Never Too Late by Sloan Johnson

Author:Sloan Johnson [Johnson, Sloan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

15

(Dax)

I managed to make it until almost nine o’clock before I felt like I was crawling out of my skin. I shouldn’t feel this way in my own home, but it felt anything but homey. It felt no more my own than a hotel room would be. No, home was around the block with Michael and Jagger. But that house also stood empty.

Against my better judgment, I got dressed and slipped on my worn-out combat boots. What used to feel like a second skin to me now felt like playing dress-up. Before graduation, I practically lived in my boots, faded jeans, and simple T-shirts. Now, I’d grown into something more mature. The bravado of saying I’d never change my style just because I had a degree on the wall had quickly faded. I didn’t want to be the guy who made waves. I still wanted to hold on to pieces of myself, but more than anything, I wanted to fly under the radar.

Not wanting to seem too desperate, I shot off a quick text to Justin to see if he wanted to join me. He was so non-confrontational I knew he wouldn’t be the one to make the first move, and Michael was still so skittish about his past that I knew he wouldn’t, either. That meant it was up to me to bring these two friends back together.

We met in front of the bar because I didn’t want to go in without him. Crazy, perhaps, but it felt safer being able to say I was meeting up with a new friend for drinks than that I was visiting Michael because I missed him.

“You sure you know what you’re doing?” Justin asked. I noticed the way he took in my appearance, lingering just a moment too long on the way the worn denim cupped every line of my body. If I didn’t know better, and I actually didn’t, I’d think Justin was checking me out.

“Yep,” I said with more bravado than I felt. “I’m grabbing a drink. And if you drink alone, that means you have a problem, so I brought you along. Think of yourself as my alcohol beard.”

Justin just shook his head. “Man, I don’t know where you come up with half the shit you say, but I’m starting to think I could learn a lot from you.”

And he probably could. He was so small town that he was almost a caricature. He epitomized every stereotype most people held about people from towns like this. I half expected to find him sitting in one of the stools at the barber shop bantering with the old men on Saturday mornings. And he was definitely flirting with me. Had he worked it out in his mind that I was gay? I wasn’t sure, but I also wasn’t about to offer that information up.

Michael was busy at the other end of the bar when we eased our way through the crowd and settled onto two stools in the corner. When he turned, he noticed me first and his eyes lit up.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.