All the Inside Howling (Hollow Folk #2)(76)

“Ow,” I said, grinning.

Austin was smiling too, but that dark edge still lingered in his eyes, and it lurked behind the playfulness in his voice. “I’m feeling frisky.” His teeth grazed my shoulder again as he yanked on the collar of my shirt.

God, maybe tonight would the night. I hadn’t wanted to push it, hadn’t wanted to push him into anything, and although some of our making out had gotten hot, like a thousand-degrees hot, there were lines we hadn’t crossed. But that fury in his eyes, that darkness sunk just below the surface of his voice, made me hesitate. I stifled a groan as he undid the buttons on my khakis.

“Slow down, slugger,” I said, trying to sound light and failing. I pried his hands away.

With a frustrated sigh, Austin flopped back on the bed, hands behind his head. His face gave little clues of what he was feeling: the tightness around his jaw, the narrowing of his eyes, the hectic color in his cheeks. He wasn’t feeling frisky. He was feeling pissed. I let out my own sigh and crawled forward, planting my hands on either side of his head, and kissed him. Slower this time, not like I was hitting flint and steel together, but just sweet. Nice, I thought with a mental eye-roll for Becca. Hell, I could be nice.

Austin tried to rev things up again, tugging on the hem of my shirt, but I shook my head. “God,” he said. “Will you make up your mind?”

“Oh, my mind is made up. Let’s take it a little slower.”

“Maybe I don’t want to play it slow.” He slipped a finger between the buttons of my Oxford, twisted, and the button popped open. His hand slid down an inch and twisted again.

“You’re mad at Jake. Maybe at everybody. Maybe you’re even mad at me.” I did up the buttons and, when he reached for the Oxford again, I wove my fingers through his. “And I get it. When we do this, it’s going to be fun. More than fun. It’s going to be awesome. But we’re not doing it tonight, and we’re not doing it because there’s some part of you that knows it will piss off Jake, and we’re certainly not doing it when your parents are washing the dishes downstairs. That last one’s just a practical concern. I, um. I might get noisy.”

For a moment, Austin’s eyes were very shiny, and then he bit his lip and smiled. “My dad’s not doing the dishes. That means half our problem is already solved. Can’t we split the difference?”

I kissed him again. “Let’s do it right.”

His big arms wrapped around me, and he cocked his head and looked like he was trying to read the fine print from a mile away. “You are not nearly as complicated as you think you are,” he said, kissing my jaw, and then my cheek, and then my lips. “Not even close.”

“What does that mean?”

Before Austin could answer, his door flew open and cracked against the wall. Still pinning Austin to the bed, I swung my head around. Jake stood in the doorway, hands balled at his sides.

“Dad said I had to—” He stopped. His face turned so red it was almost purple. “What the fuck? In our fucking house? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

He stepped into the room, coming towards the bed, his whole body telegraphing the next movement: a big old hook meant to knock my jaw into the next county. I didn’t even think about moving. I dropped onto the floor, lowered my head, and moved into the punch. I reached him before he could build up too much momentum, and his fist struck me high and too far back, on the skull instead of the jaw, but it still rang my bell like Kingdom Come.

Jake grunted, staggering and pulling back. It can end here, part of my brain said. Austin was getting off the bed, his face mingling shock and horror and rage, and I knew it could end right there, at that moment. I just had to let it end, I just had to step back, put my hands up, and let it end. Be nice. Be positive. But here he was, this kid that had knocked the stuffing out of Austin at least half a dozen times, just because Austin was gay. Here he was, this kid who had been rude to me, rude to Austin, rude to his parents. Just because Austin was gay.

And maybe, if that had been all it was, I wouldn’t have felt so shitty about what I did. But the truth, the real honest truth, is that my brain started jamming puzzle pieces together. I didn’t just see Jake coming towards me. I saw my dad. I saw my mom. I saw that burning cigarette tip tracing neon lines through the air. I saw Sara, and the social worker, and I saw Mr. Big Empty and DeHaven Knight. The truth, the real honest truth, is that my brain jammed all those puzzle pieces together because I wanted to hit something and keep on hitting. I wanted to turn this kid to pulp.

Be nice, Becca’s voice shrieked at the back of my head. Be positive.

Be real, I thought, shooting the words back at the ghost of Becca’s voice. I was done being nice. I was done being scared. I charged into Jake, planting an uppercut below his ribs and hearing the painful, wheezy gasp when it landed just right. His fist clipped my ear, but I only felt a brief sting. His other hand slammed down on my back, and that hurt more, but it wasn’t enough to stop me.

I barreled into him. He was big for his age, but I was bigger, and under the force of our combined weights he slammed into the doorframe. His head bounced forward, narrowly missing mine, and I drove a punch into him again. This time, I hit him harder, and his knees buckled. I reared back, ready to wipe his face clean with a genuine, Vie Eliot hook, when somebody caught my arm.

Lost in the moment, I yanked at the hand holding me, trying to free myself. Jake, in the meanwhile, splashed onto the floor and groaned into the carpet. It took a moment for the words to penetrate the haze in my head.