Page 50 of Kissing Chaos
I set my phone aside, pulling my gaming chair closer to the desk in my room and turning to where I can keep an eye on Jett but can see my screen as well. Silas sent an invite earlier to play our farm simulator game. When I log in, he is still playing, so I reach for my headset and make sure the volume is turned off the desktop speakers.
“Hey, hey, man. Where’ve you been all night?” Silas asks. Two thirty-year-olds cooped up in a bedroom playing videogames might not sound like much, but between his intense hockey schedule and my work schedule, we rarely get to connect.
I glance back over at my queen-size bed where the girl who has consumed my thoughts for months is passed out drunk. “The girl I’m tryin’ to convince to give me a shot needed my help tonight. No brainer.”
“Ah, gotcha. Gotcha. Is she all good?”
“Dunno. Hope so.” Virtual me hops into my favorite tractor—John Deer—and starts plowing the hay field in perfectlysymmetrical rows. “How the hell ya’ been, H? How’re things?” I ask.
“Oh, you know. Just trying to balance hockey and raising a little sister since the step-monster dropped her off last week.”
My hands freeze on the controller, my tractor casually veering left. “No shit.”
“Yep.”
“Like, for good left? Isn’t Aubrey like ten? How’s she takin’ it?”
“Angry at the world. And nine, but yeah. She actually told her mom to sign over all rights, because she wants nothing to do with the woman who birthed her. She’d rather travel with the hockey team than go back home. So that’s been fun.”
“Sounds like hell over there. If y’all want to come down just let me know. I can get one of the rentals set up for you if you want.”
“Appreciate it, but I think we will keep lying low until all the court stuff blows over. Trying to expedite as much of it as we can before playoffs.”
“Understood. Just know there’s a whole town here that’ll gladly help if you need it.”
“Thanks, man.” He pauses for a second, and although his character is swapping tractors on the screen, I know he’s trying to piece together words he doesn’t want to say. I feel it in my bones that it’s about Oakley.
“I won’t tell Oaks, man. Not unless you want her running to the rescue.”
His sigh of relief confirms what he was trying to ask. “I don’t want to interrupt her life, ya know? She’d drop everything, and I just can’t.”
“You don’t need to explain, H. But know we are here if you need us.”
We get back to focusing on the game, harvesting our crops and talking shit about each other’s equipment choices until his step-sister butts in with dessert requests.
“Hey, man. I’ll catch you later. The little monster needs sugar.”
“Don’t be a stranger.”
We both log off, and I return to looking after the two princesses in my bed.
21
Jett
The first thing I notice when I wake up is the utter misery that is pounding away in my skull. The second is a wet tongue kissing along my forehead.
The hell did I get into last night?
As I fight to get my eyelids to open, I try to remember what happened. Once my eyes finallyopen and focus, my entire body freezes. Because the wet kisses belong to a dog. Noah’s dog, Sadie.
“Crapola,” I mutter with feeling as I try to sink even further into the coziest mattress I have ever slept in.
As soon as my eyes close again, Sadie nuzzles my neck, seeking attention. I am lazily rubbing under her collar when the air in the room shifts ever so slightly. The realization that I’m at Noah’s place instead of my own breaks through the drunk fog in my brain just as the roiling in my stomach has me pushing Sadie away as gently as I can and rushing past Noah to get into the bathroom before emptying the contents of last night’s binge. As I sink closer to the floor and use the ceramic toilet seat as a pillow, the scenes from last night play on repeat.
Joey’s name popping up with a text message on my phone screen.
Realizing it’s been three months since everything fell apart and that I am no closer to putting myself back together.
