Page 8 of Summer Skin

ON A GRAY-SOAKEDmorning a few days later, near the start of October, Aven answered his front door wearing flannel pajama pants and a dingy-white t-shirt featuring Wolverine from X-Men. He had a fanny pack—an honest to god fanny pack—hanging from his hipbones. “What’s up?” he greeted, looking surprised to find Chase on his doorstep.

“You’re wearing a fanny pack.”

Aven nodded, like, yep, that’s a fact, and Chase, still curious about this questionable fashion choice, asked, “Inside your home?”

With a dazzling grin, Aven popped a hand on one hip. “It”s hot, right?”

“If you say so.”

“It’s called working smarter, Matthews.” Aven unzipped the fanny pack and pulled out his phone, waving it in Chase’s direction. “I took the dog for a walk.” More and more small items were revealed from the bag like a party trick: dog treats, a small water bottle, a pack of gummi bears that looked about half eaten.

“You took a walk around the neighborhood in your pajamas?”

The total gall.

Aven raised a brow, the corner of his mouth lifting. “I’m beginning to sense a mild fixation on the way I dress.”

More like a major fixation on seeing him undressed. There was no denying the amount of time Chase had spent trying to push the other boy out of his head lately, but Aven’s hypnotizing eyes and sultry mouth continued to pop back up like a whack-a-mole.

“Is, um, is Andi here?” Chase asked, eyes looking beyond the entryway.

Aven poked his head outside and made a show of checking from left to right. “Nope, you’re gonna want to skedaddle one door over.”

Chase pulled his phone out of his pocket, thumbing to his texts. His eyebrows scrunched together. “She told me to meet her here. We’re working on a paper for history together.”

“Text her, tell her to come over,” Aven said with a shrug. It seemed like doing so would be a little demanding, but Chase supposed it was easy when you’d been friends with someone as long as Aven and Andi. “Come upstairs with me while we wait,” Aven continued. “I’m trying to get some lyrics down.”

Or … maybe it was just simple to direct people when you had all the confidence of Aven Sinclair.

Chase stepped inside. The decor matched the modern blandness of Andi’s house next door. “Is the song about fanny packs?” He couldn’t help poking. “A fanny boy and his loyal dog?”

Aven huffed out a breath. “I prefer fanny man, thanks. I am eighteen, after all. My birthday was this summer.”

“Happy belated birthday, fanny man.”

“I really hope this doesn”t stick,” Aven said, playfully narrowing his eyes.

Chase pursed his lips and blew. “Save your wishes for candles, as my sister always used to say.”

Aven laughed, a sweet, genuine sound, and he moved to the stairway. “Follow me.” He took the stairs two at a time, long, nimble legs eating up space as Chase watched him climb. Reaching the top, he leaned over the side of the balcony railing. “Matthews, you coming?”

A spray of sunlight splashed against his profile, and Chase was struck with the instant desire to raise his phone and take a photo. Capture him.

This whole following him upstairs thing was a terrible idea. He should make a quick excuse and walk back to his place. No good would come from setting his sights on a pretty, rich boy who was straight as an arrow.

But said rich boy smiled down at him, and Chase’s breath caught in his throat. Aven was dangerously beautiful. Aven Sinclair had a smile that could break his heart.

“Come up,” he coaxed with an encouraging motion of his hand. And Chase, helpless to do anything but, followed.

Standing in the doorway to Aven’s bedroom, the room presented an immaculate sort of luxury. From a plush, cream-colored comforter Chase assumed held the softest down, to intricate carvings etched into the fine wood of his desk and headboard. The neatly organized and dust-free room whispered of a housekeeper tidying up a high schooler’s space.

But in many other ways, the bedroom looked like a typical teen’s. The kelly green coloring the walls was young and warm in contrast to the stark white of the rest of the house, and yesterday’s clothes were strewn about, as though Aven hadn’t cared to make it all the way to the laundry hamper before bed. A scent diffuser pushed out sage-fragranced air, but underneath that, there was the smell of teenage boy—a sweet, musky scent that made Chase want to deeply inhale.

“I don’t bite.”

“What?” Chase startled, his eyes focusing on Aven.

“You can come in.” Aven glanced at him sideways with an amused expression. His underdressed, just-rolled-out-of-bed look in the middle of his bedroom was triggering all sorts of unwanted sex-filled thoughts in Chase’s head.

“This is Beyoncé.” Aven lifted a guitar in his hand. “And that,” he said, nodding to a guitar on a stand in the corner, “is Taylor.”

Chase got it immediately. “You named your guitars after—”

“My childhood crushes.”

An alarm blaring straight, straight, straight! rang through Chase’s head.

Aven’s lips curled into a grin and Chase’s stomach flipped like a pancake. He’d always realized Aven was attractive, but loose and lazy in his bedroom on a crisp fall afternoon, he was a full-on James Dean.

Taking a seat on his bed, the gray patterned sheets still loose from sleep, Aven took some time to tune his guitar.

“Are you working on something for band?” Chase wondered.

A little smirk appeared on Aven’s mouth. “Nah, I dropped out.”

“Oh.” Chase’s stomach plummeted to his feet. There wasn’t a single cell in his body that had wanted Aven to dump band because of him. Because he pitied him. “Aven, you don’t need to drop out on my account, really.”

“On your account?” Aven’s eyebrows shot straight up. “Sorry to crush your self-sacrificing version of me under my own boot, but I did it for selfish reasons. Band takes up too much time. It’s my senior year, and I’d rather play my own stuff than whatever cringey shit Edwards hands out.”

“But …” Chase bit his lip, quirking his brows. “You got so pissed at me about it? I thought one of us was going to end up with a bloody nose.”

Aven ran a hand across the back of his neck, looking away. “Yeah, so, uh … that was more about my fragile male ego than playing guitar with a bunch of band geeks.” His shoulders lifted in a casual shrug. “I don’t want to play along and I’m not happy being the person others want me to be anymore.”

Chase was.

It was part of survival. Fitting in to avoid drawing attention to himself.

“You should drop too.” Aven’s head cocked to one side. “Yeah, man. We could play together, we’d sound good. Don’t you think?”

They were both quiet for a moment, Chase not exactly sure how to answer.

“Like after school?” Aven continued. “We could work on some shit together. I’m stuck on lyrics right now, actually. One sec, just listen.”

He positioned his fingers over the strings of his guitar, and Chase expected something loud—intensely ferocious with feeling. But the melody Aven created was unhurried and softly mesmerizing. Hauntingly ethereal in a way that sent a rise of goosebumps racing across his arms.

When he stopped playing, Aven looked up, and Chase’s breath hitched. Still caught under his spell. “That’s pretty.” He cleared his throat, wondering what Aven might want to hear.

“You like it?” Aven asked, a pleased grin played at his lips.

“Definitely. Giving under-a-winter-moon vibes.”

“Really?” Aven said, considering. “That’s a cool way to hear it. The lyrics aren’t coming to me yet.”

“What are you thinking?”

Aven tapped a thumb against the body of his guitar, considering. “Like the feeling of leaving something important behind, but with hope for where you’re going next.”

“Huh.” Chase played back the melody in his head. “Sort of like saying goodbye to your first love at midnight before skipping town?”

Aven perked up. “Yeah, man. Exactly like that.” He placed the guitar down and settled back into the mountain of pillows stacked on his bed, one ankle crossed over the other. He was watching Chase, the tiniest hint of a smile playing on his lips. “You’re way cooler than anyone else on this island. Where’d you come from anyway?”

A faint heat lit Chase’s cheeks, half from the compliment, half from not knowing exactly how to answer. “Little bit of everywhere,” he said, being honest. They’d never put roots in one place for too long.

“Well,” Aven continued, “was there anywhere you ever felt at home?”

Chase paused, the question dropping like a stone in his gut. He broke eye contact. There were paintings hung on Aven’s walls. Andi’s, from what Chase could tell, and he let himself zone in on an image of what he guessed to be the Sinclair family dog.

It wasn’t so much a place that Aven’s question brought to mind, but more a feeling. A sense of contentment and happiness. Of belonging. Playing chicken in a neighborhood pool with his sister, huddled together in a blanket fort with comics they’d picked up from a Little Free Library in town. The two of them singing along to the car stereo at the top of their lungs on the way back from the grocery store. His mom, warm from sleep when he’d had a nightmare and crawled into her bed.

“I don’t have a place like that.” He shook his head. “Not really. My mom … we moved around a lot.”

Aven worried at his bottom lip. “That must have been rough on you. On your sister. And your mom … is she okay?”

Now that was a loaded question. What was he supposed to say? My mom is so trapped in her own convictions that she completely fucked up our lives? But she’s not that bad. Really. She means well.

Or maybe that he didn’t know if she was okay. Because he couldn’t make himself pick up the phone and place a call. That he couldn’t stand to think of his spirited mother cramped away in a locked cell. That he was always wondering if her contrary mind and sharp tongue were causing her trouble with the other inmates, if she was suffering with no way to let her demons free through the tip of a paintbrush.

Or maybe he should say it didn’t matter if she was okay.

That he hated her ... and maybe he did.

But he loved her more.

Suddenly he was crying, big, heaving sobs that racked his chest. A flood of tears that had been trapped inside for weeks, months even, that he’d been unable to summon through even the darkest of midnights. And here, in Aven Sinclair’s bedroom, he finally fell apart. A tidal wave of emotion spilling all over his hopeless crush’s floor.

“Oh,” Aven said, rising from the bed, and Chase uselessly rubbed at his eyes, trying to stop the fresh flow of tears. “Oh shit, shit.”

And then, all at once, Chase was enveloped in warm, secure arms. Aven tugged him in against his solid chest. Held him there.

“I’m sorry,” Aven spoke into his hair. “I’m so sorry.”

An overwhelming vulnerability kept Chase frozen in place, even as his defensive side wanted to push away from letting anyone in on his pain. His thoughts were spinning, emotions roaring through his body like thunder. Run, a voice in his head demanded. Run. Get away. Now.

But Aven whispered, “Chase,” softly against his ear. It was the only time Aven had ever called him by his first name, and it was spoken in a way that felt so gentle and caring, that with a choked noise, he gave in and grabbed Aven back. Gripping into the t-shirt that smelled like sleep and boy-sweat with clawed fingertips, he burrowed his head into the curve of Aven’s neck, sobbing against his body as he held on.

“Hey, hey.” Aven rubbed his back with one hand, the other cradling his head, holding him safely in place. “You’ll be okay, alright?”

A sniffle.

“It will be okay,” he soothed. “I promise.” Like this well-bred rich boy had any insight into Chase’s family, his life.

Chase couldn’t see how it would ever be okay.

But there, in the comfort of Aven’s certain arms, for one single second …

He let himself believe.