Home is a Four Letter Word

chapter fifteen

Late April

It had been thirty minutes that Jake spent sitting outside the vet clinic before he made the conscious choice to go in.

He knew Connor was working today. Connor worked every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday after school—something Jake shouldn't have memorized, but did given how consistent their ride-home schedule had become. Four days had passed since their encounter in the hallway and there had been radio silence ever since. He hadn't managed to take him home on Wednesday, nor did he get a text—which somehow hurt more than he figured Connor's face did.

When Jake finally worked up the courage to go in, his heart was sent racing at the very feeling of his truck door falling shut underneath his fingers.

Why am I even thinking about this so hard?

Why do I even care?

I don't owe him anything.

But Jake couldn't shake the pesky voice that kept him up at night insisting that somehow everything was his fault. When Connor looked at him in the hallway that day, he felt like it was. It felt like an accusation, and the thought of being hated without being given the chance to prove himself worthy was something Jake couldn't fathom. Jake wasn't responsible for Hunter's actions, and he sure as hell knew he didn't have a say in how Hunter felt, but it still felt so wrong on so many levels. He couldn't ignore the fact that it was a brief consideration that Hunter had acted on his behalf even when he knew he didn't.

He flicked his keys over on his finger as he opened the building's front door.

Fuck it.

The mix of smells that hit him when he walked in was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. He was used to how the barn smelt, but this was something different. This was a litter box, disinfectant spray, and some kind of canned dog food all in one. Connor sat behind the desk completely unbothered by it all, focused on entering a stack of paperwork as tall as his shoulder into the computer beside him.

Even with the door opening, he didn't look up from where he was scribbling something down in the margins of a manila folder. His focus was captivated by whatever he was squinting at on the ancient computer monitor in front of him. Jake walked up to the counter and Connor acknowledged his presence with an interested eyebrow raise, but was too focused to look over to see who it was.

"Hi, what can I do for you today?" He said as cheerfully as he could beneath his worn out smile.

Even though he had no intention of using it, Jake took up the ball-chain pen from the sign up sheet and wrapped the cord around his finger. He couldn't recall a time in his life where he was this nervous before. It was so completely obvious he nearly forgot how to speak.

"Yeah, so um... one of my hens has started barking. Real unusual thing. Can you take a look at her for me?"

Why the fucking joke?! You idiot.

He wanted to facepalm himself. In the first thirty dreadful minutes of sitting in the truck staring at the building he had constructed a list of openers to say, yet somehow out of every single one of the things he could have picked, it had to be that one. Fuck, why that one? It was too late to take it back now.

Goddamnit, Lee. You're so fucking stupid.

Connor stopped writing when he recognized Jake's voice. He looked up trying to feign annoyance, but the edges of his mouth that dared to smile were defeating his façade. Realizing his predicament, his attention shifted back down to his paperwork stack to regain his carefully cold composure.