Page 30

CHAPTER 30

ELI

We’ve spent many away games apart since… ‘ getting together .’ I only use the term in my head because I don’t want to push Edin. Despite him calling me his boyfriend to his mom, I don’t need to label what’s between us to know that he’s mine. We both know that.

Still, it sucks. There’s something especially difficult about this separation compared to the ones prior. Probably because his fucking mother showed up and Edin’s been… freaked out by it. I can see it in his eyes. I feel it in the way he clings to me when we’re alone.

At the same time, he’s quieter than he had been. I feel like I’d gotten him to start talking to me more, to laugh more, and this bitch shows up and shoves him back into the dark recesses of his mind.

I’d really like to run her over. Bury her under the football field so her corpse is constantly trampled over. Unmarked. She’ll just be a goddamn body. Who do I need to call to make that happen?

After Edin left yesterday, I wandered around campus for hours, looking for his mother. Trying to see if I saw her creeping about. Sometimes I thought I did, but when I’d get closer, it wasn’t her. I keep the picture Edin sent us of her, so I can constantly look at the faces as I pass by.

I’m convinced that yesterday, at least, she wasn’t on campus. Part of me wonders whether it’s because she’s watching Edin, knows his hockey schedule, and therefore suspects Mo’s not here. But… I think it’s probably unusual that a kid is almost always with the hockey team regardless of whether it’s a game or practice or whatnot.

Maybe she’s now off campus looking for where Mo stays when Edin’s gone.

The thing is, Edin and Dak grew up together. I’m positive she must know who Dak is. She’d recognize him. I’m guessing that means she’d be comfortable enough to approach him, too. The woman sounds absolutely delusional.

Edin didn’t tell me everything his mother said. I know what he told Dak, and he said a little more when we were in bed together that night. Otherwise, he hasn’t spoken of her.

I wish I knew the right words to convince him that whatever she says shouldn’t bother him. I’m at least half convinced it does. She’s his mother. It’s difficult not to take what your parents say to heart on some level. Even when you know they’re evil.

Yes, I used that word. It feels as juvenile as it does accurate.

A knock on my door makes me look up. When it doesn’t open, I know it’s not Zeke. “Yeah?”

The door opens and Nolan pops his head in. “I need accountability to study for this bullshit exam,” he says, looking irritated and defeated.

I chuckle and nod. He comes into my room and drops his bag on the floor beside my bed, then he follows it, sitting with his back against the edge. I nearly ask him why he’s not studying with Kelsey, but I think I know the answer. There wouldn’t be any studying happening.

“What class?” I ask as he pulls his books out.

“Antiquity cultures. The class is actually interesting, but there’s just a lot that this next exam is covering, and I feel like I’m finding literally any reason at all not to study.”

Part of the reason I suggested studying to Edin all those weeks ago and kept our meeting to studying was because of Nolan. We figured out two years ago that accountability is exactly what we both need. Just sitting in the same room with someone who’s also studying. There’s some psychological mode that clicks on that says I need to study as well.

It was a productive evening on several accounts. Just look where we are now.

I turn my attention back to my ceiling. I’ve been laying on my bed for an hour or more, tossing a pom-pom into the air and catching it. Some might use a ball to do the same, but one, I don’t have a ball, and two, I’m more likely to catch this with all the tassels. Seems pretty fail proof.

“You okay?” Nolan asks.

I nod. “Yep. Just bored.”

“Because your boyfriend’s away?”

“Obviously. But seriously, don’t call him that.”

Nolan glances at me over his shoulder with amusement. “Sure.”

“He’s… complicated,” I say, sighing. “Commitment issues, but for good reason. Maybe it’s not commitment but… I don’t know. Either way, I don’t want one simple word to freak him out and push him away. Even when someone else is saying it.”

“Understood. Sorry.”

“I know he’s not around, but I don’t want anyone in the habit of using it. Accidents happen, and I don’t want someone accidentally using it when he’s around.”

“Got it,” Nolan says. “I won’t use it again.”

“Thanks.”

“Are you really just sitting in your room throwing a pom, though?”

“No. I’m lying in my room throwing a pom. You gotta be more observant than that.”

Nolan snorts. “My bad.”

“I keep trying to figure out what I used to do before Edin and Mo, and I’ll be honest with you. I think I was wasting my life away.”

He laughs. “Sure. I think it was that you used to hang out with your friends.”

“Probably more than I do now. Which admittedly isn’t very often.”

We’re quiet. I let the conversation go so Nolan can study and turn my attention toward the window beside my bed. I’m not sure what this room used to be back when it was a single-family mansion. I know there were two walls added to create three of the bedrooms from one large room on this side. I can tell because of the intricate ceiling treatments. A wall cuts it off, and it continues on the ceiling in the room to my right. The treatment meets three of the four walls in my room and not the wall that separates my room from Thomas’ next door.

Thomas’ room has the treatment on two sides, running parallel—not the sides with the walls separating bedrooms. And yes, the third bedroom down, Jose’s, has it on three walls, mirroring mine.

So it was once a large room. Maybe a bedroom since we’re on the third floor, but I don’t know that for certain. I always thought it would be interesting to see old pictures and blueprints of the building. Just to see the history.

The window that my bed is pushed up against is easily twice as wide as a typical residential window. It’s also lower to the floor than most. I have to be careful not to lean against it or have too much pressed against it, so I don’t fall out the window.

I do know the sixty acres behind the house used to be part of the same property this house is on. It was luxurious, with rich gardens, stone statues, and fountains. A lot of the statues and fountains remain as mini parks and monuments. But the gardens are now buildings and streets. Half of the property is owned by Longwood. The rest is residential.

Sometimes I imagine myself in the house when it was built in the thirties. Ostentatious rooms with elite parties. Everyone always in their finest clothing in case someone should drop by. Calling cards presented by servants as a prelude to visitations. And chaperones everywhere.

I imagine myself sneaking around with a servant and fucking on the sly. Our forbidden love is exciting, dangerous, and taboo.

There were always gay men. There are reflections of this in ancient civilizations all around the world. History likes to call them perpetual bachelors living with their close friend and roommate, but whatever. That doesn’t erase the fact we were here. It doesn’t erase the truth.

There are pottery and wall paintings and all sorts of evidence of this. The early part of the twentieth century has black and white pictures that show these lifelong bachelors. I wonder if there’d been any in this house. Not bachelors, but maybe someone living out their secret life behind closed doors and sneaking into closets and whatever.

I wish there was a way to find out and record their lives. Tell their stories.

“It’s too bad that we don’t still mummify people,” Nolan comments, and I turn my head to face him. His back is to me, so all I’m looking at is the back of his head.

“I’m sorry, what?”

He laughs. “I just think it’s really cool. Such elaborate ways their bodies were preserved. We have bodies dating back more than 3,000 years.”

“What I think is the most disturbing part about it is that the world deems it okay to dig up their remains and put them on show in museums, but it’s a crime to dig up modern cemeteries,” I muse.

He hums. “Don’t get me started on that. There’s been an endless debate about just that argument in class and though I don’t disagree, I’m tired of listening to it.”

“Fair enough. Boo, digging up bodies. Yay, let’s mummify people.”

Nolan laughs again, shaking his head. He glances at me over his shoulder. “Thanks.”

I wink at him and turn my attention to the ceiling once more. My door opens and this time it’s my brother. He pauses to look at Nolan but apparently decides he’s not interrupting anything, since he crosses the room and drops onto my bed.

“I have gossip,” he says.

“Oh good. Spill.”

“Russel Thornton really enjoys girl dick,” Zeke says.

“You’re telling me Courtney scored the quarterback?” I ask. Honestly, how long has it been since I’ve spoken to her? Fuck’s sake, I’m an awful friend when I get a boyfriend. Uh… when I get an Edin.

“She did. Many, many times. You should let her tell you about it. That man is totally in love with our girl.” He grins ear to ear.

I chuckle. “Sweet.”

“I really ought to try girl dick sometime,” Nolan says as he turns back to his books. “I’ve tried girls. I’ve had guy dick. What could be better than combining the two?”

Zeke laughs.

“More people need to be like you, Nolan,” I tell him affectionately.

He sets his books down and twists to face us again. “I have a theory that at least fifty percent of the male population is bi-curious. But because anything outside of the heteronormative culture is such a controversy, they’re the loudest ones protesting it. If we lived in a different universe where people could just be , I would bet my damn life that there are relatively few straight up—pun intended—heterosexual people in the world.”

“Curious,” Zeke says. “What do you have to base this belief on?”

“The people who are heterosexual, who legitimately aren’t attracted to other people, will not care who’s in my bed. It doesn’t affect them in any way. They are the ones who will carry on with their lives and not say something. So much bullying behavior stems from jealousy. You’re living your authentic life and they’re jealous they can’t or don’t. So, of course, you’re going to offend them. They’re always going to be the loudest ones protesting with the most vile attacks because they’re forced into their own closet, for whatever reason.”

“That’s a little convoluted,” I say.

“Meh. I’m not the most eloquent. Give me a class where I can really stack my case, and I’ll have you convinced. And those who are the loudest protesters?”

“Are the ones angry that you’re calling them out,” Zeke says. “That’s brilliant.”

Zeke shifts closer to me, so his arm is pressed against mine. I let my pom-pom drop on my opposite side and take his hand. Nolan turns back around to study again.

The room remains silent for a while.

“You know, as much as I love DIK, I really love the environment at the Omegas’ house,” Zeke says quietly. “It truly feels like family. We’re dudebro brothers, but over there reminds me of when we were all kids—you, me, Gracie, and Jude— cuddling up on the couch together to watch Saturday morning cartoons.”

“Is that why you’ve been hanging out at OXL?” I ask. “I thought you had a homoromantic relationship established with Mario.”

He laughs and shrugs. “Maybe kinda. We have a lot in common and his company is easy. Cuddling up with him on the couch is less… questionable than me dropping in on you fucking Edin.”

Nolan turns around again, raising his eyebrow at Zeke. “Seriously?”

“More than once,” Zeke confirms with a wide smile.

Laughing, Nolan turns back. “That’s not at all weird, bro.”

“Meh. I get lonely. I need some damn affection.”

I squeeze his hand.

“Anyway, how’s Edin? You talk to him recently?” Zeke asks.

“He’s okay. I think he’s feeling a little more relaxed with him and Mo away from campus. I talked to him a few hours ago. He called me while Mo was having breakfast. They were heading to the hotel pool for the morning and then a museum in the afternoon until hockey.”

I leave out that he’s been texting me throughout the day, sending me pictures of Mo and the occasional selfie, though those are farther between. Every time a text notification comes through, and I see it’s from him, my heart jumps and warmth floods me.

It means everything that he’s including me in his days away and the little things they’re doing. One picture was of Mo eating a granola bar. That’s it. Nothing insanely exciting but a mundane, everyday thing and he wants me to be a part of it.

I’m so damn stoked he’s thinking of me as much as I’ve been thinking of him. Though I’m trying not to get ahead of myself, I hope this means we’re on the same page as far as our relationship goes. I don’t need to hear what I mean to him. Yes, the words would be nice, but really, I’m so fucking happy just knowing he’s thinking about me.

“Your smile is sappy,” Zeke says, sighing dramatically. “I miss the days when you were a playboy.”

I snort. “I was never a playboy. And you’re full of shit. You love Mo, and I know you like Edin, too.”

Zeke rolls his eyes. Silence envelops us again. He breaks it when he says, “Yeah. I do.”

A smile spreads across my face, and I squeeze his hand again. This time, he squeezes back.