~~~
I awoke in a hospital room to find Dorothy and Archer sitting in chairs. Dorothy had fallen asleep, but Archer was awake and looking at me. The window outside showed that it was dark though I couldn’t tell just how late it was.
“You’re awake,” Archer said as he pulled his chair closer to me. “How do you feel?”
“Out of it,” I replied truthfully.
“They’ve given you a lot of medicine,” Archer told me. “No internal bleeding, but your ribs are broken. Everything else, luckily, isn’t broken, but you have a lot of lacerations. They stitched up the wound near your eye. They said they’ll release you tomorrow.”
“And the cops?” I asked.
“They took our statements,” Archer replied. “Hopefully they do something.”
“I need to find a shelter,” I said quietly.
“Hell no,” Archer said a little too loudly, and I noticed that Dorothy was awake now and looking at me.
“Nonsense, Jason,” Dorothy said to me. “Once they release you, you’ll be coming home to my house. I already have Evie changing the sheets on your bed and unpacking your clothes and personal belongings into your room. You’ll stay with us, finish high school, and my son can help you figure out your FAFSA forms so your parents won’t count against you.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I replied.
“Don’t be a moron,” Archer said. “We want you there. I am not losing you my senior year of high school, got it?”
I smiled at him then. “Thank you.”
The doctors were true to their word, and they released me the next day after I spoke with the police. I obviously didn’t go to school, and neither did Archer so he could help me get settled after being released. He took me in through the side entrance, so there were less stairs to go down into the basement. Archer got me settled into the bed and then got me a drink so I could take one of the pain meds they sent me home with.
“You’re so amazing, Archer,” I said as I settled down under the blanket, him sitting on the bed next to me, his back against the headboard. “You’re such a good friend, and you’ve always been there for me. I don’t know how I would have handled this without you.”
“It’s really nothing,” Archer told me. “I care about you. Of course I’m going to do everything I can to help.”
I shook my head as he moved to lay down next to me, facing me. “It’s everything.”
He was looking at me so warmly, with so much care, and I could feel my feelings for him bubbling over. I wasn’t as controlled and careful as I would have been if I wasn’t exhausted and on pain medicine, so I reached over to put my hand on his cheek, caressing it with my thumb, looking into his beautiful blue eyes, before leaning over and kissing him softly.
I could feel him stiffen up in shock, but then he relaxed and started kissing me back. We kissed for a minute or so, and then he pulled away from me, looking at me like he wasn’t sure what to do with that gesture.
“You’re high,” he told me.
I smiled and shook my head again. “No, just tired. Tired enough to not try and hide how much I like you. Like you. Have a crush on you, want to date you, are in love with you.”
Archer looked like he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around that. “Just rest, okay? I’ll come down with food later.”
I nodded my head and watched as he left, and I pulled the blanket around me and fell asleep. We didn’t talk about the kid for the rest of the week or through the weekend. He would come in to make sure I was okay, bring food or medicine, and then go back upstairs to do homework.
I didn’t go back to school until Monday. Archer had told my bandmates what happened, and they had come to see me, but now they were acting as protectors as we walked through the school hallways. Varick, especially, was pissed.
“I’ll rip that preppy jock right in two,” he was growling as we stood at my locker, letting me put half of my books away. “If he comes near you, I’ll kill him myself.”
Gus really didn’t come near me though. He saw me in the hallway and his eyes widened, but as soon as he saw the way my friends were looking at him, he hightailed it out of there. I couldn’t help but laugh seeing his face as Varick growled at him like a wild wolf, and it hurt my ribs more than I admitted to them.
A week later we were back in the basement rehearsing. We were nearing the end of rehearsal when Archer came down into the basement, sitting on the couch and listening to us play.
“You guys sound amazing,” Archer said after we finished the last song. “When is your next gig?”
“We might be playing at the winter formal,” Varick replied. “It’s not a done deal yet, but it’s likely.”
Archer nodded his head. “That’s coming up soon. I hope you do. Your music is great.”
I was hunched over my sheet music holder, making some changes to one of the songs that we had all agreed to and looked over at him with a smile. Archer seemed to be watching me now, and I couldn’t figure out why. We hadn’t talked about the kiss, so I could only assume that he didn’t want anything to come of it.
“If you guys are done, do you mind if I talk to Jason alone?” Archer asked, and my friends looked between each other before nodding and grabbing their things to go back to their cars to go home.
I pushed the sheet music away from me lightly, and crossed my arms as I looked at him after the basement door closed. “What’s up?”
“I figured it was time we talked about that kiss,” Archer responded, and I turned my eyes away from him, feeling my face heat up.
“Oh,” was all I could think to say to that. I got up and came over to sit down on the couch next to him.
“So, you do seem to remember it,” he said to me.
“I was out of it, not drunk off my ass,” I grumbled.
“You had a pain pill and I wasn’t sure if that was impairing your judgment,” Archer explained.
I sighed at him. “The only impairment that day was that I didn’t have much in the way of impulse control. Normally I could have stopped myself before I did it, and just made cryptic comments instead. I didn’t succeed that time.”
“So, you’re saying you wanted to kiss me then?” he asked me.
“Yes,” I replied quietly. “I have for a while now.”
“You never mentioned anything,” he said quietly.
I gave him a sad smile. “We’ve always kind of been out of sync. If I’m single, you’re in a relationship, and then when you end up single, I was in a relationship.”
He sighed and sat back, looking at me intently. “I guess I’m just surprised by it. On top of that, we’ve been best friends for a long time, and I don’t want to lose that. Most high school relationships don’t last a lifetime, and I would hate for us to date and that would ruin our friendship.”
“Oh,” I replied, looking away. “Yeah, you’re right, just forget I made any sort of move.”
“Jason,” he said, and it made me look back over at him. “I didn’t say we couldn’t see what it could be. I just want you to be aware of the risks here. It takes far more work to keep a high school relationship going long term, especially as we both change through graduation and college. That doesn’t mean I’m unwilling to try though.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded my head. He could tell that I was nervous. I had never been good at hiding things from him. He moved over on the couch closer to me and put his hand on my knee, looking me in the eyes. His eyes were so beautiful. I wanted to fall into them.
“Would you want to go on a date sometime?” he asked me then, surprising me. I had expected him to take more time. “And maybe we could go to the winter dance together? I mean, you know, around your gig.”
I wanted to just reply quickly with yes please, but instead I was quiet for a moment before smiling at him. “That would be great. I would love that.”
“Good,” he said with a smile. Then he looked seriously, bringing up his hand to feel the slight beard I’d grown since getting hurt because I didn’t want to shave with open wounds on my face and broken ribs. “Do you mind if I kiss you?”
Be still my fucking heart. I had never wanted anything more than that, so I nodded my head, licking my lips in anticipation. He leaned in and our lips met.
His lips were so soft and warm, and it made my heart beat faster, excitedly. I put my arms around his shoulders as he deepened the kiss, his hands running along my sides. I loved the feeling of his hands on me like this. For all of my waffling about the sex thing with past boyfriends, if Archer asked me to write this minute, I would, and I didn’t think I’d regret it a single bit.
He finally broke the kiss and put his forehead against mine. “I think I’ve missed the feel of facial hair in my kissing. It’s been a while.”
“Enjoy it while it lasts,” I told him. “I’ll be shaving once I feel well enough. I like to go all out with my makeup on stage.”
“Yeah, but you’ll always have stubble at night,” he whispered.
“I’m glad you like it.” I kissed him again, running my hand through his strawberry blonde hair.
We spent a while making out on the couch, not letting it go much past that for now. I didn’t want to broach the subject of sex yet. We should have our first date first, and then we could see how things naturally progressed, but I had never been this excited about a date in my entire life.