Taylor's POV
Jake and I were sitting on the skate ramp, talking about whether or not he was going to break up with Jenny, when it happened. I trying to subtly suggest that he dump her and send her off permanently to Donegal, even though I don't really know why, because single or taken, straight is straight. What did I think was going to happen? Jenny would no longer be in his life and he'd suddenly realise that not only is he actually gay, he also has a thing for me? And, on the back of this realisation, he won't feel confused, lost, or angry, he'll instead be perfectly confident in his newfound sexuality and come straight to me declaring his love. I mean, doesn't it always happen like that?
But I digress.
We were getting to the point where it was too awkward to discuss it seriously anymore and were regressing to joking about when Jake laid back on the top of the skate ramp with his arms crossed under his head. This caused his t-shirt to ride up a good few inches, exposing that toned midriff that so often gets me hot under the collar. I was already leaning back on my palms, but I sort of unconsciously shifted so my body was twisted in his direction from the waist up and I was just sitting there like a creeper watching him. As he was breathing his chest was rising and falling and it was so hypnotic, and I thought, it would be so easy to lean forward and kiss you right now... Until you punched me in the face and ran home to wash your mouth out, of course.
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Somebody is kissing my abdomen and I don't know who it is. It's the middle of the night and I'm at home in bed so I should be worried, but his soft, cool, velvet lips feel so good on my hot skin that I don't want him to stop.
The kisses are light and teasing and illicit a soft moan from me as he reaches the waist band of my sweatpants and starts pulling them down. My mystery kisser smirks onto my skin having gotten this reaction and crawls back up so his face is level with my throat. I look down just as he buries his face in my neck and kisses me again, finding my soft spot and beginning to suck and bite it. His hips are grinding gently against mine, teasing me as I feel his hardness on my thigh, and I run my hands up his muscular back and tangle them into his hair, pulling him back so I can kiss him on the lips. My heart speeds up even more, if possible, when I find myself looking into the ice blue eyes of Jake Chaplain.
'Shh,' he whispers, his eyes twinkling in the moonlight. 'Jen and Kel are downstairs. They think I'm trying to wake you... Looks like it worked.' He smirks again and before I can say anything he crashes his lips to mine and I'm kissing him back passionately, his tongue exploring my mouth and massaging my tongue. He pulls away and rubs his thumb tip gently across the waistband of my boxers, causing me to shiver, and harden even more. He lightly rubs his palm across my crotch and grins. 'Somebody's happy,' he whispers, and I blush, looking away. He kisses me full on the lips again and says, 'Don't be embarrassed... I like it...' He pulls me up into a sitting position with him straddling me, pulls my boxers down fully and wraps his hand around my hard on, tugging gently.
I moan, 'Jake...' He covers my mouth with his to capture my moans and...
And...
And I wake up, alone at home in my own bed, sweating and hard as a rock, the luminous numbers on my alarm clock reading 8:00am.
I groan, frustrated and embarrassed even though I'm alone, and pad across my room to my ensuite to finish myself off, then collapse back into bed and nod off again.
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When I woke up the second time, I was even more embarrassed now that I was fully lucid. Never have I been more thankful that my parents' room is at the other side of the house, because I was most likely moaning in my sleep. God but that dream felt so real... Exactly how I'd always imagined Jake's lips and hands would feel on my body.
I struggled out of bed before I could start thinking about it again, because that would lead to another embarrassing situation, and tugged on a t-shirt over my sweatpants before heading downstairs. I wandered into the kitchen thinking about breakfast, hearing vague noises of morning cartoons from behind the closed sitting room door, and I figured my dad must have been "working from home" again – read: lying to his boss and spending the day lazing about watching TV and reading newspapers. Still, that's what you get when you send your employees away to conferences every weekend and still expect them to work five days a week. My mom and dad work for the same company – that's how they met – something to do with computers, and have to synchronise their schedules so they never take "sick" days or "working from home" days at the same time. Still, every now and then they'll keep me home from school and we'll all be "sick" together on a family bonding day.
There was a note stuck to the fridge from my mom saying there were leftover enchiladas from last night in the oven for dinner and to remember to lock up if I was going out. That was weird... Why would I need to lock up if dad was here?
I glanced at the clock on the oven, which read 11:00am, and made my cautiously to the sitting room. What sort of home invader turns on the television? A clearly deranged one, I decided, and grabbed my dad's umbrella from the umbrella stand as I passed, holding it across myself like a weapon.
I put my hand on the door handle, paused, and then violently pushed the door open, jumping into the room wielding the umbrella, which sprung open by accident as I did so.
The person who fell off the couch in epileptic fits of laughter was not a home invader, as it turned out, but Jake.
'How long have you been here?' I asked sourly, putting down the umbrella.
'You... You... With the... And you were like-' He struggled to speak, and finished up making some sort of vague swinging motion with his imaginary umbrella.
'Yeah, yeah,' I muttered, landing into one of the armchairs and watching him still convulsing on the floor. He wasn't even faking it. He was genuinely that amused. 'Maybe if you'd told me you were coming over... Why are you here anyway?' We usually hang out at Jake's, since he has the pool and all.
'Well I came over to get away from the girls,' he said, calming down now and getting back on the couch. 'But then they both decided to come with me, presumably because they didn't want to be left alone in the house together, so now we're all here. We should hang out tonight man, just the two of us, it's been ages since we did that.'
'Yeah, that'd be good,' I felt myself grinning at the prospect. 'Where are the others anyway?' I asked. How perfectly creepy that the three of them had been wandering around my house as I slept and I had no idea.
'We've been here for hours man, they got bored with the toons. Jenny's outside writing in her diary or something and Kelly's on your laptop in the computer room.'
I paled. 'My laptop? Like, not the family computer?'
'No, she doesn't know the password for the desktop.'
'How does she know my password?!'
'Dude everyone knows your password. You're an open book.'
Well now that can't be true. Only like five people in the world know I'm gay, despite the fact that I've been very openly crushing on my best friend for a good two years now.
Christ I'm sad.
'Hey, can you go get me some breakfast?' I asked suddenly. 'Least you can do, crashing about my house without my permission and all that...'
Jake threw a couch cushion at me but duly got up and wandered into the kitchen. As soon as the door was closed behind him I bolted up and legged it down the hall to the computer room, where my mom, dad, and I charge our laptops and where the two work computers and family desktop are kept. I shoved open the door, and, sure enough, there was Kelly, scrolling through my porn collection. My gay porn collection.
She quickly swivelled around, pushing the laptop half closed as she did so, saying, 'I'm weird, what can I-' but stopping mid-sentence when she saw it was me. 'You're up!' she said brightly, turning her attention back to the screen and continuing to scroll down.
'What are you doing?!' I demanded, crossing the room quickly and trying to wrestle her out of the way.
'You know, I know you're in love with him or whatever, but like a shocking amount of the guys you've downloaded look like my brother. I felt weird looking at it.'
'Then don't!' I shrieked hysterically, knocking her hand out of the way and ex-ing out of the page.
'Aw, come on Tay,' she pleaded. 'It's really sexy.'
'I hate you.'
'Tell me about your dream.'
I rounded on her, feeling all the blood drain from my face.
'Excuse me?'
Then Kelly did her characteristic rambling thing again. 'When we got here, your mom let us in and I volunteered to go upstairs and wake you, cos, to be honest, I can't really stand being around Jenny anymore, but when I get there you were tossing and turning and I've heard it's really bad to wake somebody up during a nightmare, so I said I'd wait it out since dreams only last a few minutes anyway, you know? But then you started moaning and I got worried it was something really scary, but then you said "Jaaaaaaaaaaake" and I ran away. I don't know if I was more scared, horrified, or amused...'
'I was joking before, but this time I actually hate you,' I muttered, mortified. 'What were you doing here so early anyway?'
'Come on, tell me what happened,' Kelly said, ignoring my question.
'No!'
Kel made a face. 'Taylor and Jake, sitting a tree, F-U-C-K-I-N-G, first comes love, then comes marriage-'
'Who's fucking in a tree?' Jake asked, backing into the room with two bowls of cereal in his hands, sloshing milk on the carpet as he did so. 'Whoops, sorry...'
'Nobody's fucking in a tree,' I replied, staring warningly at Kelly.
'Good, that would be really dangerous. Depending on how high up you were... Best keep it at kissing really...'
'You're such a dork,' Kelly said to her brother, shutting down my laptop. I took one of the bowls from Jake and walked out of the computer room, wanting to get him as far away from my laptop as possible.
'Let's go outside,' I suggested. 'It's a lovely day, plus I don't like Jenny being out there on her own with a diary... That's just spells "suicide attempt" to me.'
'You're such a morbid bastard,' Kelly muttered but they followed me outside, where Jenny was pacing up and down, her phone glued to her ear.
'Yeah... I know, Mom... Yeah... Yeah... Okay... I love you too... Bye.'
She hung up and walked straight over to Jake, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face in his chest. He wrapped his arms around her tiny frame as well, holding her really tightly. I looked away, jealous and upset.
'That was my mom,' Jenny mumbled after a minute. 'She said Peter keeps ringing her and texting her, he's even rung my aunt's phone, so she told me to be really careful... I'm scared...'
I glanced at Kelly, feeling out of my depth, and she looked exactly the same way.
'It's okay,' Jake was saying quietly, making shh-ing noises to calm her. 'You'll be fine. He doesn't know where you are and if he sobers up long enough to figure it out we'll protect you... My parents said you can stay as long as you want.'
'My mom's sending the money today... It should be here by Wednesday,' she said; today was Monday.
'Well there you go. Only two days and you'll be safe as houses.'
Jenny wrapped her arms even tighter around Jake and mumbled, 'Thanks, baby.'
Kelly made a face at me about the pet name, but I knew it was for my benefit because there was no way she'd be making disparaging comments about Jenny again after what happened. Despite how good-natured everyone seemed to be acting, I could tell there was probably still some tension between them all, even though Jenny, at least, seemed to be carrying on like nothing had happened... Then again, with a monster like Peter Hancroft to worry about, it wasn't really surprising something like cheating on your boyfriend with his sister would pale in comparison.
Okay, now I'm just being mean.
'Let's do something to take your mind off it,' I suggested, laying my cereal bowl down on the patio table. 'There's no point in worrying about it. We could go to the park and hang out with the lads?'
I think I was the most shocked when Jen disentangled herself from Jake and instead wrapped her arms around me. After I second I returned the hug, patting her on the back.
'Thanks Taylor,' she said, giving me a squeeze. 'You're being so nice to me.'
'Er...' I faltered, still caught off guard. 'What are friends for? Come on, it'll be fun.'
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We got to the park about an hour later and I saw a group of kids I recognised from school, so we made our way over to where they were loitering around a cluster of park benches. Some of Kelly's friends were there as well as a few of Jenny's, some guys Jake and I knew from basketball, and a kid called Ollie Greenaway, who I'd met randomly on a support site for gay kids a couple of years ago. He'd some out shortly afterwards and got hassled quite a bit for it, but as Jake and I were friends with him by this point, and we're pretty popular, it quietened down quickly.
Ollie was standing with a kid I didn't recognise, so as Jake began fist-pumping the basketball guys, who were giving him props on the fateful party, I went to say hi to the only person outside my family and Kelly who knows I'm gay.
'Hey Ollie,' I said, shoulder-bumping him and hoping to embarrass him. 'Who's thiiiiiis?'
Ollie went bright red and glared briefly at me so the new kid wouldn't see, but then grudgingly introduced us.
'This is Mikey, my, uh, new boyfriend,' he said, clearly embarrassed but grinning. 'Mikey this is Taylor, the guy I told you about.'
'Closet-Boy,' Mickey whispered, not maliciously, and I glanced around quickly to make sure nobody had heard.
'Uh, yeah,' Ollie said, sensing my discomfort. 'Him.'
'Nice to meet you, Mikey,' I said, putting out my hand to shake, which he took. 'How did you guys meet?'
'At this club in town, Pressure, you know, the gay club?' Our town, Mallow, is too small for a full time gay club, but every Monday and Thursday straight people avoid Pressure like the plague, and just because of this, it's known as the town's gay club. Even though Mallow's not big enough to support a full time club, Pressure is so popular that gay people from the surrounding areas make the trek twice a week, so they actually do pretty good business. 'We're going tonight actually, if you'd like to come?' Ollie continued. He's forever trying to get me to open up and come out of the closet; he doesn't think it's any kind of existence, hiding your true self from the world. I guess he's kind of right in a way, but it's not like I'm holding myself back from being truly happy – Jake's heterosexuality is doing that for me.
I laughed in response to his question. 'Nah, thanks man, but I've got plans with Jake tonight.'
Ollie doesn't know about my feelings for Jake for sure, but he'd have to be pretty dim not to have a fair idea. He gave me a sceptical look and said, 'Well, offer still stands...'
We were interrupted then by Kelly, who bounced over to introduce herself to Mikey. I allowed myself to slip off into a daydream about my plans with Jake; it really had been a while since we'd done anything without Kelly or Jenny interrupting at some point, so it would be nice to hang out again, even just as best friends. I was really looking forward to it, and every once in a while I'd even let myself imagine what could happen, if I had any balls or he gave even the slightest inclination that he was gay. I drifted back to thinking about my dream and how perfect his lips had felt on mine, cool and soft... And real, they had felt very real. I only wish they had been.
Jake's POV
I was talking rubbish with the guys from the basketball team in school when I felt a pair of arms snake around my waist from behind. For a split second I allowed myself to believe they were Taylor's and I felt a moment of perfect happiness and serenity, until I snapped back to reality and linked my fingers through Jenny's.
'You okay Jen?' I asked quietly, while Kyle relived his end-of-year three-pointer once again, to a response of groans all round.
'Can we do something tonight?' she asked in her small, high-pitched voice. 'Just the two of us? Like we could get a DVD or something, I'd just really like to be with you tonight...'
I felt my chest constricting, knowing I'd have to say yes and desperately wishing I didn't. All fantasies about the plans I'd made with Taylor deflated and disappeared, and the bright spot on my day burned out.
'Sure,' I said as brightly as I could. 'That would be nice.'
I'd been having great, albeit unrealistic, fantasies all day about how spending the night with Taylor could have gone, if things had been different; about kissing him, touching him, holding him, caressing his face with my fingertips and just being with him, but these all shattered and disappeared once I agreed to cancel my plans with him. What killed me the most though, was that he wouldn't be as upset as I was, nowhere near it.
I gently disentangled myself from Jenny's embrace and said, 'I'll be right back, just gotta go talk to Tay about something,' and left her at the mercy of Kyle's three-pointer while I made my way over to where my best friend was standing with Kelly, this gay kid called Ollie who's pretty cool, and a guy I didn't recognise. 'Hey lads,' I said in greeting when I reached them, 'what's up?'
'Jake, this is Mikey, Ollie's new boyfriend,' Taylor said teasingly, and I held out my hand to shake.
'Nice to meet you,' I said, unable to help myself grinning at Taylor's teasing tone. 'Hey man,' I said to Taylor, 'I know I said we'd hang out tonight but I'm gonna spend some time with Jen, she's pretty upset.'
'What?' Taylor said, and I could have sworn he did look really disappointed for a second before I blinked and his face was back to normal.
'Yeah, I'm sorry, it's fairly shit timing, but we can hang out next weekend once she's at her aunt's,' I said, playing it even cooler than I'd intended in my frustration at thinking for a split second that he was really upset about my cancelling our plans.
Then something I hadn't expected happened.
Taylor's face twisted into a scowl. 'Yeah, whatever,' he spat, and shoved past me, grabbing Ollie and Kelly as he did so and dragging them down the pathway away from the group. Mikey, who was attached to Ollie's hand, stumbled but managed to keep upright as he made a puzzled face to me and then turned and trotted after the others.
What the hell?
Taylor's POV
'Tay,' Kelly whispered urgently and I dragged them away from Jake, 'what are you doing?'
'I don't know,' I said angrily. 'Storming off.'
'Well, clearly. Where are we going?'
I stopped walking as we rounded a corner and were out of view of the group. Then I ran out of steam and just plopped down on a park bench. I dropped my head into my hands and took a few calming breaths.
'Sorry,' I muttered. 'I'm sorry, guys.'
They were all silent and I could tell they were looking at each other worriedly even though I was still fixed on the ground. I raised my head and looked at Ollie and Mikey. 'Can I come with you guys tonight after all?'