When Oliver had been there. His horror mounted.
“He said this was it. That I had to steal them from the guidance counselor’s office. If I didn’t, he’d met this girl online who goes to the same school as Chris. He said he’d tell her he saw Chris giving me a blow job after gym class. But he also said this would be the last time. His dad got a new job, so they’re moving away this summer. I had to do this one thing, and then he’d leave us alone.”
That wasn’t a guarantee. Even if the kid moved away, the reach of the internet was long. It could be enough, though. Hope was enough.
And yet it made everything more complicated—or more personal at least. Hayden’s harasser called him last Saturday while Oliver had been there, sprawled over Nick’s lap, distracting him from his son. If Oliver had stayed home, would Nick have known? Overheard, maybe? Would he have been able to stop it?
“Did you ever try to tell anyone—” Oliver very purposefully didn’t mention Nick’s name, “—about this?”
Hayden shook his head. “Because then Carson would have told everyone about me and Chris. It was my fault. I should have been more careful. Chris was always so worried, but I thought we’d be okay and—I had to fix it. By myself. No one else could help.”
Oliver knew that feeling intimately. He’d spent the last year convinced he needed to rebuild his life on his own, but all that led him to was Seb’s couch with his arms thrown over his face, wondering how it came to this.
Better, though, than Hayden’s situation. The scene at Nick’s made so much more sense. The anger, yes, but the desperation too. The fear because someone else was pulling Hayden’s strings, and he thought he couldn’t tell anyone. Harassment could easily have fuelled the shattered glass of Oliver’s SUV window, scattered around Hayden’s feet. It had been a cry for help, and neither Oliver nor Nick had known what they were seeing.
“He said this would be the last one,” Hayden said softly. “The last time, and then he’d leave me alone.”
“And that’s why you told your dad that you were gay? Because you thought it was almost over.”
Hayden mopped at his face with the pocket square as he nodded. “Because he gets this look on his face when he talks about you. It’s not fair. How come he gets to—and I can’t—” He picked at the tabletop with a fingernail. “Except I guess my timing sucked because now I’m here, and it doesn’t matter.”
It would always matter. Regardless of what happened next, Hayden’s identity would always matter.
“You’ve got me. I’m going to make this better.”
* * *
The sun had gone down by the time they left. Nick felt a hundred years older. He and Anya came back from Oliver’s mandated lunch hour to find Hayden puffy-eyed and miserable while Oliver talked quietly with two police officers. As the story came out, Nick’s body pressed in on itself, his bones aching and his muscles cramping.
At some point, a commotion erupted at the front of the police station, and an officer led in a mean-eyed teenager with a dozen piercings in his lip and nose. He shouted obscenities and called Hayden’s name, even though he couldn’t possibly know Hayden was in the building too. Carson. Now Nick knew who he was, the sight of him made Nick want to burn the place to the ground for hurting his kid. Only Oliver, with his steady presence and confident movements as he helped Hayden write up a statement and spoke with the police, kept Nick on an even keel.
In the end, they let Hayden go home. The bracelet was still on his ankle, but Nick was confident they were going to come to the end of this soon.
“Thanks,” he said to Oliver, as they all stood in the parking lot. “Thank you.”
Oliver smiled at him. He was devastating like this: the dark suit, the white shirt, and thin tie. Throughout this whole terrible day, Oliver had been a pillar of calm. Nick would be grateful until the day he died. Regardless of how Oliver felt about him in a day, a week, a month—and honestly, after the mess of today, Nick didn’t understand how Oliver still hadn’t run for the hills—Nick would love the man in front of him forever.
“We’ll need to get him different representation before his next court date. This isn’t my field, and it’s not a great idea for me to do it with us—” He leaned forward and gently kissed Nick’s temple. “Sorry. Lawyer brain. We’ll talk about it later.”
Too many things Nick wanted to say, but they had an audience, so in the end he squeezed Oliver’s hand and turned to go. Anya was still unsteady, and they also had a lot to talk about, but as he moved toward their car, Anya put a hand on his shoulder. “Where are you going?”
“Home with you guys?”
She kissed his cheek. “Why don’t you go home with Oliver?”
“But—” They had so much to work through.
“He saved us, probably all of us, today. Don’t make him go home alone.”
Nick glanced over his shoulder to where Oliver was walking across the lot toward his SUV. “Are you sure?”
She gave him a gentle shove. “Nothing is changing tonight. We’ll talk in the morning.”
He caught up to Oliver as he was getting into the driver’s seat. Oliver’s eyes widened as Nick climbed in beside him. “What are you doing?”
“Going home with you. If that’s okay.”
Oliver’s smile gleamed in the dark. “More than okay.”
