Page 21 of Boys Like You

“I should be fine; you can always call one of them if I have an anxiety attack.” He nods and takes my hand. I smile to myself. He tries to be considerate, but his nature is to take control and get things done.

He leads me to one of the bedrooms upstairs. I assume from the king size bed covered in throw pillows, that it’s the master suite. The bed itself is a four-poster bed in a dark wood that almost appears black in this light. A white rug that matches the throw adorns the carpet at the end of the bed, and there are two sitting chairs, I guess for decoration.

If I thought the bedroom was nice, the attached bathroom is even better. In one corner is a small shower, in the other is a free-standing bath. There are twin sinks and mirrors against the back wall. He even has a salon chair set up.

“Hop in the chair gently. I know Merce says your ribs are sore, so I made him carry this in here.”

I do as he asks, eyeing the bottles set up on the vanity. He tests the water first, then his hands begin to slowly massage my scalp as he rinses the dye from my hair.

“Do you mind if I lock the door? Those boys will get restless, and I want them to be surprised.” I nod. Carson makes me feel safe. He clicks the lock and finishes rinsing out whatever he put in my hair.

“I’m going to dry it and give you some style.” He wraps my head in a towel and grabs a hair dryer from the shelf. “Your hair seems to naturally be straight, which most girls would die for, but I’m thinking a beach look; like those light waves you would see if you went swimming at the beach and your hair naturally dried with the salt water in it.” I just nod because he talks really fast when he gets enthusiastic about something.

It doesn’t take long for the boys to come knocking.

“Go away,” Carson says in his sing song voice.

“Why? I want to see what’s going on,” Rocky’s velvety smooth voice says from the opposite side of the door. His voice was made to seduce a girl.

“It’s a surprise, we will be down in fifteen minutes max.”

Rocky finally gives up and Carson gets to work blow drying my hair, adding some products, blow drying again. When he’s finished, he gets me to stand up and look in the mirror. I instantly touch my hair, feeling the texture and volume. It isn’t straight and boring anymore. The colour is amazing; a light brown with different types of blondes and browns through it.

“I love it.” I try to hold back the tears, but I can’t. Why do I have to cry so much? My tears start a chain reaction.

“I’m sorry, I’m a crier.” He fans his face with his hands. “Anyone gets a tear and I’m right there beside them.” He laughs at himself. “How about we fix your makeup a bit and then go show these boys your hair?” He pulls out all his supplies and gets to work.

I gasp when I see my reflection in the mirror; I look like I’m wearing less makeup than I had on this morning, but somehow he has made the bruise vanish and my Quasi eye looks not as big.

“How?” I whisper, touching my face.

“You learn fast when you get marks and bumps all the time.” I don’t push for information but presume it has something to do with him being gay.

As we are coming down the stairs, Maximus notices first. He taps Levi on the arm who turns to face me, until five sets of eyes are staring at me. Their stares set my skin on fire. I should feel self-conscious, but all I feel is turned on and beautiful.

“Shit, Dad, you made her into a different girl.”

“You look hot, JD.”

“Rocky, you can’t tell a girl she looks hot. She looks beautiful,” Levi chastises.

“Wow,” is all Rory says.

Maximus closes his mouth and pushes his glasses from the bridge of his nose back to his eyes.

I thank them and Mr Cole. He showed me how to apply the makeup to cover my swelling and bruises, and even gave me a box to keep.

Beth messages the boys, making sure they return me by dinner time and Rory offers to take me home.

After we help Carson clean up, he makes me promise to come back anytime. We pass Philip on our way out, and he thanks me for making his husband happy. It’s sad they missed out on having a daughter of their own, but I’m happy to step in if it gives them this much joy.

Once I wave goodbye to all the guys, Rory helps me into his four-wheel drive; the lift kit makes it too high for me to manage on my own. I can’t wait until my ribs are better and I can go out on some 4WD tracks with him to see what this baby can really do.

I hate coming home to this freaking house; the sound of classical music my mother insists on plays lightly in the background, and the fresh scent of lemon and bleach is in the air. I try to cover myself in as much grease and dirt as I possibly can because I know how much it pisses her off. It’s the reason I took up riding in the first place.

I feel like a terrible person, being jealous of my friends because they all got new amazing parents and I was sent back to my biological ones. While they were all beaten, starved, raped and tormented by the age of six, I was an over privileged rich kid whose father was and is never home. He is always jetting around the world, dragging the girlfriend he thinks no one knows about with him, while Mum carries on with the pool boy. The first time she found out my father had a side piece I was maybe five. That was when she turned to prescription meds. The next time she mixed them with booze and spiralled. The cops found me lost with my dirt bike at six years old. When they asked to call my parents to come get me, I laughed and told them my dad loved hookers. I didn’t know what a hooker was, I was just repeating my mother’s words. I told them my mum took handfuls of pills and washed them down with vodka. That’s when I met a nice lady from child services. She couldn’t understand why my parents didn’t just hire a nanny to help out, and my mother’s excuse was that she didn’t need a nanny hanging around for her husband to fuck. She proceeded to tell her to, “Get the hell out of my house, he is my son and I can do what I want”, and she punched the lady. Well, she now knows that you can’t, in fact, do what you want with your kids. The judge ordered my mother to attend a psych ward for six weeks, and when my father refused to come home from his “business trip”, they placed me with Mumma B. It was the best six weeks of my life. How stupid is that? I had friends, not play dates with people to make my mother look good. We had home cooked meals, I could play in the dirt, climb trees and get my clothes dirty. I could actually be a child and not a damn minion.

---