Page 64 of Honeysuckle
“Shouldn’t you be at a party?” I looked at him, curling up against the wall to keep myself from reaching out to him.
“You weren’t there,” he said, like it was just a simple fact and it resonated against the steel cage I kept my heart in.
“I should’ve known you wouldn’t take the hint. I don’t want to be around you,” I lied.
Dean just laughed at me.
“Liar,” he said gently. “We need to talk.” Dean chewed on the inside of his mouth.
“Do we?” I scowled at him but tried to keep my voice lighter.
“You kissed me, Josh. And... I…”
“Spit it out, Tuck,” I snapped.
“I liked it,” he confessed as he rubbed the crescent-shaped bruises that stained his inner wrist with the pad of his thumb. I had hurt him.
“I was fucking with you,” I said, trying to push him away but he just smiled at me.
“No, you weren’t,” he chuckled. "You don’t have to be that guy in here, it’s just us.” He looked around our room, his side so full of life, and mine was bare. No posters, no life. Just my bed and my bag.
“You don’t know me.” I rolled my eyes and sighed. “Stop pretending like you do, I’m not going to be Cael, I’m not going to fuck you in secret to make you feel better about yourself.”
“Hey now,” he smiled, and it was like the room got warmer. So easily he was able to change how I felt, balm the anger, soothe the pain. It was infuriating and exhausting for me. “I’m not the one sitting in the closet,” he joked.
He was smiling at me… I scoffed. Where was his anger? His frustration?
“And I don’t know you because you won’t tell me,” he said instead of getting mad about the Cael comment. “And for the record? You don’t get to use Cael’s secrets as ammo in this firefight.”
“Is that what this is? A firefight?” I snarled at him. "Or is this an integration?”
“Have you ever had a normal conversation, tough guy? Or is everything with you an argument?” Dean asked.
When you were born into a life that never wanted you, the answer to that question was always yes. The only thing I knew how to be and how to be well was angry. Argumentative. It kept me alive for all these years, and now Dean Tucker wanted something else? Something softer?
Fuck that.
“Do you even know what you’re arguing about?” he asked.
“God, go back to your party, Tuck, I don’t want you here.” I turned my head away to stare at the closet wall.
“There you go lying again,” Dean said. “I brought…” he looked around, his eyes catching his bag, he slid it over to us and pulled out some ice and Tylenol. “For…” he pointed to his own cheek and I reached out for the ice.
It stung as I pressed it to the open cut.
“Why did you do that for me?” He asked me after a tortuous beat of silence.
“I didn’t,” I denied it.
“Josh!” He snapped, his voice rising higher than I’ve ever heard from him, and I smiled in shock. “Now you’re smiling?” His entire body deflated.
“It’s funny when you get loud,” I said genuinely.
His cheeks turned red and he rolled back against the hardwood floor with a soft thud, closing his eyes and ignoring my jab.
“It’s a shitty word, and he directed it at you but it wasn’t just aboutyou,” I explained.
He sat back up on his elbows and looked at me.
