Acting Out [Student/Teacher, GxG]

The Boys are Back in Town

"If you want to go home, I'll pay for everything. If you stay and it goes wrong, I'll take the fall. I know this is an insane thing to ask of both of you, but I genuinely don't know what else to do."

Caleb and Jackson sat on their respective suitcases in the hotel room in various stages of disbelief. If I was being honest, Jackson looked more impressed than horrified.

"You want us to break into some rich fuck's mansion and threaten him?" Jackson raised an eyebrow, pulling a cigarette from the pack and placing it between his lips.

"Don't smoke in here," I chastised him before realizing how ridiculous this situation was and motioning for him to hand me one, "Anyway, not exactly. I'm going to threaten him. I want you to make sure he doesn't kill me and I want Caleb to steal his computer."

"So mans has some serious dirt on you, eh?" Jackson quipped and I took a long drag of my cigarette.

"Not on me," I admitted, "It's Claire. He's blackmailing her."

"How bad?" Caleb asked hesitantly.

"It would ruin her life. He told her she could come here and try to 'persuade him' not to leak it all."

Jackson was the first to understand the insinuation. He leapt off the suitcase and began pacing the room furiously. "We need three masks and a crowbar. He'll have a security system. That piece of shit won't lay a finger on her."

His words took me by surprise. Claire had welcomed Caleb into her home. Caleb cared for Claire, but Jackson? "You understand that this is a felony right, Jackson? Like, you don't even know her."

"But I know you. You love her, Tiny?"

The use of my old nickname brought a smile to my face. Everything was so different now and yet here they were in Pasadena — two Canadian college kids talking about the logistics of pulling off a B&E to save my sort-of-girlfriend. "Yeah," I replied with conviction, "She's my family."

"Well," Jackson shrugged, "I've never committed a crime that wasn't drug-related and I'm not getting any younger. May as well knock that one off the bucket list."

"I'm not even going to touch that," I groaned, "Thank you."

"I'm in." Caleb announced with finality.

Jackson let out a puff of grey smoke, his lips curling into a smirk. "Let's get this motherfucker."

•••

"I've never been to Pasadena," Jackson remarked as we walked into the Home Depot.

"And I've never committed a burglary," Caleb muttered.

"Robbery," I corrected under my breath, "Burglaries are typically done when no one's home. There's no use of force or threats of violence in a burglary," I picked up a crowbar off of the shelf, and tossed it to Caleb, "I googled it this morning. We should probably get two, yeah?"

"What?" he choked out.

"Crowbars," I replied with a smile.

Jackson shook his head, holding back laughter, "You're fucking crazy."

It wasn't until we reached the till with two crowbars and three ski masks that I realized what we must have looked like to the cashier. In high school I'd had a friend who was late on her period but too nervous to buy a pregnancy test. I was at was the grocery store — the one by my house that never carded me — stocking up on drinks for a house party when she called begging me to buy the test for her. That day, I placed two pregnancy tests and four litres of wine on the counter and realized a moment too late how terrible it looked. I was mortified for weeks. This time, we looked like three unsavoury pals getting ready to rob someone. Sometimes appearances aren't really that deceiving.