7. That’s What You Get
That's What You Get
When James said his house was secluded, Dustin wasn’t aware that he was making a submission into the “Understatement of the Millennium” competition.
The house was so far up Berry Mountain that Bailey had to MapQuest directions just to make sure they didn’t end up turning down some dead-end road and getting eaten by mountain zombies or something.
Usually Chris would’ve insisted on driving, but he absolutely hated driving on the narrow mountain roads, so he let Dustin take the wheel for once… much to Bailey’s satisfaction since he didn’t need to fear for her life this time.
When they finally rounded the corner to James’s house, Dustin’s jaw dropped, and he almost forgot to hit the brake.
He wasn’t sure what he expected the Zhang household to look like, but it certainly wasn’t an old manor house; two stories and made from beautiful white brick, with moss growing up the sides in a way that looked almost manicured.
Even from the front yard, a large greenhouse was visible, peeking out from behind the main house like a secret waiting to be revealed.
“Oh shit… this isn’t just a house. This is the Zhang Estate!
” Bailey leaned forward from the backseat and looked from Dustin to Chris expectantly.
Her expression melted like runny mascara when she realized they had no idea what she was talking about, “built in the 1800s by Bartholomew Zhang? The first Chinese American millionaire who helped found Pacific Cove? Jesus, do you boys even pay attention in history class?”
“Not really,” Chris replied with a shrug… but then his eyes lit up with a realization, “wait… does this mean James is rich? Dustin, bro, do not fumble this! If you stick it out, we’re set for fucking ever!”
“We’re not even dating!” Dustin replied, exasperated as he parked the car in the long driveway, behind a pristine pink Mercedes that likely belonged to Chloe.
“Not yet, but don’t count yourself out! You’re hot, we share the same face remember? And he’s also clearly fucking whipped for you. Just let me know if you need some tips from a true guru,”
“You don’t want him to fumble the opportunity, but you’re gonna give him advice? There are TRL episodes longer than any relationship you’ve ever had… besides the one with Chloe, but if I remember correctly, you ‘fumbled’ that one, yeah?” Bailey snickered.
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m so close to getting her back I can basically taste it,”
“Whatever ‘guru’. Come on, let’s head inside,” Dustin said.
The moment the trio hopped out of the car, James skipped through the front door with a wide grin plastered on his face.
He was just wearing a black tank top and loose-fitting gym shorts, but in Dustin’s eyes he may as well have been on a runway.
The sheer amount of silky skin on display (in conjunction with the colorful flower and butterfly tattoos dotted along his upper left arm) was enough to send him spiraling, but he desperately had to keep it together.
“You guys made it!” James pulled Dustin into a tight hug, “I ordered pizzas if that’s cool with everyone! Figured I’d keep it classic,”
Dustin knew he’d technically heard everything James said… but the physical contact and the sweet musk of his cologne made it impossible for him to actually process any of it.
“Y-yeah, pizza… that’s totally cool,” Dustin stammered, the ghost of James’s touch still clinging to him after the hug was over.
He followed James into the house, and was immediately floored by the grandeur of it; the foyer had pristine white marble floors, a fancy spiral staircase leading to the second story, and a beautiful chandelier hovering over them.
All the place was missing was a butler and a maid…
which to be fair, Dustin couldn’t prove James didn’t have.
“We can get to the backyard through the kitchen,” James said, waving for Dustin and the others to keep following him, “Chloe’s already waiting for us,”
They continued through the house, and Dustin had to stop himself from drooling over every detail of the Food Network ass kitchen as they passed through.
Soon enough, they were standing in the insanely spacious backyard that stretched all the way from the house at least half a mile to the tree line in the distance.
Chloe was over by the pool, clad in a hot pink velour tracksuit with her eyes squeezed shut.
Her hands were cupped in front of her, with her sleeves riding up just enough for Dustin to see her veins glowing like starlit spiderwebs along her forearms. Her fingers twitched as her car keys hovered above them like they were on puppet strings; it looked badass, but it certainly wasn’t effortless.
“Ah damn, looks like the fun’s started without us,” Chris grumbled.
As soon as Chris spoke, Chloe’s concentration shattered, and the keys dropped like a stone, bouncing once before falling into the pool with a splash.
“God damn it, I was doing it!” Chloe groaned, shooting a glare at Chris, “someone’s gonna fish my keys out of the pool. I’m not about to get my hair wet because you made me fuck up,”
“No worries, I’ll get ‘em,” Chris quickly shrugged off his jean jacket and started pulling off his shirt, but James stopped him.
“Hang on, this is a perfect chance for Dustin to practice!” James took Dustin by the hand and pulled him closer to the pool’s edge, “do you think you can like, make a bubble or something and float the keys to the top?”
“I um, I mean I probably could,” Dustin replied, trying to fight the trembling in his voice that was summoned both from James’s touch and the sudden spotlight, “it’s worth a shot,”
“You’re cockblocking me bro,” Chris leaned in close and whispered in Dustin’s ear, though it sounded more like a growl. Dustin rolled his eyes so hard they almost pulled a Star Fox 64 and barrel rolled out of his skull.
“Well, your cock clearly can’t read the room. You’ve been throwing straight air balls. She’s not into you,”
“He’s right, I’m not,” Chloe said with a smirk as she crossed her arms, “I thought that was perfectly clear when we broke up,”
Chris’s face went ghostly pale before reddening into a tomato almost faster than Dustin could track.
His mouth kept opening and closing like it was trying to form a coherent sentence, but nothing came out.
As he slinked off to stand next to Bailey by the back door of the house, Dustin almost felt bad for him; it was like watching Icarus fly too close to the sun and plummet into the ocean.
Though… he couldn’t deny that it felt kinda nice to see Chris get the wind knocked out of his sails for once. Only kinda though.
Now that the distractions had ceased, Dustin focused on the pool.
He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, trying to extend his awareness out of his own body.
The goal was to see if he could sense the water in the pool the way he could with the shower…
and it was actually working. The pure volume of pool water was overwhelming; it felt like ice was being pumped through his veins as he tried to focus on the few parts of the pool that felt out of place; too solid, too rigid, too foreign.
He felt like he was mentally diving into a trench, fumbling around in the dark trying to find a set of car keys in the ocean… but then something clicked.
Water wasn’t just water. It was an extension of him, right? Which meant, theoretically…
He concentrated harder, thinking of the pool less as an obstacle to overcome and more as a muscle he hadn’t flexed in a while.
After a few moments, he could see through the water like he was swimming, though he knew that his physical body was still outside of the pool.
It was as if his consciousness had been projected into the water.
He could see the keys clearly at the bottom, and all it took was a thought to encase them in a small sphere of water and pull them to the surface like they were on a fishing line.
“Oh my god Dusty, you’re a natural at this!” Bailey gasped as the group watched the keys emerge.
“I… actually pulled it off,” he said, grabbing Chloe’s keys and tossing them to her.
“I knew you could do it!” James pulled Dustin into another hug, “that was so fucking sick man,”
“T-thanks,” Dustin replied sheepishly, “I’m glad you had faith in me, because I definitely didn’t have it in myself,”
“You used to,” James looked deeper into Dustin’s eyes, his expression somewhat somber, “when you used to be on stage, I mean. I’ve never seen someone walk into a room with the full knowledge that they were about to fucking own it before. It was electric,”
Dustin’s heart hiccupped; he had no idea how much he needed to hear that.
How badly he needed someone to remember the version of himself that existed before he buried it under college aspirations and quick-dry swim gear.
He wanted to say something, anything, to let James know how much it meant to him, but of course Chris interjected before he could think of the words.
“Alright, alright, we’re burning daylight,” he said, stretching his arms up over his head, “let’s see what the rest of us can do before…”
His sentence was abruptly cut off by a fat raindrop striking him right in the forehead.
Another fell, and then another, until a fucking torrential downpour was coming down on them.
Chloe and Bailey darted for the house without a second thought, with the twins hot on their heels.
James took a beat longer; staring up at the sky in abject confusion for a few moments before jogging back inside, now thoroughly soaked from head to toe.
“What the fuck? It wasn’t supposed to rain today! My mom watches the weather channel so much I can recite the forecast from memory. We’re supposed to be clear all week,” Bailey said, furiously pulling paper towels off the rack and passing them to Chloe so they could blot themselves dry.
“You don’t think you caused it, do you Dustin?” Chloe asked, raising her eyebrow with a mixture of suspicion and concern, “we don’t really know what all we’re capable of just yet,”
“I don’t think so,” Dustin shook his head, “I can like, feel it in my bones when my powers activate and I had no clue the rain was coming,”
“Well, we’re stuck inside until it blows over regardless,” Chris huffed, “so what should we do?”
James’s face lit up, water still dripping from his chin.
“You guys smoke?”
“Fuck yes,” Chloe immediately answered; so quickly that it made Dustin giggle, “I was hoping you’d pose the question so I wouldn’t have to ask,”
“You got a stash here somewhere?” Chris wondered aloud, “I would think this place was too fancy for such behavior,”
“Please, that greenhouse out back definitely isn’t just for gardening,” James grinned wickedly, “my parents don’t think I know what them and their camping buddies get up to, but I’m more observant than I look. Sneakier too; I pinch off just enough of their supply to stay stocked up,”
It was officially official… James Zhang could not possibly get any hotter.
“You guys can make yourselves at home in the living room, I’ll run upstairs and change and grab my stash… Dustin, you wanna come with me?”
Dustin Ying was a lot of things; unintentionally condescending, bad at math, and incapable of making it through Titanic without bawling… but he wasn’t too dense to catch a hint that strong.
“Y-yeah, of course,” was all he could muster in response. James beamed and waved for Dustin to follow him into the foyer. As he went, Chris gave him two thumbs up, Bailey mouthed for him to put on ChapStick, and Chloe just grinned knowingly.
James’s room wasn’t quite what Dustin expected.
He was thinking unfolded laundry and overflowing ashtrays, not a haven of houseplants and calming incense with pristine white bedding and perfectly fluffed pillows.
There were at least fifteen different pots, overflowing with greenery; snake plants, spider plants, lilies…
the list could probably go on for miles.
Not only that, but there was a bag of fancy nutrients tucked away in the corner, which meant that James clearly took this very seriously.
“Wow… this is gorgeous,” Dustin said, drinking it all in.
“Glad you think so. It would’ve been super embarrassing if you hated it,” James chuckled, “you know, I’ve never had someone as beautiful as you in my room before,”
That was the moment when Dustin found out it was in fact possible to choke on air.
“Me?! You think I’m beautiful?”
“You’re kidding right? You’re fucking gorgeous dude,” James stepped a bit closer, “I thought I preferred your hair shorter, like it was when you were in the band. But I honestly really dig the longer look. Frames your face really well,”
James was close enough now for Dustin to literally feel his body heat.
“I… I don’t even know what to say,”
“How about, ‘thanks’?”
Dustin giggled.
“Y-yeah, right. Duh. Thanks James, really,”
“You’re welcome,” James’s gaze flicked to Dustin’s lips, before meeting his eyes again, “you’re so damn pretty when you smile,”
That was Dustin’s final straw. He leaned down, tilted James’s chin up just a touch… and slammed their lips together in a heated kiss.
It felt like the planets realigned in that moment. Like an ice age had finally thawed. Like the first warm spring day after a brutal winter. Finally he was able to want, openly, and let himself be wanted in return.
Their lips clashed and their hands roamed each other’s bodies, and before Dustin realized what he was doing, he was pulling James’s tank top up and over his head, before diving back in and hungrily kissing his neck.
“W-woah, hang on… fuck,” James halfheartedly protested, his eyes rolling back as Dustin eagerly sucked purple hickeys into his skin. He reached down, gripping onto Dustin’s plump ass like a lifeline… and that was when his veins started glowing a bright, electric green.
The plants all around the room started to rattle in their pots as they suddenly grew to twice their size; leaves and vines spilling over onto the floor, growing up the walls, and stretching to the ceiling.
Startled, Dustin detached himself from James’s skin, coming back to reality like a deer caught in headlights.
“What the hell? Did your powers do that?”
“I think so,” James replied, clearly still mesmerized, “sorry, t-that’s never really happened to me before,”
Dustin wasn’t sure if he was talking about the plant eruption, or the fucking massive tent in his gym shorts…
But either way, something was definitely growing between them. And for the first time, Dustin was determined to let himself enjoy it.