Chapter 8

“What’s up with you, man?”Jay asked me, side-eyeing me like I was crazy.

Which, honestly, was fair. I’d been jumpy and off all day. Shortly after Ri and I had finished talking and started to doze back off, I’d gotten a call from Jay. His mom was missing. He had gotten a call from one of the bars she always hung at that she was out of control. By the time he’d gotten there, she was gone, and he called me, worried.

Ri had taken a double shift at the gas station, since he insisted on doing most of the work toward saving for tuition. I didn’t have a shift at the factory today, so I went with Jay and Riley went to work.

But I was distracted, and after an hour of checking the 24-hour dumps designed just for people like Lydia Parks and Michael Cooks, I was getting antsy thinking about everything.

“Nothin’. Sorry, just tried. Should we check some of the shelters? Your mom goes there sometimes, right?”

Jay narrowed his eyes at me but nodded. “Yeah. Alright. Better than having to go into another shithole like this.”

We continued to walk down the street, but after I checked my phone again, Jay stopped us.

“Okay, what the fuck happened? Did you and Riley get in a fight?”

I frowned. “Why would you say that?”

“Cause you’re checkin’ your phone even more than usual. You’re always obsessed with checkin’ up on him, but this is extra, even for you.”

I ran a hand through my hair as I shoved my phone in my pocket with extra emphasis. “We didn’t get in a fight . . .”

“But something did happen.”

Understatement of the century. “Yeah, you could say that.”

“Well, fuckin’ spill. If there’s gonna be tension between the two of you, I need to be prepared.”

“Tension? Seriously?”

Jay raised an eyebrow at me. I needed to tell him. As soon as he saw us together, he’d know somethin’ was up. Things had been a little awkward after our cuddle session, as we didn’t know where we stood. I wished I could assure Ri that I was all in. That everything he said he felt for me, I felt too, but it wasn’t that easy. It was so sudden for me, and I was still . . . figuring shit out.

It was easy enough for it to feel right when Riley was in front of me. When I was overrun by vanilla and bright blue eyes, but once he was gone, my thoughts ran wild. Dad calling me a freak. A scared 12-year-old kid just trying keep him and his kid brother off the street . . . it was all getting muddled together, and I was overrun with guilt and uncertainty.

What the fuck was I doing? Kissing Riley, thinking those things about him? I just got caught in the moment . . . that was it. Riley would always be everything to me, but did that mean the same thing to me as it did to him?

“I blame you, really. You got in my fuckin’ head.”

Jay waited. Ugh. “After my shift, I stayed up and waited for Riley.”

I proceeded to tell Jay everything, even the stuff I’d told Ri this morning. Jay had known about the back-alley blow jobs anyway. He did his fair share of the same shit growing up. It was the rest that I’d kept under wraps from both of them.

“It’s about fuckin’ time.”

I stopped dead on the street, spluttering. “‘Scuse me?

Jay clicked his tongue. “You heard me. Y’all have been hedgin’ around each other for a while now. It was gettin’ fuckin’ old.”

I almost choked. “What! No we haven’t! I didn’t even know if I had fuckin’ feelings for Ri until yesterday. Hell, I still don’t know.”

Jay scoffed. “Trust me, you do.”

“How do you know? What if this is just you and him gettin’ in my head? And if I do, ain’t it wrong? I was practicality his father for fuck’s sake!”

“Yeah, practically, but not actually. That was only because your piece of shit dad left it all on a 10-year-old kid. I reminded you yesterday that you ain’t his brother. Well, you ain’t Riley’s dad either. And he’s not a kid who needs you lookin’ after him anymore. He’s an adult. Way more of an adult than most people I know in their fuckin’ thirties and forties.”

That was true. We’d all grown up quick. “Yeah, but still. I started to get hard this mornin’ and I felt . . . wrong. Or more that I should feel wrong. And then I let him kiss me again. Don’t it make me like . . . them?”

Jay’s face turned stormy, and he pushed me into the wall of the alley we were cutting through. I was stronger than Jay, and normally he’d never be able to do that, but I wasn’t expecting it.

“The fuck?”

He slammed his fist into my chest, hard. “Don’t you ever fuckin’ say somethin’ like that again. Don’t you ever dare compare yourself to any sick fuck who touched us as kids. Did you think the things you’re thinkin’ now when Ri was younger? Did you ever do anything?”

“Of fuckin’ course not. What’s wrong with ya?”

“Then there you go. You’re adults. Both of you. I’ll remind you of what I said yesterday. You’re two parts of the same whole. No one would ever fill that spot for you like Riley. And it goes both ways. Maybe it’s cause of your shared past. Maybe one of those psychology articles Ri loves readin’ would tell you it’s wrong, but honestly, who gives a fuck? Do you both consent? Are you hurtin’ anyone? If the answers are yes to the first one and no to the second, it’s all that fuckin’ matters. Now come on, let’s get to this fuckin’ shelter before we both got work.”

I blinked, tryin’ to accept his words. “So you’re really okay with this? You think it’s okay?”

“I already said I did, man. At the end of the day, though, you gotta decide if you are. Only people who matter in this are you and Ri.”

Fuck. He was right. I needed to get it together. “Yeah. Yeah. Sorry I freaked out.”

Jay shrugged. “It’s all good. It’s a lot. I get it.”

I was still thinking about it as we got to the first shelter. Maybe I should text Riley? We left with things being a little odd, and while I still wasn’t sure what I wanted, I didn’t want him to worry.

I started to dig out my phone but stopped dead. We were just inside the threshold of the place while Jay talked to the woman who ran it. But I didn’t hear anything he said cause just on the other side of the glass door, a man sat with two young boys, talking to them. I stumbled back.

I swallowed down bile and I forced myself to look again.

No. I had to be mistaken. It wasn’t him. I was imagining things because I’d been thinking about him a lot lately with everything. There was no fuckin’ way. No way. God, he was with kids . . .

Jay grabbed my arm. “Hey, man, are you okay?”

“I was happy to help. Anything for my former patients. But of course, I did go through a lot of trouble.”

“I-I’ll pay you back, Mr. Chase, I swear.”

“Oh, I know you will, Mr. Cooks. I can think of a way for you to start right now.”

“Becks!” I shook, my head snapping toward Jay and the concerned looking woman.

I pointed to the door. “T-that man?” I got no other words out.

The woman squinted, to see who I pointed to. “Oh, Mr. Chase? Do you know him? He’s a child psychologist and takes time every week to sit with the kids we have here free of charge. Isn’t that amazing?”

The room started to spin. I could sort of hear both Jay and the woman yelling, but I couldn’t make out the words. I doubled over and puked out my breakfast before the world went black.