Simple Things(15)

       
           



       

What it gave away, he didn't know, but he knew it was probably more than he would want to cop to.

Jesus. You've only fooled around twice. He's going back to New York. He  couldn't help it, though. It wasn't just Carter. There was a weight  lifted lately, a lack of stress knowing he was going to be home with  people he loved. He hadn't even realized he had needed it so badly. He  hadn't really appreciated it as a kid.

After he pulled up in the drive not long after noon, he parked his truck  and made his way toward the house. He thought it might be too early to  grab Carter and have his wicked way, but it didn't stop him from pulling  out his phone to fire off a text to him. You know, just in case.

Before he could make it to the garage, he caught movement in the kitchen  window. He shaded his eyes against the sun, preparing to wave at Daphne  who usually was peeping out to check on him. Bless her nosy heart. But  her back was to him, though he could see her arms moving in that  expressive way she had when she was talking to someone.

He got closer, not sure what exactly had pulled him in, and noticed her  laughing audience. Carter and Sarah were facing her, faces full of  laughter. Jeremy's mother started speaking, also smiling brightly, her  head switching between Daphne and Carter, her hand going out to grip  Carter in that demonstrative way she had with people she loved. The  whole group of them look so happy in one another's company. And though  Carter sat silently smiling, his gaze was full of that wonder he always  had around Jeremy's family.

The side door creaked open and Jeremy turned his attention to his dad,  who walked out dressed in a suit, obviously on his way somewhere  important. His dad didn't wear suits all that often since he had left  contract law behind.

His dad had that adoring expression on his face as he also watched the group chattering around their kitchen island.

"It's like one of them laid an egg and they all have to cluck about it,"  his dad said. They didn't have many conversations that didn't turn into  disagreements, but one thing they could remain good natured about were  the women in their lives.

"Don't let ‘em hear you say that. Sarah will go on for twenty minutes about sexist analogies."

His dad gave a chuckle. "It's good to have Carter home." He harrumphed. "Shame he's gay."

Jeremy's head snapped to the side, wide-eyed looking at his dad. Dale  must have realized then how the words sounded and straightened his back,  shaking his head. "You know I don't mean it like that. I don't care  that he's gay." Honestly, of all things his dad had been disappointed in  with Jeremy, his being gay had never registered as part of that list.

"Close as I was to his dad, we always figured it would be nice if he ended up marrying Sarah."

"Like a quaint, southern fairy tale." Jeremy noticed his dad didn't seem  to hold out the same hopes for them. Of course, in his dad's  estimation, Carter was probably too good for Jeremy. He may not even be  wrong about it, but it made Jeremy cringe a bit inside thinking what his  dad might say if he knew they'd been getting to know each other again,  and much more intimately.

"Only the king and queen are usually a little less …  scandalous in those stories," Jeremy said.

His dad shook his head, then spat on the ground. Jeremy would not point  out that his mother would kill the man if she knew he was chewing  tobacco again.

"Yep," Dale drawled. "Those two stepped in it but good. Goes to show you  never know everything about everyone." Jeremy snorted, earning a  grudging side eye and grin from his father. "He looks happy here,  though, doesn't he? Much better than his first few days." He looked at  Jeremy. "You do too."

Jeremy wondered if that was supposed to be some kind of innuendo, and  quickly started looking for a deflection. Dale put a hand on Jeremy's  shoulder. "I'm glad. It's good to have my boys home." Jeremy could have  been knocked over with a feather. He almost didn't believe it had  happened.

His father had never been tactile, nor had he ever been very open with  his feelings-other than the not-so-pleasant ones-especially where Jeremy  was concerned. And almost as quickly as it had happened, it was over.

"I'm off. Gotta go into town. Go rescue the boy," Dale said, tilting his  head in the direction of the kitchen. Jeremy didn't watch him go, but  looked in the window again, watching the laughter, and was taken back  into his memories.



Jeremy was sober for the first time in days. It sucked.

He couldn't let on how shitty he was feeling, because if his parents  heard he was using again, he'd be sent back to some bullshit rehab  again.                       
       
           



       

Sober moments made him wonder why the fuck he used in the first place.  Coke was his drug of choice, and while it was awesome when you had it,  the come down was a bitch.

"That's a good question."

Jeremy looked to the ladder that led up to the hay loft. Fucking Carter. Where'd he come from?

Jeremy had been up there so long, hiding out in the back pasture so no  one could see him like this, he didn't even know what time it was or  when Carter had gotten to their house. All he knew was it had to be late  because the stars were out and the moon was almost mid-sky. He was  shaking pretty hard too, and the temperature definitely wasn't the  cause.

"What are you doing up here?" Jeremy knew he sounded snappish but he  wasn't exactly in the mood for company. Especially not goody-goody  closet case Carter Darling. Even if he had to admit, as the guy got  older-what, was he 17 now?-he got much more handsome. Shame he was  probably taking out his hidden homo issues on Jeremy's baby sister.

That wasn't fair. Not everyone was fucked up like you.

"Your sister was worried but didn't want to bother you, so I thought I'd do it instead."

"Yeah, well, you can fuck off now."

"Nah. I think I'll just look at the stars."

Annoying little fucker. Jeremy didn't care though. He was too damned  miserable to consider Carter or anything else. His teeth hurt from  clenching and his stomach was tied in knots.

"So why do you?" Carter asked after a moment of silence.

"Why do I what, Red?" Jeremy couldn't find the strength to tell Carter  to fuck off when Carter sat closer to him and put his letterman's jacket  over Carter's shaking shoulders. He wanted so badly to run his fingers  through that red hair, to let Carter warm him up. It had been so long  since he had been touched, let alone hugged sincerely. Carter still  looked at him in that crazy, naive way of his that thought Jeremy was  better than this, and Jeremy wanted to believe he was. In fact, he  probably was.

"Yes, you are better than this. So why do you do it?" Carter asked with  far too much soul for a teenager. Damn, Jeremy's mouth was running away.  But he'd seen some of Jeremy's withdrawals and high times. He hadn't  seen Jeremy at the bottom yet-hopefully he never would-but he'd seen  enough. Not that Jeremy ran around acting like a junky, but he  definitely wasn't his old self anymore.

Fuck this kid. He didn't know anything. "I don't know. Why the fuck do  you still hang around our house? You have your own family." Spoken like  such a mature guy. And you called him a kid. Jeremy couldn't even look  Carter's way. This wasn't them, that wasn't how he treated Carter.

Carter had been around as long as he could remember. They'd been friends of a sort, even with their age difference.

"I do," Carter said quietly. Jeremy realized Carter was actually  answering the question he'd asked, even though it had been a shitty one.  "I have a family, but yours … " Jeremy turned to look at the side of  Carter's face. Carter was sitting with his legs dangling outside the  barn, sitting on the ledge of the loft, right next to Jeremy. Jeremy had  thought about jumping just a moment earlier. Just because he hurt so  much.

Carter turned those big blue eyes Jeremy's way and he was smiling shyly.  "Yours is loud and you all laugh and you all love so hard." Carter  looked back out at the stars. "I come here and I feel like you guys  care. Well, your family, anyway." That stung in a way Jeremy hadn't  thought it would.

"Last Christmas, you know where I was?"

Jeremy didn't know, didn't know why Carter was even asking. Honestly, he  felt too shitty to answer. Until Carter answered his own question.  "Alone. I was sitting at home alone. My mom had appearances and my dad  had an agenda. So I left boarding school to go home for the holiday so I  wouldn't be alone. But still …  I was alone. And all I could think was  that I wished I'd come here because it's loud and fun and I would have a  laugh with your sister and your dad would sneak out to spit tobacco,  like we don't know he's doing it, and your parents would fight over it.  And it would feel like family."