Home is a Four Letter Word

chapter twenty-seven

Early May

"Thanks for humoring me tonight. Even if it didn't really go as planned."

Jake parked in the middle of Connor's driveway—directly behind his little red car that despite the argument that his mom would get to it, apparently never got fixed.

"Hey, it's okay. We still made the best of it."

"I guess we did." Jake nodded. "You can finally stop bugging me about singing you Taylor Swift now."

"You know what? I don't think I will." Connor smiled and nothing in the world had ever seemed brighter. "I thoroughly enjoyed it."

"Uh-huh, I bet you did."

Jake hadn't meant to stare, but it happened again and this time he gave into it—plastering on a smile as he watched Connor watch the rain. The drops fell down in front of the headlights that shone past Connor's car into the distant backyard where they once walked the tracks while Connor took a chance on him. Connor seemed to be lost in thought as his gaze settled on them. Jake wondered exactly what went through Connor's mind when he thought back to that day. Did he regret it? Did he love it? Did it make any difference whatsoever? Was that the day Connor chose to trust him or had he decided before that?

What did it even mean to have Connor's trust?

What would it take to break it?

Jake thought he had seen a sliver of the answer to the last question before, but hoped he wouldn't find out how far it took to shatter the rest.

"I am kinda confused though..." Connor ended up mumbling as he looked out.

"About what?"

"You said you were taking a chance tonight... you really that scared of drive-in movies?" He turned his head back to Jake.

"You know, they really are such an interesting concept..."

"Really?"

"Nah. I mean..." Jake scrambled to find something to say because he hadn't figured out how to say the truth. "I just wanted to do something fun. I don't really do that a lot, so I guess I just wanted to try something new."

However much Jake had pulled it out of his ass, the answer seemed to satisfy Connor's curiosity.

"Well, can't say you got to... but you did throw your first parking lot party."

"Yeah, thanks for being my only attendee."

"Oh, absolutely... not like I had a choice though. The host was my ride." He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.

"Wow, you wouldn't have come otherwise? I'm offended." Jake turned away, pretending to ignore him, but hoping he would give him a reason to turn back around as quickly as possible.

"I wouldn't have missed it for the world, Jake Holmes."

Connor leaned his head back against the seat with a tired smile that Jake wasn't accustomed to seeing on Connor. It was so raw and honest—completely unfiltered, and so incredibly captivating that Jake forgot to look away. The sprinkle on the windshield casted shadowed drops across Connor's features from the faintest light that stayed on at the front door. Jake watched as one of the imagined raindrops fell down Connor's cheek, and any will Jake might have had to fake their argument some more was dwindled down with it.

The low volume of the radio playing an advertisement mixed with the gentle rumble of the engine created a silence between them that wasn't really silent. They looked to each other for something to say, and for a moment, Jake was okay with the fact that he came up with nothing. He was okay with just staring into his eyes—a color lost in the darkness of the night that had consumed them on the rain-filled drive home. Jake searched them for some sense of direction, but everything was unclear—including why he couldn't shake the feeling that if this were meant to be a date, and this was meant to be their goodbye, that this would be the right time to kiss him. But why would he think he could do that? Connor never implied that he could. But maybe Jake never knew how to ask.