“I dunno man, but I’m going to need you to put that thing away before it eats me,” Cade says, pointing at my dick with his entire arm outstretched.
“Aw, this little guy?” I say, giving my flaccid dick an affectionate pat. “Don’t worry, he’s not aggressive.”
Our friends around us laugh, but as I’m pulling on my boxer briefs, fucking Pierce Jamison has to throw his two cents in.
“That’s no surprise. I hear whiskey dick can become a permanent issue. But I guess if you’re the one getting pounded, you don’t need to be able to get it up.”
“You’re the least equipped person here to know anything about that, Jamison,” I say as sweetly as possible, deliberately cutting my eyes down towards his crotch with emphasized faux sympathy.
“Quit looking at my dick, fucking perv.”
“There’s nothing to look at from where I’m standing.”
Pierce looks like a cartoon bomb about to go off, smoke practically coming out of his ears. His face is almost purple, and the way he’s holding his breath makes him look constipated.
“Now feels like a good time for you to pick a fight with someone bigger than you. Or maybe say something obnoxious and homophobic again, if you’re looking to make a bigger ass ofyourself,” I say casually, giving him my back to pull some clothes from my locker.
“Fuck you, Miller. We all know you’re one bad week away from drinking yourself into an early grave just like your old man.”
“Pierce!” Sean barks, his voice bigger than his usually quiet demeanor would suggest. It’s enough to get everyone’s attention.
Of all people, Beck steps between the guys who have crowded around to watch the spectacle. He must have slipped in when everyone was paying attention to the showdown.
“That’s enough, Jamison. That was out of line, and you know it.” He stares him down. “Sit your ass down before you embarrass this team any further.”
Then he turns those deep brown eyes on me, just as stern and with every bit of anger and animosity he’s held for me all year. “For fuck’s sake, Miller, put some goddamn pants on.”
Cade snorts, and several others burst out laughing. Beck turns back to his locker, and the rest of the room settles into their normal after-dual routines.
Not an hour later, I bombard Beck on his way back from lunch with his roommates, pushing him into our favorite stairwell, and dropping to my knees.
CHAPTER 19
BECK
I miss a day of classes, and I know I’ll pay for it later, but when the care home calls to say Ms. Delia is having a reasonably lucid day, I don’t even think twice. I drop everything and make the forty-minute drive to spend as much time with my true family as I can.
Visiting with Ms. Delia, even when she can’t remember my name or isn’t quite sure where or when she is, is no hardship. She’s always pleasant, even when it’s clear that she’s confused or when she randomly realizes I’m not my father. That’s usually the only time I have to break her reality. I never correct her unless she’s distressed, but I can’t stand seeing her look at me with thinly veiled disappointment while she tells me I ought to spend more time with my son or asks if Mrs. Beckett plans to come in and hold the baby today. Most of the time, she’s asking me if I want her to make me some mashed potatoes and peas or asking about my friends from middle school. At her worst, she’s quiet and tired a lot. Those days we listen to music or I read to her from her stack of Jane Austen and Bronte novels.
But the days when I walk through the doors and see her eyes light up with recognition, pride, and surprised tears in her eyesover seeing how much I’ve grown since the last time she can remember, every hug and minute spent chatting with her means so much more.
We’re sitting in the sunroom attached to her suite, a tiny room with big windows and daffodil-yellow painted walls. It’s just big enough for a tiny round tea table, two chairs, and a row of plant holders below the windows. There are hanging plants, plus a small terrarium of succulents we made together over a year ago on the small table. It’s as warm as a greenhouse in this little alcove of her bedroom, and I’m sitting back, watching her fuss over her plants like they’re babies, humming under her breath as she spritzes the leaves.
She glances over her shoulder. “You’re quiet today, Linc,” she says. “Is everything alright with school? I can’t believe you’re a junior in college already. It’s like I blinked and you grew up.” She pauses thoughtfully. “Then again, most of the time I don’t know what year it is, so who knows? Tomorrow you might walk in here a married man with two-point-five kids and a potbelly.”
It'd be sad if she weren’t snickering at her own joke. This is how I know she’s fully here with me. As much as it hurts to know she’s lost time and missed things, she always falls back into her old self, joking and making light of things that feel too heavy. It’s a personality trait of hers that greatly benefitted me growing up. I always took everything so seriously, even more so than I do now.
“I’m not sure that’s in the cards for me,” I laugh.
She makes a ‘pish-posh’ sound that always made me giggle as a kid. “You’re still quite young to worry about things like that. You’ll meet someone someday, and all kinds of possibilities will open up for you. Maybe not the potbelly, and maybe not kids if you don’t want them. Hell, not even marriage. Lord knows Iwasn’t interested in that. But you’ll find love and build your own kind of family.” She reaches out and lays her hand on mine, soft and warm. “I found one kind of love when I was young, and I let it get away from me. But I found a family and a new kind of love when your parents brought you home.”
However cold my parents were, whatever pressure I felt to be and act a certain way, Ms. Delia was always my safe space. The one person I knew I could go to, who sheltered and truly cared for me.
My eyes fill with tears. “I love you, Ms. Delia.”
Her hand squeezes mine, a tear falling from her watery grey eyes. She rarely cries, even when her disease has taken her through her worst days. “I love you, child. And I hope you know that I mean that unconditionally.”
I swallow a lump that threatens to suffocate me.
