✔️The Greaser and the Skirtchaser [18+]

29. That Time Blake Bought a Camera

By the time Vance's brain started working properly again, it was the next morning. Blake was gone, as he usually was by morning, so that meant Vance could think like a rational person and not a lovesick idiot. Grant it, Vance was still a lovesick idiot for a few hours in the morning, but he came around when he realized that he'd been having sex with Blake Coleman while his mother was still home.

What would he have done if his mother needed something from him? He would've been in no state to answer her or come to the door. If she'd heard a strange noise from upstairs, then Vance would have no way to explain it.

He always used to think of Johnny as just a guy with not a lot of sense when it came to Sallie Mae, could never understand the stupid things he did when it came to her, but now Vance was taking it all back. Getting involved with Blake in the first place was already quite stupid, but this was stupid and dangerous.

If there was anything that Vance's mother should never find out, it was that her son was a queer. There was no telling how she would react to that, but Vance had to keep a lid on this before it did any more damage.

And that... was his last thought before he found a note on his desk from Blake. It was all swirly and fancy and signed under Jenny's name, but he knew it was Blake. "Date on Saturday at four. XOXO."

#

It might be contradictory to love two people at once, and Blake sort of thought so, too, but he couldn't really help falling into obsessions with people. It was a bad habit, he knew that, but he just couldn't control himself; he was Blake Coleman—of course, he couldn't. Being in love was fun, for the most part, and a pair of rose-tinted glasses could really just take the edge off crap.

Crap being Ashley's big plans for his moving to NYC with her. This was what he'd been wanting ever since she moved away, but he hadn't anticipated a baby and a husband in that picture, too. It wasn't like Blake was expecting anything crazy like Ashley leaving Steve for some punk in Northfield, but he thought that... Blake didn't know what he thought. His brain just turned off, and he was just a lovesick idiot. Blake couldn't help being stupid when it came to her.

All he could think about was how happy he was that she was back and saying she loved him, and he loved her so much that Steve just faded into the background. He just never thought about it all that much. That was the honest truth, as dumb as it was.

He'd been a homewrecker in plenty of relationships in Northfield other than in Ashley and Steve's, but Blake had always reasoned out that there was barely a home to wreck if the girl or guy agreed to the affair. He hadn't done the damage because it was already there when he arrived.

But he was literally watching the home being built now, complete with a crib and a ring, so now Blake was having second thoughts about it.

When Ashley and Steve left town again, Blake was really hoping to get his mind off that crap with Vance—hoping he could unwind with someone that wasn't so complicated or confusing—but now it was Vance making him anxious as hell.

"That flick was lamer than I thought. We probably should've gone to that antique store I was talking about." Blake laughed, but he didn't feel all that funny. He was just talking to talk. It was better than that awkward silence and Vance's unreadable expressions. "You wanna go there next? I'm pretty sure it should be a few streets down."

"Okay." The lower half of Vance's face was covered with a red scarf, but it just made his pale blue eyes even brighter as they crinkled.

"Great. I think there's leather jackets and car magazines and stuff there, too, but I hadn't been there in a very long time."