Riding With Brighton(66)

And then there’s a knock on the door. He doesn’t seem to hear it, so I push him away. He looks up at me, his face full of lust and confusion. I nod toward the door.

“Jay?” Quickly, he pulls his shirt back on, and I do the same.

“Yeah, Dad?”

The door opens, and Tom peeks his head inside. He smirks at us. “Just wanted to make sure you boys weren’t losing track of time. Brighton, you’re free to stay as long as you want, but Mom will be home in fifteen minutes.”

“Got it. Thanks,” Jay tells him.

His dad gives us one more smile, then closes the door.

“Shit, Brighton. You make me lose my damn mind. That could have been bad. I mean, he’s cool and all, but….”

I plop down on his desk chair and start texting the photos to his phone.

“Jesus,” Jay says, leaning over my shoulder to look at them. “I want those.”

I laugh and tell him, “They’re all yours.”

“Look at you,” he whispers.

“Me? Look at you.”

“No. I want to look at you. You’re not posting those, right?”

“No. These are ours.”

I close the texting stream and open my Instagram account. “I’m willing to share, though. All those hungry stalkers can have this one,” I tell him about the first photo I took. Which, honestly, I’m willing to share in a “look what I have!” idiotic sort of way, but I’m not so excited about reading the comments I know every guy who looks at my page will leave. I load it and tag it #sorryboys #hesmine #livinthelife #withthisone. Before I post it, I tell him, “There’s a lot of kids from school who follow me.”

“It’s just a picture of me.”

“Well, yeah… with your shirt off. And with me telling everyone you’re mine. You want me to take that part off?”

“Uhh…. No. Trust me, I’m more concerned that those guys know that we have something going on than I am with kids at school getting a confirmation that I’m gay.”

“All right,” I tell him, pressing the Post button. “That was distracting. We were supposed to be cleaning.”

“I can handle it. I don’t want to waste my last few minutes with you cleaning.”

“Okay.” I stand and wrap my arms around his waist, then duck down to kiss his neck, but I’m not about to get carried away with him again. His dad’s being cool, but Jay’s right; there’s no way in hell he’s that cool.

I nab another photo book off his shelf. I open it to a random page and see a picture of him and Colette at last year’s prom.

Jay laughs. “I forgot that was there.” He grabs the trash bag and opens it for me.

I flip through a couple pages, looking at Jay with his arm around a beautiful girl, both of them looking pretty happy. “Was this hell?”

He crosses his arms over his chest and sits at the edge of his desk. “Everything with her was pretty much hell, but I think that would have been the case whether I were gay or straight. That night was actually pretty fun. We went as a group, and I had fun with my friends.”

“That’s gotta be weird, though, right? Having sex with a girl?”

“I knew it was weird that I had to close my eyes and pretend in order to get off. But I still managed to tell myself it was all normal… that I was enjoying it. In retrospect, yeah… it’s weird. I can’t picture doing that anymore—having sex with a girl. You’ve never…?”

“What? No. God, no.”

“Eww… girls,” he says, laughing.

“Gross… boobs,” I agree.

He shakes his head, and his smile is huge. “Are you gonna keep that or throw it in the bag?”

I toss it in the bag.

“You should probably get out of here.”

“What if I don’t want to go?” I ask him.

“I don’t want you to go, but I don’t want you interacting with her. Not yet at least.”

“Are you sure? Maybe I can charm her… you know I’m good with older women.”

“Sure. That’s an excellent idea—hit on my mom. I’m sure she’d love that.”

“No?”

“Maybe next time. This time, I think you should probably just get the hell out.”

“Wow. That ain’t cool,” I tease him.

“I never want to see you again,” he says, facetiously.

“Well, that sucks ’cause I want to see you again. I noticed your bedroom window is right above the porch. I could get on top of that little eave pretty easily. I could totally break into your room later if you wanted me to.”

“That sounds like a terrible idea. But maybe my mom will end up kicking me out of the house, and I’ll have to take refuge in your spare bedroom.”

He’s smiling and the thought of him staying at my house is beyond enticing, but those words bring this situation back into focus. He and I are good. But outside of this bedroom, things are bad. Really bad. Way worse than he’s letting on. I run my hands through his hair and grab on to the back of his neck. “Try to work things out with her. Try and help her understand. What she’s doing is wrong, but she believes it’s right. You just have to help her see that it’s not right.”