Page 84 of Fifty First Times (Sharing You 0.40)
“And, good news, I invited Colette Stanley. She asked specifically if you were going to be there. Guess her crush hasn’t worn off.”
I leaned my head against the headrest while I chewed. This was getting better by the freaking minute.
“Have you seen her Facebook pics lately? Sophomore year has been very nice to her.”
“I noticed,” I said, trying to sound like I cared. I should be interested in the girl who I’d awkwardly lost my virginity to senior year of high school, especially since she’d morphed from pretty girl next door to hot college dance team girl. “Doesn’t she have a boyfriend?”
“No, she said she just broke up with him and was looking to forget he existed.”
“Nice,” I said, playing the game. I’d gotten pretty good at faking that interest over the last two years. I didn’t need Malcolm questioning why I never came home with girls, why I rarely went to the local clubs around campus with him.
I usually used studying as an excuse. That was easy because everyone knew I was the honors kid who’d graduated third in our class. But I did feel like I was missing out on that college social scene. I had a guy I talked to/flirted with online on the rare occasions I was alone in my room, and it helped having someone I could be open with, but Derrick lived in Minnesota and was only words behind an avatar. That wasn’t real life. I’d even gotten brave enough to drive the hour to New Orleans to go to a gay nightclub a couple of times over the last few months, convincing myself that my attraction to Malcolm was only due to proximity and familiarity. That if I had more choices, the stupid feelings would go away.
I’d almost had a panic attack when I walked into Club Decatur the first time. Somehow it was as if I didn’t belong in either world—not the one I lived in every day where I was Bates, a regular guy’s guy from small-town Alabama, nor the bright, spinning world of the club where everyone was so . . . out. But I’d forced myself to stay for an hour the first time, and I’d gone back two weekends later. Each time I went I got a little more comfortable. But after chatting with a few guys, dancing with a couple of others, and making out with the bartender in his car one night, I’d come to the dire conclusion that my feelings for Malcolm were intensely specific. I was attracted to other guys, sure, but nothing felt like this. None of them was Malcolm.
I fucking loved him. And I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
“So are you going to tell your dad you’re in town?” Malcolm asked, breaking me from my spiraling thoughts. “We could always invite him over for Thanksgiving dinner. He might be able to come over before work or something.”
“He doesn’t want to see me. If he did, he wouldn’t have called to tell me he’d be working overnights all week.”
Malcolm glanced at him, frowning. “Maybe he thought you didn’t want to see him. You don’t exactly talk to him much lately.”
“Monitoring my calls now?” I unwrapped the breakfast sandwich and tore a bite from it, hoping he’d get the hint that I didn’t feel like discussing this crap.
But Malcolm wasn’t deterred. “I’m just saying, maybe if you two talked and saw each other more, it wouldn’t be so damn awkward. Y’all used to be close . . .”
“Is this the part where you give me the speech about how he’s the only family I have left and we should just hug and go fishing or do whatever father/son crap we’re supposed to do?”
Malcolm’s jaw tensed and his grip on the steering wheel tightened as he turned onto the narrow highway that would lead us to the back roads. “He’s not the only family you’ve got. You’ve got me. And my family. You know my parents think of you like they’re own.”
Ha. Right. He wondered how Malcolm’s very conservative parents would feel if they knew their “adopted” son spent most of his nights weaving erotic fantasies about his faux brother.
“Look, I love your parents.” And you. “But my family is gone. When Mom and Samantha died, they took our family with them. That will never exist again. When I’m around my dad, all my presence does is bring up memories of what used to be for him. I can see it when he looks at me. He sees them instead. And I’m just done with it all. I’m twenty. I don’t need a place to run home to anymore. My dad is living his life and trying to move on, and I’m living mine.”
“Alone,” Malcolm said, derision in his voice.
I sniffed. “I’m not alone. I share a ten-by-ten cell with you every day, remember?”
“Sure you do,” he said under his breath as he grabbed his soda from the cup holder and sipped.
I turned in my seat. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Malcolm shrugged but didn’t look at me, choosing to stare at the empty road ahead instead. “Just saying that over the last few months, we’ve barely hung out. You study more than I know you need to. You disappear on weekends instead of coming out with me and the rest of our friends. Half the time it feels like you’re pissed at me for something, but when I ask you what’s wrong, you brush me off. And when I asked you to come on this trip, you said you’d rather stay holed up in a dorm room alone instead. Did I miss the part where we stopped being friends?”
Maybe. Probably. Because he’d become so much more to me than that. So much so that I could barely stand to be around him anymore. “It’s not that. I’ve just been dealing with a lot of shit. You know that. It’s been a bad year.”
“Look, I get it,” Malcolm said, blowing out a breath. “No one should have to go through what you have. But I know it’s more than that.”
Malcolm glanced over at me and I took another bite of my sandwich, pulling my expression into the placid, I-don’t-have-a-clue-what-you’re-taking-about face.
That seemed to frustrate Malcolm more. “I need you to know that I. Don’t. Care.”
I swallowed my food, the bite feeling like a ball of moss in my throat. “You don’t care about what?”
He looked back to the road, his expression hard. “I was worried you were getting into stupid shit—drugs or something—and wanted to make sure you were okay.”
I blinked, the words not lining up in my head. “What?”
