Birthday Girl

I hear his cell vibrate in his pocket next, and he digs it out, checking the screen.

“And if he’s calling me now, he must be in trouble,” he says, staring at the phone. “Need a lift?”

“A lift where?”

“Police station, I’d assume.” He sighs, answering the phone and leading the way. “Let’s go.”

Jordan

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” I tell Cole, pulling out my stacked milk crates from the back of his car. “I feel like a freeloader.”

My boyfriend brandishes that quirky tilt to his lips where you only see the left side of his teeth. “So, what are you gonna do then?” He looks up at me, sliding my collapsible drafting table toward him and lifting it up. “Stay at your parents’?”

His blue eyes are hooded, probably from the lack of sleep, as we both walk over and set our loads on the porch steps to Pike Lawson’s house.

Our new home.

The past few days have been crazy, and I can’t believe that guy is his father. What are the chances? I wish we’d met a little differently. Not driving down to the police station at two o’clock in the morning to get his son—my boyfriend—out of jail.

“Come on, I told you,” Cole says, walking back to the car for another load. “My dad was the one who offered to let us stay here. We just chip in on chores, and this gives us a chance to save up for a new place. A better place.”

Right. And how many kids move back home to do just that and end up staying for another three years instead? His dad had to know what he was opening himself up to.

I’ll make every effort to be gone as soon as possible, but Cole doesn’t save money. Setting up a new place, with a deposit—which we lost at the previous apartment due to minor damages to the carpets—and utilities will take substantial cash. Once we get a place, Cole can help pay for it, but actually getting in there and set up will be on me.

It’s been three days since the theater and meeting Pike Lawson. Once we got Cole out, I came home to find our apartment completely trashed. Apparently, he was trying to throw me a late birthday party at our place, but our friends—his friends—didn’t wait to start the festivities. By eleven, everyone was drunk, the pizza was gone, but hey, they saved me a piece of cake.

I had to go into the bathroom so I wouldn’t cry in front of them when I saw the place.

Apparently, a fight started during the party, neighbors complained about the noise, Cole mouthed off, and he and another one of his buddies were taken in to cool down. Mel, the landlord, stated in no uncertain terms that he’d had enough and Cole had to go. I was welcome to stay, but there was no way I could pay for everything by myself. Not after I’d already drained my savings, helping repair his car last month.

And thank goodness the cops let him go without bail this time, because I didn’t have a hundred bucks to squeeze out of anywhere, much less twenty-five hundred.

“You’re his son,” I remind Cole, grabbing my floor lamp—one of the only big things we didn’t put into storage, since Cole’s dad already had one of the spare bedrooms furnished. “But me staying here, too, with him paying all the bills? It’s not right.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s right for me to have to go without this every day,” he teases with a cocky grin as he pulls me to him and wraps his arms around my body. I release the lamp and smile, indulging his playfulness even though I’m feeling out of sorts. It’s been a long time since I’ve been at ease long enough to forget the stress hitting us at every turn. We haven’t smiled together in a while, and it’s starting to not come naturally anymore.

But right now, he has that boyish glint to his eyes like he’s just the most adorable tornado and “don’t you just love me?”

He plants his forehead to mine, and I thread my fingers through the back of his blond hair and look up into his dark blue eyes that always give the impression that he just remembered he has a whole pie waiting in the refrigerator.

Taking my right hand in his, he pulls both up between us, and I clasp his in mine, already knowing what he’s doing. Our fingers wrap around the other’s hand, our thumbs side by side, and he holds my eyes, the same memories passing between us.

To anyone else it looks like an arm-wrestling grip, but when we look down, we see our thumbs side-by-side and the small, pea-sized scar we both have and share with only one other person. It’s silly when we tell people the story—a friend’s little brother’s Nerf gun that was too small for our hands, and we got skinned when we tried to use it, all three of us laughing when we realized we had the same exact scar at the head of our metacarpals.

Now it’s just Cole and me. Just the two of us. Two scars, no longer three.

“Stay with me, okay?” he whispers. “I need you.”

And for a rare moment, I see vulnerability.

I needed him, too, once, and he was there. We’ve been through a lot, and he’s probably my best friend.

Which is why I’m too forgiving with him. I don’t want him to hurt.

And which is why I let him talk me into this. I really don’t want to move in with my dad and stepmom, and it’s just until the end of the summer. Once my student loans come in for the fall, and I’ve saved up from working this summer, I can afford my own place again. I think.

Cole holds me tight and remains quiet. He knows I’m still mad at him about getting arrested and the damage to the apartment, but he knows I care. I’m starting to wonder if it’s one of my faults. Definitely my weakness.