“Where thehellis myfucking brother?” Taylor spat. “If he isn’t back in school by Monday then they’re calling DCFS. He could get arrested for truancy, Jake.Fucking arrested.” Jesse couldn’t get in trouble again. He had a full ride to Georgetown. He couldn’t lose it.
Jacob scoffed. “Chill the fuck out,darling,” he said coolly. It made Taylor grimace. “I’ll tell Mandy you reached out and make sure she gives you a call back. Jesse’s seventeen. He’s old enough to know that his actions have consequences.”
“You need to leave him alone,” Taylor barked. “I swear to God if I find out you’ve laid a finger on him then I will fly down and beat you to a fucking pulp.Do youremember what happened last time?Do you,Jake?” Taylor took a deep breath. He was seeing red, and he needed to think with his head on straight if he was going to ever get a hold of Jesse to make sure he was okay.
“You know I would never,” Jacob snickered. “The kid’s strong. You’ve got nothing to worry about,darling.” And then he hung up.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Taylor shouted to himself. He quickly shot Sánchez a text saying he wouldn’t make it to breakfast. He needed to find Gretchen.
Gretchen would know what to do.
19
The Altercation
“You’re putting a divot in the ice, Piers,” Roca called out beside Taylor at practice later that morning.
Taylor quickly fixed it with his skate. “Sorry, I get antsy when I don’t eat,” Taylor told him with a huff. He was still on edge after his phone call earlier.
He had spoken to Gretchen who told him that she would do everything she could to help. She had some social worker connections from the hospital who had some connections to some people in Sacramento. He also called in a wellness check. Partly as a warning to Jacob to show him he wasn’t the one to be messed with. Not anymore.
“I thought you were going to get breakfast before practice with Douglas and my cousin,” Roca told him. Taylor shook his head.
“I wanted to sleep in this morning,” he lied. “Were you supposed to go too?”
Roca nodded, then shrugged. “I wanted to, but I still can’treally keep my anger in check around Douglas. You know him and my sister broke up a few days ago, right?”
Taylor sighed. “Yeah, I heard. That sucks, man. I hope Corinna is taking it okay.”
Roca raised an eyebrow at him. “Wait, you don’t know why they broke up?”
“Uhh, no. Not really. Douglas said they were just incompatible or something.” Taylor grabbed his water bottle and took a sip of water.
Roca scoffed and rolled his eyes. “They’re incompatible because he made my sister gay.”
Taylor choked on his water, spitting it out onto the ice. “What?” he asked him incredulously. That sounded insane.
“You seriously don’t know?”
Taylor shook his head. “When Corinna came to Boston to watch the game, she apparently went out and hooked up with another girl,” Roca told him with an edge of disgust. “Wait, you were there, right?”
Taylor nodded, trying to think of who he was with last night. The only other girls in their group besides Corinna were Briar and… “Holy shit. She slept with Emogen?”
“You know her?” Roca asked, confused.
“She’s my ex-girlfriend from high school. She lives in Boston. She came out with us that night after the game.”
“Your ex is gay?”
Taylor shrugged. “I mean I guess so. We still hook up from time to time, but she told me she likes girls too.”
What the hell happened in Boston that night? Taylor tried to remember the last time he spoke to her that night, but he couldn’t remember much outside of the rage he felt when Fletcher…
“So she cheated on Douglas?” Taylor asked, confused.
“Dude, no. She and Douglas were having threesomes. But then she met the girl— Emogen. And I guess she decided she wasn’t into guys anymore or something.”
“So why are you upset with Douglas? Isn’t he the one who was cheated on?”
