Good Boy by Megan Lowe
Chapter 11
In the end, Amy and I went halves on the damage to my car. I told her she didn’t have to, but she said as a reward for my continued good behavior, she’d pay half.
So while things between Amy and me are good, it appears my relationship with James has cooled significantly, and by cooled, I mean he’s ghosted me. I have his profile picture up, that stupid star-shaped scar haunting me.
“I know you’re into some strange stuff,” Jase says as he sits down next to me, “but staring at a picture of a hand is just fucking weird.”
I cuff him over the back of his head. “Watch your mouth. If Amy hears you swearing, she’ll blame me and take my car off me, and neither of us wants that.”
He mimes zipping his lips. “But seriously, who’s the dude?”
I close the picture. “Just some guy I was talking to.”
“Was?”
I shrug. “He ghosted. No big deal.”
“Really? ’Cause your face says different.”
“It’s fine. He was honest with me and said he didn’t have time for a relationship. I’m the idiot who didn’t listen.”
“You like this guy?” he asks.
I shrug again. “We had some good times. I thought we had a connection, but obviously I was wrong.”
“Maybe he’s just scared.”
I give my brother a smile. Throughout Mom and Dad’s illnesses, Jase was always there trying to make sure I had a smile on my face, always reassuring me things were going to be okay and I wasn’t fucking them up. “Yeah, maybe.”
“If that guy doesn’t want you, then fu—stuff him. You’re almost as awesome as I am, and anyone who doesn’t see that is missing out big time.”
I chuckle.
“But seriously, if he doesn’t see how great you are, then you’re better off without him. You don’t need someone who doesn’t appreciate you.”
“See, this is why we keep you around,” I tell him.
“Pfft, you know life would be boring AF without me.”
“Did you actually say ‘AF’?”
“Did you not, like, a minute ago tell me I couldn’t swear otherwise Amy would take your car away? So this is what you get.”
“I suppose I did bring this on myself.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Then I apologize.”
He nods and places a hand on his chest. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
“So how’s school going?” I ask.
He shrugs. “It’s school.”
“You making friends?”
“A couple. None as nice as yours though.”
I roll my eyes.
“What’s up with that, anyway?”
“What’s up with what?”
“That girl the other day.”
“You saw that?” I laugh. “She was the official Windswept welcoming committee.” I roll my eyes.
“Seriously? How come I didn’t get a welcome like that?”
I slap him over the head. “You’re a freshman, put it back in your pants.”
It’s his turn to laugh.
“But seriously, she was just a girl who wanted to get on all the goodness that is Connor Siddell.”
“Barf. Doesn’t she know you’re gay?” he asks.
“It didn’t seem to matter to her.”
“Huh.”
I run a hand over my chest. “I mean, I am a fine specimen of a male. Who wouldn’t want me?”
Jase throws a cushion at me as I laugh. “But seriously, kid, I’m always going to want to make sure you’re okay, so if you’re not fitting in or you’re having issues with someone—”
“You’ll what?” he asks.
“I’d do my best to help you.”
He sighs and slumps on the cushions beside me. “That’s the thing, Con, you can’t help me with everything, no matter how much you want to. Some things have to come from me.”
“I know, but old habits die hard.”
“I miss them, you know. A lot.”
I sling an arm around his shoulders and pull him to my side. “I do too.”
“Do you think this is really what they’d want for us? To move away from our friends and everything we know, to come here?”
“I think they’d want us to be with Amy, and she has a life here. It makes sense for us to come here, seeing as she’s supporting us.” Don’t get me started on how weird it is to be the one defending Amy now. But it would do neither of us any good by saying I think we should’ve stayed in Michigan. Besides, Amy and I are in a good place right now.
“Why is life so easy for you?” he asks me.
“What’s easy?”
“Everything. Making friends, school, looking after me, moving on from Mom and Dad.”
“Hey.” I move so I can look him in the eyes. “None of that is easy for me. Yes, I have a good friend in Chloe, and we have fun, but that was luck. School isn’t easy. Look at what Cav did to my car. But the rest? Buddy, I will never move on from Mom and Dad’s deaths. Never. But I know there’s nothing I can do to bring them back. With the amount of pain they were in at the end, I don’t know, I kind of… wished it could be over, for their sakes. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t want them to go, but I wanted the pain to end, and there was only one way that was going to happen. Maybe I should’ve shown you that, but I didn’t want that to be your last memory of them.
“And as for looking after you? Why wouldn’t I? You were all I had left, all I could count on, the one who was keeping me sane, helping to keep my shit together. That was never a job for me. It never will be.”
He sighs. “It’s just hard.”
I sit back on the couch. “I know. We all have our bad days, but we’ve got to remember that we’ve got each other and it’ll be okay.”
“What are you going to do about the guy?” he asks.
I sigh and run a hand through my hair. “Not much I can do about him. If he doesn’t want to talk to me, there’s not much I can do about it. Clearly it’s his loss, but whatever.”
“You like him.”
“Yeah, I do, or did, I guess. He did say we would never be a thing but….”
“But you were hoping he’d change his mind.”
“Yeah, or something.”
“And all this stuff with Cav?”
I blow out a breath. “I don’t know. I want, so badly, to bring him down a peg or two, but I don’t know if that won’t just cause more trouble for me.”
He nods. “Yeah, probably.”
“But I don’t think it’s right he gets away with everything.”
“It’s not, but he’s like, the king of Windswept, you don’t want to go against that.”
“Yeah, I know….”
“But you’ve still got your girly crush. I get it, the guy is very pretty.”
I give him a playful shove. “That doesn’t excuse all manner of sins,” I tell him.
“But if he was open to it?”
“In Jase’s dream world where everything is unicorns and rainbows and Cavanaugh McLaughlin didn’t have a chip the size of the Bean on his shoulder and wasn’t a homophobic bastard, then sure, I’d give him a go. But this is the real world and Cav does have that chip on his shoulder and is a homophobic bastard.”
“What is it that fascinates you about him so much?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s so closed off or acts so tough, when you know no one can be that tough without a weakness. Or the fact that he thinks his car is God’s gift to racers, or that he thinks he is God’s gift.” I shrug. “There’s just something about him.” That, and I’m certain there’s something he’s hiding, something he doesn’t want people to know about. He’s too controlled, too packaged, too perfect. There’s something there, and I want to be the one who finds it. Despite his best efforts, Cavanaugh McLaughlin is getting under my skin.