Dare You To Keep Me: HawkRidge High II

by Akeroyd, Serena

  She didn’t cry all that often, but she’d told me once that sometimes, it was the only way she could get a handle on her feelings.

  “She’s mad again,” Drew mumbled as he rubbed his eyes.

  “She’s hurt,” Max corrected gruffly, as he scooped up his eggs. “You eating that?” he asked Drew, who’d left two pieces of toast on his plate.

  The guy had eaten six slices of bread and six eggs. “Do you have worms, Max?”

  He blinked at me. “I’ve been asked many things in my goddamn life, Sam, but if I have fucking worms is a first.”

  I shrugged. “You eat so much.”

  “I train hard.”

  I mean, I’d figured that out. From the size of him, he had to do something. None of his bulk was fat, either. He was like Jason Momoa, to be honest. Very tall and heavily bulked up.

  “Okay.”

  He squinted at me. “Why do you sound like you don’t believe me?”

  “I do,” I said with a laugh. “About the training, just not about the worms.”

  “Technically, he didn’t answer,” Drew pointed out with a snicker, to which Max flipped him the bird. “Are you sure you want to visit my grandmother?” he asked, changing topics. “You’re more than welcome to come, but she’s a bitch.”

  I snorted. “Understatement. But, and it’s a huge but, she bakes. A lot. So there are good eats.”

  “You pretty much just said the ‘Open Sesame’ passcode to him,” Drew chided wryly. “Max never passes up food.”

  “Been hungry too many times in my life,” he admitted with a shrug. “It’s why I have to train so much, because I eat so much.”

  I blinked at that logic. “I want to train with you.”

  “You mean that?” he asked, cocking a brow at me.

  “Yeah. I do.”

  “Don’t see why not.” He looked at Drew. “You game?”

  He grunted. “Coach is always on at me to bulk up while staying fast.” He winced. “Like that’s even fucking possible. So, yeah, I’ll jump in. I’m not like Sam. Coach wants him to be a brick shithouse.”

  As I chuckled, I heard the shower cut off. We all did. Our eyes were raised skyward as Max murmured, “Think she cried?”

  “Yeah. Probably.”

  Drew grunted. “Fuck.”

  “Yeah. Fuck.” I cut him a look. “Don’t ever do anything so fucking stupid again. Do you hear me?”

  “No, I don’t. You didn’t say it as loud as Jessa’s fucking tears.” He inhaled deeply. “What do you think she wants to talk to my grandmother about? Coach already arranged a way to pay for her healthcare. At least, potentially. Something about using the money for my scholarship to pay for her house.”

  I frowned. “Is that even possible?”

  “Why would he suggest it if it wasn’t?”

  “True.” I pursed my lips, uncertain about that reasoning. Far as I knew, that went above and beyond a Coach’s ability. “You know she’s not going to let that go, right?” I pointed out softly instead of focusing on something I wasn’t sure about. “Jessa wants to take care of you. Hell, us. Whether it’s feeding us, caring for us, or just plain watching out for us, she wants to be there. You can’t stop it, Drew. You know what’s she like.”

  “A bullet train with a death wish,” he grumbled.

  I smirked at him. “Aren’t you lucky you’re one of the passengers along for the ride?”

  His lips twisted. “Yeah. I am.”

  5

  Drew

  As we pulled up to the little house just on the outskirts of Hawk Ridge, I grimaced.

  My grandmother’s home was a small, one-story bungalow with a gable roof, gleaming white shutters, and neat as a pin stairs that led to a tiny porch where she was sitting on a rocking chair, peering out at the rest of the neighborhood.

  She was, I knew, better than a neighborhood watch program or CCTV cameras. When she wasn’t doing shit for the church, getting involved in other people’s business through the daisy chain of gossip, she could be found here on her rocking chair, with a pitcher of iced tea she never drank but always had perched there just in case anyone came visiting.

  Her raised brows at the sight of me told me she hadn’t thought I’d be coming to visit today.

  No surprise there.

  I loved her, truly, I did, but ever since I’d turned seventeen and had refused to go to church on Sunday anymore, she’d washed her hands of me in a way.

  Her God wasn’t my God, and she couldn’t accept that or me for not falling in line with her wishes.

  She was like that though. Arrogant and strident. She was the kind of person who’d break before they’d ever dream of bending.

  My dad didn’t give enough of a fuck about me to make me go to church. Shit, last night had proved he didn’t even care if I was sick. One text message? One measly fucking message? What was that about?

  I’d not really thought of the consequences of what had happened yesterday on a parental front. I was so used to my father not giving a shit about me that I hadn’t anticipated any comeback until Jessa had remarked upon it this morning. Now that I had further proof he didn’t give two shits about me? I finally had to admit the feeling was mutual.

  I hadn’t seen my father since before school had started. And in that time, I’d had a handful of texts, including the one I’d received last night. No calls, no check-ins. Nothing. Just silence. And yet, he’d been here. I knew it because my grandmother insisted on him coming and doing her lawn. She refused to have one of the local boys do it for twenty bucks. Why, when her son could do it for free?

  Before she’d shunned me and my treacherous ways—hell, I hadn’t come out as gay or atheist, just a non-Methodist—I’d been the one lumped with the task.

  And they said being a sinner came with no perks...

  Sure, I had some errands I had to do, and I always visited on a Sunday when she was at church to handle her to-do list, but that was pretty much it. She was usually displeased if I was here long enough to see her. That was how bad things had gotten between us.

  “Drew? What are you doing here, boy?” she squawked from her seat, her squinty eyes moving from me and over to my friends. As she clambered to her feet, she patted her hair. She wore it in a kind of low bun that made her features all the more pinched. Her brown eyes were narrowed as she gestured at us. “Come and have some iced tea. Drew, go and get some glasses.”

  I hadn’t expected that invitation, especially not from the street. I crossed the grass-covered verge and loped up the five steps to her porch. She made no move to come closer to me, and I made no move to go to her. I hovered long enough to point to each of my friends and name them, then introduced, “This is my grandmother, Jenny Cassidy,” before I headed into the small living room with its overly floral everything, and maneuvered my way into a kitchen that had been new back in the eighties.

  Whether it was old or not, however, everything was spotlessly clean, but then, that was my grandmother. She kept a tidy house. Always had and always would. Didn’t matter if the cancer was crippling her, making her very bones ache, she’d be cleaning everything whether or not it was dirty.

  Knowing I’d get shit if the glasses I retrieved had finger marks on them, I grabbed them with a cloth she had neatly folded and tucked over the oven door, and placed them on a small tray. I added extra ice into the tumblers, then headed through the house that I’d spent most of my life in and that was no longer welcome to me, and back outside.

  Max was there, holding the porch door open for me.

  “Thanks, Max.”

  “No problem.”

  My grandmother was back on her wicker chair, rocking to her own beat, and Jessa and Sam were sitting on the low wall, leaning against the railings. Ignoring them, I placed the tray on the large cane table that contained the jug, and began pouring out iced tea for all of us.

  “Are you hungry?” Grandmother asked Jessa stiffly, and it didn’t take much to figure out where her eyes were—on the hickey
s Jessa had tried and failed to cover up this morning. Hickeys that I was pretty fucking proud of in all honesty.

  “I am,” Max chimed in, making me snort.

  Grandmother shot me a look, but murmured, “Drew, there are some cookies in the kitchen. Bring them out, would you?”

  “Of course.”

  Quite used to being a slave to my grandmother—I remembered one occasion when she’d had me in and out so many times when some friends had visited, I’d felt like a server, except I’d earned no tip—I traipsed back in and, knowing where she kept her baked goods, found the cookie jar that always creeped me out. She’d had it since before I was a kid. The squirrel had the cheesiest and creepiest grin I’d seen in my life—worse than Pennywise—and I was tempted, more than ever truth be told, to knock the damn thing off the Formica counter.

  Deciding not to be a bastard, I grabbed a cookie for each of us, and three for Max—Sam was right, dude had worms or something—then retreated to the patio.

  “What are you doing here, Drew?” Grandmother asked, when I leaned on the patio next to Jessa. Her eyes were still on those damn hickeys.

  “Jessa wanted to meet you.”

  My grandmother frowned. “Why did she want to do that?”

  “Because I wanted to talk to you about your treatment, ma’am,” Jessa stated calmly, and I had to withhold a sigh.

  Our little missionary.

  Saving the world, one infirm grandparent at a time.

  “What treatment?” Grandmother queried, her brow puckered, but I saw a fire in her eyes when she cast a glance my way. Jenny Cassidy, for all that she was queen of gossip around this area and her church, was intensely private with her own life. I actually believed that one of the reasons she ran such trash talk was to focus on someone other than herself.

  Weird, but that was my grandmother.

  She didn’t like that I’d shared the news of her sickness with my friends, and the vow she’d made me swear to keep things quiet when she’d been diagnosed was the reason why I’d kept things from them in the first place.

  I’d resented that vow then, and I resented it now.

  “Your cancer treatment, Grandmother,” I rasped, folding my arms across my chest.

  “I found out about it by accident, ma’am,” Jessa said earnestly, but no amount of earnestness was going to make her forgive me for sharing news that, in her mind, wasn’t mine to share. “Drew’s been working hard at the store—”

  “Nothing more than he should be doing,” was my grandmother’s instant retort. “I worked hard during high school too.”

  “Were you in AP classes too?” she inquired softly, quietly, firmly. “Did you play on the football team?”

  I hid a smile as I ducked my chin, because that, I recognized, was Jessa’s ‘debate’ tone.

  “No, but—”

  “Well, then your high school experience was entirely different than your grandson’s,” she continued briskly. “Drew can’t maintain the hours he’s working, especially not for the pittance he’s earning.” My pride balked at that particular word. Even if she was right. “He can’t be earning enough to help you out, but I’d like to.”

  Grandmother scowled at me. “What are you doing sharing private family business with strangers?”

  “She’s not a stranger, Grandmother,” I retorted gruffly. I wanted to tell her she was my girlfriend, but I couldn’t, could I? “She’s one of my best friends, and she’s a Rothskind.”

  Tensing, Grandmother grumbled, “I think it’s time you left.”

  Jessa shook her head. “I don’t think so. Not until you agree to let me help you. I love your grandson, ma’am. He’s my best friend, but he’s so much more. He’s a good man, a hardworking man, and his hours at the grocery store are taking more from him than he has to give.

  “He studies hard, keeps his grades up, and plays as QB on the football team and wrestles too! He does too much, and I want to make sure the rest of the year is better for him. He collapsed on the field last night, ma’am. From exhaustion.”

  Her lie had me giving her a sharp look, but she was ignoring me, her focus on my grandmother.

  “I fully understand that to you, I’m a stranger, but I’m no stranger to your family. A few calls, and I can see to it that you don’t have to worry about your next treatment—I don’t even know what’s wrong with you. Drew wouldn’t tell us. He just explained that he was working at the grocery store to help you out with money.”

  “He had no business talking about me at all,” she snapped.

  Jessa tilted her head to the side. “Why? You’re his grandmother. We’re his friends. And he’s concerned. Enough to be working all the hours he should be using for schoolwork and resting to get a good sleep. If you involve him to the extent that you take his money, then you should—”

  “How dare you!” Grandmother ground out, her face turning white with anger. “How dare you come here with your fancy talk and your snooty—”

  “Snooty? Fancy? I hardly think so,” Jessa interrupted, and if I hadn’t known it before, I knew it then.

  Jessa didn’t like my grandmother.

  It didn’t matter that she didn’t know her, she didn’t like her, and I knew why.

  I understood it, even if the reason behind it warmed my heart.

  Jessa was protective of us all, and I knew, for the same reason, she disliked my father.

  What hurt me, hurt her.

  And my family hurt me all the time with their lack of interest in my life.

  Should have figured that she’d been trying to placate me earlier on… this was definitely a scene she was making, but I didn’t have it in me to care.

  “I’m here because I care for your grandson. I care about his wellbeing, and even if you and your son don’t give a damn about him, I do,” she snarled fiercely, jerking forward, her body bristling with tension and outrage. “I care that he hasn’t seen his father in weeks, I care that he’s working himself ragged just to help you out when, as far as I can tell, you don’t give a damn about him anyway and all for some stupid reason. Family is family, but it seems to me that’s a message you haven’t learned at your church.

  “Now, ma’am, while you sit on your rocking chair, ignoring your grandson, failing him with every breath you take when you don’t call out your son’s terrible parenting skills, you have a nice day.” She shot her a fake smile, jumped off the low railing, and stalked off. Before she made it to the bottom step, she twisted around and, as my grandmother gaped at her, murmured, “Oh, and thank you for the tea and cookies. They were delicious.”

  With that, she headed over to Sam’s car.

  “Ma’am,” Max and Sam muttered, as they followed in her footsteps, but for me, I hovered there.

  “You don’t look well, Grandmother,” I stated once they were on the sidewalk. I heard the alarm click and the doors open and close as they climbed into the vehicle.

  “That’s because I’m dying, Andrew,” she snapped, her eyes fierce as she stared at me. Her skin was paperwhite, thin too. She looked frail, especially now that she was angry. Normally, she was like a twister in a temper. I knew my father was always cautious around her when she was in a mood, because she had a wicked aim with a dishcloth.

  And when she clipped you on the ear?

  It was bad enough to trigger a headache.

  “Then let us help.”

  “Us?” She squinted at me. “That rude chit ain’t family.”

  “She is to me,” I replied staunchly, and seeing she wanted to argue, I ground out, “She wants to help, and her money opens doors to new treatments. Treatments we couldn’t afford before, and she’ll probably help us with the house payments too.” This place had been remortgaged a while back to pay for some of her care. “She wants to help me. Not you. Whether you want it or not, she’ll find a way to make sure you get the treatment you need, so I wouldn’t fight it… What would be the point? You’re already fighting the reaper, Grandmama,” I told her softly, sadly. And
even though I hadn’t done this in a long time, I dipped down. She tilted her head up in disapproval, but she didn’t rebuff me when I pressed a kiss to her cheek. “I miss you.”

  “The congregation misses you,” she countered with a sniff.

  “It can deal. I can’t. Won’t have you for long enough. Not if this cancer has its way. Time’s too short—” When she made no demur, didn’t back down even then, I sighed. “You know where I am, and don’t fight whatever Jessa sorts out. The only thing that will happen is you’ll die sooner.”

  I wanted to tell her that I loved her, but we didn’t have that kind of relationship. Even before things had deteriorated to the extent they had now, we hadn’t talked like that. It was why Jessa’s free talk of love was a revelation to me. I loved that she told me how she felt about me. It made me feel…

  I sighed.

  Worthwhile.

  Like I mattered to someone, even if my family found me infinitely forgettable.

  Without a second glance, I retreated, heading down the steps and over to the car where the people who really gave a damn about me were waiting on me.

  Swallowing at the thought, I scowled up at the sun then dove for the shades I’d left on the backseat. Grandmother couldn’t abide sunglasses, and I hadn’t wanted to piss her off from the get-go. Sliding them on as I slipped into the car, there was barely any time at all between that and the engine revving as we took off, Sam cruising out of the small subdivision where Jenny Cassidy had lived all her adult life.

  I’d never known my grandfather. He’d died before I was born, and she hadn’t told me all that many stories about him. I figured she was happier as a widow than she’d been as a wife, and considering how domineering she was, that made sense. But I thought about him then, and wondered if he’d have been able to make the old bat see sense.

  “Sorry, Drew.”

  The soft whisper caught my attention. I stopped staring at lawns, neat hedges, and the ramshackle homes that made up the area where my grandmother lived, and turned to look at Jessa. Her eyes were huge in her face, and her bottom lip was quivering.