Chapter 6

Six

Josh

T hanksgiving day, we eat a big lunch with my grandma, Mom, and Carl. It’s a good day. Grandma’s really into Ezra, even calling him her new grandson. When no one’s looking, I catch his eye and mouth, “Grandson in law,” which makes him smile.

He’s wearing one of my hunter green Polo shirts and a pair of my jeans, which fit him a little loose. At one point, as he gets up from the table, I see my mom noticing he’s got on my clothes. She smiles this funny little smile and then lifts her eyebrows at me, which makes my face heat up.

But they’re cool with it. Somehow, we fucking lucked out.

After lunch winds down, my dad calls, inviting Ez and me to come over to his place an hour early for the pie buffet—this thing he does where they put out like twenty kinds of pies and invite the whole extended family over to induce a sugar coma.

“Figured you boys might want to get in and get out, maybe fish a little while before it gets too crowded,” Dad says.

I’m pretty sure that’s code for I want a whole hour to talk to Ezra about which college he’s going to next year . But it’s okay. I’m glad my dad is into Ezra. I’m not coming out to him anytime soon, but one day maybe he’ll be happy with who I chose.

Just as I suspected, Dad talks Ezra’s ear off as Ez polishes off slices of pumpkin, chocolate, and pecan pie. I end up inside a sheet fort with Pipsa, helping wrap her baby dolls in toilet paper casts, which she makes me promise not to tell her mom about.

Finally, Ezra and I make our way into the garage, grabbing bait and poles and kissing over a bucket of crickets.

“Mmm.” I laugh, and lick his lower lip one more time. “Tastes like chocolate.”

“Sounds like crickets…” He side eyes them.

“Too much Alabama for you?” I laugh—really more a giggle, and he laughs at my laugh.

“I don’t know. Why can’t we just use fake worms?” he asks.

“Well, we could, but for the fish around my Dad’s dock, crickets work best. We could also get into the hammock down there by the lake shore. Nobody would notice since there’s so many trees.”

His eyes round out, and I snicker.

Despite Carl and Mom being cool with us, Ezra is still worried about his mom. The other day, I tried to broach the topic with him, but he quickly changed the subject.

“I’m just joshin’.” I wink, and we walk across the lawn together, so close that our arms brush a few times.

“Six months,” I say as a storm cloud drifts over the sun, making all the pine tree shadows in our path disappear. “In six months, we move to wherever you pick, and we can have our own place. I can. I know you might be in the dorms.”

He gives me a sidelong smile, which looks somehow both wistful and apprehensive.

“I’ll pick somewhere in-state,” he says quickly.

“No, c’mon. I told you this already. Pick the best place. If I have to move there and just work for six months till I’m an in- state resident, so what? Anything that’s good for you is good for me. What’s good for the gander is good for the other gander.”

He makes a thoughtful duck face.

“I heard my dad say you’d be a fool to go off anywhere but Tuscaloosa.”

Ezra arches his brows as we get to the dock. “Yeah. He might be right. They’re gonna lose Brandon Winters come spring, and then it’s just that sophomore guy, Kip Hollis.”

“Plus their scout was telling you that, wasn’t he? Telling you they’ve got a vacancy? I know you said they say that shit to everyone, but I don’t think so. They want you to start.”

He snorts softly. “I don’t know about that.”

It’s so funny and ironic how modest Ez turns out to be—after how things started with us. All the arrogance and bullshit from him was nothing but an act to get under my skin. He’s not lacking confidence, but he’s a realist. Doesn’t ever strut or brag about his football talent. He’s said a few times to me that it could be gone in a second. One wrong hit, one broken ankle or torn shoulder, and it’s over.

“I’m talking to them again after the championship game,” he says.

“Really?”

He nods, and I get a cricket out for him and bait his hook up.

“Auburn wants to talk tomorrow,” he says.

“Shit. They’re in a race to get you.”

He flashes me a quick grin. “Maybe.”

But there’s no question about it. Everybody’s clamoring for Ezra. He won’t let us watch ESPN at home—he says it makes him nervous—but I’ve sneaked some time with my phone app, and his name’s everywhere. They’re calling him the best QB in high school this year. I’m not surprised. My guy’s that fucking good.

As we fish, he asks me questions about both Auburn and Alabama, pretending he thinks I’m some big expert because I’m from this state, even though it’s obvious he wants to know which one I like best.

“I feel like they have a different vibe,” I say. “But not that different.”

We both end up laughing at how I have no opinion really.

“Whichever one ends up with that QB Ezra Masters? That’s the one to go to.”

We fish for about twenty minutes with no bites, and then all the extended fam on my dad’s side start to roll up.

“Let’s go talk for a minute and then get going,” I tell Ezra. “I don’t feel like all the social stuff, and I know you don’t.”

He gives me a funny, fake smile. “I love being social.”

“You’re a faker,” I say. “And a good one.”

“Like you’re not.” He snorts.

“I don’t go out as much as you do. Bren and all them know I’m introverted. Gotta protect my peace, bruh.”

“Not from everybody.” He gives me a smug smile, and it gets me right in the chest. I realize it’s the first time he’s seemed sure of how much I love being with him.

“Never from you.”

We shoot the shit with my aunt and cousins for a minute in the driveway and then say “bye” to Dad, who’s stepped outside to help Aunt Shirley haul a cooler.

On the way home, Ezra holds my hand and pulls our joined hands into his lap, folding them against his hip.

“You look sleepy.” I smile.

“All that sugar.”

I chortle at his health concerns, and he tells me that sugar kills. He’s smirking as he says it, though.

We watch some of a game show with Mom and Carl and hit the hay early—with Ez wrapped around me as the big spoon. Right before we fall asleep, he rolls away from me for just a second, doing something with his phone.

“You good? ”

He doesn’t put the phone down, but he says, “Yeah. Just a second.”

A second turns out to be more like a minute or two. Then he’s back, holding me a little tighter than he did before.

“Love you,” he whispers.

“I love you.”

It’s the last moment everything feels okay. At 1:42, he wakes up screaming. I get him awake pretty fast, and he looks into my eyes like he knows me. Then he tucks his forehead to my chest, right there below my throat, and cries—for such a long time. I feel his body shake, feel his tears, but he’s so quiet. When he leans away to wipe his face, he whispers, “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, angel.”

His lips brush over my cheek. Then he’s out of bed and moving toward the bathroom. A few seconds later, I hear the shower running. When I try the bathroom door, it’s locked. It strikes me as strange because he never locks me out. I tell myself I’m being codependent and he’s back in bed in twenty minutes, smelling like Dial soap and toothpaste, wrapping himself around me like normal and kissing my neck.

We jerk each other off and fall asleep curled up together, and the only thing I notice is that he can’t seem to take his eyes off of me.

Friday morning, we drive to these old Native American burial mounds in Cillin—just to have somewhere to go. Ezra’s quiet and seems distracted, but he holds my hand all day—he even kisses my cheek inside the mounds, where it’s shadowy and cool—and on the drive home, he talks again about what we’ll do together at college.

“Where do you see us, Millsy? Auburn? Bama? Somewhere else?”

“Wherever you end up, Ez.”

Someone from Auburn calls at 4:15, and Ezra beckons me onto the back porch with him. He keeps smiling at me as he talks. They’re clearly courting one another. He asks if he’d have to live in the dorms. He asks about the team’s values and how they treat players, and I can tell he’s trying to discern how they might treat a gay quarterback.

All he says when the call ends is, “Whew.” He shakes his head and laughs, and I say, “Stressful?”

“Sort of,” he says.

That night, we eat my mom’s spaghetti dinner, and I notice he doesn’t have much of it. He seems flat, a little tired, maybe, but it’s nothing standout. We watch a movie after, holding hands discreetly on the couch while Mom and Carl sit on the loveseat. Then Ez starts to fall asleep and ends up lying with his head in my lap. I stroke his hair the way he likes and feel a bolt of satisfaction when his body twitches. When I wake him and we go up to bed, he’s so zonked he doesn’t even brush his teeth.

“Can you get behind me,” he rasps, and I’m happy to hold sleepy Ezra.

He’s dreaming within the hour—shaking…panting. Moaning about Paul—a name I’ve heard before—and I wonder if I’m stupid for not pressing more about who that is.

When I run my hands through his hair, whispering “wake up, angel,” tears spill down his cheeks. He curls up close to me, and I wrap my arms and legs around him.

“I love you,” I whisper.

“Love you more,” he rasps back.

That happens twice more before sunup. I wonder why he’s so “off” right now, and I wish I could ask. I doze off at 6:20 and wake to donuts and a tired smile from him. Also, a little pen-scrawled note inside my wrist.

Thank you 3

Ez is sitting at the foot of the bed, wearing a black T-shirt, plaid sleep pants, and that strained smile he has when something’s bothering him.

I lift the covers up. “Come get in bed with me. ”

He gets in and wraps his arms around me.

“What’s the matter?” I whisper to his hair.

“I don’t know.” His voice cracks as he says it.

Fuck .

“Did something happen?” I ask, leaning back a bit so I can see his face better.

He shakes his head, and I trace my finger along his hairline at the nape of his neck. Football season’s basically over. Maybe he’s sad that the season’s ending?

“You feeling depressed?” I murmur.

He shakes his head, curling into me more.

“Okay. It’s okay, angel.” I want so much to ask what’s in his nightmares, what’s stealing his smiles from me in the past few days. But I just…can’t. It feels invasive. This is still so new between us. All he needs right now is someone to hold him and make him feel good.

So that’s what I do. I hold him for almost an hour—an hour during which he barely moves—and then Bren calls and asks if we'd like to go water skiing in wetsuits.

"You wanna go?" he asks me. He's got this dazed look I've seen before—like when he wakes up from a nightmare.

"I don't know." We're sitting up, facing each other. I cup his face with my hands. I can't resist leaning in and brushing my lips over his, even though he doesn't look like he feels great. I'm surprised when he kisses me deeper, wraps an arm around me. He almost gets in my lap, kissing me the desperate Ezra way until we have to break apart to breathe. Afterward, we end up lying together, wrapped up in each other. Looking into each other's eyes.

There's something wrong. He looks so fucking bleak.

"Tell me what's the matter, angel."

I trace my fingertips over his forehead, my stomach flipping when tears well in his eyes.

"Just tired," he rasps.

He tucks his head down against my chest again, and I feel grateful that I get to hold him. That I can do something small to ease his pain—even if I don't know what’s the matter. I rub his back and shoulders, tickling gently, and I feel him relax some. When he's been still for a long time, I kiss his forehead, nudging his face away from my chest.

He gives me a tiny smile.

“Hold,” I whisper.

I grab a pen from my nightstand and write on his chest, just over his left pec: angel. I draw a small infinity symbol beside it.

He opens his eyes more fully, kisses my lips. "Let's go with them,” he says. “If we don't get up, I'll never be able to let you go."

The lake ends up being just what he needs. I'm surprised and also not to find that Ezra is a natural skier—even in a bulky wetsuit. He's so good, Bren introduces him to the wakeboard, and he tears the water up.

He looks happy when he climbs back into the boat. His whole face is glowing. Then he sees me, and I can't help noticing the gut-punched look on his face. Dammit, maybe he’s been somber due to something with me? I'm up next, and my fears are assuaged when he gets up on his knees in his seat, beaming back at me like a proud dad as I ski.

He seems more normal when I get back into the boat. Marcel has a go, and Ez and I sit close enough so our knees brush a few times. As Bren steers the boat under the trestle bridge, Ezra's fingers find mine and squeeze. It's how I know that everything's still all right.

In the car on the drive back home from the marina, he smiles every time his eyes catch mine. He's driving with both hands for a while, but as we near the house, his right hand envelops mine. After he parks, he looks at me and whispers, "Miller?"

I nod, and I see him swallow.

"I love you." He kisses my jaw and then traces the tip of his tongue over my cheek, a gentle tickling in what I'm pretty sure is an infinity symbol. He tugs his shirt down, nodding at his chest, which is now bare of my drawings. "Washed off in the lake,” he tells me.

"That's okay. I'll draw it back after you shower."

Mom and Carl went antiquing, so after we shower, we end up on my bed doing bad things to each other. I let him know I want to feel him in me again, but he doesn’t take the bait. Instead, we do sixty-nine the way we do, both lying on our sides. Afterward, we go into his room to watch a movie.

Ez lays his head in my lap and wraps his arms around my waist, as if he’s holding on for dear life. It makes me feel secure. Relaxed. I noticed something on his nightstand recently—a full-ride offer from Stanford. Which scares me. Despite what I say about how he should pick any college, I'm not sure how I would follow him to California. But I know I’ll find a way if that’s his choice school.

We end up falling asleep at the end of The Hitman’s Bodyguard . I shake him awake to see if he wants to move to my bed, and he does. We brush our teeth, and when we're in my bedroom, he seems awake.

I start us fucking around, and we end up doing the tandem thing where we jerk off rubbing our dicks together. It takes him a long time to come, but when he does, he comes hard and seems wasted after.

After we clean up, I turn the strobe light on and we tuck in.

"Mills?" he murmurs.

"Yeah, angel?"

"You didn't draw it again."

I smile. "Oh yeah. Lemme fix that."

I point the strobe light at him and scrawl the word “angel” over his pec, and then draw a little infinity sign. I seal it with a kiss.

"Forever?" he rasps.

"Oh yeah."

"Will you be in the back?" he asks.

"Yeah, of course." Ezra’s as big as me now, muscle-wise, but I'm still meatier and wider-framed, although he's taller. I fucking love how I can sort of wrap him up and fit myself behind him when I spoon him.

"Miller," he murmurs, sounding half asleep.

"Yeah, Ez?"

"Don't let go."

"I won't."

"Promise?"

"Yeah angel. Promise forever," I whisper.

It takes him almost an hour to fall asleep. When he does, he's tense and twitchy. I kiss his nape, fit my leg between his—everything I can to help him relax. I fall asleep with a good feeling that I've got him in my arms. That he's mine, and I’ll take care of him. I'll keep trying at this until he tells me everything. And then I'll help him.

I wake up at 6:12 a.m., my hands wandering the bed in search of Ezra. His side doesn't feel warm. I roll over, finding it empty, and something clenches in my gut—a sort of twisting dread I can't explain—so I get up and check the bathroom.

"Ezra?"

Bathroom’s empty.

I don’t know why, but I’m afraid to go in his room. It takes me half a minute to push open the door. Because I know. Somehow, I fucking feel it: something’s wrong.

I'm fucking terrified I'll find him on the floor clutching a pill bottle. When I don't, I scurry out onto the roof via his window, but he’s not there. I check in the shower again, and then downstairs. I check the downstairs bathroom by the family room, and then I check the backyard, feeling sick with what I tell myself is misplaced worry.

“Duh, Josh.” The fucking driveway! When I find his Jeep missing, I assume he's getting donuts. So I text him.

The text bubbles are green. Which means his iPhone's offline.That’s a little weird. I check my arms and legs for something scribbled on me in pen—some note that explains where he went. But…nothing.

Fuck, I can't breathe.

I call his phone, and it's off.

"Ezra?" I call through the quiet house. I go back upstairs. I can't bring myself to wake Carl, but my throat’s so tight I’m almost choking with this awful fear, so I get in my car and drive down to the Isabella mansion. My head spins so hard from nervousness that I worry I'll wreck my car for that reason—no seizure needed.

When I get there and I don't see Ezra’s Jeep, I just sit there panting for a minute with my forehead on the steering wheel.

I try his phone again, and text again, and call again and again.Nothing. Voicemail.

"Ez? Hey. Call me. Don’t know where you went and I’m worried."

Again. "Ezra? Love you. Where'd you go, man?"

One more time as I drive back home. "Please call me. I'm getting really worried."

But he doesn't. Not for an hour. I check the attic, feeling terrified I’ll find him hanging from the rafters, but the space is quiet and empty. I try his phone again, telling myself maybe he went out to get the bacon and pimento biscuits; sometimes service out there isn’t so good.

Half an hour passes. I sink onto the couch, feeling paralyzed by fear I tell myself it’s probably all in my head. At 8:15 a.m., I knock on Mom and Carl's door. My mom answers, wearing her robe.

"What's the matter, honey?"

I tell her I can't find Ezra. She gets Carl. For a moment, everything is chaos—all of us checking the house, even though I told them that his Jeep is missing.

Mom and Carl ask if something happened with Ezra and me.

“No, nothing. At all.”

Mom calls Ezra, finding that his phone is still off. “Well, that’s strange. Maybe he went out with friends.”

And then Carl checks his phone. I watch as his face goes somber. When he looks up, it's at my mom and not me.

He makes a face as if there's something he needs to tell her, and I feel almost faint with fear.

Carl frowns from Mom to me. "I have a text from him." He says it slowly.

"And?" I snap.

I see him swallow. He looks down and then back up—right at me.

"It says that he's going back to his mom's.” The words are so slow, monotone, and I don’t understand them. “He says...he wants to move back." Carl's brow furrows as he looks at me. "Josh, did something happen?"

My body flashes hot then cold, like a light bulb that just blew. "I said no. Nothing.” I reach for his phone. “I want to see the text.”

Carl hesitates for just a second, but I snatch it away, my heart pounding so damn hard I think I’ll pass out.

‘Hi Dad. Sorry to leave without saying bye. I’ve been thinking on it and I think it’s good to finish out the year up there with Mom. For closure. Thanks for letting me stay with you. I enjoyed the time a lot. Talk soon- Love Ezra’

I stare at it till the words blur. “That…can’t be true.” I look from Carl to my mom. “That can’t be what he really said. He was just with me!”

I run upstairs and check his room—first the drawers and then under the bed, inside the box spring.

But Carl’s right. He’s fucking right, goddammit. Everything is gone.

But not his toothbrush. Not his aftershave stuff. I walk into my room, breathing so hard I can hear myself. I look at my nightstand, underneath both pillows.

Nothing.

I think of the way we dozed off. Things were okay. Things were good. I call him again…and again…and then a third time as my breath catches in my throat and tears start dripping down my cheeks.

“Hey Ezra? What’s the matter, man? I’m really worried. Please call. I don’t believe you would just go. Without some kind of…I don’t know. Did your mom find out? About us?”

As soon as I hang up, I call back. "Ez. It’s me. Are you okay? Can I come see you? Can you call me?"

I'm calling again, pacing my room, gripping the phone so hard it hurts my hand, when Mom cracks the door open.

"Josh—"

“Did you talk to him?” I ask her.

“No.”

"Then get out!"

I call again, not proud that I'm losing my shit. "Ezra, please! Please call me, angel. I don't know what I did wrong, but call me. Please . I want to know that you're okay. I need to."

One more time—again to voice mail. I hurl my phone at the window.