Good Boy by Megan Lowe
Chapter 19
Being Thomas’s whatever is… weird, but he seems to be relishing his newfound role. He’s now sitting with Chloe and me at lunch, sending the gossip mill into overdrive. And for the moment, it seems enough to keep Cav away. For that reason alone, I’m willing to go with it, see where it goes and how much it rattles Cav. This is what it’s all about, after all. For me, anyway.
“What the fuck have you done to Thomas Rose?” Chloe asks as she drags me away.
“Nothing. Why?”
“Then why the fuck is he sitting with us all of a sudden?”
I shrug. “We’re, um, friends.”
“Friends?” she screeches.
“Yeah, like you and I are.”
She shakes her head. “Uh-uh, not like we are. We have a genuine connection and mutual goals.”
“How do you know Thomas and I don’t?” I ask.
“Because he’s Thomas Rose, second spawn of Satan behind Cavanaugh McLaughlin. How do we know he’s not up to something?”
“And if he were?”
She tilts her head. “What are you up to?”
“Nothing. Thomas and I are friends. Truly. He’s been watching what Cav has been doing to me and he doesn’t like it, so this is him taking a stand against bullying.”
“Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.”
“Look, I know you’re worried, but you don’t need to be.”
She quirks an eyebrow. “What if he’s trying to get close to you to spy for Cav.”
I shrug. “I don’t have anything to hide.”
“Yeah, but you can get hurt. Again.”
I put my hands on her shoulders. “I appreciate the concern, Chlo, I do, but it’s not needed.”
She chews on her lip.
“It’ll be fine.”
She sighs and rolls her eyes. “What are you going to do about Cav?” she asks.
I shake my head. “What do I need to do?”
“Oh, honey.” She pats my shoulder. “You don’t think this will cause waves? It’s already causing waves. Plus, Cav isn’t stupid. He’ll figure out what you’re doing.”
I groan and run my hands through my hair. “I just wanted things to be simple.”
I’m swapping my calculus books for my history ones when I’m shoved into my locker, the corner of the door going into my chest. “Ow! What the fuck?” I ask.
“What are you doing with Thomas?” Cav asks.
“We’ve formed a book club.”
“A book club?”
“Yeah, you know, we read books, and then we get together and discuss them. Our current pick is What If It’s Us. It’s about two boys who fall in love in New York. Very touching story, but funny too. I highly recommend it.”
“You think you’re funny, don’t you?”
I sigh and take a deep breath. I need to be cool, calm, and collected. Antagonizing Cav isn’t going to help anything. I hold up my hand in apology.
“I want you to leave Thomas alone.”
“Once again, I’m not doing anything. He came to me. If he wants to spend time with me and my friend, that’s his choice.”
“He’s my best friend.”
“Never said he wasn’t. He still is, by the way.”
“What’s he doing with you? Why is he with you?”
“You can ask him, you know.”
He grits his teeth.
I sigh and lean against my locker. “I think, if you were to ask him, he’d tell you he’s taking a stand against bullying.”
“And if I ask you?”
“I’d say he’s trying, in his own way, maybe the only way he knows how, to make my life even a tiny bit easier.” I lower my voice. “I’m not your enemy, Cav. I don’t want to make trouble for you. I didn’t want to make trouble even before I knew who you were. But I meant what I said in my texts. This is a good thing. A great thing. A wondrous thing even. We found each other. Despite everything. In spite of all the men in this city, we. Found. Each. Other.”
He pushes me away.
“I told you I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I nod. “Okay. Fine. But I do. And I won’t forget. I can’t forget.” I give him a smile.
He opens his mouth, but doesn’t say anything. It’s only when someone walks a little too close by, that our bubble pops.
“What is your problem, fag?”
I sigh and my shoulders drop.
“I’m not who you think I am,” he tells me.
I grab his hand and lift it. “This scar says you’re exactly who I think you are. Who you could be, if you wanted to be.” And I do want him to be. So badly. I didn’t imagine what we had. I didn’t make it up. It was real. It could be real, if only he wanted it to be.
He rips his hand out of mine. “Tell me again what Thomas is doing with you.”
I shrug. “We’re hanging out, doing things that friends do.”
“What sort of things are you talking about?” he asks.
I sigh and lean back against the lockers. “He’s not spilling your secrets, if that’s what you’re worried about. And I’m not either.”
“You don’t know any of my secrets.”
“Fine, whatever.”
“Just leave him alone,” he says.
I throw my hands up. Cool, calm, and collected be damned. This… man is so freaking infuriating. “I’m not doing anything to him!” I yell. “I didn’t take him from you, and I sure as shit am not telling him he can’t be friends with us both. And FYI, this whole thing is so incredibly childish.”
“He was my friend first.”
“He’s still your friend; his horizons are just expanding. Jesus Christ. What’s going to happen when you go off to college? You going to carry him around in your pocket then too? What happens if he gets a girlfriend? You going to be there, sitting on the end of the bed, watching as he has sex with her?”
“Isn’t that more your thing?” he asks. “Or do you just lead people on?”
A smile pulls at my lips. “I don’t lead anyone on. I also don’t hide or pretend to be someone I’m not.”
He clenches his fists. “So that girl the other day knew the deal with you then?”
“What girl?” I ask. Then I remember EJ coming and perching on my lap. I laugh. “She was no one. Is no one.” Then it clicks. “Oh my God, you’re jealous.”
“Fuck off.”
“Is that why you wouldn’t talk to me that night? Because you saw us talking? Her coming on to me? Surely you knew that she didn’t mean anything.” I can’t deny that my heart skips a little beat hearing that. He cares. Deep down, probably very deep down, he cares. Cav cares.
“I don’t give a shit what you do.”
“No?” Emboldened by what he just said, I sidle up to him, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his body. I run my hand down his chest, to his belt, then lower, cupping him lightly. It might be wishful thinking, or perhaps my overactive imagination, but I swear he jerks under my touch. “You telling me this has never got hard for me? You’ve never jerked it to me, never thought about me at all?”
He slams me against the lockers, my head bouncing off the metal. “Why the fuck would I ever get off on you?”
“Please don’t hide from me,” I beg. I hate how needy, how desperate I sound, but this is what he does to me. This is what he turns me into. This is what I’m willing to do for him.
“You need to drop it,” he tells me.
“Why won’t you talk to me? We used to be able to tell each other anything. We told each other everything. Why can’t we be like we used to be?”
“Why does it matter so much to you what I do?”
“Why doesn’t it matter to you?” I counter. “This is who you are, Cav. You shouldn’t have to hide it.”
“You don’t understand.”
“If I remember correctly, I told you I want to, that you could talk to me about anything. You said the same to me, and I more than took advantage, remember?” He stays silent. “And you know what?” I continue. “It helped. A lot. Being able to get what I was thinking and feeling off my chest made me feel so much better. I know it would work for you too.”
He shakes his head. “Nothing can help me.”
I cup his cheek, but he pulls away. “That’s not true. Let me in,” I beg. “Let me help. Please.”
“No.” He picks me up and slams me against the lockers again.
“Cav!” Thomas yells, pushing through the crowd neither of us noticed building. He gets between the two of us, prying Cav’s hands away from my chest. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“What am I doing?” Cav asks. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“He’s my friend,” Thomas replies.
“I thought I was your friend.”
“I can have more than one.”
“Don’t even bother,” I tell Thomas. “I’ve tried and tried to tell him that, but he won’t listen to me.”
Thomas throws his head back and laughs. “Cav, man, I’m just making friends, talking to Connor here about that sweet R-SPEC he’s got in the parking lot. I’m going to get him to test it out in the Skids next month.”
Cav’s head swings to mine. “You’re driving in the Skids?”
I shrug. Truthfully, I hadn’t decided if I was going to compete or just watch.
According to Thomas, the Skids is an underground street racing circuit. Meets are sporadic, and the location always changes. Pink slips or cash are the usual prizes.
I went to a couple of meets like this in Michigan, when a few friends and I went down to Detroit. I’m not going to lie, the thought of racing scares me a little, but by equal measure, it also excites me. I love fast cars, and what’s the point of having one of the best and not showing it off?
“Why would you tell him about that?” Cav asks Thomas.
“Why wouldn’t I?” he replies. “You’ve seen his ride. A car like that is screaming out for an opportunity to show what it can do.”
“He won’t be able to handle it,” Cav says.
“How do you know?” Thomas asks as I say, “Ah, I think that’s up to me to decide and prove you wrong.”
“This isn’t like The Fast and the Furious,” Cav says. “These guys don’t fuck around.”
“I never thought it was,” I tell him. “And this isn’t my first rodeo, you know.”
He laughs. “You think that whatever they have back in bumfuck, Ohio—”
“Michigan,” I correct.
“Whatever. You think whatever they have there can compare to here?”
“I don’t know if you know this or not, but Detroit is also known as Motor City. There are a lot of cars around. There are also a lot of races. I’m betting we hold our own.”
He stares at me, jaw clenched, eyes narrowed.
In the end, he shakes his head. “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into. No idea.”