Weight of Silence: (Cost of Repairs #3)

by A. M. Arthur

  They walked back to the Dollar Mart together, the future job search a comfortable thing between them. While Gavin didn’t want Jace to leave town, he did want him to find his dream. He wanted Jace to be happy. And he had a good feeling that Jace wanted the same thing for him.

  If they were lucky, their paths to happiness would intersect far into the future.

  13

  Jace was a walking bundle of nerves by the time Gavin parked his Jeep down the street from Molly’s house a few minutes after eight that night. Not even two long hours with Gavin, alternately talking and making out, had put a dent in his anxiety. Usually the mere thought of Gavin’s mouth made him pop a woody, but nothing had gotten him hard tonight. Gavin hadn’t taken it personally. He was being so supportive it made Jace even more self-conscious.

  The only time Jace had actually been somewhat calm—because he’d forgotten all about the party—was when Gavin arrived to pick him up. The doorbell had scared the crap out of him because he wasn’t expecting it. He also wasn’t expecting Gavin to be standing on the other side of the door when he opened it.

  Usually Gavin waited in the Jeep for Jace to come to him. But Gavin rang the bell, picking him up like a real date, and he thrust a large flat object wrapped in brown paper at him. Gavin was blushing too, and he didn’t blush easily.

  “What’s this?” Jace asked.

  “It’s for you.”

  Jace bit back an instinctive “duh” and stepped aside so Gavin could come in. He carefully unwrapped the weighty object, his hands identifying it as some kind of framed item before he’d removed all the paper. He gazed at it, heart pounding and mouth dry, at a complete loss for words.

  Gavin had matted and framed his sketch of Carter’s Lake after signing the bottom corner in his loopy scrawl. As Jace studied the picture and tried to get his voice to work again, he noticed tiny details that Gavin must have added after he’d last seen it. Some branches were sharper, other parts of the water were smudged and shaded. Gavin had refined the drawing with his artist’s hand, and it was perfect.

  “I love it,” Jace finally managed.

  “Since you inspired it, I wanted to give it to you,” Gavin said. The words made Jace’s heart clench in a wonderful way. “Happy New Year, Jace.”

  “Thank you. Happy New Year.”

  Jace had been prepared to start their make-out session right then and there, only his parents hadn’t left for their own New Year’s party yet, so he settled for a simple thank-you kiss. As much as his parents said they understood and still loved him, he didn’t want to rub their faces in it. His sisters, on the other hand, were a different story. He had no qualms about kissing Gavin in front of them, but they were already out.

  Rachel was at Molly’s party, which Jace was dreading like a cavity filling.

  Molly and Rachel greeted him and Gavin at the front door. Molly even gave Gavin a hug, which surprised them both, before sending them off into the churning crowd of faces both familiar and strange. Music blared from the living room, and the dining room table was covered in bowls of chips, dips and two liters of soda. A keg sat on the floor near the china hutch, its nozzle passing hands frequently. Gavin flanked him as he wound his way through the downstairs, close without clinging. A little part of Jace wanted to grab his hand to make sure he stayed put.

  “Ramsey!”

  The bellowed greeting sent a bolt of adrenaline right through Jace’s chest. He turned and was swept into a bear hug by Charlie Hogan. Charlie had packed on more than the freshman fifteen his first year in college, and he’d added to that this past semester. With Jace’s own unexpected weight loss, the hug was like being tackled by a grizzly.

  “Damn, man, you been sick or what?” Charlie asked as he pounded him on the back then released him. “You’re skinny as a pole.”

  “Bad flu,” Jace said. He hated lying, but he didn’t need to tell everyone who asked that he’d been anxiety-ridden and depressed, and was only now coming out from under it. Mostly.

  “Well, get some food. Molly’s got pizza coming at nine too.” He finally noticed Jace wasn’t alone. “Hey, man. Charlie Hogan.”

  Gavin stepped forward and shook his hand. “Gavin Perez.”

  “Charlie and I ran track together in high school,” Jace said.

  “Would never have guessed that, huh?” Charlie asked with a grin. He didn’t seem bothered by his expanded body size. He actually seemed happier than he had running himself ragged for the track team. “You keeping out of trouble?”

  “Doing my best. You?”

  “Never.” He listened to Charlie rattle off a story of pledging his fraternity that gathered a small crowd and eventually had them all laughing. Charlie always could tell a good story, even if he liked to embellish details for effect. “Great thing about our frat is there’s a sorority who throws parties with them every other weekend. Plenty of pussy out there if you’ve got letters, you know?”

  Jace resisted the urge to roll his eyes, even while some of the other guys in their small circle hooted and agreed. “Do they fall all over your svelte new figure?” he asked.

  Charlie chuckled. “You know it. Put some meat back on your carcass and maybe you’ll stop showing up to every party stag, dude.”

  His mouth went dry. This was the part where he was supposed to say he wasn’t here alone, he was with his boyfriend. Only the words stuck in his throat.

  “I don’t know,” Gavin said conversationally. “I saw the ass Jace got the other day, and…” He made a whistling noise.

  “Dude!” Charlie slapped Jace on the shoulder. “Seriously? You got a girlfriend? Good for you.”

  “I don’t have a girlfriend,” Jace said. He simultaneously wanted to laugh at Gavin’s own opinion of himself and poke him for bringing it up at all.

  “Even better. Get some ass without all the emotional bullshit.”

  Jace wanted to hide under the coffee table. He glanced at Gavin, whose innocent face would have been hilarious if Jace wasn’t floundering in the conversation. He wanted to defend Gavin, to say he liked the emotional bullshit because it wasn’t bullshit with Gavin. “I didn’t say I was single,” he snapped at Charlie, “I said I didn’t have a girlfriend.”

  Leaving Charlie to digest that, Jace threaded his way to the other side of the living room. Gavin followed, his eyebrows somewhere up in his hairline. A few people waved at Jace, and he nodded back. He went through the archway into the den where fewer people were hanging out, some of them playing a game on Molly’s Xbox.

  “That was unexpected,” Gavin said quietly.

  “Charlie or what I said?”

  “Both.”

  Jace leaned against the wall and shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “Like I said before, I don’t want to hide you. I’m not sure how to do this, though.”

  “You don’t have to do anything. We’re here together. It’s a start.”

  “I guess.”

  “Were you and Charlie good friends?”

  “Pretty good friends. Why?”

  “Wondering, because he’s heading back this way.”

  Jace looked at the archway in time to see Charlie walk through into the den. Their eyes met. Charlie didn’t seem mad when he approached them. Jace tensed for a fight anyway.

  “Dude, you can’t just drop a bomb like that and walk away,” Charlie said. “I thought we were friends.”

  “We are friends,” Jace said testily. “I hope we are. Did you need something clarified?”

  Charlie looked him over, then gave Gavin an assessing stare. Gavin returned the stare intently, his face the picture of calm. Charlie then leaned in and, in a harsh whisper, asked, “Are you saying you’re queer?”

  His stomach flipped. “Yes.”

  “Like, always?”

  “Seriously?”

  “No, I mean—” Charlie shook his head, seeming a little dazed. “How long have you known you were, I guess?”

  “A few years. I only really came out this month.”

/>   He glanced at Gavin. “And you’re sure?”

  “Positive.” He had half a mind to grab Gavin and kiss him, just to prove a point. But Charlie seemed done asking questions; now he was thinking. He could almost see Charlie’s brain working, wondering about all of the times they’d showered together after a meet, hugged after a win, and hung out at each other’s houses. Jace leaned forward and whispered, “Don’t worry, Charlie, you’re not my type.”

  Charlie’s eyebrows jumped. He looked at Gavin again, then sputtered nervous laughter. “Yeah, I guess not. Man, you know you’ll break Molly’s heart, right? She’s been lusting after you since eighth grade.”

  Jace smiled as some of the tension in his chest unfurled. “Yeah, I know. I’ll make it up to her somehow.”

  “Cool. Okay.” Charlie seemed at a loss for continued conversation. He looked around, spotted someone he probably didn’t actually know, and then excused himself.

  “Wow,” Jace said once he was gone.

  “I wish all my friends took my coming out that well,” Gavin said.

  “Charlie’s a good guy.” Jace had no illusions that all of his old friends and acquaintances would be so accepting. He had to take this one step at a time.

  Those steps took him all around the downstairs for the next hour, as he made idle conversation with dozens of people from his graduating class. He hadn’t realized Molly invited so many people. New faces were constantly coming and going as the front door opened and shut every couple of minutes. Molly and Rachel were in their element, playing the social butterflies and welcoming guests with enthusiasm.

  Jace loved watching his sister smile like that, so open and genuinely happy, and focused on her future. It made everything he’d done to help her worth it. And Gavin knew how to charm a room with goofy stories and wild hand gestures. Some of the kids at the party knew him, even though he was older than most by a few years—one of the results of living in a small town his entire life. He didn’t seem to mind the attention, and Jace let him absorb it, content to be the silent shadow.

  While Gavin told a story of catching a black snake that somehow got inside the Dollar Mart this past summer, Jace’s mind wandered back to their conversation at lunch. He understood Gavin’s inability to think too far into the future; it wasn’t how Gavin’s mind operated. Jace, on the other hand, couldn’t stop thinking about tomorrow, and next week, and next year. He was the only one in his family without a plan, and he hated that.

  Gavin’s suggestion to hit the library was a good one, and he planned to take him up on the offer to accompany him. They could find a lot of information online, and doing their research in the library’s computer lab would help keep Gavin’s butterfly attention span focused on the task in front of them, instead of on more fun things. Like sex, which they would get distracted by way too easily alone in one of their rooms.

  Jace truly didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life; he only knew he didn’t want to do it in Stratton. Some kind of job that allowed him to travel, even as a big rig driver, was better than smothering slowly to death in Smalltown, USA. The only thing that came immediately to mind was working on a cruise ship, but Jace didn’t think he could be cooped up on a boat for four months a year.

  Too bad he couldn’t buy a car, climb in, write about the places he traveled to, and have someone actually pay him for the articles. Did people do that? Buy stories written by nobodies about the places they went to? He didn’t know. He liked to write essays and generally got good grades in English. Maybe he should start small and make a blog first, before jumping into the deep end of the pool. Maybe Gavin could go with him and sketch a few places so he’d have something more interesting on a blog than words alone.

  The idea of them traveling together, working together, made Jace grin.

  “Hey, Jace,” Rachel said from somewhere behind him. “Look who accepted my invite.”

  Jace pushed off the wall he’d been leaning against and turned. He faltered at the sight of his Temple roommate, Ben Sanders, standing next to his sister. He and Ben always got along, and they respected each other’s privacy, but they weren’t best buds, and he hadn’t even known that Ben and Rachel were friends. “You invited him?” he asked dumbly.

  “Well, sure.” Rachel’s look clearly said he was an idiot. “We talked yesterday, and he said he’d be up this way visiting family over New Year’s. I said he could stop by if he wanted to hang.”

  While there was nothing technically wrong with anything Rachel had said, Jace stayed stuck on we talked yesterday. Why and about what? They were standing at a respectful distance from each other, sharing no conspiratorial looks, so he didn’t think they were secretly dating. Rachel hadn’t been interested in dating anyone since the spring. And Rachel dating Ben would be some sort of horrific, cosmic joke considering Jordan was—

  “Ben, this is Jace’s friend Gavin,” Rachel said, introducing the warm body that had come up behind Jace. “Jace and Ben are roommates at Temple.”

  Jace bit back an instinctive “were”. He hadn’t made an official decision about not going back to school, and he’d rather avoid the drama tonight.

  “How you doin’, man?” Gavin said, extending his hand past Jace’s shoulder.

  Ben shook it. “Good. Cute town.”

  “He’s from Pittsburgh,” Rachel said, like it explained everything.

  The conversation was a little too surreal for Jace, and he was contemplating a discreet exit strategy when a new voice stopped him cold.

  “There you are.”

  Every muscle in Jace’s body pulled taut, including his lungs, and he stopped breathing in the middle of the living room. Jordan Burns stepped up behind Ben, and everyone else at the party melted away when he met Jace’s eyes. Utter lack of surprise danced behind Jordan’s superior smirk—not the “I’m good looking and we both know it” smirk that he used to see when he looked at Jordan, but a brand new, just for Jace, “I own your ass and we both know it” smirk.

  People were talking around him, maybe even to him, but Jace wasn’t listening. He couldn’t hear anything over the dull roar in his ears, the anger and fear that battled inside of him, and the intense need to flee. To put distance between himself and Jordan before something terrible happened. Before Jace said something that ruined himself and Rachel. Before Gavin saw him for the coward he was.

  Someone, maybe Gavin, gave his shoulder a gentle shake. The skin on the back of his neck crawled. He had to get out of the room. He mumbled something, an apology or excuse, he didn’t know the words. He only knew that he needed to go.

  Gavin stared in the direction Jace had gone, utterly dumbfounded by the sudden departure—and the way Jace had reacted to Jordan’s appearance at the party. Ben introduced Jordan as his cousin from Philly, who occasionally hung out with him on and off campus. All that told Gavin was that Jordan and Jace had probably met before. And the black-haired kid seemed unthreatening enough, even if he’d looked at Jace like he wanted to take a bite out of him—and not necessarily in a sexy way. It was unsettling.

  Ben and Rachel gave each other blank stares. Jordan looked way too innocent.

  It hit Gavin in the chest like a hammer: Jordan and Jace had a history.

  “Well, that was weird,” Rachel said.

  “When you gotta go, you gotta go,” Jordan said in an annoying deadpan.

  “Is that what he said? I couldn’t hear him.”

  Gavin didn’t believe for a second that Jace needed to take a piss. He’d hightailed it out of the living room because of Jordan. Annoyance and concern crept up Gavin’s spine like a prickle, and he wanted to grab Jordan by the neck and shake him. Shake that damned smirk right off his pretty face and ask why he’d made Jace so nervous.

  Rachel met Gavin’s eyes, her concern plain to see. She leaned in and stood up on her tiptoes to whisper, “Master bath in her parents’ room. Reserved for good friends. Everyone else uses downstairs.”

  He took the clue and excused himself from the group.
He felt Jordan’s eyes on his back as he threaded his way through the party to the stairs. It felt odd to be going upstairs in a stranger’s house, and once he hit the quieter, darker hallway, he realized he had no idea which was the master bedroom. Two doors were open, the rooms beyond silent and shadowed. The next door was ajar. He stuck his head inside and squinted into the darkness—large bed, picture windows, tidy. Looked like a master.

  A thin line of light shined from beneath the door at the far corner of the room. He slipped fully inside the bedroom, then crossed to what he assumed was the bathroom door. Pressed his ear to the door and listened. No sounds of retching, no running water. Just a soft, muffled sound that might be heavy breathing.

  Gavin tapped his knuckles against the door twice. “Jace?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Even through the door, he heard the tightness in Jace’s response. “Liar. Let me in.”

  “It isn’t locked.”

  For some reason that surprised him. Gavin turned the knob and let himself into a spacious, yellow bathroom. Jace sat on the floor in the corner between a stall shower and a large whirlpool bathtub. His legs were drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around them, chin on his knees. He looked like he was forcing himself to sit still and be normal when part of him wanted to explode.

  Gavin shut the door quietly, then moved to sit opposite Jace, keeping a comfortable distance between them. Jace stared at the floor, his skin pale and sweaty, eyes a little too wide.

  “Do you feel sick?” Gavin asked, even though the toilet was halfway across the room from Jace.

  “A little bit,” was the weak answer.

  “From the party?”

  Jace shrugged one shoulder, totally noncommittal.

  “From Jordan?” Gavin asked.

  Jace dropped his forehead against his knees—bingo. Gavin was mad at himself for any tangential role he’d had in Jordan showing up tonight. He knew Rachel had called Ben, who hadn’t been able to talk long, but had said he’d noticed Jace acting funny a few days after he got back from Thanksgiving. Rachel had reported that to Gavin, but not the party invitation. And all of them had been surprised to see Ben’s guest—no one more so than Jace.