One For The Road

Chapter Twenty Four

"I'm taking this kid out for ice cream."

Heidi was looking down at Kaleb with a determined smile as they exited the ice rink. "I don't care what you say, Chase. He's adorable. And he deserves ice cream."

"He doesn't need it," I argued. "And you don't have to pay for it."

"Please?" Kaleb asked. He was looking at me with sad, wide eyes and pouty lips. I narrowed my eyes.

"You know that look doesn't work on me anymore." I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him. Kaleb sighed.

"I just want ice cream."

Heidi tapped her foot impatiently. "Let me give him ice cream, Chase. He's my favorite. I'm stealing him now."

I sighed. "Fine. Whatever. Just don't go overboard. He doesn't need too much."

"It'll be fine," she reassured me, but the mischievous glint in her eyes told me otherwise.

"If I just go home, can you drop him off later? I can come if you want me to, but I have things to do." A lie. I didn't really have anything to do other than make dinner for Kaleb and I, but that wouldn't take long. Maybe it was selfish, but I kind of wanted Kaleb off of my hands for a while, if just for half an hour. I'd been watching him a lot more often since my mom began picking up extra shifts at work, and I trusted that Heidi would be careful with him.

"That's fine. I'll text you when we're on our way." She flashed a thumbs up. I gave her a quick smile before turning to Just. I hesitated for a moment.

"Do you wanna come to my place and help me make dinner?"

•••

It was long after I'd made dinner, even after Just had left, when I realized I was in a very, very sticky situation.

Just drove home behind me, so we arrived around the same time. I decided I'd make spaghetti since it was something Kaleb liked and it was pretty much all we had the ingredients for. Just helped me prepare anything, the two of us working in comfortable silence for a while. I wanted to talk to him about his kiss with Heidi and ask what was going on, but I decided it would probably be better if I just didn't bring it up.

While we waited for the pasta to boil, he spoke up. "How do you do it?" he asked. I wrinkled my brow, thinking he was talking about the dinner.

"It's easy," I said. "You just have to break up the noodles so they aren't so l—"

"Wait, no," he said hurriedly. "That's not what I meant. Sorry. I should've phrased that better." He took a deep breath, and I looked over at him. His eyes were closed, but he opened them again when he began speaking, his green irises sliding up to meet my gaze. "How do you deal with having so much responsibility on your shoulders all the time?"

Oh. That was a much deeper subject than pasta.

"Can you elaborate?" I finally stammered after a moment. He shrugged loosely and shook his head, leaning back against the counter and looking down at the floor.

"You just have so much on your plate." He sighed. "Your mom is always working, so you have to deal with helping out all the time around the house, including keeping an eye on Kaleb all the time. That with schoolwork, and spending time with your mom when she is home, and sacrificing so much time to hang out with Heidi and I..." He shook his head again. "Not to mention this entire ordeal with your dad. I feel like you do so much more than me and handle it so much better."

"Well, I don't have anger issues for nothing," I mumbled.

"That's understandable, but you get everything done right. You're a great older brother, a supportive son, a spectacular friend, and someone who can deal with problems so easily." I had no clue where he'd gotten that idea from. I was always thinking with my fists, not my head. I was the one to throw a punch before thinking things through. I still let him continue, not wanting to interrupt again. "And I don't know how you do it, but your entire world seems to be sitting on your shoulders and you hold it up so, so well. You're doing an amazing job at..." He paused to think. "Well, really, at everything." I felt a flutter in my stomach, and his cheeks turned a light shade of pink as he ducked his head. "How have you not crumbled by now? It seems so hard."

In that moment, I was so, so close to telling him way more than I needed to. Telling him that it was so hard to do everything for myself, to live without a mom or a dad for half of my life, to deal with the teasing that came with that, and the pressure of raising my brother to be a better person than I had ever been or could ever be, the impending guilt that despite the fact that I was doing all of this around the house, my mom was still scraping by to keep a roof over our heads and I wasn't making an extra effort to help her support us. I was so close to telling him that I didn't have a healthy way to deal with everything, really. There wasn't much I could do. I was so close to tell him that all of my angry outbursts built up in my subconscious, filling me with guilt and fear and even more anger because what kind of person does these things to people who could have it even worse than I do?

But I didn't.

I didn't tell him that.

Instead, after a long moment of silence, I just said, "You get used to all of it after a while." It definitely wasn't a total lie, but it was still so, so far from the truth.

"That doesn't sound like a good thing to get used to." He frowned, his eyebrows creasing with concern and his bottom lip sticking out the tiniest bit.

"It's not," I sighed. "But I don't have much of a choice at this point. And I'm doing what I can to make it better."

"That can't be easy."

"It's not," I repeated, my voice sounding more far away this time. I felt more far away. I felt like my head wasn't connected to my body, and I didn't like it.

And then Just was stepping closer, and all I could focus on was the fact that his hand was resting on my shoulder now, soft enough that I could back away if I wanted to, but firm enough that I could tell he was there, and suddenly my heart was hammering in my chest, slamming against my ribcage like it was trying to escape. I met his gaze evenly, taking a shaky breath. He was watching me with a soft look, as if I were a small animal he didn't want to scare off.

"I'm a text, a phone call, or a three minute drive away if you ever need me for anything. Remember that, okay?"

I hesitated before giving a small nod of my head to show I understood. He let a small smile slip onto his face, his lips twitching upward the tiniest bit. His words were a lot like his grip in my shoulder; it was my choice whether I wanted to back away or stay.

I wanted to stay.

And then my phone chimed, and the moment was broken.

I turned to the island and cleared my throat as I went to grab my phone to check the text. Not surprisingly, it was Heidi telling me that she would be bringing Kaleb home soon since he wanted to take the ice cream to go. As I was serving up the spaghetti on plates for Kaleb and I, Just said he should probably get going and that he'd pass on the spaghetti I'd offered earlier.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he said, giving me a big smile before slipping out the front door. My heart wouldn't stop beating so fast, and the feeling of his hand was still burning into my shoulder, and I didn't know why. It was infuriating.

And then the realization hit me like a truck. The feeling was just as unpleasant as it sounds.

I liked Just.

No, I didn't like him like a good friend. It was so much more than that. In the past months, my feelings for him had been growing, and it had taken this long for it to slap me across the face. Honestly, I felt like an idiot for not realizing it sooner. I had a crush on Just. This was bad. This was very, very bad. I'd just watched him kiss Heidi (I guess that explained the twisting I'd felt in my gut when I'd watched them), and I liked him? My heart didn't need that. Not with everything else going on.

My head was still swimming when Kaleb returned.