3. CODY

CODY

2024

I rolled out of bed and away from the girl I fell asleep with. Her dark hair fanned out over my pillow like she owned it. I groaned, digging around on my floor for a pair of clean shorts with my eyes closed. The migraine that woke me dug at the base of my neck and rattled my spine under my skin.

Between the lack of sleep and crippling bad dreams, I couldn’t remember how she got there, but I hated the fact that my bed sheets smelled of fake roses and cinnamon. I would have to wash them later to bring back the lavender smell and get some sleep.

I slipped from my room and down the stairs to the kitchen, my eyes half open, to find my Peachy sitting on the counter reading a book in her pajamas. I rubbed out the knots that formed along my shoulder and rotated it in a lazy circle as I tried to ignore the sharp pain that radiated across the healed incision.

“You look like shit,” Ella chimed, without even looking up from her book. “Is your shoulder bugging you?” Her blonde hair was curled around her pretty face, but she wasn’t hiding her scars with makeup anymore. It made my chest lighter in a way only she could.

“Good morning to you too.” I pulled the fridge door open, deflecting her question, and grabbed a water. I looked up at her, twisting the cap off and throwing it in the garbage can. “Why are you up so early?” I asked her.

“It’s noon, Cael.” Her big brown eyes flickered up over the top of her book at me so she could mock me. “Why are you up so early?”

“Sleeping sucks when you aren’t doing it black-out drunk,” I sighed.

“Yeah.” Ella smiled. “ It's a little harder when your brain has time to dream.”

“Nightmares is more like it.” My Texas accent slipped out just a touch with the laughter.

Ella slipped from the counter, pouring me a warm cup of coffee. “It’ll get easier. Maybe Silas can prescribe it for you—”

“No,” I stopped her. “I don’t want anything, I just need to get through this.”

“Sorry, I wasn’t thinking…” Ella gave me a sad look as she handed me the mug. “I’m learning too. I guess it’ll be harder than we expected to navigate this. I’m here, though. I can’t promise to give the best advice, but I’m here.” The ring on her left finger sparkled in the sunlight and I felt genuinely happy for the first time in a long time that my best friend had found someone so special.

Jealousy wasn’t the word.

I wasn’t jealous of them. I was sad, and it consumed all my other logical feelings. Which is precisely what got me into drugs. The need to feel something other than miserable. Rehab had been long and exhausting. I’d spent a month in a facility outside of campus and nothing felt right. Coming out and back into the Nest was tense. Dean avoided me the entire first week back, and that piled the anxious feelings on top of resisting temptation, Arlo leaving, and my shoulder injury. The nightmares started to flood into all the cracks that drugs and booze had previously filled.

I shuddered. I’ll never forget the way the stitches pulled at my skin, lying in that tiny rehab bed, my feet hanging off the edge, staring at the ceiling with the urge to pick each one out.

“Earth to space cadet,” Ella wiggled the cup at me. “Where'd you go there?”

“Nowhere important. Thanks, Peachy.” I winked, holding up the cup and shoving away all the nipping thoughts of addiction to smile for her.

“Good.” She leaned in, giving me a tiny kiss on my cheek. “You have a meeting tonight at seven. Arlo can’t take you, he’s in Dallas for an interview with the owners of the Rangers. I’ll pick you up at six forty-five.”

I hated that I needed to go to the NA meetings and hated that I needed to be escorted, but I was grateful that Ella was willing to take me. I was thankful that Arlo still had hope for me. The selfish little kid in my heart silently hoped his meeting went horribly. Then he’d come home for good, and the spaces between my family wouldn’t feel so impossibly empty.

“Six forty-five,” I repeated the time to her, so she knew I was really listening, and watched her shuffle from the kitchen to prepare for her day.

Instead of returning to the booty call I had so desperately used for a distraction the night before, I slipped on a pair of running shoes and threw on my headphones that hung on the hook by the back door. The worst thing I could do was go back to bed. Two weeks after the accident, Aunt Riona insisted that I start therapy with someone outside the Hornet family. A therapist detached from the situation.

The rehab facility had a few options. I went with Doctor Harson. He was younger, with funny glasses that never stayed on his nose as he took notes. He was nice enough and had been training me to put my energy into things that make me feel better.

Arlo ran to feel better. So I tried that. And it usually worked. It made me feel like shit in the moment. Every mile I ran closer to campus made me wanna puke. Each droplet of sweat that poured between my shoulder blades reminded me that I was a piece of trash without direction. But at least it was productive and, by the time I slipped into a shower on the main floor of the Nest, Maddison…Mykayla, or Mckenzie, whatever the fuck her name was, had disappeared from my bed.

I was shoving my sheets into the washing machine when Dean found me.

“How are you doing?” He asked but didn’t want the answer. His blond hair had gotten longer and grew in honey curls around his thick neck, ears, and jaw, but his blue eyes remained bright as he watched me.

“Exhausted.” I rolled my eyes and dumped in the soap and a handful of the lavender beads I bought from the grocery store once a week. Staring inside, I shrugged and dumped in a little more.

“That’s why they never leave.” Dean pointed to the container. “Your bed doesn’t smell like a frat boy’s. If you let it sit for a week, you’ll never wake up to anyone.”

“You love how my bed smells,” I teased and watched his strong jaw tighten.

We weren’t in a place for those jokes, not after what had happened with his mother. He was still tip-toeing around his conservative family like they might disown him for being gay.

After the ball season, we sat down and concluded that what we wanted and needed from each other was very different. I was using Dean as a distraction from my issues. That wasn’t to say I didn’t love him. I always had. I knew the moment I saw his stupid boyish face at warm-ups. But that’s not enough. I couldn’t run in circles pretending he would ever be ready to be out. It wasn’t healthy for me, and I would never force his hand. That wasn’t my story to tell.

Dean shrugged. We were having a hard time finding our way back to being friends. Every conversation was a chance to pick at old scabs.

“I figured you wanted to go for a run, but you did that without me.” He sounded annoyed. “So how about some lunch? My treat?”

He was trying to be a friend, and I couldn’t deny his pretty smile.

“Hilly’s,” I demanded, my stomach betraying me. I could use a plate of their french fries right now. They had never been and would never be as good as Duke’s, but they were hot and close enough to the real thing. “Pretty please, Big Guy.”

“I’ll bring the truck around.” Dean started to walk away from me when I sighed.

“I’ll drive,” I offered, with Dean raising an eyebrow at the suggestion.

I never drove because I was always drunk, and when I did drive, I was usually drunk anyway, but I was turning over a new leaf. For Ella and Arlo, but I’d never admit to that. Tying my recovery to other people was a big no, no. But I needed the anchor, and they were the most stable part of my life.

Dean shrugged, seemingly convinced, and turned on his heel to grab his wallet before we climbed into my car. The Supra still needed hours of work. In typical fashion, I had gotten bored listening to Arlo preach about car mechanics. It was rusty, and I couldn’t even begin to explain the state of the engine under the hood, but I didn’t care. Momma had helped pick this car out, and I wasn’t giving it up without a fight.

“Cael,” Dean groaned about the leg space in the passenger seat. “I get you wanna live out some sick Fast and Furious dream, but this is cruel. ”

“I don’t know.” I stared over at him. His head brushed the ceiling of the small car and his muscular thighs were practically tucked up to his stomach in the seat.

“Looks hilarious from this angle.” I laughed, threw it in reverse, and whipped from the garage. His hand flew to the handle above his head as I took every corner too fast.

When we arrived, Hilly’s was empty. During the lull between Harbor sports, the small two-story brick building that housed the old-school diner-style hangout was dead. Once hockey began, the service would skyrocket again, and people would crowd around the entrance to get in so they could watch the game.

“Hey, Kayla.” Dean waved to her as we passed through the main floor.

It was dark inside; dim lighting hung over rich-colored cushioned booths and sizeable round scuffed-up tables. The shabby floors had just enough shine left to reflect all the neon signs on the walls.

“Boys.” Kayla leaned over her desk, pretty red hair cascading down over her trim shoulders. I turned in a half circle, climbing the first couple of stairs up to the loft backward. I leaned back, holding onto the railing, and opened my mouth.

“Never going to happen, Cody.” She rolled her eyes and waved me off.

“You’ll surrender one day,” I said.

“The day you start wearing full shirts, I’ll let you take me out.” She pointed to the ratty navy blue crop top that hung across my belly button. The Hornets athletes’ logo faded from the sun.

“And hide this adorable tummy? Never.” My smile mirrored hers as I shrugged, turning back and taking the stairs two at a time to catch up to Dean.

He slid into the booth and leaned against the cushion with an exasperated sigh. “You know Kayla would absolutely—” I paused, tracing my eyes down his massive, muscular frame. “Go for that. Your mom would give you a medal for bringing her home.”

“You think?” Dean opened one eye to look at me. I would never let him bring a girlfriend home just to placate his mother.

“Not a chance.” I smiled at him and licked my bottom lip. “She’s so far out of your league she might as well be space, Elon Musk.”

“I don’t—” He started to talk his way through the confusion but stopped. By far, one of my favorite pastimes was contributing to Dean Tucker’s constant state of bewilderment with obscure pop culture references from the dark holes of the internet.

“Besides, she’s not blonde enough for you.”

“I don’t specifically date blondes,” he argued.

“You have to in order to keep the genes alive. A baseball team of little blond Dean look-alikes.” I laughed, but Dean just scowled at me. Kids and legacy were a sore topic around the Hulk action figure. “What?… You can adopt. Or get your sister to be a surrogate. She loves having kids.”

That made him laugh. God I loved his smile.

“It’s terrifying how good she is at it.”

“I’m just saying you have options when it comes time to build the army of vanilla Hulk action figures.” I smiled and nudged the tension out of his flexed muscles.

We ordered and, just as expected, the addition of warm, salty french fries unknotted all the tense feelings that hung between us. There was something fucking magic about french fries. A cure-all.

I moaned when the salt hit my tongue and devoured them way too fast.

“Don’t.” He slapped my hand away as I reached over to steal a few of his.

“Ow!” I shook out my stinging fingers. “You’re in a foul mood today. What crawled up your ass?”

“No one, just give me five minutes of silence, Man. I know it’s hard for you, but—”

“You invited me for lunch, Ponyboy,” I argued, but he just stared at me for a long moment.

“You’re reading into it, and it’s nothing.” He ignored me and shoved another fry between his lips.

I scrunched my brows up.

“No, seriously,” leaning forward on the table, I said, actually concerned when his frown didn’t loosen. “What’s going on?”

Dean was typically sunshine. Sure, he had his moments of weakness, as we all did, but he was built differently. Raised from the ground in a nuclear family, he was the golden child, and he worked hard to protect that image of himself in the shadow of his older brother and sister, who were both genuinely and weirdly incredible in their own right.

I was always a little jealous of his life and all for surface reasons.

Professor Tucker was a headstrong jerk, but he was a decent dad. His mom was a retired doctor who had stayed home and raised the kids from the moment his older sister was born. She moved on to be a grandma to a handful of kids that his older brother kept popping out like rabbits. He had a family—a big, loving family that wanted him to succeed.

The problem lay in how his family viewed him. His mother refused to acknowledge his sexuality, and it was a sore spot between them. Homophobia ran deep, and it made the love they extended to Dean feel like sandpaper on his skin.

I supposed that was the problem.

Love only got him so far when he spent half his time hiding who he really was. They played happy family in public, with smiles and jokes, but behind closed doors, it was barrages of text messages laced with passive-aggressive comments about his love life and his career. It was tiring to watch from the sidelines; I couldn’t imagine how exhausting it was to live through it.

“Anna is in town with her stuffy political husband.” He rolled his eyes at me. “I can’t do this again, Cael,” he groaned and pulled away from me as I went to rest my hand on his. “I won’t.”

“Hiding isn’t healthy either.” I shrugged.

“I’m not ashamed to be gay, Cael,” he snapped at me. “I just know it doesn’t matter what I want or need.”

The golden boy.

Stuck forever in the position he was carved into.

“We tried,” he continued, “really hard, a few times, and I love you.” He finally looked at me, and it hurt more than I expected it to. My fingers itched to rub the corners of his chiseled jaw and calm the storm that brewed behind his gray-blue eyes, but I didn’t because it was not what he wanted or needed. I might have been an idiot, but I listened well.

“But you can’t love me back. You tried, and I love you for the effort. But…” He sighed, his finger reaching out from under his plate to brush against the frayed friendship bracelet around my wrist. “You hid behind the drugs and booze to forget that you already gave your heart to someone else, and I’m not going to play second string to a ghost.”

She wasn’t a ghost.

She was a daydream.

“I’d offer to join you for Thanksgiving, but I don’t think that will go over well with your mother.” I tried to ease the tension and erase the lavender smell of her hair from my nose before it made my eyes water.

“Didn’t you hear?” He cleared his throat and inhaled. “The Shores are hosting Thanksgiving up at the cabin. Silas has been planning it for weeks.”

Focusing on my recovery has left me out in the cold in ways I could have never imagined.

“I guess you’ll be okay then,” I forced a smile.

“My treat.” He waved Kayla over to pay.

I slid down against the booth and sighed as my stare became unfocused and the emotions I fought so hard stirred beneath the surface. I was trying my best to be the Cael Cody they all knew and loved, but it was hard, firstly and most importantly, without the drugs, but even more so sometimes when I realized they didn’t need me as much as I needed them.

“Let’s get you to therapy before Silas kicks my ass.” Dean slapped me against the shoulder.