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CHAPTER THREE

THE SUN CREEPS OVER MY EYES. I check my phone. It's 10 a.m. I can hear the sound of the shower running from behind the door of the bathroom. It shuts off and a moment later, the door opens, revealing Jordan with nothing but a towel around his waist. We share a smile and a nod as I shoot out of bed and go to borrow his shower. After finishing and getting dressed, we get breakfast at the local cafe.

By the time we're finished, it's nearly noon as we hop into his car so he can drop me back to my place before he heads off to work. As we drive down the highway, the seemingly endless miles of beach to our right, something feels off this morning, but I can't quite figure out why.

"Sleep all right?" Jordan asks.

"Yeah, pretty well. Why do you ask?"

"I thought I heard you talking to someone in the middle of the night—you sounded a bit annoyed." He turns to me briefly before returning his eyes onto the road, reminding me of what I had, honestly, already forgotten.

"It was nothing, really."

"Sorry, but I heard a bit more than I let on—it didn't sound like nothing to me."

"What did you hear?"

"And... It wasn't just you they bothered with, you know—they sent me messages, too. At least, a few of them did."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm used to it—hate speech and all."

"Hate speech? I didn't get any of that from what I saw last night."

"What about from that phone call?"

"That idiot just wanted to know..." I go silent as I realize that I should have given more of an effort last night with giving a much stronger response—a much stronger denial.

"What?" Jordan asks, he gives me a raised brow of concern. "What did the idiot want to know?"

"What time did you get the hate messages?"

"While you were in the shower, I think—why?"

"Damn—damn—damn," I start chanting as I begin to deduce what must be happening.

"What?"

"No wonder why I've been feeling like this morning is so off—it's been way too quiet, phone-wise." I take my phone out and search my text messages from Brogan and Base, because that will tell me everything.

"How many times are you going to make me ask? What?" he asks, impatiently as I search up they're names only to find that the messages that I'd sent the two were the last ones between us. There's not a single reply text after I'd sent my rebuttal—no responses whatsoever from my two closest friends that stand at the apex of the popular group.

"They took that idiots word for it—he probably told them that I didn't even bother to deny it." I gloss over the timestamps for my last messages, and I'm horrified to confirm my suspicions. I've been cutoff. Nobody has texted me anything since right after that idiot's phone call in the middle of the night.

"Deny? Deny what, exactly?"

"Same thing you were on about yesterday." I sigh, but my mind is racing, connecting all of the dots. "That idiot said that I didn't deny it. That idiot told everyone. Then, everyone shut me out of the conversation. That's why it's been so quiet. And that's why they sent you hate messages, because they think that it's true."

"That you're gay?"

"Yes—no—I mean, I'm not gay—but yes, that," I say, looking into his amber eyes as he starts glancing over to the beach. The car falls silent within the cabin. He pulls off the highway, but it doesn't look like anything familiar—at least, not in the sense of any road that he should be taking to get to either my home, or his work. He pulls into the parking lot of one of the beaches, parking his car in the far corner, away from all of the few cars already taking up stalls. I look at him with eyes of confusion as he engages his parking brakes. "What are you doing? You're going to be late for work."