Good Boy by Megan Lowe
Chapter 14
I’m walking with Jase that afternoon after school when I’m shoved from behind and into the side of my car.
“What the…?” I spin around and come face-to-face with Cav. “What the fuck is your problem?” I ask.
“Are you betting on me?” he yells.
“The fuck?” I ask.
“I heard you were betting on me. I don’t want any part of your sick games.”
“My sick games? I’m not playing any games. I’m just trying to go to school, learn some shit, and not cause any trouble. You’re the one who has a problem with me, and who vandalized my car.”
He crosses his arms over his chest. “You should be more careful where you park. Accidents happen all the time.”
“Message received,” I say, gesturing to our current location.
“Good. I don’t want your fairy germs anywhere near my car. Who knows what diseases you carry.”
“That’s right,” I say. “Car-to-car transmission is a common way to contract illnesses.”
“Who knows what diseases you sickos have. They could be transmitted any way.”
“That’s true,” I tell him. “I mean, we secretly make up traps to entice normal, straight people to go gay, so why shouldn’t we add biological warfare to our arsenal?”
He nods. “That’s right.”
I roll my eyes. “Whatever you say.”
“You can’t turn me gay, either.”
“Who said I was trying?”
“I want you to stop this bet.”
“Just out of curiosity,” I say as I lean against my car. “How did you hear about this so-called ‘bet’?”
“One of the guys told me, said they heard it at lunch.”
I nod. “And that makes it legit, does it?”
“I know you,” he tells me. “I know what you and your… type are like.”
“Ah, yes, the ‘preying on the innocent’ stereotype, one of my personal favorites.” I sigh. “Look, I don’t know how many times I can tell you that I don’t want any trouble, but I sincerely mean it.”
“I want you to leave me out of your games.”
I hold my hands up. “There are no games, but whatever.”
“I don’t believe you,” he grits out.
“Fine, don’t believe me, that’s totally up to you.”
I turn away from him and unlock my car. Jase yells out as my head is slammed against the roof of the car, my eyes level with Cav’s hand. A hand with a unique star-shaped scar on it.
“James?” I whisper.
“What?”
The pressure on my head and back disappears.
I turn around and face him. “Show me your hand,” I demand, my head starting to pound, but that scar, James’s scar is enough for me to ignore it for the time being. Suddenly, it all makes sense. Why he was so angry at me. Why he kept coming at me. Because I know his secret.
“The fuck? No.”
“Afraid I might see your scar and figure out who you are?” I ask. “It’s too late, I already saw it; I already know who you are.”
“You don’t know shit.”
“Oh, but I do,” I say, taking a step closer to him. James is here. The guy I’ve been falling for, the one I’ve poured my heart out to, the one who listened while I did, is here. “How many hours have we spent on the phone? How many texts have we sent? I know what gets you hard, I’ve seen you get off.”
I crowd him against the car neighboring mine.
“Why did you ghost me?” I ask.
He pushes me back. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No?”
“No,” he confirms.
I go to pull out my phone. “Would you like me to show you? I haven’t deleted a thing. I’ve kept it all, rereading it, watching the clips you sent me over and over and over. They get me hard. Every. Single. Time.” I feel like all my Christmases have come at once. James, here, in front of me.
He smacks the phone out of my hand. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about you being gay. I’m talking about the relationship we were building. I’m talking about how I know you, the real you.”
He grabs me by the throat, throwing me against my car again.
“I’m not him,” he grits out.
“Not here,” I manage to squeeze out. “And maybe not even at home, but you can be with me.”
He squeezes my throat once more before shoving me away. “I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, who you think I am, but you’re dead fucking wrong. If you think you can play with me, it won’t fucking work. Leave me the fuck alone. You don’t know shit. You don’t know shit,” he repeats, his chest heaving.
I put my hands up. “Okay. It’s okay. We’re all good here,” I tell him.
He shakes his head. “Don’t. Don’t give me that pitying look. I don’t need it, and I sure as fuck don’t want it.”
“Absolutely no pity here.”
He points at me. “I know your type. You’re going to try to get in my head, make me think things that aren’t real, or make me do things I don’t want to do. It’s not going to work. It’s not going to work!”
“All right, all right,” Thomas says, pulling Cav back by the shoulders. Obviously our arguing alerted the guard dog. “Let’s not bring more attention to this than we need to, huh?”
“Get off me,” Cav says as he struggles in Thomas’s hold.
“Are you gonna be cool?” he asks.
“I’m fine, it’s this pedo we need to worry about.”
I’m more worried about Cav’s rapid mood swing than I am about responding to the slur he leveled at me.
Thomas looks to me, and I hold my hands up. “I didn’t do anything, I swear.”
He nods and drags Cav a few feet away. “Come on, man, let’s go to Giordano’s and get some deep dish, huh?”
I don’t know whether it was the lure of pizza or if the fight had gone out of him, but he allows Thomas to pull him along and into his car.
“What the hell was that about?” Jase asks.
“I honestly don’t know,” I reply.
“Did you call him James?”
“I thought I saw something, a scar.”
“Like the one on the hand of the guy you were talking to?”
“Yeah, like that. But I must have been seeing things.” There’s no way Cav is James, that James is Cav. He can’t be. James is… everything that Cav isn’t. They’re complete opposites in every way. But yet…. I did say I think Cav is hiding something, and this is definitely something.
“Why? Because the hand belongs to Cavanaugh McLaughlin?”
I whirl to face him. “Promise me you won’t say anything about this to anyone,” I say.
He nods. “I promise.”
“I’m serious, Jase, you can’t say anything, don’t even hint at it, nothing. Not even to Chloe okay?”
“I get it. I won’t say anything.”
“Good. Thank you.”
“But why, though? I thought you liked him.”
“I do—or I did, whatever. But people can’t know, okay?” I don’t know why I want to keep this to myself—or myself and Jase, I guess. It would be karma and then some if I were to spill the tea on Cav, but something is stopping me. The part of him that might be James is stopping me. James doesn’t deserve this. And if there’s even a slight chance that Cav could be James? Then I want to protect that, to see if I can’t get it back, to see if I can’t have it all the time.
“Why are you protecting him? The things he said…. They were pretty horrible.”
I run a hand through my hair. “I just am, okay? Can we drop it?”
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
“Good.” I bend down and pick up my phone, relieved that somehow it isn’t smashed to bits.
“I know I said I’d drop it,” Jase says when we get in the car, “but I have one more question.”
I blow out a breath. “What is it, bud?”
“What the heck are you going to do now?”