Where the Road Takes Me (18 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Chloe

“I have a confession.” Josh stood in front of us and took a swig of his beer. “That day, when you came into work for the first time and that stuff happened with Tommy, I called Hunter the next day and told him that I thought you were hot and asked him if he thought I had a chance.”

My jaw dropped. Blake’s chuckle tickled my ear.

We were back at the abandoned basketball court, or half-court, as Blake had corrected me. He leaned against the back of a bench with me in front of him. His arms were wrapped tightly around my waist as he rubbed my stomach under my shirt with his thumb.

“What did he say?” I asked Josh.

“He basically pissed all over you and marked his territory.”

I laughed.

“It’s true,” Blake murmured in my ear.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving.” Josh removed his cap and dropped it to the ground. Then he ran his hand through his dark hair. “Everyone fucking leaves me. Natalie . . . my own goddamn parents. Everyone. The only one that hasn’t is Hunter, and that’s ’cause he pretty much hates the world.”

Blake stood a little taller, gripped me a little tighter. “A, I don’t hate the world. B, Natalie’s a bitch.” Josh flinched but remained silent. “C, your parents are assholes. And D, you’re above all that shit.”

Josh’s eyes went wide before he shook his head and asked, “So have you decided yet? August 19, Duke orientation, right?”

Blake tensed for a moment before dropping his hands and letting me go. I took a step forward, unsure of what was coming.

“What about it?”

“I’m just saying . . . it’s not that far away.” His eyes moved to me. “Has he told you what he’s doing?”

“No,” I said quietly, looking at the ground.

“I haven’t decided.” Blake moved to the side and farther away. “I still don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do.” He sounded pissed. “Is that okay with you, Joshua? Do I need to check in?”

“What the fuck’s got into you? I was just asking.”

Blake stepped toward him. “You weren’t just fucking asking. You were pushing.”

I stayed put, too afraid to move or speak. They were face-to-face by then, glaring at each other. I had no idea what had set it off. Maybe it was the beer, or maybe it all just needed to be said.

Blake’s hands fisted, and he added, “You don’t think that decision weighs on me every day? I know time’s running out. It’s
my
goddamn choice, and I can’t make it.”

“Why?” Josh lifted his chin. “How hard could the choice be, Hunter? It’s basketball, or it’s the army. Two choices. It’s not like you have a kid to think about. Or bills or rent to pay. Or someone else’s future to worry about. There’s not a single, fucking thing keeping you here.”

Blake eyed me quickly before shoving Josh hard enough that he fell back a step. “Fuck you.”

“No, Hunter, fuck you.” He pushed him back. “You have months to make up your mind. In fact, when did you sign that letter of intent? November, right? It’s fucking June. I’m too buzzed to work out how many months that is—but it’s too fucking many. Quit being a pussy and decide.”

“Fuck off, Josh. You don’t know shit.” He shoved him again. Harder this time.

And then Josh snapped. He launched himself at Blake, and they fell to the ground. Punches were thrown. Insults exchanged.

I panicked. “Get off him, Blake! You’re being a dick.”

They froze, simultaneously turning their heads to glare at me. Blake stood. Followed by Josh.

Blake slowly covered the distance between us, his eyes narrowing with every step. I swallowed and took a step back. For the first time since I’d met him, I was scared.

“You wanna take his side?” he said. “That’s great, Chloe. Maybe you should have played this little game with him instead. Then he’d be the one having to deal with you leaving. Not me.”

My heart sank.

“Dude.” Josh stood next to him with a hand on his chest to stop him from moving closer. He was our barrier—something I never thought I’d need. Not against Blake.

I held back the tears threatening to fall. “I’m sorry,” I squeaked out.

He shook his head. “You wanna know why I can’t decide? Because I can’t think of my future without you in it.
Four days.
We have four days together, and then, you’re gone. And it might seem like nothing to you, because you’ve had years to accept it. But I can’t, Chloe. I just can’t.”

Josh pressed his hands more firmly against Blake’s chest. “I think that’s enough.”

Blake pushed Josh’s hands away but kept his eyes on me. “Fuck this,” he spat. Then he turned around and walked away.

“Blake.” I started to go after him, but Josh stopped me.

“Just leave him. He just needs some time.”

Blake came back ten minutes later. He walked to the cooler, got a few beers, handed one to Josh, who thanked him, and gave me one. Then he sat behind me, his legs on either side, and wrapped his arms around my stomach again. “I’m sorry,” he whispered in my ear.

“Me, too,” I told him.

Then Josh spoke up. “Remember that time when we came here, and I tried to grind along the bleachers?”

Blake laughed. “The first time we came here and smoked?”

Josh nodded. “That was so fucking bad. I was tripping so hard.”

Blake laughed harder.

“What happened?” I asked

“Well, C-Lo,” Josh started. He pointed his beer at Blake, and Blake returned the gesture. “We were what? Fourteen?”

“Thirteen, I think,” Blake answered. “Fuck, we were such cocky little punks.”

That made me laugh.

Josh continued, “We smoked, like, two puffs of weed, and we were gone—”

“Josh thought he was Superman,” Blake cut in.

Josh rolled his eyes. “Okay, kid-that-wore-a-cape-to-school-for-a-month-in-third-grade.”

“What?” I laughed. I tilted my head to look up at Blake, but he was already watching me.

His eyes danced with amusement when he said, “I also believed I could shoot lasers out of my eyes.”

“Oh yeah!” Josh yelped. “Squinty!”

Blake threw back his head and laughed.

“The entire school called you Squinty for months. I fucking forgot about Squinty.”

“Tell your story, asshole.” He took a swig of his beer and winked down at me.

Josh told his story—about when he’d tried to grind on the edge of bleachers but failed. He’d fallen off the side of the railing, but his pants—which they admitted had hung way too low, almost at their knees, but they’d thought was so fucking cool at the time—had gotten caught on a bar at the end. It had made him flip over the edge of the rail, but he’d caught himself by throwing his arms out over his head.

“He was stuck there, upside down, with his pants down to his ankles,” Blake said through his laughter.

Apparently, he’d been there for so long his face had started to turn red. But the best part was that somehow Josh had managed to knock out two of his teeth. Probably from the board, but really, they had no idea. So there’d been Josh, hanging upside down, off the edge of the bleachers, for who knows how long, with his pants down—and Blake, also high, had been so busy laughing at him that he’d been unable to even grasp the concept of trying to help him down.

“He was rolling around on the fucking ground, pointing and laughing at me!” Josh yelled. “My mouth was full of blood from my knocked-out teeth. And I kept trying to spit it out, but I was flipped over the edge, and high, and had blood rushing to my head, and my balls were sore from being so cold.”

“Help me, Hunter! Help me!” Blake mocked in a feminine tone.

“What happened?” I couldn’t stop laughing. “How did you get down?”

“Some guy walking his dog saw us and called an ambulance,” Josh said.

“Why the fuck didn’t he just get you down?” Blake yelled.

“Why the fuck didn’t
you
just get me down?” Josh retorted.

“What happened?” I was laughing so hard my sides hurt.

Josh answered. “So the guy called an ambulance. It took them forever to get there.”

“It was, like, two minutes, you pussy,” Blake said.

“Fuck you,
Squinty
. It felt like forever.” Josh’s eyes moved to me. “So the ambulance gets there, and the dudes help me down, check my teeth and shit, and then they asked us what’d happened.”

Blake laughed again and pulled me closer.

“And?” I placed my hands over his and linked our fingers. “What did you tell them?”

“This is so fucking bad.” Josh shook his head. “Hunter and I looked at each other, and I don’t even know what happened . . . I think we were both so paranoid from the weed that we thought we couldn’t tell them the truth.”

“What did you say?”
I needed to know.

“Hunter here—” He stopped, unable to speak through his cackle. When he finally calmed down, he continued, “Hunter said that vampires came and tried to attack us! We tried to fight them off, but they got me, hence the blood, and then they hung me off the end of the bleachers as a warning to the werewolves that they’d been there!”

We all roared with laughter.

I looked up at Blake, with teary eyes. The good kind. “Vampires? Werewolves?”

He just shrugged and said, “
Twilight
had just come out.”

“Where to next?” The cab driver asked as he started to reverse out of Josh’s driveway.

Blake pulled me so close to him that I was almost on his lap.

“My house, I guess.” I looked up at him, but he was looking out the window, his mind somewhere else. “Blake?”

His gaze dropped to mine. “Huh?”

“The cab. My house or yours first?”

His eyes fell shut. When he opened them, they were glazed and red. He was holding in tears. “Stay with me tonight?”

And that was all it took.

I’d known it was coming. And I’d known it would be soon. But I wasn’t prepared for it. I wasn’t ready for the moment where my mind caught up to my heart and the walls I’d built crumbled.

I wasn’t ready to admit that I’d fallen in love.

Without a word, he took my hand and led me up to his bedroom. I stood in the middle of his room while he went through his dresser and pulled out a shirt. He didn’t hand it to me like I’d expected. Instead, he set it on his bed, turned to me, and slowly slipped my dress over my head. I stood in front of him, in the darkness of his room—lit only by the moon outside—in nothing but my bra and panties.