Page 24 of Sugar Rush
Whatever pathetic thing I was going to say to him was cut off by the sound of the front door opening.
“Kieran!” My mom’s voice was surprised. “I didn’t know you were home already, honey. Is Jordy out here with you?”
“I’m right here!” He piped up, moving toward the hood so she could see him, giving her a friendly wave. I had to hand it to him, he was fucking amazing at pretending that nothing suspicious was going on between us. Based on his light, casual tone of voice, no one would ever suspect a thing. Least of all our parents.
“Why are you boys standing out here in the dark?” She wondered, shaking her head at us in exasperation and amusement. “Come on inside.”
“Coming!” He answered in an annoyingly cheery singsong voice. As he moved past me, he glanced back at me with the most sultry, seductive eyes I’d ever seen in my life. “This isn’t over,” he whispered.
“Yes, it is,” I hissed back at him, glaring at his back as I followed. If my eyes dipped down to his perfectly round ass it was only because I felt guilty that I’d gotten a little rougher with him than I’d meant to.
“HOLY SHIT.”
THEnext day, as I was going through my mundane morning routine of checking my socials on my phone with one hand while I brushed my teeth with the other, the numbers on the screen shocked me. I was blowing up. The level of engagement on my artist page was usually okay for a local guy, but I’d never seen anything close to this many notifications.
I’d been tagged in a post by someone I didn’t recognize. When I clicked the profile, I realized it was the guy from the day before, with the gun-toting alien rabbit tattoo. He had almost 10 million followers. No wonder he’d been surprised that I hadn’t known who he was. But I wasn’t really into the whole watching random strangers play video games thing, which seemed to be where he’d garnered most of his fame.
His post had a picture of the tattoo I’d done for him, and some praise for my design and how professional I’d been. The comments were full of fire and heart-eye emojis. People loved it.
I hit the like button before typing out an enthusiastic reply letting him know how much I’d enjoyed working with him and that he could reach out anytime for another design.
I had a good few more messages than normal from potential clients asking about my portfolio or open appointment slots. I wanted to work on answering those while I ate breakfast, but when I came down the stairs I was greeted by the sight of Jordy, Chester, and my mom sitting together at the bar. She was flipping through a magazine, laughing at some observation one of them had pointed out about something on a page. I’d forgotten this was everyone else’s day off.
My brain jumped to the same train of thought it always did when I saw them spending time together. My mom was beautiful, even with her blond hair chopped into a short, low-maintenance cut that barely hung to her chin. She had lightfeatures and light eyes, just like the two of them. They looked like they belonged together, a tidy little unit.
I looked like my father. Dark hair and dark eyes. Jordy had this innocent, cherubic softness to his looks, which was probably part of why he always got away with so much shit. My bone structure and general appearance had never afforded me that luxury. I stuck out like a sore thumb from the three of them. But they’d never treated me like I wasn’t part of the family, so why did I always have the nagging feeling that I didn’t belong?
When my mom glanced up and saw me standing at the edge of the kitchen like a weirdo, she smiled. “Morning, honey.”
“Morning,” I answered, nodding at Chester when he waved and greeted me as well. Jordy glanced up from the counter, his eyes locking onto me for a moment before returning to the magazine. He hadn’t been exactly thrilled with me since we’d made out the night before. He’d actually been open and honest with me, pretty much straight out telling me he had feelings for me, or at least an attraction to me, which was something I’d never had the balls to do with him. And I’d had to reject him and push him away again, which was the last thing I ever wanted. But even if he wanted me like I wanted him, it didn’t matter. We couldn’t do anything about it. If he knew how strongly I really felt for him, I knew it would just motivate him to try even harder.
It felt like everything was happening all at once, like a towering ocean wave was building and building, ready to crash over my life and destroy it and all I could do was scramble to try and bolster what I had, knowing it wouldn’t be enough. But I couldn’t let that happen. My suffering was one thing. It was inconsequential. But actually giving in and letting myself be with him was just unthinkable. It couldn’t happen.
He might be happy with me, at least for a little while, but eventually he’d start to realize how much he’d settled, and how much more he deserved. On top of the fact that he was on trackto have this amazing, successful life that I could never really contribute to, he would eventually start to notice the parts of me that I’d tried so hard to hide from him. I couldn’t live through it if he started to resent me for robbing him of the life he deserved. So if he hated me for turning him away, then so be it. That would just make it easier on him.
Even if the way he’d been looking up at me, with his fingers clutching the front of my shirt like he was pleading with me not to leave him, made me feel like my heart was melting in my chest. If anyone else had given him that wounded look in those big blue eyes, I would have wanted to tear their head off their shoulders and hand it to them.
“What’s been going on with you?” Mom asked as I opened up the refrigerator to scrounge up some breakfast. “I feel like we’ve barely talked lately.”
“Nothing much. Just working a lot.”
“So you’re not going to mention that you’re totally going viral on Instagram?” Jordy questioned, though he didn’t look up at me.
“Viral?” My mom repeated, looking confused. “Like these…memesyou kids talk about?”
“Uh, no,” I answered, suppressing my smirk at her stereotypically out-of-touch but kind of endearing adult answer. “I did a tattoo on a pretty famous influencer yesterday and he gave me a shout out. So it’s a lot of exposure for me.”
“That’s great!” Chester piped up, giving me a congratulatory little pat on my shoulder on his way to the coffeepot for another cup. “Congratulations!”
“Do you think that means more people will come to you for bookings?” Mom asked.
“I hope so,” I said. “I’ve already gotten a lot of messages about it, so…” I trailed off, awkwardly glancing around untilmy eyes landed back on Jordy. “I didn’t even know you were following me.”
He looked up, giving me thatyou’re so fucking stupid and I’m so tired of itexpression that I absolutely despised.
“Of course I follow you, Kieran. I love your art.”
The sincerity dripping from his voice, coupled with the expression on his face that suggested he’d rather have swallowed razor blades than admit it to me in that moment, had my heart skipping in my chest and heat washing over me. I had to look away into an empty corner to compose myself. Why did he have to be so… Like that?
