Chapter 36
LACHLAN
I did it. I want to do a little fist pump at my side. Yes. I told Isak my feelings, and I kissed him—a lot more than kissed him—and now he’s mine.
I’m not going to think about how this is going to go over with anyone besides us. Especially not my family. I’ll deal with that later.
So this is what it feels like be honest about who I am. Tears well up behind my eyelids.
When I’m with him, everything feels right, and I feel like I’m who I’m supposed to be. That has to be enough for now.
As we head back to our homes, I hold his hand.
It’s dark, and there aren’t any houses nearby.
Still, I wonder, what do we look like walking next to each other?
We’re the same height, one blond, one dark-haired.
I’m in fitted faded jeans and a long-sleeved white T-shirt under a pale gray hoodie.
He’s in Army green shorts held up with a big black belt and a black T-shirt that’s hanging off his wiry frame.
I can’t stop looking at him. That outfit shouldn’t work.
It should seem like he’s a mess or not trying. Instead, he looks like a fashion model.
The wind whistles past us, and I tug my hoodie up. Then I notice him shivering. Shit. I should’ve taken care of him sooner. “You want this?”
“Nah, I’m fine.”
I take it off and hand it to him. “I’ve got long sleeves.”
Isak cradles my hoodie like it’s a baby. “You sure?”
“Yeah, stay warm. You were sick last week.”
He slides his arms into the fabric, and I try not to stare. Damn. I like the way he looks wearing my clothes.
“This is nice,” Isak says, once he’s zipped it up.
He seems cozier, warmed by the sweatshirt and my body heat.
I smile and reach over and squeeze his bicep.
Then I kiss him, away from any streetlights.
I part my lips, and he delves inside immediately.
God, I fucking love the way he tastes—like my secret dreams.
This kiss feels more mutual than any of our previous ones. No hesitation. No confusion. I’m tugging him to me, chest to chest, hip to hip. My hands are on his belt loops, and his are exploring my back. I love the way he feels next to me—not on his knees before me, but as my equal.
He’s always been my equal.
I get into the kiss more, holding his neck, our mouths getting sloppier. Then something occurs to me, and I tense up.
He notices.
Shit.
“What’s wrong?” Isak asks against my lips. I love that he doesn’t pull away to speak, his words buzzing over my skin, breath puffing into my mouth.
“It’s going to be very difficult to kiss you in act two and not remember tonight,” I tell him. “And get hard.”
Isak gives me a wicked grin, and his hand trails teasingly down my torso. “Oh, is that so? And why would that be a problem?”
The problem is what’s poking him in the belly. “I can’t be pitching a tent onstage. That’d be embarrassing. Not that it’s embarrassing to be turned on by you,” I hurry to add. “But in general, a hard-on isn’t what I want to be showing off.”
Isak shrugs. “Sometimes you can’t help it.
” He starts toying with the front of my jeans, where my erection strains against my zipper.
I want him to relieve the pressure, but not here and not now.
I want to keep the focus on him. Up to tonight, I’ve been taking from him.
It’s my turn to show him what he means to me.
I gently take his hand, slide it higher up on my waist, and kiss him again. “And that’s a problem.”
“Hmm,” he says.
“We should probably get home.”
“’Kay.” He winks. “But you know your room faces mine.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So you can see when I’m around.”
“True.”
“Maybe some night you can come in through the window. It’d be romantic.”
I gasp like I’m scandalized. “I would never. I have no romance in me.”
“You’d flirt with a rock, Lachlan.”
I smile. “If it was cute.”
His face falls.
“That’s a joke!” I say hastily. “Note to self: Only flirt with Isak. No one else. I told you I only flirt with hot people. Which is, basically, only you.”
That puts a satisfied look back on his face. “That works for me. Does it work for you?”
“Yes, it does, sugar tits.”
He stares at me, pulling the hood of my sweatshirt up.
“What?” I say, laughing. “Don’t we need to have flirty nicknames? I was just trying that one on for size.”
“It doesn’t fit,” Isak says flatly.
“I dunno,” I say carefully. “You seem like you might be a sugar tits.”
Isak shakes his head and casts his eyes to the sky. “You try my patience.”
“No, I don’t. You like being around me.”
Silence. So much silence that I’m afraid to catch his gaze. But when I do, he nods. “Yeah, I do. I like being around you. Just not when you call me sugar.”
“Sugar tits,” I correct.
“Yeah, not that, either.”
We continue walking back to our houses. “What about angel babyface?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Sweetums?”
“No.”
“Daddy?”
Isak bursts out laughing. It’s this pure expression of joy that I want to bottle up and keep with me always. “Don’t you fucking dare call me daddy.”
I press my lips together, but I’m sure my eyes are dancing. “I’ll come up with a pet name for you yet.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Or,” I continue, talking over him, “I’ll keep trying our entire life to find the right one.”
“Whatever,” he mutters. But he’s smiling.
“Okay, Prince Snugglepie.”
“Dammit, Lachlan.”
“Puddin’ pop? Muffin? Sweet pea? Bubba? Honeypot? Tater tot? McSwagger? Papa Bear?”
“Fuck off.”
I kiss him.
“Baby,” I whisper.
He doesn’t say anything. But he smiles.
There. That one.
I kiss him on the street before we become visible from our houses, say good night, then stealthily walk up the steps into mine.
I have a boyfriend. The guy I haven’t been able to stop thinking about for months. Longer, even.
I’m finally doing what feels good and right. I’m doing what I want.
Then I step inside and cringe, my entire body locking up. It’s like a cold shower, washing away all the warmth of being with Isak.
Mom is yelling at my uncle. My grandma is screaming at my sister. The baby is crying in the hallway. Even though he’s not really a baby anymore.
I want to turn right around and go sneak through Isak’s window after all. But I’m not going to do that to Quinton. Instead, I pick him up. “Hey, buddy. Want to play?”
His wails subside to sniffles as I walk toward his bedroom. A tear drips down his cheek, and I wipe it away with my thumb.
Inside, I close the door and turn on his night-light. “Cars or dinosaurs?”
“Dinosaurs.”
We get out the toys, and with a mighty roar, his T. rex chomps my stegosaurus. I smile at him and let him do what he wants.
I wish I could just leave and take him with me. But Ivy would fight me for custody and win.
Still, I can’t help but wonder what his life would be like if, for example, he came to live with me and Isak.
I daydream while I set up an elaborate dinosaur space with him. Maybe someday he can stay with me and not be subjected to all this conflict.
“Mommy yells,” he whispers.
My heart breaks. “I know, buddy.”
“You don’t, Unca Laka.”
More screaming from beyond the door. It sounds mindless, pure primal rage. “I don’t like yelling,” I say seriously. “I think we can just talk about the things that bug us. We don’t have to yell.”
“No yell,” he says.
“That’s right, Quinton. You know I love you. And I want to keep you safe.”
He gets a little smile on his face. And I think that’s as good as it’s going to get.
After it finally quiets down, I settle him in his room with soft music playing on headphones. Then I go into my room. I pull out my phone, and before I know what I’m doing, I’m texting Isak.
Me
Hope you didn’t hear any of that crap from my house.
Isak
I did
Are u okay
Me
Yeah.
Isak
It’s okay if u aren’t
U can always sneak over and come stay with me
Me
Tempting.
But not tonight.
In the hush of my room, once everyone has gone to sleep, I read and reread my text exchange with Isak.
U can always sneak over and come stay with me
A lump forms in my throat, making it hard to swallow. Isak’s been there my entire life, and I didn’t even realize it.
I’m a goner for this guy. On the surface, sure, I’m attracted to his style and attitude.
But it’s more than that. Way deeper. He’s my comforting person … who I also want to fuck.
With that thought, my fingers find my neglected dick in my boxer briefs, and I remember kissing Isak tonight. Blowing him for the first time, and what he tasted like. His hot, smooth dick in my hand and my mouth.
When I come, I think of him.
It’s always been him. And despite the shit show of this house, it’s a comfort to know he’s right next door.
I’m downing some cereal and wondering if it’s too early to go bug Isak to go to rehearsal. Maybe I can watch him get dressed or something.
I’m so into him.
Saturdays have come to be my favorite day of the week, because I get to spend hours and hours with Isak at rehearsal.
The rest of the weekend is pretty good, too, since whatever time I have left on Saturday and most of Sunday, I work for Wendolyn.
It’s really only the nights that are bad, and if I’m lucky, I’m too tired to do anything but sleep. I barely even check Countdown anymore.
I glance up as Mom comes into the kitchen. “How are you doing in school?” she asks.
Why do you care? I want to reply.
And doesn’t it suck that I mistrust my mother’s asking such a normal question?
Except it’s not normal for us. When she gets this way, it’s because she wants something or she’s trying to prove to someone else that she’s fine, when she isn’t.
Mom isn’t anywhere near okay. She doesn’t seem to have the capacity to care about anything beyond her own pain—pain I understand, but I still don’t excuse her reaction to it.
Maybe I’m wrong. I haven’t been wrong about her in a long time, but I always hope that I am.
“I’m doing okay, thanks for asking. I’m in the school show.”
She perks up, going over to the coffee maker. “Oh? Which one?”
“It’s called Browser History. It’s a musical. Not your thing.”
“Why do you think that?” She tilts her head to the side and purses her lips. “I’ve watched musicals on TV. They can be fun.”
Well, shit.
Um, Mom, I don’t want you seeing me sing.
I don’t want you seeing me show emotions or kiss a boy I really like.
I don’t want you knowing anything about me that could be used against me in one of our family screaming matches.
Because somehow, in the artifice of being onstage, the real me shines through.
I think that might be the weirdest form of stage alchemy. By playing a role and putting on a costume and makeup and saying lines I didn’t write and would never have thought to say, talking about a world that doesn’t exist, somehow I’m showing my true self.
“You can get tickets,” I say hesitantly. “They’re available online.”
“Well, then I’ll see when Norm can go with me.”
I almost scream. No, Uncle Norm cannot see me falling in love with a boy.
Fictionally. Fictionally falling in love with a boy.
“I really don’t think he’d like watching a musical. It doesn’t seem like it would be his scene.”
She waves a hand. “He likes movies. It’s the same thing.”
No, Mom. It’s not. Being onstage is putting yourself out there.
Props fall, people mess up lines or miss their cues, sometimes the music doesn’t come on when it’s supposed to.
It’s not a well-oiled, edited machine like the movies.
It’s vulnerable, and having Uncle see me vulnerable is the last thing I want.
But I guess it’s a free country, and I can’t keep him away. “Okay. Well, there are going to be six performances in April. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings for two weeks. You can come to whatever one you want.”
“Great,” she says.
My heart starts thudding as something I’ve been wanting to ask her comes to mind.
Fuck it. I’m feeling courageous. “Mom? What happened with you and Isak’s mom?”
For a moment, I think she’s going to yell at me, but she just sighs. “We grew apart.”
“When Denise and Dad died?”
“Yeah.” She squeezes her eyes shut. “Now that some time has passed, I can see how things weren’t easy for her, either.
Henrik, her ex-husband, was fighting to get custody of Isak.
He didn’t really want Isak, he just didn’t want her to have him.
She ended up spending a ton of money on lawyers, and I think it put her in debt for a long time. ”
“And you two stopped being friends?”
She nods. “I was going through a lot.”
I open my mouth. I want to ask if she’d ever go to rehab. If she’d try to stop using the pills and get her life back on track. If she could work to get her license again and maybe a job. But that feels like too risky a subject to bring up. “I know,” I finally murmur.
She smiles at me and reaches out a hand to cup my jaw. “It was hard on you and Ivy. I’m sorry that you had to grow up like that.”
It’s still hard, I want to say. But she’s being civil, so I can do the same. “I’d better get going.”
She nods.
I leave the room, scratching my head. Did I just have a normal conversation with my mother?