father from hating me, desperate to control what few aspects of my life I could. Hockey and school. “It wasn’t like that,” I said through a tight throat.
“Just because I saw it didn’t mean it happened, right?” he said with a strained smile.
“What?”
“Something I heard someone say recently. I think we need to have a long talk about what exactly happened that Christmas.”
“God, yes. I think we are not on the same page,” I said.
“I’m not sure we’re in the same book,” he muttered.
“And that,” I said, seizing on the opening and trying to keep my voice light, “is the main reason I can’t kiss you right now.”
“The main reason? There’s more than one?” He tried to match my tone.
I nodded solemnly. “It’s a long list.”
“But that means you must have been thinking about kissing me again at some point.” He poked me in the chest, cocking his head to the side as if he were searching for clues on my face. “Did you compile this list just in the few minutes since we, well, reunited, for lack of a better word, or is this a working document that you’ve been adding to over the years?”
“Totally spontaneous. As a matter of fact, I’m adding to it every time you speak.”
His grin and the twinkle in his eyes did bad things to me. Made me want to tear up the list, to forget all the hurt and anger I’d stored up over the years. Though truthfully, the pain was old and distant. Mostly, for the last few years, I’d just been numb, disconnected. Nothing hurt, but nothing had felt great either. Until today. Until I’d touched him again.
“What do I call you, then? Jake or Carson?”
“Call me Jake,” he said. “But, Eric, I’m not that kid anymore. Jake Karlsson is long gone.”
I inhaled sharply and then let the air out in a long slow exhale. He was right. The person I missed, the boy I’d loved who had hurt me, and the person I needed to help me find my way back home, was fifteen years gone. I was angry at a person who didn’t exist anymore.
I needed to find out who he was now and if there was any way we could fit into each other’s lives. How did I get him to talk to me honestly? As a kid, Jake had hated feeling vulnerable and hadn’t so much lied as avoided telling the entire truth unless someone held his feet to the fire. He’d been more open with me eventually, but it had taken years. I didn’t know what his plans were, but I had a feeling we didn’t have anywhere near that kind of time now. What had worked on an intensely private Jake in the past?
Oh, yes. I had just the thing. I cocked my head and raised one eyebrow, a move I had practiced in the mirror the summer I turned fourteen. I’d thought it made me look rakish, which was a word from the book Jake had read out loud to me. I couldn’t remember the book, but I remembered the scent of the air, hot and humid near the bank, the sound of Jake’s voice, and the way his fingers had carded through my hair as I rested my head in his lap, unconcerned if anybody could see us. God, I missed those days. That Eric Smallman had been the best version of me. With Jake around, I’d been invincible. And loved.
“What?” Jake asked with a hint of suspicion at my look.
“Truth?” I asked him. “Or dare?”
9 Carson
I must have heard wrong. Standing this close to Eric was obviously interfering with my thought processes. I was still half-hard from when he’d pulled my hair. My body responded to his the way it always had. When I’d touched his chest, his muscles had been rock solid. He smelled like sweat and cut grass and some cologne I couldn’t place.
I wanted to throw myself at him, batter myself against his strength, and, if I was being completely honest, use him as a shield against an uncaring world. I was so tired of being alone.
Closing my eyes, I’d waited for him to kiss me or punch me. I craved one. I deserved the other. Either one would have been a good sign. Fucking and fighting were two sides of the same coin.
Either way meant he was hooked.
He’d done neither. But he hadn’t gone. He was still here, still talking to me. This was going to work. I