Come Home

by Raleigh Ruebins

  He was still there.

  He could still be vulnerable with me, even in the face of tonight.

  I checked behind me in the hall, and when I didn’t see anyone I pulled Gavin into a small alcove by the door that led to the empty physics lab. We were nestled in a small, private space here, in the gap between the rows of lockers.

  I put my hand on Gavin’s chest, pulled him close to me, and I kissed him.

  I kissed him like I had last night, even though I didn’t know if I should. I let my tongue slide against his, and after a brief hesitation, he kissed me back even harder, pulling me into a tight embrace.

  “I love you,” I told him, pulling back to rest my forehead on his. It was the only thing I knew to say at that moment. I didn’t want the bridge project to succeed, but I also didn’t want my best friend to fail, but there was one thing I knew without a scrap of doubt: I loved him.

  The worry on Gavin’s face broke apart, and I was stunned to see a couple tears fall from the corner of his eye as he watched me.

  “I love you so much,” he whispered.

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” I said. “None of us do. But I know that you are going to be okay. No matter what.”

  “I’m not so sure,” he said.

  “Well, good thing I’m sure, then,” I said.

  He nodded slowly. He wiped the few tears away with the heel of his palm.

  “Hey,” I said, reaching over to my shoulder bag and sliding out the small bottle of schnapps. “Look what I stopped to grab on my way back.”

  I held it up to him.

  And finally, miraculously, he smiled.

  “You didn’t,” he said.

  “I did,” I said. “They only had apple in the small size, not peach, but close enough, right?”

  He cracked open the lid and took a tiny sip. “Liquid courage,” he said.

  He passed it back to me, and I took a bigger swig, at least half the small bottle.

  His gaze had landed on me again, and he gave me a long, unbroken look that could have meant a million different things. He put a hand on the side of my neck, sliding it back to lace his fingers into my hair, then dipped to kiss me again.

  He pressed my back up against the wall. I reached back with one hand, feeling the cold metal of the locker behind me. His whole body was pinned against mine, his chest and thighs so warm in contrast to the cool at my back.

  I moaned. “This is what we should have done back in school,” I whispered as he sucked a kiss against my neck.

  “Very funny,” he murmured.

  “I mean it,” I said, and he leaned back to look me in the eye again. “Why didn’t we? God, Pepper, we could have… we could have done so much….”

  His eyes were intense again. “I wanted you,” he said, cautiously, before saying more. “So fucking badly. Every day. Every day I wanted to push you up against these lockers and kiss you. Do anything to you.”

  He was shaking again. I could feel him trembling against my skin.

  But now it was my turned to be stunned. “You… are you serious?”

  His eyes danced over my face. “You really never knew,” he said, as if he was discovering it for the first time.

  Caleb had been right.

  Caleb had been fucking right—Gavin had actually liked me, all the way back in high school?

  “God, I’m an idiot,” I said.

  And then I got my prize: Gavin laughing, clear and bright and beautiful. “Yeah,” he said, gripping his hand in my hair. “You’re not an idiot, but how did you never know?”

  The sounds from the end of the hallway were getting louder now, and the click of shoes came from the direction of the gym.

  I leaned out of the alcove and saw Royce walking toward us.

  And Marshall fucking Barrowfield was following behind him. I’d woken up after the world’s stupidest one-night-stand at his house a week ago, but it felt like years. It was the last face I wanted to see at a time like this.

  “Hey there, Hunter,” Royce said, grinning as he chewed a piece of gum. Gavin and I stepped out of the alcove and made our way into the hall.

  “Hi, Royce,” I said. When I’d briefly met him earlier in the week, I’d gotten a bad impression, and it was only being confirmed right now.

  “Your hair’s a little messed up, Bell,” Royce said, still with the same shit-eating grin on his face. He winked at him.

  I had no idea how long Royce and Marshall had been in the hall, but I knew exactly how bad this looked. But there was nothing we could do about it now other than to act normally and hope for the best.

  They were both wearing suits and looked every bit like evil businessmen. It was like they didn’t even realize they were parodies of themselves.

  “How do you two even know each other?” I asked.

  “Business school,” Marshall said. “I told you, I know important people, Hunter.”

  Royce looked happy at being called important. He turned to me, his face growing more serious. “You’re going to help us out, right? Support your man?”

  I furrowed my brow. “What are you talking about?”

  “Support the project,” Royce said. “We need you on our side.”

  I felt like every word Royce said was a poison dart aimed right at me. “Why do you need me? You clearly have Marshall.”

  Of course Marshall would support the bridge project. He was always going on and on about how Kinley Island was “behind the times” even though he wouldn’t move to Seattle.

  “C’mon. Marshall doesn’t have your folksy charm,” Royce told me.

  I rolled my eyes. “Well, while I normally love being condescended to, it’s unfortunately not on my schedule tonight, Royce,” I said.

  “Hunter,” Gavin said softly, like he just wanted this conversation to be over. “Let’s go, Royce. We need to go over the presentation anyway before we get started.”

  The two of them took off down the hall. As I watched Gavin walk away, it felt like a long tether between the two of us was being pulled longer and longer, until he disappeared into the gym lobby and the string snapped.

  I missed him already, and all of the passion that had been between us now was filled with dread for the upcoming hearing.

  “So that’s who you’re fucking now instead of me, huh?” Marshall said.

  “I’m not fucking him,” I said, my patience worn so thin it was about to crumble.

  “Oh, I don’t care,” Marshall said. “I get it. Gavin Bell’s hot as fuck, and if you’re not fucking him, I think I’ll try to.”

  I shot him a hard glare, but there was nothing I could really say to refute him. “Gavin wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole,” I said.

  “Maybe he would if I touched his pole,” Marshall said.

  I wanted to sock him in the face. If tonight hadn’t been such an important night, I might have socked him in the face, despite the fact that I had the approximate fighting skill of a dandelion in the sun.

  “It doesn’t matter either way. When this bridge gets built there are going to be hundreds of men moving here to keep me satisfied,” he said, turning to head back down the hall. He paused for a second, looking over his shoulder at me. “You’re on the wrong side of history—you know that, right? The bridge is happening, whether this whole island wets their panties about it or not.”

  I shook my head. “You really are an asshole.”

  “I’d take a look at your pretty boy Bell before you call me an asshole. You know he’s just using you to get more support for the project, right?”

  He might as well have just kicked me in the gut. “Fuck you,” I said. “You don’t know Gavin.”

  “Yeah, but Royce does. And I know Royce,” he said. “They know you’re a golden ticket to getting support for the bridge on the island. If you like it, everyone might start liking it. Because for some dumb reason, people on this island like you. Or maybe they just like your family.”

  My knees felt weak. I was dizzy, like
I’d just stepped off of a steep roller coaster.

  “If you support it, maybe Bell will let you be his little househusband in his penthouse,” Marshall said, grinning. “Thing’s worth five mil. It’s incredible. Forget about the island and live the good life, Hunter. The rest of us already are.”

  He shrugged as he continued walking away.

  I turned to put my hands against the water fountain next to me, steadying myself from either falling over or running to tackle Marshall to a bloody pulp on the ground.

  It couldn’t be true.

  It couldn’t.

  Gavin couldn’t be using me just to spread good word about the bridge project.

  But… Marshall was an asshole, not a liar. And when I walked into the gymnasium and saw all of the businesspeople up on stage, with Gavin at the center—like a ringleader, or a clinical mastermind—it felt like the world was going to swallow me whole.

  12

  Gavin

  There was nothing inside me other than adrenaline as I got up on the stage in the middle of that gymnasium.

  I’d rehearsed what I was going to do, what I was going to say, even the look I’d have on my face dozens of times, and none of it had been enough.

  There were at least a couple thousand people here. I had never seen so many people in the entire high school, let alone the gym itself—back in school, even the biggest sporting events of the year had always still left a large portion of the bleachers empty. The Kinley High gym was never full.

  Tonight, there weren’t even enough seats for everyone that had showed up. Crowds spilled out to the halls, people were sitting on the floor, and some were still coming in through each set of double doors.

  And the most astonishing thing was how quiet it was.

  I had expected shouting, fanfare, mayhem. But the moment I got on the stage, there was almost a hushed tone over the gym. People wanted to know what I was going to say.

  The members of my team, along with the various government representatives, were seated in folding chairs behind me, just underneath the huge screen. They nodded at me as I took the stage.

  “Good evening,” I said when I got up to the microphone. I looked out, trying to locate Hunter among all the faces, but I hadn’t the slightest clue where he might have been.

  I launched into my rehearsed script. I repeated all of the information that was in the lobby on information boards: our motives, plans, and financing options. The presentation went well at first. People didn’t seem happy, but they were civil. The people of the island were listening to me, for the first time.

  It was only when I got into the description of where the bridge would be built that the pushback started.

  “Hell no!” came a single voice, echoing off the walls and stopping my presentation in its tracks.

  I tried to continue on—ignore all jeers, Royce and Jack had told me so many times—but as I talked, it started again.

  “Hell fucking no, we will not have a bridge connecting to Clarendon Street!”

  I cleared my throat, speaking clearly into the microphone. “Well, a Clarendon Street terminus is only one of our options—you’ll see that Marina Drive is another—”

  “Marina Drive doesn’t want this bullshit!” someone else called out, and it was met with applause.

  Royce was at my side a moment later, leaning to speak into the mic. “Again, please save all comments for the end of the presentation,” he said.

  This was met with a round of booing.

  But instead of trying to talk over people—instead of fighting, or pressing the issue—I let it simmer. I was quiet for maybe a full forty-five seconds as people got the booing out of their systems. Royce gave me a look before sitting back down, but at a certain point, the people stopped.

  And I was able to continue on with the next slide.

  I made good progress again until the last slide. I knew it was going to be a sticking point, because it was all about the future plans for Kinley Island that the bridge would allow us to develop.

  The minute the slide flashed onto the screen, a couple voices from the crowd began the chant.

  “Ne-ver Seattle! Ne-ver Seattle!”

  I tried to use the same technique—I quieted down, tried to let the chanting subside.

  But it only intensified. Over the course of the next minute, the entire gym had erupted into the chant, and half of them were out of their seats, pumping their fists in the air.

  My insides were churning. The adrenaline from earlier had returned, but with a sharp edge this time—I was jittery, on-edge, and vaguely felt like I was about to drown.

  It wasn’t time for the question and answer portion of the night yet, but after a few minutes, a line had already formed behind the microphone down on the gym floor. Standing at the front of it was Mr. Mahan, Hunter’s neighbor from across the street.

  He was old, maybe in his late eighties, and though he was already trying to speak into the microphone, he couldn’t be heard over the incessant chanting. He started gesticulating, waving his hands at the crowd, and slowly but surely, they began to quiet down.

  “Let Mahan speak!”

  “Old Man Mahan! Do your thing!”

  “Shhhhh!”

  Finally, it was quiet enough.

  “Okay,” I said, trying not to let any shaky sound into my voice. “These slides will be available to all on the project website this evening, along with notes from the meeting. But right now, we will go straight into the Q&A. Mr. Mahan, it’s nice to see you,” I said.

  He just stared up at me. “Well, Gavin, you certainly ain’t the boy I remember,” he said. It was a little hard to hear his raspy voice, and I turned to Vance, hoping he could turn Mr. Mahan’s volume up.

  He continued slowly. “Now, I understand you’re in business. And I know you and yours want what’s best for ya—I’ll never blame you on that. But what will happen to us? Where do you reckon we would go if our houses get bulldozed?”

  Cheers erupted immediately. When they finally died down, I nodded, trying to address him thoughtfully.

  “Now, tonight’s meeting is mainly about the bridge—and the proposed bridge would never result in your property being taken from you, Mr. Mahan. But if the bridge were to be successful, and further island development occurred, you would be compensated very well if any of our firms wished to develop your land.”

  “Oh, I don’t need your money,” Mr. Mahan said, holding up a wrinkled pointer finger and wagging at me.

  The cheers that time were almost deafening in intensity. Mr. Mahan grabbed his lower back, clearly in some pain after standing for so long at the microphone, and his daughter helped him to sit back down.

  A woman I didn’t recognize was up next, and she had a look on her face like she wanted to fling daggers my way.

  “Carolyn Dietrich. I’m a waitress at Cary’s Chicken. Now, we already have a million problems every day with our water, sewers, and trash. Sometimes trash sits for two days outside before it gets picked up, just because the county doesn’t provide Kinley Island with enough sanitation workers. I think they forget about us, actually.”

  A few hoots of agreement came from the crowd.

  “Now, if this bridge gets built and our population only increases, how are we going to have enough water? Enough sanitation workers? How will the island infrastructure handle this?”

  “I’m going to defer to Frank Milcom on this. He’s one of our representatives from the county.”

  Frank came to the microphone and answered the question diplomatically with information that had already been printed on the factsheet—of course water, sewer, and trash were prime concerns as the population increased, and more resources would be alloted to the island as were needed.

  The next few questions were handled by others on my team and from the government—someone wondering what the environmental impact of the bridge would be, someone wondering how much it would cost.

  Inexplicably, there was also a man who just came up to the mic t
o say that he had an abundance of plums dropping from his tree at the moment, and that after the hearing, everyone should stop by his truck to take a bag.

  We had an answer for every question. And despite more booing, jeering, and otherwise negative sentiments occasionally popping up from the crowd, for the most part, we answered each question deftly and smoothly.

  The next man to come up was wearing all white, with a straw hat. I couldn’t see his face too well, so I didn’t know if he was someone who had known me from my time on the island, or a total stranger. He had a long, brown beard.

  He held up two middle fingers toward the stage, leaving them there proudly.

  “Fuck you, Gavin Bell, and everything you stand for. Fuck you, Alto Ventures. And fuck the county, too, if you approve this shit just because some rich bastards are willing to pay for it.”

  I noticed some parents covering their children’s ears from the excessive swearing, but the crowd broke out in more cheers almost immediately. The man went to sit back down, nodding as he looked around the crowd, basking in his statement.

  “Thank you for your comment,” I said into the microphone, but no one other than our note-taker even noticed. My skin was burning hot, and I realized I had broken out into a sweat.

  But I was already moving past it—because next up for a question was Marcie Luna. Marcie had taken me outside the diner the other day, and I knew exactly how good she was at talking.

  I was genuinely scared of what she might ask. Whatever it was, it was going to be a hardball.

  “Hello. Marcie Luna here, owner of Luna’s Diner.”

  More cheering and approval from the crowd.

  “My question is for Gavin, and it’s simple. Your company, Alto Ventures, was the one who initially started the bridge project. You were the first to confirm that you’d be willing to pony up tons of money to get it done. And as more and more investors did the same, the governments got involved, and now… here we are, with the proposal a reality,” she said.