“What if I’m not any good?”
“With parents who have amazing pipes, you’re bound to have your own. Plus, you’ve been on stage, you have a crisp and unique rasp to your voice. It’s timeless.”
I couldn’t get over how much I felt when he said these words to me, but I felt complete for once in my life.
“I love you, Dad.”
“I love you too, kiddo. Always.”
Chapter Three
Rainy Day – Ice Nine Kills
Madden
After brunch, Dad dropped me off at Carson’s, taking Mom’s Viper home. I’d be leaving for Andy’s tomorrow morning and wanted to say goodbye to my best friend.
“Yo, loser,” he called as soon as he answered the door. I smirked as he let me inside his house. Carson Patel was the only friend of mine who knew my dad. Not Royce—who everyone thought was my dad—but Dox Reaver, the famous musician.
Usually, I avoided the parent conversation, but Cars was different. He didn’t have a fanboy bone in his body, and it solidified our friendship. We clicked. It was hard to find people who were genuine and I thanked my lucky stars for him every single day.
“I’ll be heading to Andy’s for the next few months,” I grumbled in admission, climbing the stairs to his room. While the prospect of being with Andy was something I’d yearned for, not seeing my parents or Cars wounded me like no other. He kept me sane, making sure we held both our demons at bay.
Andy would keep me busy, and hopefully wouldn’t catch on to the crush I’ve yet to let go of. It festered, the softness of her cheeks, the way her plump lips moved as she spoke about her passions, it got me into trouble.
Cars’s cedar and gossamer green eyes connected with mine. It took me all of five seconds to realize he was staring at my bruised face and not reacting to my moving away. My fists were much worse than my face, but they weren’t constantly in everyone’s line of sight.
Did I mention the asshole I pulled off Tammy sucker punched me? My skin was still purple from the hit. But him? He was in the hospital and learned a valuable lesson; he’d never fucking touch someone without their consent again.
“I’ll be fine,” I reassured him, watching as he gawked openly. Speechlessness didn’t come often for him, but he seemed worried. Cars wasn’t one for violence. With his delicate yet sharp features and kind eyes, he mirrored a teddy bear and not a vicious beast.
“I heard it was bad from Ilya, but I didn’t realize your face looked this discolored,” he said, reaching for said face. His fingers hovered above the purple. It wasn’t like I was unused to bruises. Fighting was my first instinct over talking it out, and the entire school knew it.
I shrugged. “Could’ve been worse. He could be dead, and I’d be in prison. So, we’re good.”
Blinking slowly, he finally touched my face. “What did Tony do?” Giving him a slighted brow and questionable expression, showing how obvious it was, he nodded. “Who to this time?”
“Tam,” I responded, and he nodded solemnly, biting the inside of his cheek. “I’d been leaving the lunchroom to ditch social studies to smoke. He was on top of her behind the building as she whimpered for him to stop...” I trailed off, allowing the silence to speak for words that didn’t need repeating.
“Fuck,” he hissed, shaking his head. “Is she okay?”
Rubbing my chin, I contemplated the question. Sure, she didn’t get raped, but fuck, that kind of trauma didn’t just go away. Saying she was fine would be cruel, she didn’t deserve for it to be brushed off. “Honestly, I’m not sure. It might haunt her forever.” With those words, we both sat in silence for a moment.
Men took advantage of women daily, but when they started out young like Tony and his fucks for friends, they only worsened and did it more frequently.
Hopefully, this taught him a lesson, and there was no doubt my parents would be writing a massive check so I didn’t have this on my record. Sending me to Andy probably had more to do with hiding me than having a babysitter. I stopped needing a babysitter when they started being attractive to me. I didn’t have them watching me, instead, I watched them as we got off together.
“I can’t believe you’re ditching me,” he finally offered. Cars would always be my number one. No matter what happened, he’d always been by my side. Our friendship transcended time and distance; it would outlive everything.
“Can’t believe I’ll be spending the summer fucking my way through people while you’re here being lame.”
“Being asexual doesn’t make me lame, you dick,” he grumbled, glaring at me. He touched my face once more before heading to his couch, sitting down and unable to hide his disappointment. I laughed, knowing it was true. The correlation from my previous sentence came out wrong. Correlation didn’t always mean causation.
Carson identified as gender-fluid and asexual. He struggled with the label, which I couldn't fault him for, and told me as soon as he felt right in his definition. He felt fairly fluid in the ace department too. The idea of sex made him uncomfortable, especially after what happened to him his freshman year. He loved porn, hentai, and talking about it in great detail, but the act of sex itself wasn’t something he cared to do.
His family’s origins were India, Gujarat specifically. A place that expanses into the Arabian Sea. One day, he wanted us to go there. Experience the parts of his heritage he never got the chance to.
Cars’s love language was touch and acts of service for others, which meant he loved doing things for people to show how much he loved them. And cuddling? He needed that. Being his best friend and safe place, I never shorted him the time.
“Just because I don’t always want to stick my dick inside a pussy or be fucked by a dude doesn’t mean I don’t want love,” he tacked on after folding his legs, making sure I understood his point. His sexuality wasn’t something I joked about, and now I felt bad about how it came across.
“Being ace isn’t what makes you lame,” I corrected my earlier comment. “What makes you lame is being way the fuck over here when we could be partying together in Cali.”
“Fair enough,” he muttered, his face still muddled with thoughts. The way Cars experienced emotions was insanely different than the average person. He tended to feel more, exacerbating the feelings with stress and overthinking.
Grabbing his shoulders, I hugged him. “Being asexual isn’t bad, Cars. We just need to find you your person who’ll love you regardless.”
“What if I never want to have sex?” he questioned, his face bright red with sadness. He wiped away tears as I pulled back enough to stare at his lost expression.
“Then you never have sex.”
“It doesn’t seem that easy,” he parroted.
“With the right person, it will be.”
He stared at me with astonishment. Cars and I met because Tony and his fuckers decided to assault him our freshman year. They would wish they never did, since I had a target on each one’s back because of it.
Cars fooled around with Harlon, a junior on the varsity football team, and when it came down to fully caving in and coming out, Harlon didn’t want to. He shouldn’t have had to, but he made the mistake of switching up the narrative, outing Cars.