Page 75 of High Achiever
“Do you ever …” Spencer cleared his throat. “Do you ever think maybe we drive people away?”
“We?” His mom dropped her legs down to the porch and swiveled to face him with a frown. “What’s thisweshit? You think my relationships were your business?” She pointed her cigarette at him. “I like losers, that’smyproblem, not yours.”
“But if you hadn’t had a kid …”
She barked a short laugh. “Yeah, maybe. Doesn’t make them any less losers. What kinda grown alpha can’t handle a kid? Even a loud one, always wanting something.”
“I annoy people,” Spencer argued. “In close quarters or whatever. I always have.”
“Good. People are assholes, they deserve to be annoyed.”
Spencer wanted to smile, it reminded him so much of something Ash might say, but he bit it back. “Sometimes I think I’m a bad person.”
His mom shook her head with a sigh and swung her legs back up on the railing. “I know bad people. You’re not it. You make stupid decisions sometimes, so what? You get that from me. There are worse crimes in the world.”
Something that had been wound tight in Spencer’s chest loosened, just a little. This was what he’d come here for, wasn’t it? A little slap back to reality. His mom was never going to tell him he was the best thing since rolled menthols—it just wasn’t in her nature. But she was honest enough to remind him they weren’t radioactive just because no one had ever wanted to stickaround before. They just … made dumb choices sometimes. Followed the wrong people. Spencer had done enough of that growing up, but he’d learned since then. Choosing Chase and Noah had been one of the smartest things he’d ever done. And when it came to Ash and Ryder …
Well, that had the potential to be life-changing, didn’t it?
They sat in silence for a few minutes, and then his mom stubbed her cigarette out on the ashtray she’d set next to her chair and stood, stretching her back. “You want to come inside? I can make you a turkey and butter sandwich.”
“With white bread?” Spencer asked hopefully.
“You think I have any other kind of bread?”
Spencer followed her inside and leaned against the kitchen counter while she worked. It wasn’t until she had all the ingredients laid out and had started on the second sandwich that he spoke again. “I … started something. It was messy and weird but also … good.” Spencer thought of Ash’s fierce affection and Ryder’s soft touches and swallowed hard. “Really, really good. And I guess I worry sometimes that reaching for something that good means I’m going to mess up and end up with nothing.”
His mom slapped a slice of buttered bread onto the heap of turkey with a scowl. “Well, who the fuck taught you that? I thought you were seeing some therapist—they don’t have better advice than that? Reaching for bullshit is what leaves you with nothing. I thought you’d seen that enough with me.”
“I took a pause with the therapist.”
Spencer’s mom handed him the sandwich on its paper plate. “Maybe you should start up again, huh? Not my thing, but you seemed to get a kick out of it.”
She was probably right, wasn’t she? Spencer had felt like he was doing fine for a while now, coasting along with good friends and good fun and plenty of hot sex. But this thing with Ash and Ryder was shifting things, coaxing Spencer to open up and allowfor something special to happen. And the truth was that there was some small, fearful piece of him that kept shutting back up tight again.
Because it had been a relief, in its way, to have an excuse not to tell Chase and Noah what was happening. Even feeling guilty as shit, it had meant Spencer didn’t have to acknowledge and name the fact that he was falling hard for two people that now had the ability to hurt him badly.
And wasn’t that a scary fucking thought.
Hours later,with their sandwiches finished and one and a half TV movies completed, Spencer’s mom told him she needed to run to the neighbors and “make sure they weren’t spreading any rumors about gentleman callers.”
Most likely she just wanted to have a beer and socialize in peace, but she didn’t ask Spencer to leave, so he told her to have fun and stayed where he was. When she was gone, he took a deep breath and turned on his phone.
He had missed calls from everyone that mattered: Ash and Ryder, Noah and Chase. Texts too. Spencer opened Ash’s text first.
Ash: Noah’s fine, I promise. We miss you. Come back.
The simplicity and the sweetness had Spencer’s throat constricting, but he didn’t see how Noah could actually befine, so he moved on to Ryder’s, a simple and commanding,
Tell us where you are.
That would be smart—running away from Ash and Ryder and his two besties was probably one of those stupid choices Spencer’s mom had been talking about—but Spencer was too drained to be smart right now.
There were more than a few texts from Chase, telling Spencer he’d heard from Noah and that Chase would come pick him up wherever he was. Apparently Killian was even offering his spare bedroom if Spencer wasn’t comfortable going home.
It would almost be worth it just to see exactly howuncomfortable rigid, stuffy Killian would be with Spencer in his private space. Something to think about, for sure.
Noah hadn’t texted, but he’d called five times. Apparently he was really, really eager to yell at Spencer. And he deserved the chance to do it too. So Spencer scrolled to his contacts and called the one person he needed to talk to first.
