23 but what do you want?
By the time I get back to Alyssa’s, I already feel better. As shitty as the situation is—and as much as Coach was pissing me off for reasons I can’t articulate—it’s a relief to not have to deal with the bullshit of the team anymore. Maybe I can actually get my grades up before graduation.
I pull into the apartment complex and park in the assigned space when I notice a very familiar powder blue ‘86 Ford F-150 sitting in visitor parking. Dad helped Atlas restore that thing during high school, and it is his pride and fucking joy. I’d be able to spot it from miles away.
It only takes a second to turn off the engine and get out, and as soon as I stand up, I see Atlas leaning against the hood, smoking a cigarette.
“I thought firefighters weren’t supposed to smoke?”
He turns, like he didn’t even notice me come in, and then smiles around the cigarette dangling from his lips. He takes a drag and blows the smoke out slowly, before making a big show of rubbing his hands from the cold.
“I’m quitting, I swear. What they don’t know won’t hurt ‘em. You kept me waiting so long I got cold, bro. I didn’t expect weather to be so much worse, only two hours north of Ashfall.”
“Yeah, well, we’re in the middle of a bunch of farmland. No hills to block the wind. You could also try wearing pants, considering it’s November. Doesn’t the Army teach you to be prepared?”
“That’s the Boy Scouts,” he points at me with the cig, smiling a little before his expression drops and he stares into the distance.
I still don’t know the story there, but it’s obvious that he’s nursing a wound or two from getting kicked out. I can’t push, though. Atlas has always tried to put on a sunny disposition for everyone, and I know he’ll clam up if I ask.
“You also could have texted me, and I’d have told you I was out. I had a meeting with my coach.”
“Yeah, I heard,” he gets serious. “How’d it go?”
I shove my own hands in my hoody pocket because it really is cold today. “Let’s get inside,” I answer, tossing my head toward the apartment.
He puts out his cigarette, throws the butt in one of those little dog poop trash cans when I remind him, and then trails inside after me.
“No Alyssa?” he asks, looking around.
“She has a date,” I tell him as I grab two waters from the fridge and hand him one.
He nods, like he wasn’t expecting that answer.
“Good for her. You should be doing more of that.”
Irritation prickles through me.
“If you came here to set me up again, I’m not in the mood. I got bigger shit to deal with right now than your sudden interest in my love life.”
He holds up his hands in surrender and takes a seat at the kitchen counter, fidgeting with the water bottle label and tapping his stupid slide against the tile in a constant rhythm.
I hadn’t realized how quiet my life had gotten when he left, but now that his constant rustling, restless noises are back, I realize I missed them.
Out of habit, I turn on the TV and find a replay of yesterday’s college football game. If I can’t have my own successful athletic career, I might as well watch other people live out theirs.
“So?” Atlas prompts when I don’t say anything.
“It’s fine. I went to see Coach, and he decided that the easiest thing for everyone is for me to go on IR for the entire year. They’ll say I’m sick, or something, so I’m still officially listed as being on the team, but they don’t want me to come to practice or games or live at the dorms.
It’s all very hush hush, obviously. ‘For my own good’,” I finish with a snort.
“Okaaaay,” Atlas says. “Why do you look so pissed, then? Didn’t you secretly hate baseball? And I know you’ve hated having to sneak around with all the blockers and shit. Who wouldn’t?”
I shrug. “Yeah, I know. It’s probably the best outcome. Something about it just fucking rubs me the wrong way, though.”
“Because you don’t like being told what to do, that’s why.”
“What the fuck? You’re thinking of yourself. I’m the obedient one, remember.”
“Hey, I can follow orders with the best of them.”
“Liedaboutsmokingtothefiredepartment,” I cough into my hand, but he ignores me.
“You do what you’re told because you don’t think you have a choice. That doesn’t stop you from hating every minute of it. Why do you think you’re so miserable all the time?”
That same burning, crawling irritation returns, and I stand up from my stool to get in Atlas’s face.
“What the fuck? Is this psychoanalyze-Tanner day, and no one told me? I’m so fucking sick of everyone acting like they know who I am and what I need before I do. Despite what everybody thinks, I do have a goddamn brain.”
Atlas is completely unruffled by my outburst, like always, and takes another swig of his water.
“Maybe that’s why you don’t like the decision Coach made. It seems nice, on the face of it, but it’s still someone else deciding what’s good for you, without asking what you want. To ‘protect you’.” He air quotes. “It’s kind of condescending, when you think about it. I’d probably be pissed, too.”
The fight seeps out of me quickly because I’ve never had a very long-lasting temper. I take my seat again and nod at my brother.
“Alyssa calls it ‘systemic paternalism’.”
He nods sagely, but I know he doesn’t know what that means. I’m only kind of wrapping my head around it.
“It’s the idea that everybody in power thinks they know what’s best for you, especially if you’re an omega. All anybody talks about is how fucking worried they are about me. My health, my safety, blah blah blah. Coach, all the fucking doctors… Dad.
I don’t think a single fucking one of them ever asked me what I wanted. They think they just know.”
Atlas is staring at me, and it’s making the familiar embarrassment of opening up creep back in.
He doesn’t speak for long enough that I start to panic I’ve offended him or something, but just before I’m about to apologize, he opens his mouth.
“So, what do you want?”
I freeze, and then burst out laughing so short and sharp that it makes his widen.
“Honestly? I have no fucking idea.”
Lie. Lie. Lielielielie.
I want Gray.
The thought gets pushed aside, like always.
“I don’t want to deal with the team anymore, that’s true. And I really don’t want to deal with Dad, but I feel like I should.”
Atlas pauses again, and I can tell he’s choosing his words carefully.
“Do you wanna go home for Thanksgiving?”
It’s in one week, and I’ve been avoiding talking to him about it.
“No. Fuck that,” I tell him. “I really need to study for end-of-semester exams, and if he’s going to have a meltdown and lock me in the basement or something, I’d rather deal with that over winter break. It’s fine. He has Karl and Sarah and the kids and Jax to keep him company.
And I think Gray’s going over for the day to keep an eye on him.”
The words are out before I realize what’s happening, and I wish I could pluck them from the air and shove them right back in my fat fucking mouth.
Atlas tilts his head to the side.
“Gray?”
“Uh, yeah. He’s Dad’s friend. Remember the one from the Army that?—”
“Oh shit! The guy that saved his life, right?” he interrupts.
“Yeah.” I’m trying so fucking hard to look nonchalant, and something about it is making me wonder if this is my first day as a human, and if I’ve always held my hands like this.
“He retired and came home. Came to the BBQ on the Fourth. He lives alone in his parents’ old house, and Dad’s making a big deal about keeping him company, and all that shit.”
Atlas snorts. “Sounds like they’re made for each other.”
“He has fucking stars in his eyes whenever he talks about him. The hero worship is off the charts. You’ll see at Christmas.” I laugh a little because it really is funny to watch Dad interact with his ‘friend’.
If he knew what that friend had been doing to me, he’d probably have a stroke.
Honestly, he’d probably be even more pissed about the fact that Gray’s nice to me than all the fucking. Which is pretty twisted, now that I think about it.
“If I come home for Christmas,” Atlas says, dragging my attention back to the present and off the mental image of Gray I was holding onto.
“No. You have to come. I’m not going alone. You can tell him it turns out you have flat feet, or something. Or that the world ran out of oil so there’s nothing to fight about anymore, and the Army disbanded. I don’t give a shit. You’re coming with me. He’ll be stoked about the fire academy thing,
anyway. It’ll be fine. I promise, I’m going to be the center of his attention for once in my life.”
Atlas is smiling a little, but his face falls, and he turns to look at me with a too-serious expression on his face.
“I’m not going to let him hurt you. Got it? No more fucked-up black-market pills. No visits to doctor what’s-his-fuck. Just get in, eat some turkey, kiss some nieces and nephews, and get the fuck out.”
“Yeah.” I stare at my phone, wondering when I pulled it out of my pocket and why I didn’t notice. “He’s always so fucked up about Mom being gone at Christmas anyway. Maybe he won’t even notice either of us is there.”
“Yeah,” Atlas parrots, focused on his water bottle.
We sit in silence for a while, both of us probably turning over the same worries in our minds.
After a little mental back-and-forth, I decide to text Gray to remind him he’s invited to Christmas dinner.
Not Thanksgiving?
that too, but I wont be there
xmas though
ill be there
I hesitate, then text again
youre coming right?
I wouldn’t miss it, sweetness. I’ll see you there.
The stupid, fluttery sensation that sends through me is fucking ridiculous, but also impossible to ignore. It’s been literal months since I’ve seen Gray in person. Sometimes, when I’m thinking about him at night, I can almost imagine his scent is still lingering on my skin.
But it’s nothing compared to the real thing. It’s even going to be worth having to deal with Dad just to be able to see him.
It feels like so much has changed since we met, and I need to see how that translates into real life before I let myself really think about what I want.
That inscrutable fucking question.
What do I actually want?
I’m so deep in my head, it takes me a minute to realize Atlas is staring at me, smiling, probably because I’m staring at my phone and smiling as well.
“Who ya texting?” he asks me in a sing-song voice.
“No one.”
“Mmhmm.”
He doesn’t say anything else, but the smirk he’s wearing as he finishes his water says enough.
“Fuck you,” I mutter, before he bursts out laughing.