12. CHAPTER 12
The Durango’s engine hummed as I rolled into Easton’s grandparents’ driveway. Those damn gnomes remained clustered like a tiny judgmental jury. I looked away.
“Morning,” Easton said, climbing into the back seat and bumping fists with Gavin.
“You ready for the first day?” Zach asked, stretching his legs out in the passenger seat as I eased onto the road.
I caught Easton’s eyes in the rearview mirror. He wore the white polo he’d bought on Saturday—the one I’d whispered looked cute on him, which had made his ears turn pink.
He caught me staring. His lips twitched as though he fought back a smile, and—
“Tanner, the road!” Zach barked.
I jolted, yanked the wheel, and slammed the brakes at the last moment.
“Jesus, man,” Zach muttered, running a hand through his hair. “Quit looking at Easton and drive.”
Somehow, I got us to school in one piece. Gavin peeled off toward the junior high, and the rest of us split for our lockers.
“Howdy, Captain Quinn,” Ricky said as he played with his combination lock. His last name was Reed, which meant his locker stood right next to mine.
“Stop calling me that,” I said, throwing my bookbag in my locker. “We’re not even at the field, dude, and it’s dumb.”
“Never going to happen, Captain,” he said.
I rolled my eyes, yanked my spiral notebook from the top shelf, and followed him into math. We took seats in the back row. The new-school-year smell was everywhere today. I could never nail what exactly that smell was, but day one always had it.
“Glad we got you away from your boyfriend,” Ricky said, shoving his glasses up his nose.
“What?” The word came out too fast, too sharp. My spine stiffened against the rubber chair, and the room nearly silenced. The scratch of a pencil two rows over sounded sharp and accusing. I stared straight ahead, pretending to be oblivious, but every breath felt like it might give me away.
“You weren’t around as much this summer. You were always with Easton.”
“We just hit a bunch,” I said, barely trusting my voice. “We always invited you, too.”
“Hitting is dumb,” he said. So, he wasn’t serious.
My shoulders loosened, and the tight breath I hadn’t realized I was holding slipped out. “That’s probably why your average is the worst on the team,” I said, forcing a grin and hoping it would land as teasing, not panicked.
Thankfully, our teacher walked in the room to hand out the syllabus and get us on to our work.
The rest of the day blurred into the usual first-day nonsense with syllabuses, speeches, seating charts, and teachers pretending their classes were going to change our lives. My last class of the day for the whole school year would be journalism, and I expected the same.
Journalism had been my main elective since freshman year, and it was something that I (mostly) enjoyed.
As long as we produced an article every two weeks for the school paper, it was essentially a glorified study hall.
The only part of the class I didn’t like was the fact that once a semester, we had to get in front of a camera for morning announcements.
Whoever invented public speaking deserved jail time.
I walked into the class for the first time that year and took a seat in the back. Bella and Lacy were already sitting, Bella’s hair curled to perfection as always. They had both joined the class sophomore year, and we had “worked” together on most of our articles.
I’d almost brought up the Easton problem to Bella more than once.
She was crazy, but I was also pretty sure she’d keep the secret.
I kept shutting down the urge to tell her, though.
If I had any doubt about how someone might react, then I couldn’t bring it up at all. The risk far outweighed the reward.
My mood flipped when I looked up. Easton had just walked into the room and was heading toward me.
“What’s up, Tan?” he said as he sat next to me. His new shirt already had a pen mark going down the sleeve; we couldn’t take this kid anywhere.
“Don’t you have an art class this period?” I asked.
“You convinced me. Journalism is much more my speed than art, so I switched.”
“Nice.” A full year of having a forty-five-minute class with Easton? Yes, please.
Lacy turned around and looked at us. Bella hadn’t stopped talking since I’d walked in the room, but Lacy seemed to put her on mute.
“So, we have the cute one in class,” Lacy said.
Easton’s face was as red as the notebook in front of him, exactly like it had been at the softball field on the Fourth.
“Sorry, Lacy, he’s not interested,” I said.
“Who says?” Easton mumbled.
“You can’t handle her, Easton,” I said. “She’d eat you alive.”
“Maybe that’s what he wants,” Lacy said, raising her eyebrows in a way that I was sure was seductive to most guys.
She was clearly getting to Easton, who nearly jumped out of his seat at the look. Lacy and I laughed, settling down as we saw our teacher stand up in front of the class.
“Okay, class. Listen up!” Ms. Seek doubled as both the American government teacher for the juniors and the journalism teacher.
I wasn’t her biggest fan, but I’d stayed in her class for four years because I loved writing articles. I wasn’t that good at it—my grammar was rough, and my punctuation and spelling were hit-or-miss—but I loved telling stories. Plus, getting my homework done before I left school was a nice bonus.
She reviewed the typical first-day-of-school crap and told us to brainstorm ideas for our first articles. For me, that meant turning toward Easton and talking about everything but what I actually wanted to say.
When we got out of school that day, it was only Easton and me in the car. Gavin had gone to a friend’s house, and Zach had football practice. I had asked Easton to come over for a couple of rounds of batting practice, so we were heading back to my house and avoiding homework.
On Saturday night, we had watched a movie together once everyone was asleep. He had cuddled up to me…and we had made out again. And yet, we still hadn’t talked. I didn’t know what this was, and it was eating me alive.
“I’m starving,” Easton said. He was always starving, and Mom had started stocking our cupboards with food for a fourth boy.
“Make us something,” I said, heading to my room. I changed into a pair of athletic shorts and started thinking again. Easton and I had hooked up, and the physical parts were real, and I had enjoyed them to no end.
But Easton continued to behave like we didn’t kiss.
I’d hoped he’d say something on Sunday morning, but he hadn’t.
When we’d gone clothes shopping, I’d hoped again, but there had been people around all day.
I was still waiting, but it was becoming clear I’d have to be the one to bring it up. Not that I was surprised.
I walked back into the kitchen as Easton threw pasta into a pot of boiling water on the stove.
“Does your mom have any tomato sauce?” he asked.
“Try the top shelf above the dishwasher,” I said. He stood on his toes to open the door. With his arms extended, his shirt lifted, exposing the skin right above the waistband of his shorts. My eyes wandered, lingering on his butt for longer than they should have.
He grabbed the sauce and headed back to the stove. I figured this was as good a time as any to ask the question.
“So, are we going to talk about Saturday?” I asked, heart in my throat. “Or is this just another thing we pretend never happened?”
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Easton whispered. “It just…happened. I’m not going to do it again.” He was keeping his face away from me, so I couldn’t get any type of read on him.
I steadied myself. If I could kiss him, I could talk about my feelings with him.
“What if I wanted it to be more?” My voice wasn’t much more than a whisper now, and it cracked halfway through my question.
My entire life, I’d avoided letting anyone know I was gay.
But I needed to make sure he knew. What if he wanted this as much as I did?
The question hung in the air; Easton didn’t answer right away. He stirred the spaghetti noodles, making sure they didn’t stick. Steam rose from the pot, and it filled the air with a familiar aroma.
“I’m not gay, Tanner.”
“Why would you kiss me, then? How can you say you aren’t gay?” This time, my voice was much louder. I didn’t mean to be so aggressive, but I needed to know.
“I’m just not.” He still wouldn’t look at me.
“Well, I think I am,” I said. Fuck it. At least now he knew beyond any doubt. I'd put it out in the open, and I was unable to take it back. The tiniest bit of relief tried to consume me, but the half a second I spent waiting for his response overwhelmed every emotion.
“I think you are, too, Tan. That’s fine. I’m just not into guys.” Easton had turned around, and he finally made eye contact with me. Was that pain I saw? Or was it empathy? Both? Neither?
The rush I got from telling somebody—telling him—vanished as quickly as it’d come. I had been half expecting streamers to drop from the sky when I finally said it, but the only thing I got was a dismissal from Easton.
Without meeting his eyes, I walked out of the kitchen. My mind ping-ponged between ideas. I didn’t think I was mad at Easton or anything. We had made out, and Easton had seemed to enjoy it. I had convinced myself that he felt the same way I did.
Was I lying to myself by thinking that? I mean, in theory, he could have just been horny. If that was the case, then I had just outed myself to one of my best friends.
The scariest part wasn’t that he didn’t feel the same way. It was that he knew I was gay. And I thought that would be enough to make him disappear.
But he was still here and acting normal. So, I needed to figure out what to do. I decided my only option, if I wanted to stay friends with Easton, was to follow his lead and act like nothing had happened.
I wished it was that easy for me. Easton had stolen my heart so quickly, and I had gotten a glimpse of what it was like to be with him, and now I wanted him even more than I had a month ago. At least then I’d thought there was a chance.
Now, he was saying it was a mistake that should never have happened. Again. I’d almost rather have still lived in the delusion that I had a shot with him than have hooked up with him just for him to tell me there was no chance of us having a future together.
I was still lost in thought when Easton made his way into the living room. At some point, I had lain down on the couch. I glanced up when I heard him coming in and saw two bowls in his hands, the smell trying to make its way to my nose.
“I’m sorry, Tan,” he said. “I enjoyed it and everything, I’m just not like that. My dad would kill me if I was.”
Fuck his dad. What could he conceivably do to Easton from jail?
I took a bite of the spaghetti and chewed slowly, feeling the heat of the sauce on my tongue.
“Please don’t be mad at me,” he said.
“I’m not. Just trying to think is all,” I said. Silence hung in the room—a sound I was getting too familiar with.
If I didn’t have the feel of a bat in my hands soon, I was going to break. If I had any chance of making this not weird for Easton, I had to pretend I wasn’t shattered into pieces. I had to act like I had before we’d kissed.
“Want to go hit now? I hate not getting in swings during the day.”
“Why else would I have come over?”
I almost said “to make out,” but I figured he wouldn’t find it as funny as I did. So, after we ate, I led the way to the cage. I had to try to move on.
The following Friday, Easton and I were alone in the basement again. We had watched Zach and his football team lose a nail-biter, and he had passed out almost as soon as we had gotten home from the game. Gavin was recovering from a cold, which left the two of us alone.
I was on the couch, a blanket barely covering my legs. Easton lay on the floor next to me, his face less than three feet away from mine. The TV was on in the background, but I couldn’t tell you the score of the game that played.
“His hearing is next month,” Easton said.
“Do you think your dad gets a long sentence?”
“I hope so,” Easton said. He had started to talk more and more about his parents, and his words were flowing smoother than normal now that Friday night had turned into Saturday morning.
“Will you come with me?” he asked.
“You know I’ll be there,” I said.
“I’m scared, Tan,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to face my dad. Sometimes I miss Mom so much it hurts, and seeing him will bring it all back. I don’t know if I can handle that.”
“I don’t think you realize how strong you are, Easton. Everything life throws at you, you keep battling. I never see anything get you down.”
“It’s not always real.”
“Is it real when you’re here?”
“Most of the time. I love you guys.”
“Let me know when it’s fake. Maybe I can help.”
“You help by being here,” he said. He reached his hand up onto the couch, locking his fingers with mine. We failed to say what we needed to, but we were approaching that gray area.
I felt a twinge of self-loathing when I allowed myself to feel a jolt of excitement at his touch. Easton broke the silence five minutes later.
He moved his hand, sliding it onto my chest. His movement stopped, possibly because he was trying to force himself to say something, or possibly because he wanted to retreat.
“You want to…do more?” he asked, voice barely audible. “If you do…we could.”
I froze. My body was already answering for me, but my mind couldn’t quite catch up. I was supposed to move on. He had said I was a mistake.
“Really?” I asked.
He didn’t reply. He stood, eyes locked on mine, then moved toward me—closer than he ever had before. My heart beat like it was trying to break free.
“You’re sure?” I whispered again.
He nodded. And then he was on his knees, and my shorts were on the ground. His hands found my thighs.
The details blurred. There were no jokes, no teasing. Just touch and warmth and this trembling fear that it wouldn’t mean the same to him as it did to me.
We switched places, and I did what he had, my only goal was to bring him the same pleasure that he had given to me. His hands found my Dumbo ears as I moved.
When it ended, he pulled up his shorts and collapsed on the couch, staring at the ceiling like none of it had happened.
“You enjoy that?” I asked, grinning through my nerves.
“Wasn’t bad,” he said, eyes never meeting mine.
Maybe I could be good enough for him.
“So…would we ever…I mean, keep going?”
He paused. He still wouldn’t look at me. “Let’s not talk about it, alright?”
He squeezed my shoulder as I sat against the couch.
The words hit harder than anything else. My stomach twisted. I’d given myself a glimmer of hope—but he was already erasing me.
The air drained from my lungs. I wanted to ask how I was supposed to forget the way he had looked at me, the way he had touched me like I mattered. But I didn’t say a word.