13. Jonah
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
jonah
I probably shouldn’t be as happy about Friday as I am.
I mean, I wanted to kiss him, and it didn’t happen. I didn’t want to be pushy about it. I didn’t want him to feel like he had to do it. I wanted it to be his idea. I wanted him to take what he wanted.
But then, as fate would have it, little Ruby woke up, and the moment was kind of over after that. After reading her two stories, she fell asleep, but it was almost thirty minutes later when I got back to the living room.
We just watched a little more Schitt’s Creek before playing Fortnite and crashing on the couch. He didn’t stay for breakfast the next morning, no matter how hard Jenna tried to get him to.
But he didn’t seem upset either. I thought about him all weekend with a goofy-ass smile on my face, and I can’t wait to see him when I walk down the halls of the school toward my locker. I spot him right away, but unfortunately, he isn’t alone.
I hear Adler’s big booming stupid voice.
“Did you have a good weekend, Duke? Kiss anyone special?” All my hackles raise, and I’m stomping my way over to them when Calvin slams his locker door shut, glares at Adler, and for a second, I think Adler might actually piss himself—but then Calvin just calmly walks away.
I want to see Calvin stand up for himself, but I also know instinctively that even beating the shit out of bullies like Adler and Shields won’t stop them, and words definitely won’t stop them either.
It just feeds them.
His way is probably better, but I still like my way. I’m on my way over to Adler when Billy sidles up to me. “Hey, Jonah. How was your weekend?”
I smile earnestly at Billy because I like the guy, but when I look over at where Adler was standing a second ago, I’m disappointed to see he’s gone. Oh well. I turn back to him. “It was good. What about yours? Go to the party?”
“Yeah,” he says with a shy smile. “But I didn’t stay long. I don’t really drink.”
“That’s cool, man,” I say because peer pressure is bullshit.
But I do wonder about something—I mean he seems like a nice guy, and I’ve never once heard him give Calvin a hard time .
. . “Do you know why they give him so much shit?” I ask, and I know it’s random, but I also know he knows exactly what I’m asking him right now and who I’m asking it about.
He looks casually over his shoulder to where Adler and Calvin were and then back at me. “I don’t really know what happened last year. I was only a freshman.”
“But you do know. It’s Big Bend,” I say, pushing just a little. Even if he was just a freshman last year, I know he heard rumors.
He shifts, adjusting his backpack on his shoulder, his eyes glancing around the crowded hallway and then scoots a little closer to me. “I don’t. I’ve heard all kinds of rumors, but I didn’t go to parties last year at all. So I missed whatever happened.”
“So it was at a party?”
“I don’t know.” He looks nervous, and I kind of hate myself for pushing, but I need to know.
“I heard a lot of things, man.” He looks around again, and then his eyes settle on me.
“I mean crazy things like orgies and him fucking a guy in front of people at a party. Someone said they saw him sucking dick in the locker room. But I don’t think any of it’s true. ”
I don’t either.
There’s no way any of that is true. I could feel his eyes on my lips. I know he wanted to kiss me, but it was with an innocent hesitance. And yeah, I’m sure something did happen. But with a guy this deep in the closet?
No way he was that reckless. Unless something really, really bad happened to him after.
This is killing me.
Not that anything that happened really matters.
The way they treat him is not okay. Not at all.
Not ever. And it doesn’t escape me that nearly all the things mentioned by Billy involve Calvin and another guy.
Which, with the rules of gossip applying, it’s probably safe to say whatever happened did involve another guy. Especially with the dumbasses’ taunts.
“Thanks, Billy,” I say honestly and pat his shoulder.
“Sorry I couldn’t be more help. Maybe you should just ask him.” I pin him with a look, and he laughs. “Duke’s a good guy. I don’t know how I know because he doesn’t really talk, but I just know it.”
I smile. “Yeah. I know, but I don’t think he’d tell me if I asked. I don’t think he wants to talk about it at all.”
His expression is grim and tells me he agrees. We head to our classes, and I spend most of the day thinking about Calvin and all the things I’m dying to know about him. I promised myself I’d take it slow with him.
That I wouldn’t push.
But it’s like he’s trapped. Trapped in this hellish existence where he has no voice, and it’s killing me because he deserves to be heard. He deserves to stand up for himself. He deserves to go to school and practice without being endlessly tormented because of something that happened.
Something he won’t or can’t talk about. I’m dying to set him free from it.
So after practice when we walk out to our trucks, I nudge his shoulder carefully. “My house?” I don’t want to sound desperate, but I know I do and can barely bring myself to care.
He stops walking and turns to me. My heart rate speeds up because I just know he’s about to push me away. And the desperation is clawing at my insides now. I want to beg him to give this a chance—whatever this is—but I keep my mouth closed and wait. “I was thinking we could go somewhere else . . .”
Somewhere else? But he said we . . .
“Follow me?” He sounds so uncertain, as if I’d say no. That’s not going to happen.
“Okay,” I agree, keeping my voice down because the way he’s looking around the parking lot tells me he’s paranoid about anyone watching. I don’t care where he’s taking me—I’ll follow him anywhere at this point.
I hop in my truck and let him take the lead, taking us both out of town and down a country road. My mind is whirling with all the possibilities. And yeah, maybe part of me—a very small part—is a little apprehensive.
What if it’s all a trick?
But I know deep down I can trust him. Without trust and blind faith in certain people, what do we really have in this world?
Soon we’re driving through an entrance almost covered by trees and a large wooden sign that says BIG BEND LAKE in large capital letters. Big Bend has a lake? I didn’t know that.
Not that I’ve spent much time exploring since I moved here.
We drive down a gravel path around a fairly small lake, but the water is glistening in the late afternoon sun. I park next to his truck and quickly climb out to join him. “I didn’t know this was here.” I look out at the water, surrounded by several large leafy trees and lots of green grass.
“Yeah, it’s pretty hidden out here.”
He leans on the hood of his truck, looking out at the water, and I join him, mimicking his position. “It’s pretty.”
I turn in time to see a slow, slight smile on his lips as he gazes out at the water. “I come out here a lot. Mostly after practice but sometimes after dinner. It’s quiet. Hardly anyone ever comes out here.”
It’s quiet again, neither of us saying anything as we stare out at the rippling water. It’s actually a little chilly today after weeks of extreme heat, and the wind has picked up. I think it’s supposed to rain later. You can smell it in the air, I swear.
“I saw Adler by your locker this morning,” I say, hoping to keep my tone light and not let on that it kind of makes me want to rip the guy apart, just seeing the look of distress on Calvin’s face this morning, which is now back.
“Yeah,” he says, not looking at me.
Don’t push. Don’t push. Don’t pu—
“What did he want?” Okay, so I guess I’m not going to listen to myself.
He shrugs his big shoulders, still looking away from me and out at the water. “Same thing as always.”
“To piss you off,” I guess.
I know he’s uncomfortable with the conversation. I really don’t want to be pushy or make him uncomfortable, but something deep inside is telling me he needs this. That maybe he needs a tiny little shove to open up. To get all that toxic shit out.
“Always.” His voice is low and a little grumbly.
“What happened?” I mess it all up by jumping right to it, but I’m in this now. “Why do they give you so much shit?”
His entire body goes stiff, and his jaw ticks as it clenches tight. He doesn’t say anything, and I don’t think he’s going to. “Why do you care?” He doesn’t sound angry. Just curious. Like he really can’t believe I’d want to know.
“Really?” I ask, tilting my head to the side and staring openly at him. “You have to know I care about you by now.”
His face is one of genuine surprise, and it nearly cracks my heart in half. “Why?”
“Jesus Christ,” I say, shaking my head, frustrated beyond belief by what he must have experienced in his life to get here.
I know because I’ve lived it too. My father and mother were oppressive as fuck growing up, but still—I did get the sense they cared about me, even if it was just a little.
Even if it had conditions. Calvin? I’m not sure he’s even had that.
“Because I care about you. I think you’re a great guy. ”
“You don’t even know me,” he says like he’s confused. Like he believes that.
“I know you,” I say firmly, looking into his eyes and wanting so badly to reach over and take his hand, but I don’t dare.
“I know you, and I care about you, and I just want to know what happened. Why everyone at school seems to know something about you. Something you clearly don’t want them to know.
Something hanging over your head.” I put my hand on my chest, over my rapidly beating heart.
“Something you can trust me with. Get it off your chest.”
“I don’t want it off my chest. Last year was shit, but it’s in the past,” he says angrily, and good.
I want him angry. I want him so furious he can’t stand it because at least it’s a feeling.
It’s showing some sort of emotion and not that goddamn blank stare he gets when he’s confronted by those assholes at school.
“It’s not in the past though. I see you having to still deal with it every day, and I don’t even know what it is.”
“What do you want from me?” We’re facing each other, the air between us full of tension, but I’m not going to back down. I don’t think he wants me to back down. I see it. The pain. The exhaustion. The doubt. The fear. All of it. And I want to take it all away if he’d just let me try.
“I want you to talk to me. I want you to trust me. I want you to tell me what happened out loud and from your perspective.”
“You’ve heard it from other perspectives?” He looks pale at the thought.
“No. I haven’t. The only one I’ve ever asked about it was Billy because I’m almost certain he’s a friend and not an asshole.
But he didn’t know what happened exactly.
I wouldn’t listen to it from anyone else.
I want to hear it from you. I want you to get it out.
You don’t have to be alone with it, whatever it is. ”
He starts to shake his head violently at the thought, stepping back from me, but the back of his legs hit the front of his truck, and it stops him. I stay where I am, not wanting to cage him in, even if every part of me is screaming to go to him.
“I can’t do this. This was a mistake.” He starts to walk toward the driver’s side of his truck, and I panic, reaching out for him. My hand wraps around his wrist. The feeling of his skin against mine is an electric jolt, but I don’t let him go. If he tugged away at all, I would, but he doesn’t.
He freezes, his eyes focusing on where my hand is wrapped around his wrist and then slowly moving up to my face. He looks distraught and exhilarated at the same time, his eyes alight with wonder.
“Just talk to me,” I plead softly.
He tugs out of my hold, but he doesn’t push me away, and he doesn’t move any farther. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“That’s not true, and you know it.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says a little louder through clenched teeth.
“It does matter.” I take a step closer to him, breathing hard but not out of fear. It’s not really anger either. At least not anger with him. I’m pissed off at everyone who made him feel less than. “You matter, goddammit.”
I open my mouth to say something else, anything to get him to see just how much he matters.
But I can’t get another word out because before I know it, his hand is on my nape, wrapping around it, and pulling me close.
His big body is pressed against me, and I nearly stop breathing when his mouth slams against mine.
It’s everything I wanted and still somehow so different from what I ever imagined. The way his lips press against mine before his tongue licks into my mouth. It’s frantic and needy. It’s passion and fury. Desire and letting go for one brief moment.
I’ve never been kissed like this in my life. My fingers grip the fabric of his T-shirt as I pull him into me even more, my tongue sweeping over his as a deep rumble leaves his throat—a moan. A sign that he wants this just as badly as I do. That he doesn’t want it to stop.
God, I never want it to stop.