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CHAPTER 15

[ Noah ]

Greg Granger hated me; that I was absolutely sure of. Between the side glares, mocking laughs, and jeering grins, I knew the brown-haired boy saw me as something less than inferior, something as insignificant as gum on the sidewalk, something that didn't need to be in his presence let alone talking to him. Currently, I was doing both because we were situated in the small confines of the practice room located on the far side of the school near the drama and music rooms.

"You don't know your lines," Greg noted, completely interrupting me in the process and not having any remorse.

I laughed a little to ease the tension. "Well, yeah, because we just got the script yesterday."

"So?" Greg questioned as though my answer wasn't sufficient enough. "You don't know your lines, you don't speak with conviction, you're a horrible actor, an even worse singer, and you're obviously not cut out for this play. Why Mr. CJ chose you to be such an important role is beyond me. You're going to embarrass me and everyone else!"

Letting my gaze fall to the heavy packet in my hands, I slumped forward in my seat. "I'll get it, I promise, I just need practice."

He looked at me warily before sighing and slipping into the role of the Beast. "Why did you come here?" he asked angrily, his voice resonating with power and volume. It was hard to tell if he was pretending to be angry at me or if he actually was—probably the latter.

I backed away from him until my back hit the wall, eyes wide. "I-I'm sorry," I stammered in a faint, high-pitched voice. It took a little more effort to speak that way and I came off sounding like a terrified mouse.

"I warned you..." He took a step closer to me, eyes narrowing into slits, "...never to come here!"

I glanced down briefly at the script. "Um, I didn't mean any harm..."

"Do you realize what you could've done?" he questioned further and without giving me a chance to respond, he spun around to kick the chair behind him to the ground. Instead of continuing with the scene, my jaw dropped open at his unbelievable anger.

I looked down at the script again to see any cues as to why he would've done that, but there were no stage directions, just lines. "Why'd you do that?" I asked in my normal voice. "That's not in here."

"It's not about what's in the script. It's about what's in between the lines," Greg said in a bored monotone voice. "You know what? I can't do this. You're such a joke." I watched as he ran a frustrated hand through his hair and started to pace around the room, muttering words to himself. His words were mostly incoherent, but I did catch when he called me a "no-good faggot."

Slowly setting my script onto the chair, I straightened my posture and cleared my throat, indicating that I had something to say. "I know you don't like me, okay? But Mr. CJ said that you have to put your personal feelings aside and work with me. I know I'm not the greatest actor to ever exist, but you are, so I need you to help me. I really wanna do a good job at this."

Greg stopped pacing to look over his shoulder, grey eyes wide in incredulity. He stared at me like that for a dull moment before he heaved a sigh and relaxed his muscles. "All right, well, if you're gonna pass as a girl, you have to speak higher."

I nodded. "Like this?"

"Higher," he instructed.

"Uh ... like this?" I tried my best to channel my inner diva that Holly always insisted I possessed.

He nodded. "Yeah, just less sass."

"Okay," I said, "thank you."

"Now, let's try this again." He gave me a short nod before fixing his composure to slide into his role and relaying the exact line that started our dialogue. This time around, I avoided looking at my script and tried to "read between the lines" like he has suggested. At some moments, I said things that I knew wasn't written in the script, but it worked well with the scene and it helped to convey Belle's emotions. When we were finished, Greg praised me in a classic Greg way by giving me a backhanded compliment. I still had a lot of work to do, he told me, but I had made progress.

As soon as the last bell of the day rang to dismiss us from free period, Greg practically bolted out of the practice room to meet up with his drama friends and I did the same to find Michael. I hadn't seen him the whole day and it was really starting to make me nervous because the last thing I said to him was "I miss you" through a text that he never responded to. Just great, Noah! Way to ruin everything!

But through the midst of the swarm of antsy teenagers who were dying to go home, I caught a glimpse of the blond-haired boy in question. He stood at his locker with Calvin at his side. They seemed to be in a deep conversation based on the way that Calvin's shoulders were squared to face Michael entirely instead of brushing him off like I had seen him do before.

I waited until they were finished to announce my presence. "Hi, Mikey!"

He flinched in response and whipped around to face me. "Oh my god. Dude, don't fucking do that!"

I backed away from him. "Um, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..." My eyes switched to Calvin who had let out a loud, obnoxious laugh. He patted Michael's back and gave him a weird look before he took off in the other direction, becoming one with the crowd. I wanted to inquire about the conversation they just had, but the thought was pushed into the back of my mind when Michael said, "What's up?"

"Oh, nothing," I replied. "Just really happy to see you."

Michael narrowed his eyes at me. "Right..." With a very sudden and abrupt movement, he slammed his locker shut and started to walk away.

Naturally, I followed him. "Do you have practice today?"

"I do," he answered, short.

He made a sharp turn, venturing down a hallway that wasn't in the direction of the school's exit. He started to walk faster, probably because he was late, so I tried to keep up with his pace. "Can I watch?" I questioned out of genuine curiosity, but Michael didn't respond to me; he just walked faster. "Hey, um, is something wrong?"

My question must have hit a nerve, because he stopped in his long strides and spun around to face me. "Yes," he spat, "you're what's wrong."

I frowned just as my heart twanged at the thought of doing something to anger Michael. "W-why?"

"You want us to be boyfriends!" he shouted at an abnormally loud volume.  "And that makes me really conflicted because you're such a nice kid and you're fun to be around, but like, we made a deal that we wouldn't catch feelings. We fucking shook on it! You're not supposed to be sending me romantic text messages or ... or making me wait this long! I don't want anything from you other than sex, okay? That was our agreement!"

I stepped away from him, allowing his words to sink, and then releasing a breath of air at his remark. My heart felt like it was being constricted until the point where it finally gave in and burst, splattering blood everywhere. In my mind, I knew I liked Michael way more than I should have, but it wasn't like I could have any control over that!

"Okay, that came out wrong ... but you know what I mean. Like, Nicolas is one crazy motherfucker, but he gave me a blowjob without me having to ask and you can't even—"

"He did what?" I questioned, not believing my ears. At this point, I was absolutely certain that there was nothing left of my insides—just an empty void. The tears were sitting just at the surface my tear ducts and it wouldn't take much effort to get them to fall. After everything Michael told me about Nicolas and his psychopathic tendencies, I couldn't believe that he had gotten so intimate with him! Here I was, acting like a complete lovesick fool whenever Michael smiled while he was sleeping around with other boys. We weren't exclusive, maybe, but that just seemed like the ultimate betrayal ever.

"See and now you're getting all upset," Michael noted. "You're not supposed to be upset! We're not together! I can fuck whoever I want to!"

I was seconds away from sobbing my eyes out, but I refused to let him see me cry; instead, I stalked over to him and shoved him, hard. "Then you don't need me!" I screamed. "And for the record, I would never want to date someone like you ... you ... asshole!" He stumbled backwards in response to my outrage, but I didn't stay around long enough to analyze his reaction; I ran out of the school building in record time.

With quick and nimble feet, I rushed to the area of the parking lot where all the buses were parked, but I stopped midway when I caught a glimpse of a familiar white convertible. The top was down and sure enough, Poppa was sitting in the driver's seat, eyes roaming the campus. Ever since he told me the truth about his relationship with Dad, I did my best to ignore him, but now all I wanted to do was run into his arms and hug the life out of him. So I jogged over to his car and jumped into the passenger seat, throwing my arms around his waist and burying my head in his chest.

"Whoa, Noah," he voiced. "What did I do to deserve this?"

"Nothing," I murmured into this chest, reveling in the heat radiating from his body. I remembered so many nights when I was little where I had crawled into bed with him and Dad just because I had a nightmare. They were happy then. "I love you so much, Poppa. I'm sorry for saying that I hated you. I don't hate you."

He combed a hand through my curls. "I love you, too, buddy."

When I absorbed enough of his love to forget about what had just happened with Michael, I pulled away and settled into my seat. "So, uh, why'd you pick me up?"

He waited until he had successfully driven out of the school to campus. "I need your help with something."

"What is it?"

"I'm gonna re-propose to Jay," he said simply like it was a phrase that he said on the daily.

And just like that, my mood shifted. "Wait, really?" I exclaimed. "Oh my god, that's amazing! Did you buy a ring?"

He nodded. "It cost me more than my college tuition—" he pointed out. It was hard to tell if he was being sarcastic or not, "—so he better say yes. I was planning to make him a really nice dinner."

I laughed. "But you don't know how to cook, Poppa."

He raised a finger in the air to indicate that he wasn't finished. "That's where you come in. I was hoping that you'd teach me how to make something really nice and maybe you can serenade him with one of your songs while I propose? I need it to be perfect, Noah. I'm sick with all this fighting."

I nodded. "Of course I'll help, but you know he's gonna say yes! Dad likes expensive things."

Poppa chuckled along with me at that comment. "Well, let's hope that it's expensive enough to get him to have sex with me because I think I'm going through some serious withdrawal."

"Poppa!"

"Ah, don't be so sensitive, Noah. Gay sex is awfully similar to straight sex—you just stick it in different holes."

I cupped my hand over my ears to drown out his words. "I don't need to hear this!"

"It's human nature, Noah," Poppa continued, despite the fact that I had just told him to stop. "Sex is a way of life. One day when you and Holly get married, you're gonna be sticking it in, too, and when she gets mad at you over something stupid, then you'll know what my withdrawal feels like."

I wretched at the thought of doing anything remotely sexual with Holly of all people. "Poppa, please stop. This is really awkward."

He burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter in which I responded by sinking further into my seat to hide the embarrassment rushing to my cheeks. He continued to laugh until I became so annoyed that I decided to change the subject in whatever way I could. "I tried out for the play," I blurted out, making his laughter die down in just seconds.

"Noah, that's amazing!" he exclaimed while taking his attention away from the road several times just to smile at me. "Did you get a part?"

"Yeah, I'm going to be playing Belle."

His smile dropped. "What? Why would you try out for a girl's part?"

"I didn't," I refuted quickly just so he wouldn't think that I had a thing for dressing up as a girl. "Mr. CJ said I would be perfect for the role, so he cast me as her."

"He said what?" Poppa questioned in a strong, angry voice. I saw his brows furrow in confusion as he gripped the steering wheel tighter. "What the hell? Do I need to have a conversation with him? How dare he say that? You're no girl and he's a dick for even saying those words to you." If he was reacting this way, then I didn't want to imagine how my dad would react if I told him, which was why I decided that I wouldn't.

For the entire drive home, Poppa kept blabbing on and on about how he was going to give Mr. CJ a piece of his mind while I had no choice but to rest my chin in the palm of my hand and stare out the window. I tried to give my input several times, but he wasn't having any of it. Telling him that I had only auditioned for the play to escape the pain of watching his relationship with Dad fall apart was out of the question, so I just kept my mouth shut and waited for him to pull into the garage of our three bedroom townhouse.

The good thing was that Poppa seemed to forget about the play altogether once he set his full attention on planning the perfect proposal for Dad. I could tell that the topic was really exciting to him judging by the way his ice blue eyes seemed to light up whenever he mentioned Dad's name and how he had suddenly found a reason to retell all of their memorable moments. It was in that moment I knew that Poppa really loved him. Now that I had the time to look at it from a different perspective, I realized that Poppa had simply made a mistake and he had truly resented himself for it.

So I forgave him.

And I really hoped that Dad would, too.

"Noah, why does it smell like that?" Poppa asked all of a sudden, making me turn around to survey his position in front of the stove. It took me seconds to realize that the aroma permeating the air wasn't gracious at all.

"That's because it's burning!" I ran over to his side and practically pushed him out of the way so that I could turn off the stove. I peered into the pan to examine the now-overcooked ground beef. "Seriously? I thought you said you were in the cooking club in high school!"

Poppa placed his hands on his hips. "I was, but I was more of an eater."

I stared back at him for a pretty long time before I shook my head in disbelief. "How about you just pour the sauce into that pan over there and I worry about fixing this?"

His lips stretched into a smile as he reached over to run a hand through my hair. "That, I can do." A soft, satisfied hum sounded from him while he did as he was told and snapped the caps off the glass bottles of tomato sauce and poured them into an empty pot. Not even a minute later, the alarm sounded throughout the house, notifying us that Dad had arrived. There wasn't much I could do about the burnt meat, so I just threw it into the tomato sauce pan and rushed to add the cooked spaghetti as well.

Dad strolled into the kitchen, eyes narrowing as they roamed over the mess we had made in the process of trying to cook dinner. "It stinks in here," he noted just as he dropped a small stack of mail onto the part of the island that wasn't covered in onion skins.

Poppa completely abandoned his post at this stove to walk over to his husband. "I was just trying to make dinner for you, with Noah's help of course, because I can't cook to save my life."

Dad lifted his intense brown eyes to look at him. "Why?"

"Why? What? I can't cook for my husband?"

He slid his jacket off his shoulders and hung it on the back of one of island chairs. "Whatever, I'm going to bed," he announced, preparing to make his way upstairs to his bedroom, but Poppa stopped him.

"Wait, you gotta try the food first," Poppa insisted, a hopeful look on his face.

"Not hungry," Dad's answer was short and curt. His disinterest was more than obvious and I couldn't believe that I hadn't noticed all the hostility between them until now.

Knowing that Dad wasn't going to give in as long as Poppa was persisting, I stepped in front of him and gave my father a big grin. "Daddy, please?" I implored in the most childish way possible. "We worked really hard on it."

His dark eyes settled on mine and even if it was just for a moment, his face softened significantly. Heaving a sigh, he flicked his eyes back to Poppa. "Okay, just hurry up. I'm seconds away from passing out." He didn't give us any time to respond because he had already retreated to the dining table in the next room over.

Poppa looked to me with panic taking over his facial expression. I motioned towards the dining room, silently ordering him to join him at the table and leave the rest for me, in which he reacted by practically sprinting down the hallway to follow his husband. Once they were both out of sight, I worked quickly to prepare both of their plates while silently praying that this worked. Then they would stop fighting and Poppa would stop complaining about his "withdrawal."

With almost superhuman speed, I breezed into the dining room to set their plates down in front of them and took a step back to give them their space, but I still lingered around the table just so I could watch. Dad dove into his food without any further argument and he remained silent for most of the meal. I kept waiting for Poppa to send me the verbal clues so I could grab my guitar and serenade Dad, but from the looks of it, the dinner wasn't going anywhere. Poppa would make a comment and Dad would just simply nod or shrug in response.

"Do you remember that one time I tried to climb that tree right outside your window?" Poppa inquired, trying everything in his power to invoke a reaction out of Dad.

He laughed, but I couldn't tell if it was sincere or not. "And you broke your leg? Yeah, how could I forget? You were such an idiot."

"I was trying to be romantic."

"You were trying to get yourself killed."

He shrugged. "Hey, I was crazy in love with you and willing to do crazy things. I still am."

"And looks like you've mastered the art of doing crazy things, haven't you?" Dad retorted with a hint of bitterness in his voice. We both knew what he was referring to which was why a wave of silence washed over us the second he mentioned it.

So Poppa tried a different tactic. "Well, do you remember that one night when you were so angry at me for something so stupid and we fought for hours until we couldn't stand each other anymore? Then out of anger, we had sex for the first time? It was so awkward and uncomfortable, especially in your twin sized—"

"Ian!" Dad shouted.

"What?"

He glanced over to me. "Our son is right here."

"And? I'm pretty sure he knows what sex is," Poppa chuckled, "especially since we used to go at it during all hours of the night, you know, back when you still had sex with me."

Dad's mouth fell agape and the action was quickly followed by him furrowing his brows together. "Oh, grow up! You can't honestly expect me to want to have sex with you when you've screwed literally everything that walks."

"How many times do I have to tell you?" Poppa was growing angry, now. "It was a mistake. I was upset. I was messed up in the head. I thought I was gonna lose you!"

"Hah," Dad laughed bitterly. "Well, you most certainly have."

I clamped my teeth down on my bottom lip and chewed on it nervously. With every passing moment, their argument was growing more heated and it made my heart do backflips in my chest. I decided that maybe this wasn't such a good idea in the first place.

Poppa raked a hand through his silky, medium length, black hair and sighed in frustration. "You know what, Jay? I don't want to fight with you. You resent me for what I did to you and I get that, I do, but I'm not gonna let you throw our relationship away like this. The minute I set my eyes on you, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you and I'm not giving up now."

All of a sudden, he pulled out a small black box from his pocket and held it out for Dad to see. He waited a moment before snapping the case open to reveal a shiny black band with diamonds lining the edges; Dad's eyes went wide. "Jay Morris-Taylor, will you please make me the happiest man in the world by remarrying me?"

It was hard to read Dad's facial expression because it looked like a mixture of things—sadness, joy, excitement, anger. I had no idea what he was thinking until moments later when he said in the lowest voice I had ever heard from him, "Go to hell."

Poppa blinked, obviously stunned. "What?"

Dad stood abruptly from his seat. "You think you can just propose to me and everything will be fine? I don't forgive you. I won't ever forgive you! The fact that you cheated on me with some cheap whore isn't even the full reason behind why I'm mad at you." His voice rose to an all-time high that I swore the walls shook every time he spoke.

"I'm mad at you because the second something bad happened to me, you drank. You went back to that sick lifestyle that you know that I fucking hate and instead of taking care of Noah, you sent him to live with my mom! You pushed your fucking son away because of your dumb habits. If something were to happen to me, like really happen to me, I can't trust you to be a good father to him. I can't trust you to make good decisions. I can't trust you to do anything!"

There was a glimmer in Poppa's eyes, but it was nothing like the flood that was pouring out of my tear ducts at such a steady rate.

"Jay, please—"

"It's over, Ian. We're over. I'm done playing these damn games with you. I'm not gonna continue to hurt every time you see it fit to lose control of yourself and fall into despair. I want those papers signed tonight."

Without much else, Dad stormed out of the dining room, leaving the both of us to our river of tears.

**

a/n: Hey, this chapter is a bit longer than normal! Yay! This has gotta be one of my fave chapters yet.

There's something I want to address. Many of you have read my message I posted a few weeks ago, but to restate, I don't like all these pointless insults directed at Noah. The boy has done nothing wrong so there's no reason to be mean to him. He doesn't have to be your favorite character and you don't have to ship him with Mike, but please respect him as a person and stop being mean to him. He may be fictional, but his character was based on a close friend of mine with his experiences and his personality—so when I see all these mean comments about how Noah was raised or the certain ways that he chooses to express things, it feels like you're indirectly bullying him. And bullying is never okay.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest ... let's get to the question of the chapter, shall we? Is this the end of Mike and Noah and the end of Jay and Ian?

Remember, most inline comments gets a follow unless I'm already following you, then I guess just do it for the fun of it!

Until next time,
Lara <3