Where the Road Takes Me
Page 44

   I stayed put, too afraid to move or speak. They were face-to-face by then, glaring at each other. I had no idea what had set it off. Maybe it was the beer, or maybe it all just needed to be said.
   Blake’s hands fisted, and he added, “You don’t think that decision weighs on me every day? I know time’s running out. It’s my goddamn choice, and I can’t make it.”
   “Why?” Josh lifted his chin. “How hard could the choice be, Hunter? It’s basketball, or it’s the army. Two choices. It’s not like you have a kid to think about. Or bills or rent to pay. Or someone else’s future to worry about. There’s not a single, fucking thing keeping you here.”
   Blake eyed me quickly before shoving Josh hard enough that he fell back a step. “Fuck you.”
   “No, Hunter, fuck you.” He pushed him back. “You have months to make up your mind. In fact, when did you sign that letter of intent? November, right? It’s fucking June. I’m too buzzed to work out how many months that is—but it’s too fucking many. Quit being a pussy and decide.”
   “Fuck off, Josh. You don’t know shit.” He shoved him again. Harder this time.
   And then Josh snapped. He launched himself at Blake, and they fell to the ground. Punches were thrown. Insults exchanged.
   I panicked. “Get off him, Blake! You’re being a dick.”
   They froze, simultaneously turning their heads to glare at me. Blake stood. Followed by Josh.
   Blake slowly covered the distance between us, his eyes narrowing with every step. I swallowed and took a step back. For the first time since I’d met him, I was scared.
   “You wanna take his side?” he said. “That’s great, Chloe. Maybe you should have played this little game with him instead. Then he’d be the one having to deal with you leaving. Not me.”
   My heart sank.
   “Dude.” Josh stood next to him with a hand on his chest to stop him from moving closer. He was our barrier—something I never thought I’d need. Not against Blake.
   I held back the tears threatening to fall. “I’m sorry,” I squeaked out.
   He shook his head. “You wanna know why I can’t decide? Because I can’t think of my future without you in it. Four days. We have four days together, and then, you’re gone. And it might seem like nothing to you, because you’ve had years to accept it. But I can’t, Chloe. I just can’t.”
   Josh pressed his hands more firmly against Blake’s chest. “I think that’s enough.”
   Blake pushed Josh’s hands away but kept his eyes on me. “Fuck this,” he spat. Then he turned around and walked away.
   “Blake.” I started to go after him, but Josh stopped me.
   “Just leave him. He just needs some time.”
 
   Blake came back ten minutes later. He walked to the cooler, got a few beers, handed one to Josh, who thanked him, and gave me one. Then he sat behind me, his legs on either side, and wrapped his arms around my stomach again. “I’m sorry,” he whispered in my ear.
   “Me, too,” I told him.
   Then Josh spoke up. “Remember that time when we came here, and I tried to grind along the bleachers?”
   Blake laughed. “The first time we came here and smoked?”
   Josh nodded. “That was so fucking bad. I was tripping so hard.”
   Blake laughed harder.
   “What happened?” I asked
   “Well, C-Lo,” Josh started. He pointed his beer at Blake, and Blake returned the gesture. “We were what? Fourteen?”
   “Thirteen, I think,” Blake answered. “Fuck, we were such cocky little punks.”
   That made me laugh.
   Josh continued, “We smoked, like, two puffs of weed, and we were gone—”
   “Josh thought he was Superman,” Blake cut in.
   Josh rolled his eyes. “Okay, kid-that-wore-a-cape-to-school-for-a-month-in-third-grade.”
   “What?” I laughed. I tilted my head to look up at Blake, but he was already watching me.
   His eyes danced with amusement when he said, “I also believed I could shoot lasers out of my eyes.”
   “Oh yeah!” Josh yelped. “Squinty!”
   Blake threw back his head and laughed.
   “The entire school called you Squinty for months. I fucking forgot about Squinty.”
   “Tell your story, asshole.” He took a swig of his beer and winked down at me.
 
   Josh told his story—about when he’d tried to grind on the edge of bleachers but failed. He’d fallen off the side of the railing, but his pants—which they admitted had hung way too low, almost at their knees, but they’d thought was so fucking cool at the time—had gotten caught on a bar at the end. It had made him flip over the edge of the rail, but he’d caught himself by throwing his arms out over his head.
   “He was stuck there, upside down, with his pants down to his ankles,” Blake said through his laughter.
   Apparently, he’d been there for so long his face had started to turn red. But the best part was that somehow Josh had managed to knock out two of his teeth. Probably from the board, but really, they had no idea. So there’d been Josh, hanging upside down, off the edge of the bleachers, for who knows how long, with his pants down—and Blake, also high, had been so busy laughing at him that he’d been unable to even grasp the concept of trying to help him down.
   “He was rolling around on the fucking ground, pointing and laughing at me!” Josh yelled. “My mouth was full of blood from my knocked-out teeth. And I kept trying to spit it out, but I was flipped over the edge, and high, and had blood rushing to my head, and my balls were sore from being so cold.”
   “Help me, Hunter! Help me!” Blake mocked in a feminine tone.
   “What happened?” I couldn’t stop laughing. “How did you get down?”
   “Some guy walking his dog saw us and called an ambulance,” Josh said.
   “Why the fuck didn’t he just get you down?” Blake yelled.
   “Why the fuck didn’t you just get me down?” Josh retorted.
   “What happened?” I was laughing so hard my sides hurt.
   Josh answered. “So the guy called an ambulance. It took them forever to get there.”
   “It was, like, two minutes, you pussy,” Blake said.
   “Fuck you, Squinty. It felt like forever.” Josh’s eyes moved to me. “So the ambulance gets there, and the dudes help me down, check my teeth and shit, and then they asked us what’d happened.”