Turning Tides

33. SEX!

10 Missed Calls: Jayden Kingsley (The Traitor)

4 Voicemails: Jayden Kingsley (The Traitor)

25 Unread Messages: Jayden Kingsley (The Traitor)

My phone continued to buzz, tucked away in the closet where Jayden was clearly the most comfortable. I thought putting my phone somewhere inaccessible would be helpful, but it made me more anxious every time it rattled the shelf.

The taste of Drew lingered on my lips, and I couldn't make it go away. I tried eating ice cream like the depressed boy I was, chewing gum, putting on Chapstick, and I even chewed a hole on the inside of my lip, hoping the metallic taste of blood would overtake his. Nothing worked.

There were so many questions. Was Drew gay too, or was he just enjoying getting in the middle of us? Why did a part of me wish I would've given him head?

Also, fuck him for ruining the first time I got to see Jayden's nude. I'd always imagined it would be some climactic reveal, but nope- I had to see him holding it for Drew in a blurry fucking mirror picture.

Lying on my bed, running my fingers over the stitching of the Kingsley Shrimping Co. logo on Jayden's sweat-stained hat, a knock echoed through my room.

"Come in, I guess."

Dad's greying beard poked through the crack in the door. "You guess?"

"Oh my God, quit being weird and come in."

He opened the door and stood there in his faded UNLV Runnin' Rebels shirt. "I'm the weird one?" He was holding the tub of chocolate ice cream. "I just wanted a sweet treat to end my day on, yet this was stuffed back in the freezer despite being empty. Did you randomly decide to stop being lactose intolerant?"

"I like to challenge myself sometimes," my stomach rumbled, and my intestines felt like they may explode. I guess that was God getting me for almost giving head to the Devil.

"I'm well-versed enough in teenage heartbreak to know that eating half a tub of ice cream and hiding out in your room all day is normally a bad sign," he sighed and sat on the foot of my bed, putting a hand on my leg.

"It's nothing. I'm just stressed with applying for colleges."

He grabbed the hat off my chest and read the logo aloud. "This isn't about school, is it? It's about this boy."

"Invasive much?" I pulled the covers up to my chin and curled into a ball, biting the sheets to taste something other than Drew.

He tugged on his beard. "If you want to talk about it, I'm here. I've been heartbroken a few times too, you know," he looked down quickly as if avoiding memories of Mom.

"I'm not good enough for any guys, especially Jayden. He chose his best friend over me. I'll always be the new gay kid that he can manipulate, and I have to take it because I have no other friends. I should've known it was too good to be true," I smacked my mouth in regret as the words poured out like a river, but I couldn't stop. It ended with me explaining our story, including what truly happened the night of Ol' Frank's death, and how Drew ruined everything.

Dad rubbed my leg. "Son, sometimes people run from love because they fear letting someone in. Once you truly let someone in, that person becomes the reason you laugh, cry, and wake up every day. Maybe this Jayden guy is scared of that. Maybe you were too quick to close yourself off because you felt that pain of being betrayed by someone you let in. If I were you, I'd give Jayden a chance to explain," my phone buzzed in the closet, "which you haven't done."