Chapter 15
Dawson
My mouth went dry and I felt uncomfortable pressure behind my own shorts, so I adjusted myself covertly and hopped behind the wheel.
Within seconds of us setting off, Theo propped his legs up on the dashboard and started flipping through radio channels.
Flashbacks of autumn drives and heated nights in the backseat ran through my head.
I needed to get it together or I was going to crash the damn truck.
“So who all will be there?” Theo asked, disrupting my train of thought. Thank fuck.
“Pretty much everyone you met at my party,” I said dismissively. “Maybe a few others, but I don’t really know. This is Kenji’s deal. We were all just invited along for the ride.”
Theo nodded, but his knee bounced rapidly and his hands tapped out an erratic rhythm on the side of his thigh.
“You don’t have to be nervous. My friends are chill and they’ll like you once they get to know you,” I tried to reassure him. Theo’s eyes looked aimlessly out the window and I saw the slight tick in his jaw before he shot me a cocky grin.
“What’s there not to like?”
He cranked up the music a bit more, drowning out my chance to respond, but I had nothing to say.
The words were said confidently, but sounded hollow.
I let the silence between us linger until we parked at the lake and got out to walk down to the boat slip.
I turned to check in with him before we boarded, but was pounced on from behind, nearly losing my footing on the dock.
“What’s up, brother! You ready to get your lake on?” Nate’s energetic shout rang in my ears as he clung to my back like a chimpanzee. I dropped him unceremoniously, but he just landed gracefully on his feet. Asshole.
“Hitting the sauce already, Nate?” I ribbed.
“I’ll have you know I’m as sober as a judge, Sir Rudeness. This is all God-given enthusiasm right here,” he grinned. “Hey, look at you bringing a date! Theo, right?”
I almost choked on my spit and saw Theo visibly blanch.
His posture was rigid and he was regarding Nate with a mix of wariness and anger.
I couldn’t understand where the latter was coming from.
Nate definitely gave off unhinged squirrel energy, but he was harmless.
But seeing it from Theo’s perspective, Nate was the best friend who had replaced him.
My stomach curdled at the idea that Theo imagined he could ever be replaced.
Nate gave Theo a wide, genuine smile and held out his hand patiently. Theo finally shook it and gave a tight smile in return. “Nice to see you again.”
I nudged Nate to help me with the large cooler I’d brought, Theo tagging along behind us.
The party boat was huge, a double decker monstrosity with a water slide attached at one end and a long floating mat at the other.
It was already filled with at least twenty five people, half of whom I’d never seen before.
Kenji made his way to us and showed us where to drop our stuff. “Glad you guys could make it. Great timing too, we’re about to head out.”
We followed him onto the boat, and I quickly spotted Micah, Rhys, Fin, and Aly situated on one of the bench seats at the far end. They stood to hug me and Nate before turning their attention to Theo.
“Guys, you remember my friend Theo?” My emphasis on the word friend was a signal that this was a fresh start for us all, and I saw their faces light with understanding.
“So glad you could make it!” Aly beamed, wrapping him in a huge hug while the others smiled and welcomed him. To my relief, Theo seemed to visibly relax at their warm greeting.
“Where are your men at by the way? Tossed them overboard already?” I teased once we’d sat down and the boat started to move.
“Captain Cal-drenaline decided to rent two jet skis to take out because the boat wasn’t enough,” Rhys explained with a dramatic eye roll. “So he and Bash took off a couple minutes ago to ‘test them out’, as they put it.”
Like clockwork, a buzz of engines and joyous shrieks zoomed by us, waves rippling in their wake.
I could just make out Bash and Cal’s manic laughter as they raced away from us.
By the time we reached the middle of the lake, they slowly maneuvered the jet skis to the edge of the boat and Kenji threw them each a tow rope.
“Fuck man, that’s the way to spend a day on the water!” Bash said happily as he climbed aboard.
“I wouldn’t know because my boyfriend ditched me before we even left the dock,” Micah jokingly griped. Bash snatched him around the waist and hauled him in for an obnoxiously sweet kiss that Micah melted under.
“Aw, don’t worry, baby. I’ll take you for a ride later.”
“We don’t need to hear the details of your bedroom exploits, Dupont. There’s not enough booze for that,” Cal smirked as he wrapped an arm around Rhys. He shook out his drenched curls like a dog drying off, all of us protesting as we got hit with the spray.
“You jealous, handsome?” Bash winked.
Their playful bickering continued as we were immersed in Kenji’s guests.
I recognized a bunch of them from school, but most were from the lacrosse team.
Of course, a good half of the crowd were girls in bikinis, so Nate was in heaven.
I was amused watching Micah cling to Bash and shoot the evil eye at a couple of girls who attempted to flirt with him, but Nate was quick to swoop in for their attention.
“Your friends seem pretty awesome.”
I startled at Theo’s voice right behind me. He held out a beer bottle to me as he took a slow pull from the other one in his hand. There was a wistful look in his eyes that made me curious what he was thinking.
“Yeah, they’re the best. Do you have any friends back in Huntsville that you still talk to?”
“Not really.”
His tone said that was all to the conversation he was going to share. I couldn’t help wondering what had happened over there. We never really got into the reason he came home, but I could guess it wasn’t his idea. The thought made me inexplicably sad.
“Well, now that I’ve brought you around, these guys will suction to you like a squid. There’ll be no getting rid of them,” I joked awkwardly. Theo whispered something under his breath that I couldn’t quite make out, but he plastered on that fake, bright smile before I could ask about it.
“Thanks for bringing me out by the way. Jet skis, drinks, and new squid-friends all in one day. Hell of a first date, Hayes,” he grinned cheekily, but his words threw me off kilter.
“Oh—well, you know, this isn’t…” I stammered, feeling my cheeks heat. Theo’s gaze dimmed and his smile slipped the slightest bit.
“Yeah, I know. Just friends,” he said dully. He drained his drink and pursed his lips. “I think I’m gonna go…mingle or whatever. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky and find myself an actual date.”
My stomach sloshed as I watched him walk away.
Then it threatened to revolt as I watched him easily jump into conversation with a couple of the guys I recognized from the lacrosse team.
I needed to get my shit together if this was going to work.
I wasn’t going to lie to myself anymore and say that I didn’t still want Theo, but that ship hadn’t just sailed, it had crashed into an iceberg.
Cancel the mayday. Call off the search. There are no survivors.
I shook off the shitty feelings and beelined for Aly and Fin on the other side of the deck. They were both whispering harshly back and forth, their voices growing as I got closer to them.
“—don’t deserve that shit. And you keep going back to him for some godforsaken reason!”
“For fucks sake, I’m not just gonna throw away almost five years. We’re working on it and he’s promised me…”
“Oh my god, that piece of shit has already broken a hundred promises to you, Fin. I don’t know why you brought him with you when all he’s done is—”
“Just stop! I don’t want to talk about this anymore!”
“But he’s—”
“Hey guys, everything okay?” I interjected quickly, noticing tears forming in Fin’s angry teal eyes.
Aly shot Fin a plaintive look as he stormed off, sidling up next to a tall guy who easily could have passed for a linebacker.
He was chatting up a girl by the drinks cooler while Fin meekly tried to get his attention, and that alone had my guard up.
I was pretty sure Fin ran on nothing but pure sass and confidence.
I had never known him to be as submissive and subdued as he looked now.
“He never listens to anyone about that douchebag,” Aly muttered softly.
“Is that the boyfriend Fin got back together with a couple months ago?”
“In the cheating, narcissistic flesh. Dan is the drug Fin can’t ever seem to kick. I don’t get why he keeps going back to him.”
“Maybe he really loves him?”
“He only thinks he does. But it stopped being about that a long time ago. Fin just can’t ever seem to say no to him.” Aly’s face pinched with concern and my thoughts darkened.
“He’s never hurt Fin, has he?”
“Not physically that I know of…but you know there’s more than one way to break a person.”
I looked on worriedly as Dan finally allowed himself to be dragged away, snapping something at Fin as he did. The wince on Fin’s face told me enough about what was probably said. “You’ll let me know if I need to step in, yeah?”
“You’ll have to beat Griffin to it. You see his face?”
I searched for Griff in the crowd and sure enough, his face was a mottled red and the grip on his beer bottle was noticeably tight.
He was glowering at Fin and Dan who were now huddled in the corner with Fin smiling tightly and trying to not draw anyone’s focus over to them even as he was being berated by that drunk asshole.
“I’ll keep an eye on them today, but there’s nothing we can really do until Fin is ready to listen,” Aly said defeatedly. “Anyway, how is it going between you and Theo?”
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “It’s like one step forward, two steps back with us. But we finally talked and agreed to leave the past in the past and move on as friends.”
Aly pinned her bottom lip between her teeth, assessing me carefully. “And is that really what you want? To only be his friend?”
“That’s all we can be.”
“Why?”
“There’s something so…different about him. It’s like he’s my old Theo one second and then this switch flips. I can’t shake the feeling that he’s hiding something from me. And until he tells me, I can’t trust him enough to be anything else.”
“I’m sorry, babe. I really am,” she said, squeezing my arm sympathetically. “Do you still love him?”
My throat clenched around the words, forcing them down. I couldn’t admit it. Not now, not here. Something told me she already knew the answer anyway. Aly hugged my arm and rested her head on my shoulder.
“Life is seriously twisted sometimes. Especially since the ones we love most have the power to hurt us the worst.”
I grunted in agreement. I knew that better than most. It was a painful lesson I was reminded of when I glanced over at Theo, his perfect smile aimed at a guy I didn’t recognize.
He was gorgeous, with shoulder length dreads and teeth blindingly white against his dark skin.
They looked really good together too. A beautiful contrast that twisted my insides torturously.
The guy laughed at something Theo said, knocking his shoulder in a way that seemed flirty but maybe only appeared that way through my jealous eyes. I tried to look away, but it was like rubbernecking on the highway when passing a car crash.
Our gazes collided and it punched the air from my lungs. Theo’s smile seemed stale as though he’d been holding it in place too long, his lips slowly sinking from the weight of it. His eyes glazed over the tiniest bit and I saw it.
Exhaustion.
Emptiness.
Hopelessness.
I craved to go to him, hug him to me and demand he tell me what put that look in his eyes. What was he hiding that he couldn’t trust me with? As he emptied his drink and reached for another one from a cooler, the thought struck me. Was it that obvious and I just missed it?
The drinking, the drugs at my party, the overdose in high school that came out of nowhere?
His erratic behavior and mercurial mood made sense now.
I could even trace moments back in high school, like pins on a timeline where Theo had started to change.
Staying up later each night, not sleeping as much, his grades slipping from A’s to C’s, becoming more temperamental and irritable between weird bouts of happiness and energy.
Everyone assumed it was his ADHD, but medication had never seemed to help and it just got worse the older he got.
Fucking fuck, how had I missed that? Was this all stemming from an addiction? How is it possible that I hadn’t noticed how much he was struggling back then? He was my best friend, my boyfriend, my fucking everything. Why hadn’t I seen?
The realization sank in like a weight on my lungs. The answer was simple. He hadn’t wanted me to.
Or maybe it was because I hadn’t wanted to see it.