AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Blair stands, tall and lean, staring down at us with nothing but kindness and patience.
“It’s not a problem. I just took off from my shift a bit early.”
Blair works a couple different jobs around campus. I’ve seen him tutoring in the library, waiting tables at a diner down the road, stocking shelves at one of the mini-marts; there aren’t many places I haven’t seen him at least once. Which means I see him around pretty regularly.
“Can you get him into the backseat or do we need to tag team it?”
Now that half of my body is no longer tingling from Shiloh’s weight, I feel fine. However long I dozed for seems to have knocked off what little bit of a buzz I was starting to get. I stand and stretch, meeting Blair’s eyes as he runs both his hands through his hair and noticing the red bags etched deep under them.
“You not getting much sleep?” I ask as I bend down to hoist Shiloh into my arms. He grumbles a little, head flopping onto my shoulder, but he doesn’t wake up.
“Worked a double. No classes today.”
By all intents and purposes, Blair should have graduated last year, but Shiloh said something about him only being a part time student so it’s taking longer.
Blair opens the back door of his beat up old Buick with paint chipping everywhere, and I lay Shiloh across the seat, taking Blair’s hoodie when it’s offered to ball into a pillow of sorts before shutting the door and resting my head on the roof.
“Fuck.” I roll the heel of my palms over my eyes and curse under my breath. “He’s never going to make it to class in the morning.”
A warm hand lands on my shoulder, pressing into the tense muscle there and digging in. “Tomorrow’s Saturday.”
“I know.” I lean into the touch, catching Blair’s eye as I lay my cheek on the hood of his car. “Self-Defense class. He’s got a few new students signed up because they can’t make it during the week. I’ll have to call his co-instructor and see if they can take over for him. Shit, he’s going to kill me.”
“It’s not your fault he drank himself into what’s going to be a monster of a hangover. He knows he’s not supposed to mix that much alcohol with his meds.”
I turn, shaking off his hand and staring up at the dark, expansive sky.
“I invited him to this party. I knew there’d be booze, and I knew he’d partake. I just thought I could keep an eye on him. And he was fine. But some dickhead had to go and break Shiloh’s number one rule and he lost his shit, and—”
“Is he okay?”
I shake my head, then sigh at the worried glance Blair sends my way.
“Black eye and bloody nose. But no, the guy didn’t touch him otherwise. Just made a gross-ass comment.”
Blair motions to the passenger door, and I climb in as he rounds to the driver’s side.
“I told you,” he says as he buckles his seatbelt and switches the idling car from parked to drive. “There might be a strong queer community here, but we still live in the fucking backwoods of the south. It’s the asshole home ground. You two should have headed out west.”
I throw my head back on the seat. This isn’t the first and sure as hell won’t be the last time we have this conversation with Blair.
“With what money? Maybe we can give it a try once we’ve got our Bachelors under our belts. Get jobs over there that can support it.”
“I would have found a way to cover it.”
“Blair.”
He already works himself to the bone. I can see it in the sag of his shoulders, in the droop of his eyes, and the way his hands shake with clear exhaustion on the wheel. If stress were ever going to take years off someone’s life, it would be Blair’s.
“How’s your dad?” I ask, knowing that this argument is going nowhere along with the fact that Blair is the only one of the two Novak siblings who’s still in contact with the miserable old man.
His fingers tighten on the steering wheel, and the sound of his sigh echoes through the car. “You don’t have to pretend to care. I know you hate him as much as Shiloh does.”
I can’t say I hate the guy specifically. I hardly ever saw him in more than passing. Shiloh preferred to hide out at my house with my bajillion siblings. But I can say that I hate the way he’s treated his kids. It was like Shiloh didn’t exist, and Blair was either a nuisance or the man’s personal ATM.
“I don’t hate him. I don’t really know him. Just…” I shrug. “Don’t know why you don’t, you know?”
“It’s complicated.”
