my fingers. I didn’t bother wiping it away.
Easton looked up at the sky, like the clouds might explain the mysteries of life. His chest rose then fell, and it wasn’t just air he was letting out—it was everything he hadn’t said, everything he couldn’t quite give words to yet.
I started walking toward the Durango, ready to head home. I heard his steps behind me a few seconds later.
We didn’t speak again. We didn’t need to. His words were a promise we both agreed to carry, at least for now. And as we walked down that cracked stretch of sidewalk with the world going quiet around us, I let it be enough for today.
I still didn’t know what I wanted. I knew I didn’t want to come out. I knew I couldn’t fall for a teammate. But I wanted Easton.
The longer he waited, the longer I could avoid making a decision. It was the best of both worlds, right?