The History of Us, page 1
Published by
HARMONY INK PRESS
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The History of Us
© 2015 Nyrae Dawn.
Cover Art
© 2015 Aaron Anderson.
aaronbydesign55@gmail.com
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Harmony Ink Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or publisher@harmonyinkpress.com.
ISBN: 978-1-63476-179-6
Digital ISBN: 978-1-63476-181-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015933432
First Edition June 2015
Printed in the United States of America
This paper meets the requirements of
ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
To Jamie Manning. You are such a kind, gentle, helpful soul.
Thank you for all that you do. I’m honored to call you a friend.
Acknowledgments
I couldn’t do what I do without the love and support of my family. They stick by me, even when I’m in crazy-writer mode. Thank you. I love you. Being a writer can be a lonely journey. Without my closest friends, I’m not sure I could deal with it: Wendy Higgins, Kelley York, Jolene Perry, Steph Campbell, Christa Desir, and Julie Prestsater—you guys are my rocks. Love you all. Thank you to Allie Brennan and Heather Young-Nichols for reading early drafts, and for generally being awesome. My agent, Jane Dystel for everything you’ve done for me. Lastly, I’d like to thank everyone at Dreamspinner/Harmony Ink. Thank you for taking a chance on me and for believing in this story as much as I do.
Chapter 1
“COLLINS, DID you hear me, man? What the fuck? You’re totally spacing out over there.” Chase throws a napkin at me and everyone at our table laughs. I pick it up and toss it back at him, making it bounce off his forehead. Before he can grab it again, Marcus jerks it off the table.
“Are you ladies done? We’re trying to plan a night out here.” Jabbar shakes his head. His real name is Frankie, but most of the time we call him Jabbar because he’s tall as hell and holds the scoring record for our basketball team. His 63-point game isn’t as good as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s, but to us it is. He’s a basketball legend at our school.
We live and breathe basketball. We always have. The four of us have been starters since we came into high school four years ago—Jabbar at center, Chase the power forward, Marcus the shooting guard, and me at point. I’ve been friends with these guys since we were in kindergarten, and we’ve been playing just as long.
Before any of us can reply, I notice Marcus nudge Chase from his seat beside him. As soon as Chase’s eyes light up I know exactly what he sees. Or who.
Girls.
Fuck.
“Holy shit, they’re hot. Come on. Let’s go talk to them.” Chase’s tongue is practically hanging out of his head. Jabbar turns around and looks. I see his radar going off too. He wants to go over there just as badly as the rest of them do. Whatever Chase was talking about before is lost in the possibility of kissing and tits.
I knew there was a reason I didn’t feel like coming to The Spot tonight. It’s the arcade/coffeehouse where everyone at our school hangs out. Whoever thought of it is a fucking genius, getting us hopped up on caffeine and then putting bright, flashy games in front of us. We can’t get enough. There’s an added bonus that adults avoid The Spot like it has a restraining order against them—just the way we like it.
Jabbar’s eyes finally leave the girls and then land on me. I avoid his gaze for a second, looking back at the group of four girls. Of course there would have to be four, and in that second, I wish I could be into them. Wish I would see in the girls what the others do, or feel the same things when I look at them. It would make my life a whole lot easier.
Jabbar glances at me. “Nah, let’s just chill,” he says.
“Yeah,” Marcus agrees, and takes a drink of his coffee, but I’m already shaking my head.
“Screw that. You guys aren’t staying behind because of me.” It’s cool that they want to, but it still makes my lunch try to crawl up my throat. I’m not holding them back from doing what they want to do.
“You sure, Bradley?” Chase asks, but he’s already starting to stand up. I get out of the bench seat so Jabbar can go too.
“Yeah, yeah. It’s cool.”
They don’t ask me to go with them anymore, which is good. Going made things a whole lot more awkward anyway. It made me feel like I was wearing a sign, or something—“I’m the gay friend. Don’t try to hit on me.” It’s not much better than what I imagine their excuse is for why I don’t go with them—why there are four girls but only three guys since I hang back. Yeah, our boy’s into boys. He’s cool, though.
And they’re chill most of the time as well. It was one of my biggest fears when I came out—how would my friends take it? Yeah, we’ve known each other since we were young, but a lot of the time, that doesn’t matter.
Kicking my feet up on the bench across from me, I pick up a straw wrapper and start twisting it around my finger. I’m lucky. I know I am. My sophomore year I came out to my mom. Apparently she already knew. She could have saved me a whole lot of stress if she’d have let me in on that fact.
When I got sick of making up excuses as to why I never wanted to hook up, I told my friends my junior year. Everyone at school knows, and no one’s given me shit. I get how lucky that makes me. Not everyone has had it as easy, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel like punching something because I’m sitting here by myself and they’re all at another table trying to get laid. Oh, and they’ve all been laid. I haven’t.
There are zero gay people in my family. Zero gay people in my school, who are out about it, at least. They could be there and hiding. I actually know zero gay people at all. Mom’s always trying to talk me into going to this LGBT teen group she found in Brownsville. It’s only about forty-five minutes away, but it’s not like I need any other friends. I have my own. Who gives a shit if none of them are gay? I don’t see the point in making a big deal out of my sexual orientation.
I ball the wrapper up and toss it to the table before I let my gaze travel to the other side of the room, trying to find what had me distracted when Chase was talking to me earlier.
Crap. There’s a girl and a guy sitting at the table the black-haired guy had been at. I shake my head and grab my cell phone. It’s not like it should matter anyway. Still, my eyes sort of case the room. I wonder if he took off or just moved somewhere else. I’ve seen him in here before, doing whatever he does on his laptop all the time, though I don’t recognize him from our school.
“Hey,” a voice says to my left. I look over to see it’s laptop guy and scramble up from my slouched position.
“Hey.” Why are you talking to me?
“How come you didn’t go talk to the girls with your friends?” He nods back to where the guys are. His hair is spiked. From there I look down, taking in the rest of him. His T-shirt is on inside out, but I can still tell his clothes are expensive.
“Umm, who are you? And why does it matter? Maybe I just didn’t feel like it.” Really, I know why it matters. I saw him in here with a guy about four months ago. Maybe that’s why I always notice him, even though we’ve never spoken a word to each other—because he’s gay too.
“I’m TJ.” He pushes his laptop strap up his shoulder and holds out his hand.
Reaching out, I shake it. The heat from his hand slowly slides up my arm, reminding me of a movie or something, when people meet someone and say they feel it. It almost seems like he can see my reaction, so I jerk my hand back.
TJ smiles. “Do I get your name?”
“Bradley.” I cross my arms, wishing I could shake out the burn still there.
“Can I sit?” he asks.
“Why?” pops out of my mouth. That doesn’t stop a vision from drifting through my head—what it would be like to sit with a guy like him while my friends are off doing their thing.
TJ’s brows draw together, and I notice his eyes are blue, this really bright, vivid blue.
“Are you gay?” TJ asks. “I mean, I thought because I’ve seen you staring at me, but—”
“Shh.” My eyes dart around to see if anyone heard him. When they find TJ again, there’s a tightness in his jaw that wasn’t there before. Guilt makes my stomach drop, like a ball falling through the basket—nothing but net. “I just….” I’ve never had someone know without me telling them. In case you’re wondering, my mom doesn’t count.
“Fuck yeah. That was awesome—oh, hey, man, what’s up?” Marcus says as my three friends step up to us.
“Hey,” TJ says to them.
I see my friends look at him, and then look at me, before looking at TJ again. Maybe it sounds stupid, but if Marcus’s skin weren’t so dark, I swear it would be red right now. Jabbar plops down on the seat across from me like he still hasn’t put two and two together. He doesn’t realize that for the first time a guy is talking to me with maybe the same thing in his mind that they have when they hit on girls. He rubs a hand over his buzzed, blond head. “They were hot, Bradley. You don’t know what you’re missing out on.”
TJ’s frown gets deeper, but it’s Chase who speaks, looking at TJ with his forehead wrinkled, like he doesn’t belong. “Collins, let’s go. I need you to give me a ride home.”
I’m already to my feet when Jabbar says, “I’m chillin’. Wanna stay, Marcus?”
He takes the seat I just left. Chase puts an arm around my shoulders. My stomach still feels like it’s going through the net.
“I’ll play you a game of one-on-one when we get to my house. You down?” Chase starts walking, and I automatically start doing the same.
“Yeah. Sure. Let’s do it.”
It’s not till I get to the door that I sneak a look over my shoulder. TJ is standing by the table where I left him, his hard stare following me as I go.
“Come on.” Chase tugs on me, and I keep going.
He screws around on his phone for most of the drive home. We ride together for almost everything because we live next door to each other and I have my own car. Since it’s just me, Mom, and my little brother Tyson, she wanted me to have my own way of getting around, which really means she wanted me to be able to help her get Tyson around. I get it. She’s a nurse at the hospital and works twelve-hour shifts. It makes things tough for her. Plus, having my own car definitely works for me.
When we get out in my driveway, I ask him, “We gonna play?”
He shakes his head. “That cool? It’s cold. I just feel like going inside and chillin’.”
Which isn’t really like Chase, but what am I supposed to say? “No problem. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I make it a couple steps away from him when he says, “Hey, Collins. That guy, was he, like, hitting on you or whatever?”
No. Yes. I don’t know. I think so. How am I supposed to know? “No.”
“I mean, it’s cool. You know it’s cool. We all know, and if anyone gives you shit, they’d have to deal with all of us, it’s just…. We’ve never really seen you…. You always just hang with us…. You don’t ever….” I’m pretty sure this is only the second time in his life he hasn’t known what to say, and the first is when I told him I’m gay.
Chase is my best friend. We’re all close, but he’s always been my boy, so I know exactly what he’s saying. “I know. It wasn’t like that.” But it could be. Maybe it should be. What happens when one day it is? The thought makes my skin prick with unease, so I shake it from my head.
“I know it’ll happen, but it just might… does it make me a dick if it’s kind of weird? I know you’re gay, but you’ve never had a boyfriend, or whatever. It’s just… different.”
No one really wants to be different. I don’t care what they say.
“No. It’s cool. I get it. It wasn’t like that,” I say again. The thing is, I really do get it. Chase’s worried it makes him a jerk to think like that, but what does it make me? What does it mean that I know I’m gay, yet I don’t know how to really be gay? I don’t know how to be the guy who has a boyfriend when everyone I hang out with has a girlfriend. That I’d rather get left behind at The Spot or stay home when they go out, than to sit with a guy like TJ in a busy restaurant and admit that he could have been hitting on me.
No matter how wrong I know that is, I still can’t change how I feel.
Chapter 2
I’M SITTING at home the next Friday night when someone knocks on my bedroom door. Mom is the only option because Tyson is a douche most of the time, and he’d just bust in.
“Yeah?”
The door creaks when she pushes it open. She’s wearing her scrubs, having just gotten off work. “What ya up to?” She sits on my bed, where I’m lying down playing a game on my phone. Her brown hair falls forward, and she pushes it behind her ear. It’s the same light shade as mine.
“Nothing.”
“I’m going to bring your brother to a friend’s house. Are you and the guys doing anything tonight?”
I shake my head, wondering if she has some sort of freaky superpower or something. She always asks me questions I don’t want to answer. “Nope.”
“Why?” There’s no reason for her to ask when she already knows.
“Because I don’t feel like it.” Totally a lie. I’m bored out of my mind, but they’re going out with the girls they met last week.
Mom sighs. “Bradley, I know they’re your friends, and it’s great, but I hate that you stay home waiting for them when you can’t go out with them. It’s okay to meet other friends too, you know. You should go to the center we talked about. It’ll be good for you. I can go with, if you want.”
I laugh at that and then sit up to lean against the headboard of my bed. There’s not one person I can think of who would want to go to some kind of youth group with their mom. “Can we not do this for the ten thousandth time? I don’t need to go there. I don’t want to.” When I can tell she’s not convinced, I add, “I don’t feel like going out with the guys anyway. We’re hanging out tomorrow.”
“Which is a good thing, but they don’t have to be your only friends, sweetheart. I think it’ll help to be around more kids like you.”
I pull away from her, and push to my feet. “Like me? Because I’m different than Chase, Jabbar, and Marcus. Nice, Mom.”
“Hey.” The tone of her voice is sharp. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
Do I? I’m not sure that I do. Those words get stuck in my throat, though. I know she means well. It’s always been just me, Mom, and Tyson. I hate fighting with her. That doesn’t stop my muscles from feeling stiff, though. She’s always pushing me. “I know.” I shove my feet into my Nikes. “I’m gonna go, is that cool? I think the guys are at The Spot. I’ll probably go chill with them. They said I could already.” The lie comes out smoothly.
“Bradley….”
Crap. She’s still not convinced. I walk over and drop a kiss to her forehead. “You’re right, Mom, I need to get out. I just… they’re my friends. Maybe I can do that other thing some other time.” Never going to happen.
There’s still doubt in her eyes, but she stands and tells me to have fun.
An hour later I’m still in my car, outside The Spot. The guys aren’t here, but I knew that before I showed up. They’re in Brownsville at the IMAX theater, but sitting in my car for hours is better than a lecture.
I jump when someone knocks on my passenger side window. When I turn, my eyes lock with TJ’s. “What the fuck, man?” I ask after rolling down the window. My face feels hot, and I hope it doesn’t look flushed.
“You’ve been sitting out here forever.”
Suddenly, the steering wheel is really interesting because I’m staring at it instead of him when I answer. “You watching me, or what?”
“Says the guy who’s been lurking in his car, and who I’ve caught looking at me more than once in the past.”
That makes me snap my head toward him. “I wasn’t looking at you.”
He shrugs. “Sucks me for me, I guess, because I was looking at you.”
My body gets hot all over, and I swear, I’m scared I’m blushing or something. But I like what he says. His hair is spiked again, shorter on the sides and in the back than it is on top. His eyes are like lasers shooting through me. I want him to look at me. I like the way he looks. He likes looking at me too…. And he’s not a girl. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a girl’s eyes on me, had girls ask me out, and it never felt like this.
I don’t want it to go away. “Wanna… I don’t know… like, go for a ride or something?”
It takes a minute for TJ to reply. “Since your friends aren’t here, and no one would know?”
