Save Yourself E-Book

John Goode

• Herausgeber: Dreamspinner Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 44

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

A Tales from Foster High Story Matt Wallace returns to Foster to be with his high school crush, Tyler. They're finally together, but Tyler's past is still a mystery to Matt. When the truth comes out, Matt is forced to decide if he can handle learning about what Tyler did, or if he'd be better off to cut ties and run.

Leseprobe

Dedicated to John, Justin, and Paul

My brothers in misery,

here is hoping we all find the love we all richly deserve someday.

Acknowledgments

To Andrew Chen—his idea was better than anything I could have come up with

This is for the Kickstarter group... you guys rock.

Tyler

ONOUR third date, the wheels fell off the cart.

In other words it took Matt three whole dates to figure out what kind of asshole I was.

Frankly, I was shocked it took him that long.

Matt

SOEVERYTHING was going great.

Well, I don’t want to say great, because it took a kid killing himself to make Tyler stop running from himself. He still hadn’t shared what he was running from, but I was willing to give him time. I mean, I’d obsessed about this man since I was in high school; what was a couple of months?

Turns out it was everything.

We were on our official third date when it finally all came out.

We had decided to dress up and have a “fancy dinner,” as Tyler put it, and made reservations at Paul’s Bistro, the only place in Foster youneeda reservation. I was excited, because who doesn’t want to get all suited up and go out in public with someone who looks like Tyler on his arm?

I was upstairs in my brother’s old room, watching out the window since my father said he wanted to have a little fun at Tyler’s expense. I tried to wave my dad off, but he said he never had any daughters and always wanted to grill a boy about his intentions, so he was taking the chance now.

Matt knocked on my parent’s door at 6:30 p.m. sharp. He wore a dark blue suit that had to have been tailored for him because it was hugging him in all the places I wanted to hug at once.

So of course I hovered.

“Hey, Mr. Wallace,” Tyler said with an easy smile. “Is Matt ready?”

“He’s getting ready.” My dad’s tone was harsh enough to make me jump. “Why don’t you come in, Mr. Parker?”

I could hear Tyler pause at that. “Everything okay, sir?”

My dad had to have loved the “sir” part; he ate that old-world-manners crap up with a spoon.

“Just come in and sit down, son,” my dad insisted gruffly.

Tyler walked in, and I closed the window quietly before I went to the top of the stairs and crept down two steps to listen. I was a master at this; in fact, all of the Wallace brothers are house ninjas in their own right. We had an overprotective father and a worrisome mother to live with, so we learned young how to navigate the old house without a creak or thud that might give our positions away. We had mischief to get up to and we had no time to deal with parents. That was great training, by the way.

So now I just perched and listened.

“So you and Matt have been getting close,” I heard my dad say.

“Yes, sir,” Tyler said, sounding completely unlike himself.

“What are you two up to tonight?”

I almost laughed at the small pause Tyler gave. I assumed he was strangling his first response: “Your son and I are almost forty. I’m pretty sure I don’t have to tell you a thing.” Instead he replied, “We have reservations at Paul’s tonight.” Another pause. “Sir.”

“Paul’s, huh?” My dad’s voice sounded moderately impressed. “That’s an expensive place.”

“Your son is worth it.”

You could toast bread from the heat coming off my smile.

“I suppose. But you footing the bill for a meal like that could imply that you expect to be compensated.”

My smile got a little smaller.

“I don’t understand, sir?” Tyler asked.

“Well, we’re both men, son. If you’re going to pony up that much money, my son better put out. I mean, if he didn’t, that would be a waste of—”

He didn’t finish because I almost fell down the stairs screaming, “Dad, stop!”

Which was when I was blinded by a flash of light.

“Told ya,” my dad said as I rubbed my eyes. “Like shooting fish in a barrel.”

Still confused, I looked around and saw Tyler almost crying, he was laughing so hard. My mom stood off in the kitchen doorway shaking her head, disapproving of all the horseplay but resigned to the fact that it was inevitable.

I knew how she felt.

“You were pulling my chain?” I growled at my dad.

“And, like any good dog, you came stumbling along!” He was shaking a Polaroid picture that dangled from his fingertips, drying.

“You knew about this?” I gaped at Tyler. He was busily forcing his face into a more serious expression, although he couldn’t do anything about the grin that leaked out….

“I was just playing along!” he insisted.

My eyes darted back and forth between them; I wasn’t sure who I was the more pissed at.

“You’re going to make them late!” my mom chastised my father.

Tyler looked at his watch. “Shit! We do need to go.”

“Go!” My dad waved us toward the door. “And have fun.”

“I hate you,” I said over my shoulder at my dad as Tyler walked me out.

“Wait till I post this for your brothers on the tweeter. Then you’ll hate me.”