Superhero
Page 13
I drew a hand with a guitar pick. Owen glanced over at me.
“Not that kind of picking, Jordan.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, squiggling it out with my fingers.
“So the Day of Silence is a day of protest to protest bullying.”
I drew a calendar page with “April 19” on it.
“And on that day, those who want to participate can wear red and also commit to not talking. You can make your own level of commitment. Be silent all day, talk in classes but not to your friends, just commit to one hour, whatever.”
I drew as fast as I could whipping through various markers—a figure in a red shirt, a clock, a person with tape over their mouths in a classroom.
“Now, raise your hand if you want to say something about what kind of person might be bullied in this school and how you feel about that. And if you raise your hand and speak, Jordan will do a quick portrait of you on the board. All right?”
Yeah, easy for him to say. Damn. I ended up quick drawing almost every single one of those eighth graders that day—I mean, we visited four classrooms and, yeah, they had a lot to say about bullying. Some cool conversation came out of it about sexual identity and social issues, but my wrist had to be iced. I am not kidding.
Talk about taking one for the team.
Still, we got out of our classes for the day, I got to hang with Owen, and I got to watch him be really admirable, which sucks in a way since I already admired him rather pathetically a lot. I mean, Owen had some clout, you know? So it meant was cool that it was him telling those kids about the Day of Silence.
I’ll shut up now.
When April 19th came around, both Owen and I pledged a full day of silence. To be honest, I wanted to see if I could do it. Since it was our senior year, my classes were mostly art anyway, and I wasn’t exactly in danger of losing academic standing, so why not?
But the coolest thing about that day happened after school. Owen was giving me a ride home, like always, but when we left the school parking lot, he turned the wrong way. I couldn’t ask, so I raised a quirked brow at him. He just quirked right back at me.
Ten minutes later we pulled into a cemetery.
I’d never been to the cemetery before, and I had no freaking clue why we were there, but Owen parked, took a couple of baseball mitts and a baseball from the back seat and jerked his head in a let’s go.
I followed him through the gravestones to a grave marked Raymond Toleman. Oh.
Ray was the reason why our school had an anti-bullying club and why Owen and me were in it. He committed suicide last year after being bullied, and that changed a lot of things at Jefferson High, including Owen. Raymond was learning disabled but he loved sports, and he went to every single game or meet or practice the school had, always cheering like a crazy, hyper geek and getting such a kick out of it. A lot of the athletes gave Ray heavy doses of crap for being weird. Owen hadn’t, but he’d seen it happen and he hadn’t stepped in to stop it. He felt torn up about that when Raymond killed himself. I mean, he took it hard. He became VP of the anti-bullying club. When Owen commits to something, you do not want to freaking get in the way. That’s all I’m saying.
Owen handed me a mitt, took me by the arm and put me where he wanted me, on one side of Raymond’s grave, and then he went to stand on the other so we were about six feet apart. He tossed me the ball. I tossed it back.
We tossed that ball back and forth for about fifteen minutes. Now, I am not an athlete, but even I can manage to throw a baseball at six feet, especially since Owen was being real serene about it, like it wasn’t even really playing, more like… a sort of prayer I guess.
After a while Owen set the ball carefully at the foot of Raymond’s grave, touched the headstone and turned to go, looking at me. I touched the headstone too, silently telling Ray I hoped he was in a heaven that had Superbowl Tuesday every day of the year. Oh, and lots of naked cheerleaders of whatever gender floated Ray’s boat.
As Owen and I walked towards his truck, he slung a friendly arm around my shoulders. And I tried very hard not to sigh.
Dear Reader
Thank you for reading SUPERHERO. This was one of the first m/m romance stories I wrote, and Owen and Jordy have a special place in my heart.
As always, I very much appreciate my readers posting recommendations for my books online and reviewing on Amazon and Goodreads. Thank you! Your reviews really make a difference.
I appreciate my readers so much. It is awesome to hear from you and to know that I made someone smile or sigh. Feel free to email me: eli@elieaston.com.
You can also visit my website: www.elieaston.com. I have first chapters up for all my books and some free stories too. And you can sign up for my newsletter to get a monthly email about new releases and sales.
My facebook group is a place to chat about Eli stories and get opportunity to read ARCs, excerpts from works-in-progress, and other goodies.
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I can promise you there will always be happy ending and that love is love.
Eli Easton
Also from Eli Easton
Christmas Romances:
Blame it on the Mistletoe
A Prairie Dog’s Love Song
Unwrapping Hank
Midwinter Night’s Dream
Merry Christmas, Mr. Miggles
Desperately Seeking Santa
Christmas Angel
Angels Sing
Historical Romances:
The Lion and the Crow
Robby Riverton: Mail Order Bride
Contemporary Romances:
Before I Wake
Boy Shattered
Family Camp (Daddy Dearest #1)
Five Dares
Heaven Can’t Wait
Superhero
Puzzle Me This
A Second Harvest (Men of Lancaster County #1)
Tender Mercies (Men of Lancaster County #2)
The Trouble With Tony (Sex in Seattle #1)
The Enlightenment of Daniel (Sex in Seattle #2)
The Mating of Michael (Sex in Seattle #3)
The Stolen Suitor
Snowblind
Paranormal Romances:
How to Howl at the Moon (Howl at the Moon #1)
How to Walk like a Man (Howl at the Moon #2)
How to Wish Upon a Star (Howl at the Moon #3)
How to Save a Life (Howl at the Moon #4)
How to Run with the Wolves (Howl at the Moon #5)
www.elieaston.com
About Eli Easton
ELI EASTON has been at various times and under different names a preacher’s daughter, a computer programmer, a game designer, the author of paranormal mysteries, an organic farmer, and a profound sleeper. She has been writing m/m romance since 2013.
As an avid reader of romance, she is tickled pink when an author manages to combine literary merit, vast stores of humor, melting hotness, and eye-dabbing sweetness into one story. She promises to strive to achieve most of that most of the time. She currently lives on a farm in Pennsylvania with her husband, bulldogs, and a cat.
Her website is http://www.elieaston.com.
You can e-mail her at eli@elieaston.com
Twitter is @EliEaston
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008994061782