Page 59 of John Wilder Gets Schooled
He had a nightmare that night. No surprises there. None of us was really sure what triggered them, but it wasn’t a big leap to think that imagining next week’s birthday party had brought up memories of his past—starting with birthday parties they’d never had before and leading a whole bunch of other places that he and Chase never talked about. In their case it wasn’t so much a trip down memory lane, more of an assault in a dark alley. It wasn’t one of his worst nightmares, but he did clock Chase in the face again, and Danny and Miller put ice on Chase’s cheek while I sat hunched over with Cash on his bed, waiting for him to go to sleep again.
He was curled up under his blanket like a pill bug, refusing to come out, and every line of his body was tight and angry with self-loathing.
“Chase is fine,” I said. “He won’t even have a bruise. You know he’s not mad.”
Only one of them was mad, and it was Cash. He burrowed deeper into his blankets.
Danny leaned in the doorway. “Hey, Miller’s going to the gas station to pick up ice cream. You want some?”
“Hell yeah,” I said, even though all I really wanted to do was go back to bed. “Cash?”
He mumbled something.
“That sounds like a yes to me,” Danny said. His tone was light, but his expression was grave.
I shrugged in response to his unasked question:Was Cash okay? Hell if I knew.
Miller hadn’t been in our lives long, but he and Danny made a good team. They had from the start, even though they’d just been fuck buddies then. I thought of Avery and wondered if we were a good team too. It felt as though we were, but apart from the bedroom, when had it ever come up?
The Adventurama, maybe. That counted, right? It was only one thing, though, and it didn’t prove anything except that we led lives that never really crossed.
But Avery had also been there in a heartbeat when I’d nailed myself to the porch, and maybe him performing first aid while I tried not to puke wasn’t exactly teamwork, but it wassomething.
Or maybe I was looking too hard because Iwantedit to be something, and we were nothing but neighborly fuck buddies.
Who hadn’t technically fucked yet.
Figuring shit out at three in the morning was impossible. I turned my attention back to Cash and made soothing noises like I used to do when Gracie was a baby and wouldn't settle. Cassidy had called me the baby whisperer back then, claiming I had some kind of magic power, and apparently it worked on Cash as well, because the blankets inched slowly down and he peered out the top at me.
“I didn’t mean to hit him,” he murmured.
“I know,” I said. “He knows. You were sleeping. It’s nobody’s fault.”
Well, it was somebody’s fault—the assholes who’d raised the twins in the first place. I didn’t get it. Well, I did. I wasn’t dumb. I knew there were a lot of kids out there in bad situations. I knew horrible stuff happened. But what I didn’t get was how you could hold a baby in your arms and not feel so overwhelmed with love—so terrified and dizzy with the suddenness of it—that you’dburn the fucking world down rather than hurt them. That was the part I’d never understand, and I never wanted to.
Chase wandered in, still holding an icepack to his cheek. “Move over,” he said.
I shifted, and he climbed into Cash’s bed with him. Chase slept with Cash whenever Cash needed the comfort, which sometimes ended badly for them both, like tonight, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. I got it, and I loved that about him.
“Miller’s getting ice cream,” I said.
“Wake me up when he gets back,” Chase replied and closed his eyes.
“Okay,” I said. I put a hand on his arm, half expecting him to throw me off, but he only opened his eyes and flashed me a rare-as-hell smile. It was gone before I even registered it.
I stood up and turned the light out as I left the room.
Then I went into the living room and sat there with Danny while we waited for Miller and the ice cream.
CHAPTER 16
AVERY
Dallas cast me a few curious glances after Wilder left, but you didn’t grow up the youngest of seven kids without learning never to volunteer information, so I distracted him with questions about how to format my class newsletter—ha! As if I didn’t already know how! I was born to be a kindergarten teacher, with a Canva subscription in one hand and a hot glue gun in the other.
“You know, you could spend less time making chickens out of egg cartons and feathers and maybe take a look at sanding back your floorboards,” he said.
“Back to what?” I asked. “A secret second floor? Oh!” I pointed at the screen. “Add that photograph of the goose at the top and move the others down.”
