Playing for the Other Team (8 page)

“Oh, nothing.” He gave me a wide-eyed look.

“
Jasper
,” I ground out.

“Really, it’s nothing. Well, apart from the fact that this is probably not something you’re gonna want Miss Fisher to look over and grade.”

“Oh God,” I groaned. “Please tell me you’re not…no. You are
not
drawing me naked.”

The evil grin was back and bigger than ever. “You mess with me, sunshine, I’ll mess with you back.”

“You don’t even know what I look like naked.”

“That’s why I’m using my imagination. If you behave yourself, I’ll make it all sexy.”

I groaned again, hid my face in the crook of my elbow as I leaned forward onto the table, and contemplated faking a sudden life-threatening fever.

* * * *

If only for a little while, Jasper had managed to distract me from all the things going on that I was worried about, and I was thankful for it. Even if there would never be anything between us but friendship, I would have gained something major. During the few days we’d gotten to know each other better, he had been an amazing friend. I’d never had a designated best friend before—if pressed on the issue, I would have given the hat to Trip, probably—but I was starting to hope Jasper might want to take on that role if we kept getting along like we were.

Until we went our separate ways in fall, anyway. My gut didn’t enjoy the thought.

We met up after the last bell. Jasper gave me a sunny smile that squeezed my heart like a lemon, and we made our way through the considerable crowd that inevitably formed by the front entrance as everyone tried to be the first to get out of the place for the day.

To my surprise, Jasper didn’t lead me to his car but straight out of the parking lot. I’d never seen him arrive at school but simply assumed he either drove or took the bus. Apparently I had been wrong.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said as we stepped out of the gate and turned onto the equally crowded sidewalk. “It’s a bit of a walk.”

“No problem.” It was actually a nice change not to have to spend half an hour navigating my car around assorted boneheads before being able to leave the lot. “Do you even have a car?”

“I use my mom’s in the winter. And I’ll be getting it permanently for college.”

“Nice,” I said distractedly. A couple of fellow baseball players were hanging out on the other side of the fence, still on school grounds, and they had noticed me with Jasper. Now they were staring. I stared back before raising an eyebrow. As though pulled by synchronized strings, they turned their heads away.

“That bother you?” Jasper had noticed what was distracting me.

“What? A couple of sophomores looking at me funny?”

“Seeing you with me.”

I squinted at him. “Just to clarify, are you asking if I’m embarrassed to be seen with you?”

He was silent for a bit, biting his lip. “Yeah, I guess I am,” he replied then. “You know I’m out. Plenty of people at school do. I used to hold hands with my ex in the hallway in between classes. I wear rainbow bracelets and LGBT-themed shirts sometimes. I had a phase when I ran around wearing lip gloss.”

“I’d hold hands with you if you let me.” The words escaped me before I was able to think about whether they were a good idea. But they were true, and Jasper had a general idea of how I felt about him anyway.

He looked surprised, though. “Would you really?”

It wasn’t even a contest. Assorted random idiots and their opinions would not be able to stand in the way of some quality hand-holding time with Jasper, if only he’d consent. Even if I’d been worried about the backlash it might create at school—and, to be honest, a small part of me
was
—I was out of the place in a few weeks. My mother already hated me. Things couldn’t get any worse on that front either, if word got back to her. The only one I really needed to take aside soon was Trip, before he heard it from Nova.

“Yeah, really,” I finally answered. He didn’t seem to know what to say to that, and it felt a little awkward, so I plowed right on to the next topic. “Lip gloss, huh?”

He laughed at that. “Honestly, I don’t recommend it. You just end up eating it all with your lunch. And that’s kind of gross if you really think about it. I’m not sure how girls go through that all the time.”

“Yeah, gross.” I made a face. “Still, that would have been an interesting sight, you and lip gloss.”

“Maybe I’ll put some on, just for you.”

That simple statement shouldn’t have made me melt, but it totally did.

Just for you.

“I really don’t mean to be teasing you,” he added, and I realized my facial expression must have been giving away my thoughts. “That’d be a pretty fucked-up thing to do after…”

“Turning me down?” I finished for him when he hesitated.

He sighed a little. “I come with way more baggage than you think, sunshine. I’m crap at relationships, but I don’t do casual either. Kinda wish I could, with you.” He gave me a sad, rueful smile. “And either way, even if it miraculously worked out, then we’d still have to say good-bye come fall, and I’d have a hell of a time getting over you. See how that would be unpleasant any way you slice it?”

A painful lump formed in my throat. “So my timing really is horrible, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Jasper said tightly, pressed his lips together, and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Even though he was still right next to me, the distance between us seemed to have increased by about a mile.

We remained silent the rest of the way, twenty minutes of nothing but the sound of traffic. Eventually Jasper turned and led me into a tall apartment building. It was a bleak, impersonal place, not at all how I would have pictured Jasper’s home. Our steps echoed in the empty stairwell as we made our way to the fifth floor. The silence was starting to weigh heavily on me, but I had no idea what to say. It didn’t get much better when he unlocked the door to his place and motioned for me to step inside.

“My mom should be here in about an hour and a half,” Jasper said, shifting uneasily as I glanced at the mostly bare walls. “I think my sister has after-school stuff going on. And, um, my dad…he’ll be here later tonight.”

I studied him mutely. He seemed more awkward than I’d ever seen him before. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was my mere presence in his home. “You know, if you don’t want me to be here, I understand.”

Jasper had lowered his head, but at my words, it shot back up, his eyes widening.

“I get it,” I continued. “If I make you uncomfortable—”

“No,” he interrupted me. “No, I…” He closed his eyes, opened them, took a deep breath, balled his hands into fists, and released them again. “Of course I want you here,” he said roughly. “Of course I… God, Bry.”

I didn’t even register what was happening when he came closer and flung his arms around my neck. When he clung to me, I held him entirely on reflex, and he buried his face in my shoulder and dug his fingers into the muscles of my back as though to emphasize that letting go was not an option. My entire body buzzed with the sudden intimacy, his body against mine. I pressed my mouth and nose to his hair, inhaled his scent, a mixture of something fruity—apple, maybe—and the distinctive, earthy smell of art supplies, of crayons and watercolors and maybe even a hint of clay.

I had no idea why we were embracing, but it felt amazing. I enjoyed it until he finally pulled away.

“Fuck,” he whispered, running his fingers through his hair and making me want to do the same. “Sorry. I’m kind of, I don’t even know. Let’s just…um, my room?”

He led me to a door, opened it, and motioned for me to enter ahead of him.

I took one step into Jasper’s bedroom and said, “Holy shit!”

He laughed out loud at my reaction, which was a welcome sound after his little freak-out. “You like it?”

The four walls of his room had been painted in vivid colors, each depicting a different season. It was just nature itself, no houses or other signs of human presence anywhere in the mural.

I looked first at summer, the south wall. Lush greenery, a glittering lake, and a deep blue sky made me want to walk right into the mural. Every leaf and twig had been rendered in jaw-dropping detail. On the right, near the corner, the scene began its slow transformation into fall.

The west wall was alight with the rich, earthy hues of slowly dying leaves. At the bottom, just above the baseboard, they were collecting in heaps and piles. They too were stunningly realistic. They looked like they would make that beautiful crunching noise if anyone stepped on them, like any moment, a little girl in rain boots would come sloshing through the painting and send them all flying.

Then winter, everything covered in snow, icicles hanging from tree branches, ice crystals glittering in the cool sunlight. Farther right, the snow seemed to be melting, and after the turn of the last corner, shy blossoms started to appear and transformed the bleakness into yet another scene of utter beauty.

I wanted to cry. It was that stunning.

“Wow,” I breathed and turned to Jasper, who had not said anything after his question. He seemed to sense that I needed a moment to take it all in. “That…how long did that take you?”

“About a year, on and off.” He was smiling at me in a calm, serene way. “After the background was all done, I just moved my furniture around so I could work on whatever part I felt like working on.”

“It’s absolutely amazing.”

I closed in on winter and realized at once that there was far more detail than I’d been able to take in at first. Things like a small tree branch with dark red berries, glittering with frost, sets of deer tracks in the snow, a lone squirrel hiding in the trees.

“Thank you,” Jasper said, sounding surprisingly shy. He wasn’t generally quite that modest about his art, and I turned toward him, taken aback. He caught my look and stepped closer.

“It keeps me sane,” he said so quietly I could barely make out the words. “Painting it, and now just looking at it. It’s my own…” He glanced at me. “Space,” he finished hesitantly.

World
, I silently corrected, using the word I knew he’d choked back. And I understood, saw the room for what it was—a refuge, a place where the rest of the world wasn’t real, where everything bad could just go away for a while. I had used to imagine something like it occasionally, when pressure and stress and anxiety got the better of me. I was sure lots of people had a place like that. Jasper had painted his.

“You spend a lot of time here.” It wasn’t a question. Jasper nodded anyway. And suddenly two separate realizations hit me at full force.

One was the reason why he was acting so subdued. If this was his refuge, he wasn’t likely to bring a lot of people here, but I
was
here, standing in the middle of his safe haven, and it seemed like he was holding his breath, hoping I wouldn’t tear it down.

Two was the much simpler thought that he had created this complex refuge for a reason: he needed it. And I wondered why.

“I could stand here and look at this all day,” I said carefully, watching Jasper’s face. His smile became marginally bigger. “I can see why—”

—you feel safe here
. I didn’t say it out loud. He hadn’t attested to the fact in words, and obvious as it was, I didn’t think he would like it very much if I flung it out into the open. So the unfinished sentence hung in the air, unacknowledged.

Trying to ignore it, I sat down on the floor. I felt like it was the natural thing to do. Then I promptly felt silly, seeing as how there was a worn yet perfectly good futon sitting up against the spring wall. Before I could make a move toward it, however, Jasper came down to the floor as well. He was giving me that small smile again as he crossed his legs, that earnest, approving, content, yet strangely shy smile that made me feel more connected with him every time I saw it.

“So,” he finally broke the silence, “you want to talk about how you cleverly outed yourself earlier today?”

I groaned. “Don’t remind me.” I drew my arms up around my torso as though I were cold, and wished he hadn’t decided to lead with that topic.

“I doubt it’s gonna go away if you ignore it, Bry,” he pointed out gently. “That and the thing with your mom. It’ll turn out okay in the end. I promise, baby. But we have to talk about it.”

I blinked. Had he just called me
baby?
Scrutinizing his face, I couldn’t find anything that indicated he had misspoken. Maybe he hadn’t even noticed.

“Have you seen your mom at all since…” Jasper made a small, vague hand gesture. “You know.”

“No.” I knew I sounded bitter and didn’t care. “She avoided me this morning. Guess I should prepare myself for getting kicked out or whatever.”

I didn’t really think she would do that—but then again, I also hadn’t expected her to slap me when I came out to her. The realization left me off-balance.

“Talk to her again tonight.”

When I opened my mouth to protest, Jasper pressed his finger to my lips and looked at me sternly. “She’s had a day to get used to the idea. A lot of what happened might have been the initial shock of it. Think back to how freaked out
you
were when you first told me. Talk to her. Tell her you need her support. Tell her that her reaction hurt you, but give her a chance to get it together. Give her a chance. Can you do that?”

I lowered my gaze. “Maybe.”

“Please, Bryson.”

“I said maybe.”

Jasper rolled his eyes but didn’t press further. I turned my head fully away from him and then sank back until I was lying flat on the carpet. Even the ceiling had been painted a light sky blue that matched the top of the walls. I tried to lose myself in it so I could forget all about my mom, about my anxiety that seemed to be getting more severe by the second.

A small, tender brush against my forearm nearly made me shudder. I suppressed it just in time and glanced at Jasper, who had rolled over onto his side, facing me. He’d propped his head onto his arm and seemed about to withdraw his hand but then hesitated.

“You okay?” His hand descended onto my waist in a gesture that wasn’t exactly a hug, and that only made me yearn harder for a source of actual comfort. I swallowed hard.