AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"Sure it has," Jakob said hesitantly, trying to feel his way. "Nature of time, isn't it? Both of us… we've grown older. With any luck we’ve grown something like wiser too, maybe. Or at least, less likely to make the same obvious mistakes again. But still… Change can be good, right?"
Ethan only hummed, the sound low and lonely.
"Ethan?" Jakob asked, feeling a hollow expanding in his chest as he turned to watch his friend. Desperately, he hoped he hadn't read this all wrong; that he hadn't seen an open window where there was only an unscalable wall…
"What… What happened back then, Jakob? Why — Why'd you…" Ethan trailed off. His eyes were locked on a point some way out past the riding ring, Adam's Apple bobbing as if he was swallowing down the rest of what he wanted to ask.
Oh. They were havingthisconversation, were they?
But maybe…
… maybe it was long past due.
"…Why did I leave?" Jakob finished the question for him in a whisper, feeling like his voice might crack from the strain of even that much. He searched Ethan's expression for clues, alert to the slightest hint of a flicker from that oh-so-familiar profile.
"Yeah," Ethan answered him with a sigh, his shoulders slumping as he rubbed at the back of his neck. His forearm blocked the early morning rays of the sun, casting his face into deep shadow.
Jakob clenched his hands tightly around his mug. His fingers practically itched to trace the downward curve of Ethan's lips, to smooth away those worry lines etching their way across his brow. To fix all of Ethan's problems for him, if only just to bring out that easy grin of his once more.
"I was… I got… scared," Jakob finally admitted into the silence, knowing Ethan deserved some sort of answer after all these years. Realizing there was no possibility of anything like a future between them until they had gone and dealt with the past. "I was young and dumb and I… I ran. And then… I — Ikeptrunning. Ran all the way to… well, some places I can't tell you about, all on the government's dime. Enlisted before I'd even realized what I had done."
"Shit," Ethan huffed, his eyes wide and startled. "You could have just told me, Jakob. I — we could've just gone back to how it was; forgotten all about it, gone back to before. Chalked it up to one more stupid mistake — "
"Don't,"Jakob warned sharply.
"Don't what?" Ethan said, sounding lost.
"Don't… don't call it a mistake," Jakob answered him in a quiet voice, ducking his head. "Themistakewas when I let myself get all twisted up, and ran off on you the next morning, not… I just — I don't want to call that night a mistake, alright?"
Ethan turned towards him, watching Jakob now with wild eyes. "I scared you intojoining the army, Jakob. I'm not certain what else to call it."
"Marines," Jakob couldn't help but correct him in a soft voice; fingers picking at the blanket around his shoulders, worrying at the weave.
"Sure,Marines," Ethan spat, the 'whatever' ringing loud and clear. "That's just the where. Sure as hell doesn't explain what the hellhappened, Jakob?"
Jakob swallowed hard at the expression on Ethan's face, before looking away with a sigh.
Chapter 27
He still remembered how it had felt to wake up that morning, mind sleep-fogged and confused. Wrapped up in Ethan's own blankets, wrapped up inEthan.His best friend softly snoring away next to him, just like on countless sleepovers growing up.
But… But something was — was different this time.
Verydifferent.
Blinking there in the early light spilling through the open curtains of their shared college dorm room, the brightness of it doing nothing good for the pounding of his head.
Blearily staring at the sight of his own empty bed across the room; trying to work out why it was overthere,buthewas overhere…
Snatches of the night before filtering slowly through his brain then — of limbs and lips and tongues and fingers and hands and… and…and —
Heat blossomed through his body as the memories became more intense; clear as a bell whatexactlyit was they had gotten up to the previous evening.
Jakob shifted, taking stock.
There was the ache of his muscles rousing, all accounting for their exertions last night. The feeling of…
Hmm.
