12. Caleb

TWELVE

JT HAD ALREADY commandeered our usual table in the library, his laptop and several random books he wasn't using littering the space to warn anyone off from joining. I sat down across from him, pushing aside a copy of Modern Quantum Mechanics to set up my own laptop.

"Physics, huh?" I chuckled, wondering where he'd pulled that from. "Did you change majors and forget to mention that?"

"Like the way you forgot to mention you were old friends with West and the others?" JT didn't look up from what he was typing.

Oh wow, okay. He wasn't gonna give me a pass for leaving out that little fact after all. I figured he would've gone in on me about it last night, but waiting to call me out when his boyfriend wasn't around was a much more JT thing to do.

"You're right," I said, nodding. "I should've told you, but it's not something I talk about. Or try to think about."

JT looked up, hurt lacing his brown eyes. "Don't you trust me?"

"That has nothing to do with it."

"Then why lie?"

"Eh…would we say lie?"

"Withholding information is lying."

I held my hands up. "It's complicated."

"You already said that last night."

"Still true."

JT stared at me over his laptop, and I felt the accusation. "When I met you, all I heard was to stay away from all of them, that they were bad news?—"

"They were. They are."

"You acted like you hated them."

"Still do."

He shook his head full of brown curls, the ones that made him look so innocent. And maybe he still was, for now, even if he had a deviant for a boyfriend. "Well, apparently you're one of them again, whether you like it or not."

"Fuck. That."

"You didn't hear them last night? ‘Caleb, you're back.'"

"Dammit, I'm not back. I was forced into this situation, and you know it." Frustration ate at me, and I rubbed at the furrow between my brows. One casual gathering on the roof didn't mean shit other than we were going to have to learn to live with each other. The fact that it would probably be easier with them than with Travis definitely said…something. Nothing good.

JT shut his laptop and crossed his arms on top of it. "So talk to me. Tell me what happened so I understand where you're coming from, because I have to tell you, right now my mind is blown."

I snorted a derisive laugh. "Why, because I'm not Park Avenue Prince material?"

"No, because you are." Before I could deny it, he added, "You were friends with them. Now you can't stand them. Don't you get why I'm a little confused over here?"

"Didn't you ask West about it?"

"I'm asking you about it."

A sigh escaped me as I lowered my hand and began to absently trace the wood grain patterns on the table. Considering JT was one of the only people I cared to spend time with, it was only right I let him in on what went down. Not everything, because there were only two people in this world that would ever know the real story. I'd go to my grave with that. But the rest…

I blew out a long breath. "Our parents got together when we were fourteen. My dad moved Travis and his mom into our place, and all of a sudden I was sharing my house with this stranger who was so different to me. I thought I would hate him. All I knew was that he'd done movies as a kid and only wore designer clothes, so I figured he'd be a pretentious asshole I wouldn't have anything in common with."

"But?"

"But what?"

"I hear a ‘but' in there somewhere. Like he was all those things, but you thought he was cool anyway?"

He had no idea. Travis had blown into my life like a hurricane, and nothing had been the same since. "Something like that."

"So…you were friends?"

"Yeah," I said. "We were best friends. Up until our parents got married, we did everything together, and yeah, that included hanging out with his other friends. East was always the worst of them, but the rest could be a lot of fun back then."

"Even Daire?"

I reached for the soda in my bag. "Nah, Daire wasn't around. He didn't join the group until after I left."

"Oh. So you left. They didn't kick you out?"

Good God, just spit it out already. "Long story short, Travis and I had a falling-out, and I decided to remove myself from the situation. He's not exactly the type to make things easy when he doesn't like you, and I didn't wanna deal with all the backlash I knew I'd get, so…" I shrugged, like that hadn't been a painful, confusing time in my life. "It was better to do my own thing and keep our lives separate."

"By cutting off all your friends?"

"They were his friends first."

"I'm sure they wouldn't have chosen sides?—"

"Then you don't know them that well, do you?"

JT's mouth snapped shut, and he swallowed. "Go on."

"Needless to say, none of them took it well. If you're not their friend, you're nobody, so when Travis gave me shit, they followed his lead." When JT paled, I added, "They didn't hatch some crazy revenge plot or anything, don't worry. More like we all just took to opposite sides of Manhattan and tried to keep it that way."

"Damn. I'm sorry."

"It is what it is. I just hate that the timing was so fucked, because I would've chosen to go to school somewhere else. But everything went down our senior year, and we'd all already been accepted to Astor. Our parents had gotten us condos at the Towers. I mean, it was all planned. Too late to change anything."

"So you've been stuck having to see them all the time when you just wanted your own space." He nodded slowly. "I get it."

He got some of it, but definitely not all of it. But no one did. Not really. Travis and I had a complicated relationship, one that not everyone would understand, and I wasn't quite ready to see if JT was one of them.

So while I was willing to open up about most of what happened back then, I definitely wasn't giving all the details. Instead, I stuck to the easy ones. The ones that made sense.

"Yeah. That's why my place in Soho was perfect. At least I had somewhere to escape to, but now?—"

"That's been taken away too." JT grimaced. "Hard not to be resentful, huh?"

"Try impossible. Dad and Vera said it was because they wanted to downsize, but I can't help but think I did something to piss them off, because my place was way cheaper than the Towers."

"Did you ask them?"

I scoffed. "They said the Towers was closer to school and that I would be a good influence on Travis."

JT clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle a chuckle. "Um, have they seen you two together?"

"Apparently that's another thing. They want us to work out our differences."

"By killing each other?"

"Don't put ideas in my head."

JT dropped his hand, shaking his head. "Wow. I mean, maybe it won't be as bad as you think. What I mean is, you just moved in. Maybe in a couple of months things will be better."

"You know, sometimes I envy your positivity."

"Is that another way of saying my naiveté? Stupidity?"

"No, I mean it. I used to be like you. Always positive, always thinking things would turn out for the best—until they didn't."

A deep frown pulled between JT's brows, and I almost felt guilty for my bluntness. But it was true. Travis and I had planned to have such a great time in college living together, finally being free of the parents, and one night had changed those plans forever.

"Caleb?"

"Huh?"

"I just asked if you and Travis have ever thought about forgiving each other."

That would be a great idea. But it was pretty hard to ask for forgiveness when the other person refused to talk about it.

"That's not going to happen."

"Why not? You said you had a falling-out. Surely it wasn't that bad it can't be fixed."

If only it was that easy. But Travis had made it clear over the years that he wasn't interested in ever fixing us.

I shrugged, doing my best to play off how much that thought cut. "Sometimes things don't work out the way we think they will, and that's okay."

"Is it?" JT's eyes softened, and I looked back to my computer to avoid his sympathy. It was better not to go there. I couldn't let my defenses down, not now that I had to go home to Travis, it was too dangerous.

"Yeah." I grinned, but I knew JT wasn't buying it. "Don't worry, I promise not to suffocate him in his sleep."

"It's not Travis I'm worried about."

"Well, don't worry about me either. I've been dealing with these guys a lot longer than you, Golden Boy." I winked at him. "I can look after myself."

"Fair enough. But if you ever want to talk to me about it?—"

"Or talk shit about them?"

He laughed. "That too. I'm here. We were friends first, and that means something to me."

Even if it doesn't to Travis… I didn't miss his meaning. "Thanks. So, we good?"

"We're good. Now would you stop talking to me? I've got work to do."