“Yeah, that’s fine. And Sundays here?”
Dylan nodded. “Great.”
There was another brief, awkward silence while Jared daydreamed about a kiss good-bye, and raised his hand in a short wave instead. Finally… finally he’d met someone here he could trust.
He hoped.
Chapter 8
Gym classes got shook up somewhere in mid-October when the girls were taken out of their cozy, air-conditioned gym and forced to play either field hockey or soccer. The guys were given the choice of soccer or baseball. There would be no crossover between the girls’ and boys’ games.
Baseball being one of the only sports Jared truly hated, he opted for soccer and wondered who would join him. It was a more aggressive sport for sure, and he’d enjoyed his position as the star goalkeeper at the middle school he’d attended in Michigan.
When Jared told Coach he was happy to play in goal, he’d been given a funny look, then told to go and find gloves from the kit room. Jared had his own. That earned him another look, as if it was somehow surprising that private school kids could afford to buy their own gym kit.
Chris opted for baseball, and Adam, after checking the sign-up lists, added his name to soccer.
“You play in goal,” Adam said as they walked out onto one of the training fields. Jared looked down at his jersey—forest green, instead of the blue and white the other players wore.
“Yeah,” he said. “My middle school had a soccer academy, and because I was tall, they coached me into that position.”
“I can think of some positions I’d like to coach you into,” Adam said with a lascivious grin.
Jared laughed. “I was probably asking for that.”
His response seemed to confuse Adam, who stood still and frowned as Jared broke into a jog, covering the field quickly as he headed for the goal.
They ran drills for thirty minutes or so before breaking off into a game. It was a cold but thankfully dry day, and the sun hung low in the sky. Out here it was almost spookily quiet apart from the noise of the ocean behind them.
Jared was silently amused when Adam fell into an attacking position. It was a rare occurrence when Adam was anywhere other than front and center. The team was woefully lacking in any real skill and didn’t make up for that with enthusiasm. They were lackluster at best.
“Head up, DJ!” Jared yelled to his central defender, spreading his legs wide and rocking from side to side, ready to dive in any direction if Adam—who was hurtling toward him with the ball—got close enough to strike. The defense on his team was shockingly bad.
Adam was okay, but nowhere near good enough to put the ball past Jared, much to his apparent frustration. Nor was anyone else. Jared was feeling more than a little smug after the game as they all filed into the locker rooms, sweaty, muddy, exhausted.
“You’re good,” Adam said grudgingly.
“I know.”
Adam scowled and Jared smiled to himself, pleased to finally be the one who was ruffling the un-rufflable Adam Hemlock.
Once showered and dressed, Jared headed to the cafeteria and made sure to get Chris’s nod before taking his usual seat. He pushed his chair away and leaned back until it tilted up on two legs. With his feet kicked up onto the edge of the table—making Clare scowl—Jared pulled a battered paperback out of his pocket and started to read.
This was one of his favorite things to do: letting the world around him melt into nothing but background noise as he absorbed himself in a really good book.
So, naturally, someone had to come along and ruin it.
“Whatcha reading, bitch?” Adam said, plucking the book out of Jared’s fingers as he passed. For reasons Jared had yet to understand, Adam always took longer in the locker room than anyone else, which made him always late for lunch.
“Wilde,” Jared said.
“Dorian Gray. Nice. Is this the first version?”
“You mean the blatantly homoerotic one? Yeah.”
Adam grinned and tossed the book back. “If you want dirty books, I can recommend a lot better than some veiled references to anal. Try Nifty.”
“Nifty?” Ryder asked.
Jared leaned forward, letting the front legs of the chair thump down. “It’s an online archive of gay erotica.”
“Oh,” she said, and blushed.
“Come on, Smooth Ryder,” Adam said, taking the seat next to Ryder and throwing his arm around her shoulders. “You know I’m not one of those safe, sterile gays. I love cock. I love ass. I like to fuck.”
“We’d heard,” Clare said drily and pushed Adam away. “Leave her alone.”
“I’m going into Seattle Friday night,” Adam continued, ignoring Clare. She didn’t like that one bit. “You should come, Ryder. Be a fag hag for the night.”
“I don’t think so,” Ryder said. “Why don’t you ask Jared?”
Clare smirked into her Greek yogurt and Jared knew, he really fucking knew, there was something going on no one would tell him.
“Jared?” Adam said, one word enough to send a tiny shiver down Jared’s spine.
“I don’t have fake ID. My dad found it and cut it up.”
“Oh, honey,” Clare said, all simpering fake concern. “Don’t let that stop you. I can get you one by this afternoon. What do you need? Driver’s license? Passport? Visa? Immigration papers?”
“I was born here, you asshole,” he said.
“I’ll get you a driver’s license,” Clare continued. “Your date of birth, just a few years added to it. That way if you get questioned, it’s easier to remember.”
“Where the fuck are you going to get a fake driver’s license?” Jared asked, both amused and curious.
“The DMV,” Clare said without any hint of sarcasm.
Jared waited a few beats, then shook his head. “Sure.”
The English class Jared was supposed to attend, rather than the one he’d turned up in his first day, was actually with Adam. That wasn’t particularly surprising. In a school of only a few hundred students, there was a lot of crossover in classes.
English was one of the few things Jared enjoyed and was good
