Page 11 of Hello Forever
“Are you going to call Mr.ChurchCamp?”
“No way,” I saidquickly.
Her eyes widened. “Why not? I thought you used to befriends?”
“I can’t.” It really was as simple as that. If I wanted to be with my brothers, I had to stay in Henning. And if I wanted to stay in Henning, I had to hide that part of myself from everyone. (EveryoneexceptAmy.)
“You could just be friends again,” she saidsoftly.
She made a good point. “I suppose. I don’t even know for sure that he’s…” The sentence died on mytongue.
“Gay.” Amy crossed her arms. “Why have I never heard you saythatword?”
I shrugged, but it was a fair question. Though Amy couldn’t possibly understand how holding a core piece of yourself back from the world required incredible concentration. The word felt like a spell to me. If I said it, all my hard work would slip through myfingers.
“So are you going tocallhim?”
“No.”
“Omigod, Cax. You’rehopeless.”
I was saved from agreeing with her by her father. “Amy!” he called. “Derek is on thephone!”
I hadn’t even heard it ring, but it was hard to miss the look of joy on Amy’s face. “Derek, huh? That name isn’t as nerdy as I feared.” I pushed her feet off my lap. “Go talk to your guy. I’ll letmyselfout.”
Amy leapt up. “I loveyou,Cax.”
“I know.” Using my foot, I gave her a little shove on her ass. “Justgo,okay?”
She hustled out of the room to take her call. I washed both of our wine glasses in the kitchen. And then I went home to the graduate dormitory alone. Like Ialwaysdid.
ChapterFive
Axel
As the final buzzer sounded,my boss Arnie sat down beside me. “Hey, kid. How’s it goin’?” I hadn’t even known he was inthegym.
“Great,” I said, practically bouncing in my chair from tension. I knew I’d done well at my first game of the season. “Let me show you what I’ve done.” I swiveled the screen of my computer in his direction. “Our new basketball Twitter stream has game commentary, links to the video stream and athletic departmentarticles.”
“What’s this?” he asked, pointing ataGIF.
“Uh, a little video snippet of a tiger crashing into a wall. I posted it when Princeton was downbyten.”
Arnie threw his head back and laughed. “That’s a little ridiculous. But Ilikeit.”
“So did my audience,” I said. “That was my hit of the night. It was shared a hundredtimes.”
His eyes widened. “Really?A zoovideo?”
“Really.”
Arnie chuckled. Then he stood up and clapped me on the shoulder. “Good work, kid. I can’t wait to see what you come up with when we play theTerriers.”
It wasn’t a bad moment with my new boss, but while I’d been chatting him up, Cax Williams had apparently left the arena. I turned around and he was gone, along with the people who’d been seatedbesidehim.
Finished for the night, I closed my laptop with shaking hands and shoved it into its case. There was too much adrenaline in my body. Seeing Cax had practically knocked me over. Then we’d stared at each other like a couple ofimbeciles.
I put on my coat and backpack and walked out into the night. Tonight I didn’t mind my lack of wheels. I needed the walk home to calm down. The park was deserted, of course. I’d wondered if the path through the woods would feel creepy at night, but it didn’t,really.
