Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 421(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
But going into law enforcement for my parents? God, he wrapped me up. Did shit to me I didn’t think he could ever understand. He hadn’t done it because he was an abused child with an alcoholic parent. He’d done it for Griff and me. And it was so Chase that I couldn’t even be surprised.
So I’d had to kiss him and try to blow him again, because apparently I was crazy. No wonder they thought they had to keep tabs on me. I was a bit of a loose cannon.
It had been a few days since what I referred to in my head as the incident. I hadn’t told Nat or Josh about it because…well, because it was embarrassing, if I was being honest. At some point I needed to realize that Chase didn’t want me the way I wanted him, at least not enough to go for it. There were other men who did, though, and they sure as shit didn’t turn me down.
“How’s this, Kellan?” Ava, one of my students, asked.
“Oh, wow. That’s beautiful. Add a little more water to your hands, though. That’ll help.” And clearly, I needed to stop thinking about Chase, especially when I was teaching a class.
Pushing thoughts of Chase out of my head, I went around the room, checking with each of the children and giving them pointers. Before I knew it, class was over. Everyone’s parents had picked them up, except Ava’s, which meant her dad was coming. When her mom picked her up, she was always on time, but on the weekends her dad got her, he was late. Honestly, I was surprised he let her take classes with me when he took her for the weekend—me being queer and all. Buck was that kind of guy.
“Do you have any plans this weekend?” I asked Ava, trying to make conversation.
“My brother has a game this afternoon. He doesn’t wanna play, but Dad makes him. He asked if he could come here instead, but Dad said it would make him soft like you.” Ava smiled, having no idea what she’d just said. I didn’t give a shit about me. Her dad could think whatever the fuck he wanted about me, and he did. He’d been a senior when I first got into high school, and he’d been one of the first to call me a fag, but it broke my heart when I thought about his son. That he was being forced to play sports he didn’t love and had an interest in art that his asshole of a father would stifle.
It was times like this I wanted as far away from Havenwood as I could get, but I wasn’t sure I could ever truly leave. As much as I complained about Griffin, I couldn’t imagine not living close to him and seeing him all the time.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said to Ava, and made a mental note to talk to her mom. Bridget was a great woman with an asshole of an ex, and I didn’t think she would be okay with the way he was treating her son. Hell, I’d let him take classes for free if she would allow it.
Just then the door opened, and Ava’s dad, Buck, came in with his father, Jimmy. “Let’s go,” he told her, nodding toward the door without so much as a word to me. Jimmy’s eyes snagged on me, a hateful glare I could feel. I hated people like them, and I sure as shit wasn’t going to let them win.
So I smiled and pretended I didn’t notice. “Ava did great today. She’s really talented.” I had to bite my tongue to be nice to him, but the last thing I wanted was to make it more difficult for either of his kids to take my class.
Buck grunted. His father shook his head, and then the three of them walked out, which sadly, again, was nothing new. Buck worked out at Josh’s gym and would never treat Josh the way he did me. It wasn’t a phrase I liked to use, but Josh could pass for straight, so that made him “better” to some people. I was too soft, too feminine for someone like Buck.
That made the rest of my day shitty. I had a few more classes, but Ava’s brother—damn it, I didn’t even know the kid’s name—never left my thoughts. I’d been lucky. I’d had great parents and Griff, who would have supported me in whatever the hell I wanted to do. I might have had to deal with assholes like Buck sometimes, but I had a support system, and not everyone had that.
At the end of the day, I closed up shop and headed to the house. My favorite thing to do after a shitty day was take a bath, so I filled the tub, added bubbles, and sank in.