aterovis_bleedinghearts.pm6 (22 page)

“No, its okay. It just surprised me. Seth called me that.

No one else ever has.”

“Really? You’d think it would be a natural nickname for Killian. Especially with that killer smile of yours.”

He added that last part with that incredible grin of his that got me every time.

I laughed, the tension of the moment forgotten. He turned around and bent to pick up his backpack and I couldn’t help but think about his bare butt, and once again the appropriate body part responded. I must have had a funny look on my face when he turned around, because he gave me an odd look then said, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I managed to say.

“You don’t look it,” he glanced meaningfully at my crotch and then gave me a lopsided smile. “So how long were you in the trees?”

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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

My mouth was moving but nothing was coming out.

How was I going to explain this? Jake would find out I watched him change and he’d be mad at me, maybe even stop talking to me.

“Killian, I’m kidding,” he said, grinning, “I knew you were there the whole time. Did you enjoy the show?”

“You...you knew?” I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard.

“I saw your reflection in the window. Do you think I always change out in the middle of the yard?” he laughed. “I wanted to see how far I could go before you said something.”

I blushed and he laughed even harder. Suddenly, he stepped in close to me and kissed me softly on the lips, then stepped quickly around me and walked away down the path towards the house. I stood where I was until I’d calmed down enough to follow him. I caught up to him near the back door.

“By the way,” he said when I came up alongside of him. He didn’t sound quite so pleased with himself now.

“Don’t expect a repeat performance anytime soon.”

“I-I-I d-don’t,” I stuttered and he giggled again.

“Oh, and one more thing,” he said with his hand on the doorknob, “Don’t worry about Todd.” I opened my mouth to say something, but he gave me a look that 190

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effectively said ‘shut up’ and then went inside.

I followed him in, wondering the whole time where the nervous, self-conscious kid from the other day had gone. This confident tease was another whole side of Jake that I hadn’t even known existed. Obviously, I still had a lot to learn about my new friend.

“Come on up to my room,” he said, so I followed him up to his room, which he apparently shared with Todd. He sat on one of the beds and I decided it might be wise to keep a little distance, at least until I’d figured him out a little more, so I sat on the chair at the small desk that was positioned between the two beds.

We both sat there for a few seconds in an awkward silence. Jake suddenly wasn’t looking so sure of himself. The seconds stretched into minutes with neither of us saying anything and Jake began to squirm and even had the grace to look a little queasy. I was enjoying the sudden shift in power until I realized how sleazy that was and then I just felt guilty. So I decided to break the silence, at the exact same second Jake spoke up.

“So, you wanted to talk about...” I started as he blurted out, “Killian, I’m so sorry!”

“Sorry?” I repeated stupidly.

“For that whole thing down by the boathouse. I can’t believe I did that,” he was almost in tears and his hands had started shaking. “That was so not like me.”

“It’s...okay,” I said feeling very lame, “Let’s just forget about it.” Oh yeah, like I could forget what I had seen, forget how beautiful his body was.

He looked up at me through these incredibly thick, black lashes and I felt as if he were looking into my soul.

Our eyes locked for several seconds before I started blushing again and looked away.

“Why are you blushing?” he asked me.

“Let’s talk about something else,” I suggested, ever so subtle as usual.

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“Why are you always avoiding my questions?” he asked me.

“Why are you always asking such personal questions?” I countered.

We stared at each other for a few seconds before I cracked and smiled. He quickly followed suit and in no time things were relaxed and we were comfortable with each other again.

“So,” I thought I’d try again, “you said you wanted to talk to me about the other person that you saw talking to Seth.”

“Well, yeah—about that...”

“Jake, don’t tell me you’re backing out on me now.”

“Not backing out so much as offering a rain check,”

he said with an apologetic, lopsided smile. He was the undisputed king of lopsided smiles. I found that I couldn’t even be upset with him.

I sighed. Might as well give in with dignity, I thought.

“So what is it now?”

“Well, the person in question asked me to hold off for now so they can talk to you themselves.”

“They? How many people are we talking about here?”

“Just one, I’m trying to keep things gender neutral,”

he grinned at me.

“You weren’t trying to keep things gender neutral outside,” I teased. I was surprised when he blushed a fetching shade of red.

“I thought we were gonna forget about that,” he mumbled.

“Sorry,” I said, but I didn’t even sound convincing to myself. Jake shot me a dirty look. “Look, if you saw me naked would you be able to just forget about it?” I asked.

His eyes immediately lit up with that mischievous look he’d had outside and I knew I’d goofed up.

“Hmm...I don’t know...there’s only one way to find out.”

In one smooth motion he leapt up and pounced on me 192

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like a cat. The swivel chair I was on spun around and dumped us both onto the floor, where Jake began to tickle me.

“Hehehehe...stop!” I managed to gasp out. I tried to push him off and we ended up wrestling for several minutes before I managed to pin him to the floor. My body was pressed against the length of his and our faces were only inches apart. A feeling of déjà vu swept over me. Last time we were in this position, he’d pulled away and the moment had been lost. I decided to not let that happen again. I moved slowly closer, our eyes never losing contact until the last second, when he closed his eyes and lifted his head to meet my lips.

And then we kissed for the second time that day, but this time I kissed back. At first it was just a soft kiss, but then, as I let go of his wrists and I felt his arms wrap around my back, we began to kiss harder. I felt his tongue brush against my lips and they parted instinctively. I felt myself getting hard and apparently Jake felt it too, which wouldn’t be too difficult considering my erection was pressing into his crotch. He immediately responded by getting hard too. He began to grind up into me; my breath rushed out of me, leaving me limp in his arms.

Jake rolled me over, maneuvering so that he was now on top. He started kissing down my neck and I found it harder and harder to breathe. When he resumed the grinding I thought I was going to die right there. He sat up, straddling me, and pulled up my shirt, running his hands up my chest in the process. Then he bent down and kissed my chest.

“I can feel your heart beating,” he whispered.

I reached up and stroked his cheek, then slipped my hand behind his head and pulled him up for another kiss. He broke away again and trailed kisses down my chest, sliding his body down as he went. He hesitated 193

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when he reached my pants.

Just then I heard footsteps coming. Obviously Jake heard them as well, because he looked up with a slightly panicked look on his face, leapt to his feet. He stood there a moment with a what-do-I-do? look on his face, then he grabbed my hand and yanked me up too.

We had just gotten our clothing straightened out and our erections hidden as well as we could when the door swung open. I almost jumped out of my skin. It was just Todd. He looked at me and then at Jake, taking in our flushed faces, and his eyebrows drew together in a frown.

“Don’t look at me like that, Todd,” Jake snapped, “We weren’t doing anything. We were just wrestling.”

“Oh yeah, right, Jake,” Todd snapped, “What? Do you think I’m stupid?” He pointed at me, “What kind of a jerk are you? Gilly’s right downstairs while you’re up here screwing around with her kid brother. And you!”

he wheeled towards Jake, “I saw what happened down by the boathouse. You’re going after him. You’re both pathetic. You both deserve each other; a couple of little fags. If it weren’t for Gilly I’d kick both of your asses.

Get out, Killian; I’ll deal with you later. Right now, me and Jake are gonna have a little talk.”

“Todd...?” I tried, but he quickly cut me off.

“Out!”

I cast one last look at Jake, who looked like he could burst into tears at any second, then dropped my head and walked out of the room.

Gilly met me at the foot of the stairs. “Killian, I didn’t even know you were here,” she said, “but I’m glad you are. I was going to call you later tonight. We’re throwing a big Halloween costume ball here next weekend, Saturday night. You’ll come right? You’ll be my date?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll come,” I said slowly.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. I heard a noise at the 194

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top of the stairs and turned to look. It was Jake. Our eyes locked and, for a moment, everything else faded away. Then Gilly’s voice broke back through and brought me back.

“Killian? Are you okay?”

I forced my eyes back to Gilly. “Oh yeah, sorry, Gilly.

I’m fine and of course I’ll be your date, but I hafta go right now.”

Gilly looked from me up to Jake and back at me. Her eyes narrowed and for a moment I thought she was going to make a connection, but then her face cleared and she took a step back to allow me to walk next to her to the front door. “Okay, Killian,” she said as we walked,

“I’ll call you later to discuss our costumes.”

“Okay,” I said as I backed out the door. I looked up at Jake one more time, before spinning on my heel and jogging off to the car. Todd had been standing behind him, glaring at me with eyes full of disgust.

* * *

I had a lot to think about on my ride home. How did I feel about Jake? Obviously I was attracted to him and he was attracted to me, but was it more than physical attraction? I hadn’t even known him that long. We definitely would have gone farther if Todd hadn’t come in when he had. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Part of me wanted to so badly, but another part of me wanted to be sure before I went that far.

And what about Gilly? Would it hurt her if I ended up with her little brother? She knew I was gay from the beginning, but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t be hurt.

I don’t even pretend to understand how a girl’s mind works. There was that kiss on the back porch that night and now she’s all excited that we’re going as dates to this costume ball.

Then there was Todd. Where did he fit into all this?

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He’d seemed to have it in for me from that first night.

Why? Was he just the typical protective older brother?

That was probably all it was, but it still made me un-easy. Now that he knew that Jake and I were gay, where would that lead?

To top it all off, I still wasn’t any closer to finding out who had killed Seth. I had to come up with a plan soon.

When I arrived home, an extremely happy Adam greeted me at the door.

“Guess what?” he shouted before I even had the door closed.

“What?”

“Ilana called...Eve’s lawyer called her today, on a Saturday. He told her that Eve has decided not to con-test my request for custody. Once the paperwork has been signed, Kane will be moving in with us!” He grabbed me up in a huge bear hug and swung me around the hallway. He stumbled over the rug and almost dropped me before setting me back down. We laughed together as we headed for the living room.

“Steve’s on his way over; we’re gonna celebrate! Oh!

I almost forgot. Kane called soon after Ilana and said to tell you that the plan worked, but he wouldn’t explain what that meant. Does this have anything to do with your sudden interest in homework last night?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” I said with a grin.

“Are you going to explain?”

“No.”

“Fine, then, I won’t tell you my last piece of good news.”

“What?! You have to tell me!”

“Not until you tell me what this secret plan of yours and Kane’s is.”

“I’ll tell you when Kane gets here, I promise, now please tell me the other good news. Ple-e-e-ease?”

Adam gave a huge mock-sigh and then broke into a 196

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grin again. He was just too excited to even pretend to be upset. “Okay, well, Asher called in the middle of all this excitement and wanted to talk to you so I invited him to the celebration dinner. He should be here in about half an hour.”

I felt my expression freeze, and then slowly melt away.

“What’s wrong?” Adam asked, “Did I screw up? I thought you’d be happy. You guys have hardly talked in weeks.”

“Asher...hasn’t been very...happy about Gilly and I,”

I told him slowly.

“You haven’t told him that it’s just a cover?”

“Well, I tried, but he made me so mad, I kinda said some stuff I shouldn’t have and I probably hurt him pretty bad.”

“Well, then you can apologize tonight and explain things to him and patch things up.”

“Well, there’s one other problem...” I said, thinking about Jake.

“What’s that?”

“Well, it’s hard to explain,” I started. I felt myself start to blush.

“Does this have anything to do with that boy you brought home the other day? Gilly’s little brother?”

It always amazed me how Adam could read me so easily.

“Yeah, his name’s Jake.”

“And you like this Jake?”

I blushed again. Adam leaned in towards me and gave me a sharp look.

“Just what exactly is going on with you and Jake?”

he asked.

“Um...well...it’s kinda had to explain.”

“Well, let’s try, huh?”