“I don’t trust you,” he tells me, turning down the music and speeding down the road. “I think you’ll hurt her. I think you’ll get her into a situation that will devastate her.”
He thinks he knows me.
“She acts tough, but everyone’s the same,” he goes on. “They just want someone to love, and when a Jaeger gets attached, it’s as quick as flipping a switch, Clay. It’ll be sudden, and she won’t be able to turn it off.”
A flutter hits my heart, and I’m surprised at myself. I don’t feel that from Liv, but the way he describes it, I really want to.
“I don’t want to hurt her,” I say.
“But you hide her.”
I frown. Everyone gets hurt by love at some point. It’s not my intention, but who knows where the next few weeks will take us. I just want to be here. Today. Now. With her. The future is uncertain. Why worry about it?
“We’re none of your business,” I tell him.
“If I decide it’s my business, it’s my business.” His tone is deep and suddenly biting. “And I’m the nice one, so it would be wise to have this conversation with me and not one of the others.”
“We’re keeping it quiet,” I explain as if he’s entitled to that. “We’re going off to different schools in the fall, and we don’t want others distracting us from what time we have together. Liv agreed.”
“Well, what was she supposed to say? The alternative was demanding you out yourself, which you never would have agreed to, so she took the scraps she could get.” He takes a drag of his cigarette. “She’s used to that.”
That’s not true. Why would he say that? When the choice was either being with someone else—Megan or that ex at the lighthouse—she chose to be with me, knowing I could be using her and I might end up hurting her? It doesn’t make sense.
“Liv is very outspoken,” I point out. “She would’ve raised her concerns. She wouldn’t have sacrificed her pride to be a booty call, if it was a problem.”
“A booty call is better than a long time of nothing,” he fires back. “You get tired of being alone.”
So he’s saying she chose sneaking around with me over a solid relationship because…
Because she likes me. A lot.
That’s what he’s worried about. How much she’s going to tolerate from me just to have a piece.
Liv… While guilt tugs at me that I’m not broadcasting her to the world, I’m a little happy. She really likes me.
“You should take her on a date,” Trace adds. “You should hold her hand.”
I’d love to go anywhere with her. Go everywhere.
But when Callum touches me in public, no one bats an eye. We could be standing on the sidewalk in front of the movie theater, but I can’t stand on the sidewalk in front of the movie theater with my hands on Liv’s waist or my body pressed to hers. It would be a scene. A statement.
And every minute I was out with her, I’d be worrying about everyone looking at us, judging us, talking about us, and I wouldn’t be thinking about her or us. I would only be thinking about that.
“I hate the way things are,” I tell him, “but I’m afraid everything will change. I can’t tell my parents I’m bi…bisexual. I can barely even say the word. And what if I’m not? What if it’s just Liv? There would be no going back. What if I’m confused? What if I’m wrong? I…”
I trail off, my panic evident, but it feels kind of good to let it out. To talk to someone about it other than Liv.
Trace nods. “You shouldn’t tell them you’re bisexual, Clay,” he says. “You’re not.”
Huh?
“I mean, some people are,” he assures. “But I’ve also learned that some people will simply say they’re bisexual rather than gay, because they feel it’s easier on their families.”
I stare at him, his words tumbling around in my head.
“It softens the blow,” he explains. “‘Look, Mom and Dad. Part of me is still normal. I might still marry a guy, have babies, and not completely fucking embarrass you someday.’” He turns to me. “You strike me as the type of person who would give up as little as possible about themselves to maintain the status quo,” he says. “The one who will sacrifice the bare minimum to get what she wants but nothing more.”
I open my mouth to retort, but I clamp it shut again and turn my eyes out the window.
We don’t speak again, and he drops me off at the school a little after seven thirty. I see my truck still in the parking lot, and I head up the stairs in a kind of daze, my head still back in the cab of the truck with him.