A Blessing In Disguise (BoyxBoy)

Something Else

Ch. 12

A week had gone by since the incident at Jake's house and surprisingly not much had changed. I still had my job at the garage, Mr Larson had even somehow gotten more protective, making sure I was alright all the time. I suspect one of the guys had told him about my parents.

   Jake was no longer ignoring me or being rude and obnoxious, though I'd definitely not say that we're friends yet. We still have a way to go.

   Speaking of, since it was Saturday today and I was off work I though that I'd hang out with Jake, to do some 'bonding'. Nick was away for the weekend and Kevin had caught the flu so it'd be only Jake and I. The tricky part was to make him agree.

   It was around noon when I decided to call him. I was at home, but thought I'd ask if he wanted to hang out somewhere outside since it was such a nice day. The sun was radiating in the clear blue sky and the breeze was slow, hot and moist. It was one of those lazy days.

   Since I didn't have Jake's number, I had to call Kevin and get him to put Jake on the line.

   "Hello?" Kevin answered hoarsely, it sounded like his nose was bunged up.

   "Hey, Kev. How's it going?"

   "Fine. What do you want?" he said tiredly, like I had woken him up from a nap.

   "Sorry to bother you, but I need to speak with Jake and I don't have his number. Could you hand him the phone?"

   "Sure, one sec." I heard some rustling, like he was getting up, "JAAAKE!!"

   Nope, he sure was not getting up. I heard some mumbling before Jake's gruff voice came through the phone.

   "What?" he said curtly.

   "Wow, you sound cheerful. I'm not so sure I wanna talk to you now." I teased. He huffed and I could practically see him roll his eyes.

   "What do you want, Marc?" he sounded more pleasant, but I could hear how strained it was.

   "I'm just messing with ya', you can drop the act. Let's hang out."

   "Why?" he said suspiciously.

   "'Cause that's what friends do, and we are supposed to be friends, right?"

   He groaned, "Fine. I'll meet you at the park." and he hung up.

   I guess we're hanging out at the park.

The park was full when I got there. There were kids running around in the playground, parents chatting on the benches and teens strolling around aimlessly. There were people playing with their dogs and others running through the park with headphones blaring and sweat pouring.

   I looked around for Jake, not expecting him to be early, but there he was in the line to the shop. I went over to him and got some nasty looks from people standing behind Jake in the process, but I ignored them and put a hand on Jake's shoulder. Jake flinched and glared back at me.

   "Don't sneak up on me." he grumbled and turned ahead again.

   "Why? You gon' hit me?" I teased.

   "I warned you."

   "Whatever." I dismissed his threat, "So, what do you wanna do?"

   "I don't know, you're the one who wanted to hang out."

   I groaned, "Be a bit cooperative, will ya'?"

   We ended up doing the same as the other teenagers, walking and sitting around doing nothing in particular. I tried holding a decent conversation with him, since we'd always fought every time we saw each other and didn't really know much about the other, at least I knew almost nothing about Jake. All of my knowledge were from what I'd heard from others, and that wasn't the most reliable source. Truth was, Jake was pretty interesting, full of surprises and contradictions. When I first met him I stamped him as the regular homophobic bully. Turned out, that was not the case since he actually beat up another homophobe for me, a gay boy. He also struck me as a pretty indifferent and cold person, but I get the feeling he's only good at hiding his true emotions. But I don't know why.