Chapter 13
Jonah
Hopefully Liam remembered his dentist appointment today. He was pretty groggy this morning when Brett took him to school, plus, he hated the dentist, so the likelihood of him being ready when I picked him up, was probably not too good. I told Brett I'd take Li so he wouldn't have to take off from work. I only had one morning class, my regular afternoon class was cancelled last week by the professor. He was having some mysterious procedure he wouldn't elaborate on which only left the door open for us to speculate.
He would probably still be at lunch when I got to the High School, so at least I didn't have to interrupt a class. After parking Brett's car, I headed straight to the office to sign him out, I told the secretary she didn't have to page him, he was probably outside and then went out back to look for him. I knew he wouldn't be in the cafeteria since he hated it in there so I wandered outside to the places we used to hang out at lunch together last year.
I spotted a senior I knew, one of the kids we asked to keep an eye on Liam. "Dude, have you seen Liam?" I asked as I approached the big football player. He lived in our old neighbourhood and before he had his growth spurt, we had gotten him out of trouble enough times that he'd become pretty loyal.
"Hey Jonah, he usually hangs out with Max and his friends out by the big oak tree. I checked him out and Max is okay. Kind of a metal head type, but he and his friends are nice to Liam."
"Great, thanks man," I said as I gave him a hearty pat on the back. "Good job!"
"No problem. Tell Brett I said hey." Poor guy, I was pretty sure he had the hots for Brett, but Brett never noticed or cared.
The oak tree was on the other side of the building, when I walked around the corner I could see a bunch of kids sitting around under it. Half of them were smoking, which I wasn't too pleased about, but as long as Liam wasn't, there was nothing I could do. I could see the Max kid I'd seen Liam talking to that time, with a butt in his mouth. When I got closer I could see Liam sitting right up next to a tall kid, it looked like they were sharing ear buds. It was nothing, but I couldn't help but feel...something inside. Jealousy? I mean, he's never really had any friends before, he always just hung out with us. I pushed down the feeling, it was stupid after all.
"Li," I called out just before I got there. "Liam," I repeated, touching his shoulder. He practically jumped a foot as he turned back. His startled face turned to a smile as soon as he saw me.
"Hey Jonah. What are you doing here?" he asked as he popped out the earbud.
"Dentist?"
"Oh yeah. D'uh," he laughed.
I looked over at the guy next to him, who was watching the two of us closely. "I'm Jonah."
"Zak," he replied before looking back at Liam. I watched him closely, not too happy about the way he was looking at Liam. My Liam.
"Zak was playing the new Sleeping With Sirens for me," Liam said. "It's great, you'd like it."
"Yeah. You'll have to play it for me tonight on You-Tube or something. We should get going though Li, so we're not late."
"Okay," Liam stood up, "See you guys tomorrow."
All of them looked up and said goodbye to him.
"Bye Zak."
"Bye Liam, hey, we can listen to the rest of the album tomorrow at lunch." Zak flashed him a bright smile and I found myself gritting my teeth. I know I'm being stupid, he's allowed to have friends...but it still rubbed me the wrong way seeing the way this guy looked at him.
"Okay. See ya then Zak."
I gave the kid a long look, but he already had turned back to the group and popped the earbuds back in.
"Your brother is hot!" One of the girls yelled out when we'd turned away.
"He's not my brother," Liam laughed.
"I've already signed you out, the car's over on Peel Street."
We walked a block and a half to the car while Liam hummed away, probably the song he'd been listening too. I tried not to be annoyed. I took deep breaths along the way so I wouldn't sound snappish or anything because I knew I was being stupid.
"I hate the dentist, but it's cool getting out of school early," Liam said as we got to the car. "What can we do after?"
"I don't know Li, I have a lot of studying I need to do, but we can do something if it doesn't take too long."
"We haven't been to the bookstore we like in a while."
"Okay, we'll go there than before we go back home."
"Cool...and I can get one of those mochachinodemilovato drinks at Starbucks."
"What?"
Liam burst out laughing at whatever he was talking about. I just smiled and ruffled his head before pulling out onto the street.
Liam
"How was your checkup squirt?" Brett asked me when he got home from work.
"It was fine. I didn't have any cavities, which means I don't need to cut down on the amount of sweets I eat, despite what you told me last night." I gave Brett a smug grin since he wouldn't take me to get ice cream telling me I was going to have a mouthful of cavities.
"Really? Even with all the skittles you eat?"
"Yup! Go ask Jonah."
"No, I believe you! That's great Li. You must be brushing well. I'm proud of you."
"Proud enough to take me to get ice cream after dinner, to make up for last night?"
"Yeah. To celebrate your good check-up, we'll go get ice cream later."
"YAY!" I yelled jumping up and down, "I'll go help Jonah with dinner so it gets done faster."
"You'll never grow up will you?" I heard Brett snicker as he went to get changed in his room.
"NEVAH!!!!" I yelled down the hall at him. "Growing up is only for the foolhardy!"
"Go help Jonah!" he yelled back.
"Poophead," I muttered, then wandered into the kitchen. "What can I do to help Jo?"
"Really? Are you sick? Do you have a fever?" He ran over and felt my head.
"Seriously? I help all the time."
Jonah looked at me skeptically.
"Okay...sometimes," I corrected. Still got the look.
"Brett's going to take me out for ice cream after dinner, so the sooner it's done, the sooner we go," I finally admitted when he broke down my defenses. "Will you come with us?"
"I can't boo, I still have studying to do after."
"Well, we can bring you back some for when you take a break."
"That'd be great. Now...you can stir the penne into the sausage and peppers while I cut the garlic bread."
Dinner was awesome. As usual. Jonah's a great cook. He's pretty much great at everything. Aiden and Brett cleaned up and loaded the dishwasher, then Brett and I decided to go for a walk before we went to get ice cream. This way, Jonah had some quiet to study in; Aiden would be in his room face timing with Tonya.
Brett suggested we go for a walk first so we could work up an appetite and get some exercise. The exercise being Brett's idea of course.
We walked for about an hour before Brett finally said we could head in the direction of the ice cream near our apartment where we always went. Gah! I thought he was trying to kill me, but we finally got there. When we walked in there were a few people ahead of us, so I went over to the cooler to look at what flavors they had today. I was thinking of trying something new. There were a few that I'd never tried before that looked interesting. Salted caramel truffle and mint oreo, I stood staring between them trying to decide.
"Do you want to try a taste of something?" A voice asked above my head. I looked up and there was a really good looking guy smiling down at me. He had really dark, curly hair, greenish blue eyes and a really nice smile. He was kind of tall, but a lot of people are taller than me, and he looked a little bit older than me too.
"Umm... I can't decide between the Salted Caramel truffle or the Mint Oreo."
"They're both really good, normally I'd say get both, but the Salted Caramel Truffle is a really delicate flavor and the Mint Oreo would take over your taste buds so you wouldn't even get to taste it. Why don't you try a little spoon of each and then choose one? Here, try the Salted Caramel first."
He handed me a little taster spoon of the ice cream and I popped it in my mouth, slowly letting it melt on my tongue to get the full effect. When I looked at him he was staring at my mouth.
"Mmm, that's really good," I said, trying not to blush.
"Okay, and try this."
Next he handed me a spoon of Mint Oreo. Our fingers touched and he flashed me a smile and then he blushed. It was really cute and I couldn't help but smile back.
"Mhm..this is good too," I said as the cold confection melted in my mouth, "but the first one seems more out of the ordinary and I wanted to try something new."
"Good choice. My name's Evan by the way."
"Liam. Are you new here? I've never seen you working here before and we come here a lot."
"Yeah, I just moved to L.A. My uncle owns the place so he said I could work here to earn some extra money. Hang on Liam, I'll go grab a cone. What size did you want?"
"A small's fine."
Brett was paying and I didn't want to be greedy. I looked over at him and he was talking to Peggy, the girl who usually waits on us. I watched as she scooped a quart of ice cream that we'd take home.
"Here you go, it's a double, but it's my treat. If you can't finish it, you can just throw it away."
"What? You don't have to..."
"I want to. When I found out I had to move here, I was kind of pissed off and didn't think there would be any cool people to talk to. Now I met you and realized I was wrong, so it's my way of saying thanks."
"Really? I mean...we only talked about ice cream."
No one outside the guys ever said I was cool before, so I'm sure I had this embarrassing grin on my face, but I couldn't help it. If anything he was the cool one.
"Yeah. You're my first friend in L.A. Liam. Peggy's cool, but she's my cousin so she has to be nice to me." He let out a chuckle and I noticed he had dimples when he did that. I was pretty sure that as soon as he met people he'd be making lots of friends, but it was nice of him to give me a free double sized cone.
"Cool. Well, um..thanks, and welcome to L.A. Evan."
"Thanks, Liam, come back again soon, I'll make you a mint oreo milkshake."
I walked over to Brett as he was finishing up with Peggy. She looked up at Evan and he told her mine was on the house, then she looked at me with a little smile. Brett just looked confused as he paid for the other stuff so I just picked up the bag and walked out ahead of him.
"What was that about?" Brett asked.
"Mmm...ri donoow...." I mumbled with a mouthful of ice cream. I shrugged my shoulders and kept walking, but he kept up the pace waiting for an explanation, "people just like to buy me stuff, I can't help it if I'm irresistible," I added after I'd swallowed.
"Do you know him?"
"It's Evan." I said it with my 'D'uhhhh' tone which got him to stop asking. I got an annoyed look, but at least he stopped questioning me.
The next day at school, I was sitting at lunch with my friends, Zak was getting some food so we hadn't started listening to the rest of the SWS album yet, when surprise, surprise, Evan of all people walked up.
"Liam! Hey!"
"Hi Evan, what are you doing here?"
"I just started today, my Uncle got me registered and all that yesterday."
"Cool. What grade are you in?"
"Senior. You?"
"Sophomore. Um...hey, these are my other friends. They're also Seniors. That's Max, Zoey..." I went around the line and introduced him to everyone and then Zak too when he got back.
"Is the food any good here?" he asked Zak who'd sat down with his tray.
"Not really, but better than nothing."
"Okay, I'm going to go get something, is it alright if I come back and sit with you guys?" Everyone said yes so he dropped his backpack next to me and headed towards the cafeteria.
"Here," Zak said, handing me the other earbud as he got his phone out.
When Evan returned he sat down next to me and started eating. He talked a bit to the others, mostly Max, but Max is super friendly. I saw Evan kept looking at me so after a while I popped the earbud out. "Do you like Sleeping With Sirens Evan?"
"Yeah, they're alright."
"Zak's just playing me their new album."
"Cool." He glanced over at Zak, who was also looking him up and down, but neither was smiling. So weird. Luckily the bell rang before it got too weird so I handed the earbud back to Zak and said 'See ya' to everyone before heading to my math class which was in the opposite direction of the wing where most of the senior classes were.
Over the next few weeks I went to the Ice cream place a couple of times a week and each time Evan was working he made me either a cone or a milkshake and never let me pay. One of the times I was with Jonah and he seemed really annoyed on the way home. I told him he was a friend from school, but that didn't seem to make it any better. I even tried sharing my ice cream with him, but he wouldn't even taste it. When we got to the apartment I went into our room and slammed the door. I didn't know why he was so pissy with me and it made me mad.
When I came out 15 minutes later Brett told me that Jonah had gone to the library on campus and wouldn't be home until late. I don't even know what I did wrong either.
Jonah
After I found the book I needed I went to one of the small study rooms. The campus library has several small rooms each with a table and four chairs where small groups could study together. It was quiet and there were several open so I spread my books out on the table and began my work. I was just too distracted at the apartment and if I wasn't careful college would kick my butt and I had too much invested in getting my degree and becoming a doctor. I had my future and hopefully Liam's to think about.
Thinking about Liam and how now that he's gotten a little taller and starting to look more his age, all these guys seem to be coming out of the woodwork and I can tell by the way they look at him that they want him. What am I supposed to do? Be the possessive jealous boyfriend, which is kind of hypocritical because I keep telling him we have to wait, or let him experience being a teenager like he probably should be.
I don't know. I just don't know what to do, what is right and what is best for Liam. What if he wants to date other people before he gets serious with me. What if he meets other guys and decides he doesn't want to be with me? I was part of his childhood and maybe he wants to move on as he gets older.
"Hey, Jonah right?"
I turned around and looked in the doorway where a blonde haired girl stood. She looked about my age and familiar.
"Yeah."
"I'm Leah. I'm in your anatomy & physiology class."
"Oh yeah, right. Hey Leah."
"Are you working on the project we have due next week?"
"Yeah...it's going to take forever. You?"
"Yeah. My dorm is too loud so I came here, plus I needed..." she looked over at the table, "that book."
"Do you want to share it?"
"That would be so great Jonah, you don't mind?"
"Nah. Come on in."
Leah came in and I moved some of my stuff so she'd have some room. We talked for a few minutes before we got started working together on the project. She was really nice and she kept my mind focused on my work and not worrying about things with Liam, which at this point in time was good. My grades have to come first for right now. That sounds bad, but if we are going to be together eventually, I need to be able to take care of him so he can do art or whatever he wants and not have to worry about bills or anything.
He has some growing up to do and when things are right, if he still wants, we'd be together and I would make him my number one focus.
By the time Leah and I finished for the night and I got home it was after 1:00 a.m. Everyone was asleep and when I tiptoed into our room, Liam was curled up in a ball in the middle of our bed. He looked so small and vulnerable. His face had a sad expression on it and I felt bad for not saying goodbye to him when I left. It was stupid and immature, but I was afraid if I didn't just leave I'd snap at him or say something I'd regret later.
I got ready for bed and then slid carefully behind Liam wrapping my arms around his middle. He let out a small whimper and turned towards me, cuddling right into my chest.
"I'm sorry Jojo," he mumbled half asleep.
"You have nothing to be sorry for Li, I love you," I whispered.
"I love you too."
I kissed the top of his head and gave him a little squeeze and he was soon sleeping again, his soft cheek against my bare chest while I could feel his soft breath tickling my skin. After a little while of just enjoying the feel of him in my arms, I soon drifted off into my own peaceful slumber.