Forever and Always

Chapter 29 - In For

Going for drives had always helped to calm Levi down, and this time was no different. I had been carrying groceries into Farlan and Isabel's house for them when suddenly, Levi grabbed my wrist and whisked me out of the house again. 

"Wha-" I tried to say, but thought better of continuing the sentence. Levi had some dark shit going on in his head, and I wasn't sure if he was capable of sentences at the moment. Climbing into Isabel's Subaru, Levi slammed the door behind him and I quickly got into the passenger before he screeched out of the driveway. "What just happened?!"

"Gimme just a second, Jaeger." Levi was a cesspool of macabre emotion, seething, and threatening to boil over. We got onto a freeway and Levi finally looked at me. "I'm sorry. I just needed you. Like, I needed to be alone with you. There's some shit going down with Kenny, and I just want you right now."

"In what way?" I asked hesitantly, not wanting to take anything the wrong way.

"In any way. I just wanted to spend some time with you. We can have sex if you want, but we don't have to. I kinda just wanna talk with you for a while." Levi grabbed my knee, giving it a light squeeze as he battled the mania in his conflicted eyes.

"O-okay, sure. What do you wanna talk about?" I asked, rubbing circles into the back of his hand with my thumb.

"I don't care. Just distract me."

"From what? How am I supposed to know what not to talk about?" I inquired.

"If it's touchy, I'll let you know. I promise."

"Well, um, are you excited to go off to Harvard?" I asked.

"Yeah. I'm just shocked that they would even look twice at my application."

"Okay, Mr. 29-on-the-ACT-Ackerman, fuck you." I rolled my eyes and folded my arms. "I got a 21. And Harvard probably thinks I'm some kinda pissboy. Doesn't help that I was arrested that one time. Maybe wouldn't look good on an application."

"Wait, my innocent little Eren was arrested?" Levi exclaimed. I nodded shamefully.

"Yeah, even did some time. Got my license suspended before I even had a fuckin' license. Spent, like, three months in juvie. Mom had to pay a huge fuckin' fine. That's actually probably what I was sent to that school. I got out of jail, and when I didn't sober up, my mom sent me to Asheville.

"Well, god fucking damn. Why did you get arrested?" Levi asked, taking a second to glance in my direction.

"Paraphernalia. Also DUI, and underage drinking. So that was fun. Actually some of my jail friends, I'm still pretty tight with. We don't really run with the same crowds anymore, but I'm pretty sure we're close."

"Really? How the fuck have you been arrested, but I haven't?" Levi exclaimed. "I'm actually impressed. Wait, what all did you do before we met?"

"Well, I would get up really early and go to the beach with my friends before school. We would smoke and surf and shit. Watch the sun rise. Then we would ditch after first period and go drink and smoke and sell shit. Now that I think of it, some of my distributors were getting their supply from New York. I never did the hard stuff, but I sure sold a lot of it. But, odds are, you probably indirectly sold to me at some point. Small world."

"Yeah, really. You were definitely on the more dangerous end of that, though."

"For real." 

Levi took the next exit, driving down towards what looked like a state park of some kind. "Do you wanna pick some music?"

"Sure," I nodded, picking up Levi's cell phone and using my thumbprint to unlock it. I opened his Spotify and searched up something that I knew would annoy him and amuse him at the same time. I pressed play and instantly, Levi let out a loud groan of frustration.