“Sure thing.” I tried to project an air of trustworthiness to Arthur. “I’ll make sure he sets the alarm. Thanks for the sandwiches and coffee.”
Some hours earlier, after he’d seen the last customer out, Arthur had ordered Jasper to take a break and produced mugs of coffee and homemade sandwiches for us. I was starting to see why Jasper liked this little store so much. Arthur might be gruff, but he was kind, and the store was full of interesting displays and little treasures. It had a warmth that drew people in, and I appreciated that sort of hominess now more than ever.
Arthur pointed at my empty cup. “Glad someone appreciates my coffee.”
“Install a soda machine and I might be more impressed,” Jasper tossed back.
“Score me a stack of rares other than that Frog Court card you’ve got dibs on and I might consider it.”
The two of them were fun to watch, and I had to laugh. But I was also genuinely grateful to Arthur for letting us have this shot at one of the cards we needed. “Thanks, man.”
“No problem.” He gave Jasper a few more reminders before heading out.
As the back door shut, Jasper stretched and waggled his eyebrows at me. “Alone at last.”
“Us and a giant mess.” I gestured at the sloppy piles covering the table.
“Why don’t you put your urge to clean to good use?” Jasper suggested as he handed me some empty card boxes. “I’ll sort and you stack and put away.”
I did that, falling into a nice rhythm of straightening stacks and carefully labeling the boxes as Jasper directed. “This reminds me of sorting Legos together.”
He reached out across the table and ruffled my hair. “We make a good team.”
“We do.” Our eyes met, and I was debating whether we could get away with a break for making out when my phone buzzed with a message.
“It’s my mom,” I said as I scrolled down my list of alerts.
Concern flashing across his face, Jasper pursed his mouth. “Bruno news?”
“Yeah. Not bad. But he’ll be here next weekend. Next weekend. And Mom wants to make a big dinner.”
“And you’re worried about her cooking?” He did an exaggerated nervous expression, trying to earn a laugh, but this time it didn’t work.
“Everything else. It’s not enough time.”
“It’ll work out.” He came around the table to hug me, but even his warm presence at my back wasn’t enough to make my muscles relax.
“Says you.” My retort made him step back, and I regretted it immediately, turning so I could pull him to me again. “But thanks. I’m lucky to have you, no matter how this goes.”
“Maybe your luck is about to turn.” He pointed at a box on the floor. “Last case.”
“Okay. Maybe this is the good stuff.” I hefted it up and peered over his shoulder as he opened it up.
“Maybe. I’m crossing—”
“Fuck.” I didn’t let him finish the thought because I knew what I was seeing and it wasn’t good.
“More scrolls.” Even Jasper sounded beyond dejected. “Okay. Let’s actually dig. There might be something hiding.”
But there wasn’t. This wasn’t a treasure hunt, and there wasn’t some secret panel on the bottom of the box hiding a cache of rare cards. Jasper checked, even going so far as to turn each of the boxes upside down. Nothing.
“All right. This isn’t an utter disaster.” The way Jasper was wringing his hands said otherwise, right along with my stomach, which was making me regret those sandwiches. I popped two mints, but the sour feeling stayed.
“How so? Bruno’s home next weekend. I’m out of time.”
“We are not out of time.” He drew his shoulders back, the commanding leader who wrangled his cosplay group into shape making an appearance. “I’ll play George and—”
“I told you. I hate that idea.” I might really enjoy bossy Jasper, but not right then, and not about my life. I pushed away from the table and stalked to the other side of the small room. “And it’s not your call.”
“Actually, it kind of is.” Jasper followed after me. “It’s my ticket to the launch party. And it’s my need to help you. Let me help you.”
“Not like that.” A faded poster on the wall welcomed newcomers to Odyssey, mocking me.
“Okay. I think you’re being stubborn, but whatever.” Jasper slumped into one of the folding chairs. I hated how defeated he sounded and was about to rub his shoulder when he added, “Maybe the best thing is to own up to what happened to Bruno.”
“No. I can’t do that.” I took three steps backward, running into the wall. “I mean, here I am, life a mess again. Lost his cards. Lost my place to live—”
“But think about what you’ve gained.” Jasper turned in his chair, eyes boring into mine. And I wasn’t stupid. I knew what he meant. Self-respect. Ambition. Pride. Friends. Him. Definitely him and everything that included, every wonderful moment of the past few weeks. But none of that was going to matter. This wasn’t one of Jasper’s equations where one side balanced the other.
“He won’t see that.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Sure I do. He’s been a success at everything. School. Special forces. Every sport and game he’s tried. And me? I keep messing up. And now I’m a failure. Again.”
“Gee. Tell us how you really feel.” Jasper leaped out of his chair, took a step toward me, then apparently changed his mind and stomped to the other side of the table.
I held up both hands. “I didn’t mean that being with you is a failure.”
“No? Because it sure seems like you’re trying to punish yourself for being gay, chalking that up as one more black mark Bruno is going to hold against you.”
“He stood up for me. All the time with Dad.” I’d lost Dad, if I’d ever really had him. I’d lost James and Luther and a bunch of other pointless acquaintances. But I couldn’t lose Bruno too. I just couldn’t, and I needed Jasper to understand that. “He’d tell Dad to lay off me or he’d help me do my chores faster. And then when I had the accident—”
“I get it. He’s been there for you. And you did make a big mistake with the cards. Which is why I want to play George for you. If it’s that important to you that Bruno not know, let me do this for you. For us.”
The thought of him playing George filled me with such rage and shame. Stepping back and letting him do that for me was more than I could bear. My back tensed, every muscle rigid. Jasper was always so quick with the solutions, the genius right answers, and I loved that about him, but I also simply couldn’t stomach the thought of turning over my problems to him for the quick fix.
“This is my mess. I’ll sort it out. Somehow.”
“On your own,” Jasper said flatly.
“I need to.” I didn’t know how I could expect him to understand when I didn’t fully get it either, but fresh resolve drove me, like a pebble of an idea had started rolling and now it was a boulder and I couldn’t stop it. And what was worse, I didn’t know whether I should stop, whether my pride was about to trash what was left of my life or whether this was me making a long overdue stand.
“You came to me, you know. You asked me to help—”
“I know. And you’ve done so, so much. I can never repay you.” I crossed the distance between us, but his expression was guarded, eyes narrow, fists clenched.
“I don’t want repayment. I like helping you. It’s what friends do. And we’re friends, right?”
“More than. You know that.” I reached a hand toward him, but he didn’t take it.
“Do I? Because you’re not acting the most like it right now.”
“Sorry. It’s because we’re friends—boyfriends—that I don’t want you playing George. I don’t want you to have to rescue me.” I wasn’t the same guy who had walked into this game store all those weeks ago, and I needed to
prove that to both of us. “I want to be the one protecting you sometimes too. And that includes from creeps.”
“Milo.” Jasper surprised me by touching my arm. “I don’t need protecting. I don’t. And you don’t have to handle this yourself.”
The air crackled, a charge sweeping through the room, reaching my stubborn brain. Handle. Yourself. And in that instant, I knew what I had to do, and maybe I’d known it all along because certainty settled over me like a heavy cloak.
“I think I know what I have to do.” But it wasn’t going to be easy, and as with most things, I didn’t want an audience. “I need to go.”
“Right now? Alone?” Jasper dropped his hand as his mouth went slack.
“I’ve got some stuff to work out in my head.” What I really needed was a long, cold walk to grant me clarity. I wasn’t like Jasper, human search engine for a brain, quick-firing neurons. I needed to think. Also I knew he’d try to talk me out of this plan before I even got it settled. “Trust me?”
“I’m trying.”
“Fair enough.” I grabbed my coat.
“Milo. I hope you’re not making a mistake,” he warned.
My heart galloped because I hoped that too. But if it was a mistake, it was going to be my own mistake. And it was Jasper who made me brave. I was finally, finally going to solve everything, and this was a chance I had to take.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Jasper
The door shut softly behind Milo. No slamming. No screaming. It wasn’t even a storming off as much as a bid for space, which even if I wasn’t as introverted as him, I did sort of understand. I’d grown up in a big family with space at a premium. Finding a spot to be alone to think had been a challenge at times. But with Milo, I wanted to be together. A team, like we’d been earlier. The dynamic duo, solving all Milo’s problems. Him shutting me out hurt. If he didn’t want the same kind of partnership I did, I wasn’t sure where that left us.
But mainly, I was super worried about Milo. As I cleaned up the last of the card mess, I kept debating exactly how worried I should be. He was a big guy, sober, on a clear night that for once was showing signs of spring. If he needed a walk in the dead of night, so be it.
However, his parting words had been rather…ominous. I took my phone out. No messages. Should I text someone? My mom? His? A friend? I didn’t want to call for backup this late at night without a good reason. I didn’t think Milo would do anything too rash. For all that he could brood, he’d never shown a tendency to self-harm, but I was still worried.
I stacked boxes and wiped the table with quick, jerky movements. And maybe some of my concern was because I had a strong feeling where he was headed and why he hadn’t told me. He knew I’d stop him. Which I probably still would. I knew exactly how long it would take Milo to walk there at a slow pace, so I’d let him get a head start, finish up here, then go talk some sense into him.
Thump. I was almost done cleaning when I tripped over Milo’s backpack. Heck. He had to be really worked up to have forgotten it. His sketchbook was under it because he’d been noodling with a drawing earlier while I’d been busy doing stuff for Arthur to close up the store. When I lifted up the backpack, the motion pulled the sketchbook open. And what I saw took my breath away.
Me. Over and over again, me. Me as the Frog Wizard, me as a regular guy in my hoodie, happy, joking, quiet, sexy, a myriad of different moods. I crouched low to get a better look, transfixed. I should have shut it fast, but I couldn’t. Because there on those pages was love, bold and fearless. He’d said the word the night before, but I’d been half-convinced that was sex talking. But here on these pages, his pencil didn’t lie.
He saw me like no one else had ever seen me. Saw beyond the joker and funny guy to the parts of me that were softer, more serious. Vulnerable. More like him.
My legs cramped from holding the position, but I didn’t care. If he could see me so well, didn’t I owe it to him to try to see him too? Not simply my stack of assumptions about him and what he needed, but him as he actually was, all of him. I’d spent days trying to come up with plans for him, but had I seen him amid all my scheming?
Because there he was on the pages too. Self-portraits and cartoon Milo both. Cartoon Milo was more like me, joking and open. In so many ways, we’d always been mirror images of each other. Seeing him like this underscored both our differences and the ways we complemented each other. He was always saying how I was nicer and a better person, but he made me that way, both as part of my past and now as what I wanted for my future.
Seeing his more serious self-portraits, it was easy to grasp his complexity—the artsy, almost poetic parts dancing alongside the sporty, brash parts. He had visions for his future, too, little sketches for how he might arrange a small room and one of cartoon Milo holding up a drawing. I’d wanted so badly to rescue that Milo, the one that had been afraid to let those different parts of himself see the light. But what if he’d never truly needed my rescue? What then?
Speaking of rescues, there was one of Bruno too, looking heroic in his uniform. The love was apparent there, too, and I understood better than most how family ties could run deep. Jeff’s distance still hurt, and even Katie and Brenda getting their own lives was bittersweet. April would grow up someday too, need me less, but I wasn’t suddenly going to stop being her big brother. Maybe it wasn’t fair of me to ask Milo to stop caring so much about what Bruno thought of him. It mattered to Milo.
And Milo mattered to me.
Buzz. My phone vibrated on the table above me, and I unfolded my stiff body to reach for it.
Triple-check the locks. Not a word about why he’d left or where he’d gone, but he’d promised Arthur he’d remind me, so he had. My chest pinched, a deep, hard pang.
Are you okay? That was what I truly needed to know.
Yeah.
Good. There was so much I wanted to say, but none of it would fit in a text. My words would have to wait.
And I was going after him—as soon as I triple-checked the locks—but I was no longer racing to stop him from doing something stupid. Rather, I was ready to listen, really listen with my whole heart, and open my eyes and see him. Only then could I hope to actually help.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Milo
“I knew you’d come.” I didn’t look up as Jasper plopped himself down on the paver closest to where I was sitting. And I had, had known even as I shut the shop door that he’d follow. Honestly, I was surprised it had taken him this long. Perhaps more surprising was that I’d wanted him to come and had been actively missing him since about three minutes into my cold trek here. I hadn’t been lying. I had needed the walk to clear my head, sort through the muddle of emotions that had arisen during our argument. But now he was here, and I wasn’t upset to see him.
“I’m always going to come.” Like me, Jasper kept his voice down. “Even though you don’t want me—”
“I want you. I can want space and still want you to chase after me. I’m a fickle guy.”
“Not fickle. Complicated.” Even now he was loyal to me.
“How’d you guess I’d be here?” I gestured at his parents’ yard. I’d been taking a chance that they hadn’t installed motion-sensitive flood lights or something, but I’d been sitting here awhile now and no alarms had sounded and the house had stayed dark and quiet.
“Maybe I know you.” Jasper raised an eyebrow at me. Dawn was still a way off, but there was a dim alley light close by, casting long shadows over us and glinting off his hair and eyes.
“You do.” I sighed, because I was still working out how I felt about that. It was entirely possible that he knew me better than anyone else. “Did you come here to stop me?”
Jasper was silent for a long second, joining me in staring at my car. He knew. I knew. There was no point in either of us playing stupid. It was my one thing of value, the end-of-game card I’d
been holding all along, and maybe we’d both known how this would play out.
“I was. I was going to come and try to talk you out of whatever plan you’ve got. But not now.”
“No?” I turned more toward him. He looked older, somehow, in the night air. Taller, back straight, gaze locked on the car, not on me. “What changed?”
“I found your sketchbook.”
“Oh.” It said something that I only realized in that instant that I had left my backpack behind.
“I brought it and your bag. And yes, I know it was a huge invasion of privacy to look, and this is probably where I should start by begging forgiveness—”
“You don’t have to beg. I made mistakes tonight too,” I admitted. It didn’t bug me that he’d seen my sketches as much as make me wary of his reaction. “And I was working up the nerve to show you the whole thing for a while now. I was worried it might scare you away.”
“Never.” He scooted closer, touched my arm. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily. Or scaring me away with your gorgeous drawings. They’re amazing. You’re amazing.”
“Thanks.” My skin heated even in the chilly air. “But how did my drawings change your mind about stopping me?”
“I saw myself. I saw you. And I realized that I wasn’t doing the best job of listening. I’ve been doing a lot of telling. Telling you to get a new place to live. Telling you that I’d play George. Telling you to come clean with Bruno.”
“You meant well.” I returned the favor and patted his shoulder. Touching him felt good. Necessary even. I settled an arm around him. “And a lot of it was good advice.”
“But I wasn’t asking you what you want and why, and actually paying attention to your answers. Really listening. Like you always do.”
“I do?”
“You hear even the stuff I don’t say. I joked about how I know you, but you know me. I could see it in each sketch. And it made me want to do a better job of seeing you. Hearing you.”
Out of Character Page 24
