American Love Songs (21 page)

Someone up there obviously hated Jake, because his phone started ringing then. It was Mikes ringtone. He looked up at Chris and Jimmy for a second, all the anger sucked right out of him, and Chris took pity on him and held out his hand. “Ill deal with Mike. You get to deal with Parker.”

Jake had no illusions that he was getting off easily, but he was absurdly grateful anyway. He passed Chris the phone without a word and made his way further into the house, to Parkers bedroom.

There was no answer when he knocked, and the door was locked, but there was always one of those stupid little keys above the door in places like this, especially rentals, so he let himself in.

“Fuck off, Jake,” Parker said flatly. The room was dark, and Jake could just make him out, sprawled on his back on the bed.

“No. No way. This is too important, Parker.” Maybe he wasnt angry anymore, but his skin did still feel wrong, and he couldnt figure out what to do with himself. Figuring if Parker was going to hit him, he might as well get it over with, he sat on the edge of the bed. “Why the hell didnt you tell me?”

He realized belatedly that he was angry because he was fucking
hurt
. Hed never kept anything from Parker—certainly nothing like this. He had spent all that time thinking Parker had freaked out and rejected him because he was straight, and he could deal with that, much as it had fucking sucked. But that wasnt what it was. Parker was gay; he just didnt want him. It hurt more than it should have, almost as much as not being trusted.

Parker didnt trust him.

 

Fuck, Parker didnt
trust
him. After everything theyd been through.

 

“Its not what youre thinking,” Parker said.

He sounded awful. Jake sank a little deeper into self-loathing. Something this huge, and he couldnt help but make it about him when it really, really wasnt. “How could you possibly know what Im thinking?”

“Because I know you, Jake. Youre not hard to read, okay?” “What am I thinking, then?” Jake challenged, because at least one of them ought to know, and hed really like if he were in on it. “Youre pissed because I didnt tell you I was gay, but Ive known about you since the day we met.”

That wasnt the half of it, but it was a decent start. “„Pissed isnt exactly the word,” Jake began, not sure he was ready to have this conversation or even exactly what this conversation was, only that it had been a long time coming.

“I promise you I had a lot of good reasons,” Parker said. Jake couldnt see his face because he had his arm thrown over his eyes, and his voice was muffled.

“If you can come up with even one, Im all ears.” Jake didnt realize how bitter he felt until the words came out of his mouth and damn near burned his ears out, they were so acidic.

He was such a shitheel. Fuck.

 

“If this could not be about you for two seconds, that would be really awesome.”

Barely resisting the urge to swear again, Jake took a deep breath, let it out as slowly as he could, and groaned as he flopped onto his face on the bed beside Parker. “Could you just hit me already so I can stop feeling guilty and get on with making you feel better?”

“Screw that, if I have to feel like a jerk, so do you.”

That was fair, and Jake might be imagining it, but he thought he detected a hint of amusement in Parkers voice, anyway. The bed shifted, and a pillow came down hard on the back of his head, which was a start. “So youre gay,” Jake said a little more cheerfully, rolling onto his back. He didnt look at Parker; he knew how Parker got at times like this. Instead, he stared up at the ceiling, pretending to count the tiles. “Thats new.”

“Not really. Ive known for a while.”

No shit,
Jake thought,
if people in his hometown know about it and he hasn’t been back there in years.
“Yeah. You want to tell me that story?”

Breathing so deeply Jake could hear it, Parker turned on one side. Toward Jake or away from him, he wasnt sure; he didnt move yet. “I kind of already did.”

Jake couldnt help but take the bait. He tilted his head to the side. Parker had his face turned toward him, but his eyes were fixed on something across the room, like he didnt want to see Jakes reaction. “Well, my memory must be going,” Jake joked, “because youd think Id remember a little conversation like my best friend coming out to me.”

“Yeah, see, I may have left that part out.”
Jake raised his eyebrows pointedly.

Parker might not have been looking at him, but he didnt miss the significance of the silence. “Remember when I told you how I got into writing rock songs instead of hymns?”

Jake remembered. They had been laid out on hotel beds almost like they were now, but under the covers. “You said you had to take a class—modern composition—and you fell in love. I always assumed you meant with the music.”

“That too,” Parker admitted drily, turning again so he was on his back. Jake didnt feel strange watching him like this, so he didnt move. “I meant with the class TA, but I couldnt just come out and say it. Um, no pun intended. I was hoping really hard that you might guess.”

“Why?” Jake was genuinely confused. “You knew I wouldnt care. Why couldnt you tell me?”

“I wanted to,” Parker confessed. “But it was hard. It would have been hard any time after that first week, you know? I sort of always thought youd be mad I didnt reciprocate right at the beginning, and it wasnt like there was anyone in my life. There was no real reason to tell anyone.”

“Other than trust and honesty, you mean.” Jake was trying really hard, he was, but he wasnt perfect, and hed have had to be a saint to let this go so easily.

“Aside from those very good reasons, yes.”

 

Jake sighed deeply, feeling his hand throb in its cold, wet towel. “Okay.”

 

“„Okay? Thats it?”

“What am I going to do, tell Chris to throw you out of the band for being gay? That would be a little hypocritical of me, dont you think? This doesnt change anything, Parker. Well, okay, it probably will change things for you, I shouldnt lie about that, and it will probably suck. But it doesnt change things between us, okay?” No matter how much Jake was beginning to suspect he wanted it to. Shit.

“Okay.” Parker sat up and pulled his legs under him like a kindergartner; his feet must have been cold. “So what do we do now?” “Probably you should give an interview where you reassert the fact that no matter how gay you are, were still not sleeping together.” At the word “interview,” Parkers face scrunched up adorably. “Cant you do it?”

“No,” Jake said patiently, despite his initial impulse to do whatever Parker needed him to. He did his best to subvert the bitterness that lay beneath the surface of his explanation. “I already
told
the world you wouldnt sleep with me. Now theyre going to need to hear it from you.”

“The world has a completely unhealthy interest in our love lives.”

Jake snorted. “The world has a completely understandable interest in
your
love life, dumbass. Looked in a mirror lately? You cant be pretty and talented and boring. At least, not to the general public.”

“Ugh.” Parker buried his face in his hands. “So, interview. Then what?”

“Well, people are going to want to know why you dont talk to your family anymore, so thats going to suck. Youre going to have to talk about that too. Maybe we can just put something up on the website, point out that you talk to your sister all the time?” That reminded him that he was going to have to call Mickey back, make sure she was okay, and tell her that Parker was currently having a breakdown.

Awesome.

 

“Why couldnt I just have been born ugly?” Parker lamented, shifting to cover his feet more fully. “Then nobody would care.”

“Your priorities are so fucked up.” Jake dragged himself into a sitting position, yanking the throw blanket from under the pillow he was using and tossing it over Parkers lap. “Come on. Its not that bad, I promise.”

Parker cheered up a little, and Jake knew he was making a sincere effort, but he shook his head anyway as he tucked the blanket around his legs. “Everyones going to think were….”

“Dude, everyone already thinks were fucking.” So they were back to this topic of conversation again. Jake really wished his dick came with an “off” switch, because talking to Parker about how much sex they were not having always reminded him of the times they almost
had
. Sometimes Jake was half-certain even Chris and Jimmy thought they were doing it, but then he realized that if Chris really thought that, hed have a size eleven boot up his ass, no questions asked. “I am powerless to stop them. And I mean, its kind of cute that our fans think Im so irresistible.”

“You just encourage them,” Parker pointed out, and Jake flinched a little at the barely concealed venom in his tone. “With your stupid blog—Jesus, its no wonder they all think that. I mean, do you have to—”

“What?” Jake prompted when Parker didnt finish the sentence. There was a gnawing little knot in his stomach warning him not to push, but they had got this far, and he couldnt help it. He needed to know what the hell had been eating at his friend. “You got something to say to me, Parker?”

Parker pressed his lips into a thin line, and then he looked up, green eyes sharp and piercing behind the lenses of his glasses. “Yeah,” he said finally, and Jake swallowed, looking away, focusing on the way Parkers hands were balled into fists on top of the blanket. “Maybe I do. Do you have to update the entire world on the status of your neverending quest to get into my pants? Isnt that a little juvenile? Im not a fucking piece of meat, Jake!”

So taken aback he could barely even think, let alone form a coherent sentence, Jake stared at him with his mouth hanging open for a long while. Ten minutes ago, he had thought he couldnt feel any worse. Now he knew just how wrong he was. Fuck. If that was what Parker thought, then it was no wonder he had freaked out when Jake kissed him.

But why shouldnt Parker think that? After all, Jake had a reputation, and it wasnt like hed hidden his string of meaningless onenight stands from his best friend any more than he had tried to hide them from the press. Until just recently, even Jake had had no idea he wanted more than that.

This officially sucked a lot.

“Good talk,” Jake managed at last, voice strangled. He was suddenly terrified that he might start to cry, and he needed to get out of there right the fuck now. “Im just gonna—yeah.” He rolled off the bed and did his best not to run out the door, but he knew he wasnt doing a very good job, because the next thing he was aware of, he was locked in the bathroom, back against the door, breathing too fast with his head between his knees. He hadnt had a panic attack since he got locked in the cellar when he was eight years old.

With his arms around his legs, he pressed his face into his knees and tried to remind himself that he actually could breathe, that the tight bands around his chest werent really there. He curled his trembling fingers into the fabric of his jeans, ignoring the throbbing from his injured right hand, and started counting his breaths, measuring each one. It helped a little, but he wasnt going to be getting up any time soon, not with the way his stomach was lurching.

He broke out into a sweat, feeling it prickle in his hair and on the back of his neck, and a sudden bout of dizziness had him slowly leaning to one side until he was curled up on the floor, knees still hugged to his chest. The cool tile of the floor felt good on his face, and he relaxed a little bit, breathing a bit deeper.

Isn’t that a little juvenile?

Jakes breath caught in the back of his throat, and Jesus Christ, he was not going to cry
on top of
having a panic attack. He couldnt. Hed drown in tears and snot. But apparently his body wasnt listening to him, it was listening to Parkers words on repeat over and over in his head, telling him what a dickhead he was and that he would never, ever be good enough. Squeezing his eyes shut tight didnt stem the flow of tears, but at least he didnt have to see the evidence. He hitched again, whole body jerking when he tried to inhale, and the sob that escaped his mouth as he tried to breathe filled the whole room.

There was nothing to do but ride it out, so he lay there without moving, counting every breath and trying to tune out the broken record in his head that sounded like Parker.

But he couldnt, and the more he heard, the more he was forced to face the ugly truth: he was in love with Parker, had been for a while, and because he was too goddamned stubborn to admit it, hed fucked it up big time.

He really should have stuck to his guns with that whole tooyoung-to-fall-in-love thing.

A knock on the door behind him shocked him out of his small little world for a minute, and Jake heard Jimmys voice, muffled through the door. “Jake? You wanna open this door for me, dude?”

Jake really, really didnt, not with the way Jimmyd been seeing through him lately. He put his head back on the floor and went back to counting his breaths, starting over at one.

“Jake, open the goddamned door!”

It was Chris this time. Great, they were tag-teaming him. At least they didnt have much chance of getting the one person hed actually
open
it for. Jake breathed into his jeans, swallowing against the lump in his throat.

He could hear the shifting of the floorboards outside the door, and he knew distantly that Jimmy and Chris were talking about him. He tuned it out, the bands around his chest easing, though he still felt like hed been hit with a truck and the nausea was rising like the tide in his belly. Soon he was going to have to make a decision to move or risk throwing up all over himself.

A third knock on the door made the decision for him. The second he heard Parkers voice, he couldnt hold it anymore, and he desperately clawed his way across the floor to retch into the toilet, bringing up lunchs pizza pockets and some of the banana he had at breakfast. Banana was really not a food that came up well, he discovered, and it sure as hell didnt mix with second-hand pizza pockets. Squeezing his eyes shut again, face wet with sweat and tears, Jake prayed Parker wouldnt use his own trick on him and unlock the door.

It was a vain prayer, of course, though Parker had the good sense to stay on the other side of the room. Jake didnt look at him, didnt want to deal with the knowledge that Parker had seen him lose his shit over a fucking argument, so he focused on keeping his stomach from careening up his trachea again and breathed deeply through his nose. Weakly, he reached up with his right hand and flushed the toilet.