Home is a Four Letter Word

chapter seventeen

Late April

Jake got home around nine to a darkened house that fell eerily silent as he tried to close the kitchen side door as quietly as possible. It was odd for everyone to had already been asleep, but he figured either they all had a long day or they were all avoiding each other by staying up late in their own respective bedrooms, dozing off to videos on their phones—or in McKenna's case waiting until everyone else had fallen asleep to sneak out to God-only-knew where. For how often she did it, their parents never seemed to catch on, and she never called Jake to bail her out of something illegal, so he'd figured she was being safe enough to warrant it none of his concern.

He was convinced he was doing quite well with sneaking into the house until he jabbed his hip into the corner of the kitchen counter and it sent him doubling over. A plastic cup went clattering into the sink and immediately Jake thought he was done for from the immense racket it caused. Fucking hell that hurt. He bent over his side to nurse his hit as he made his way through the rest of the kitchen to see that no one was in the living room when he approached it. He expected to see flashing lights from one of McKenna's crime shows that she left on despite how many times their father yelled at her about it, but oddly enough the tv was turned off, and the couch where his father would have normally been passed out drunk was empty, save McKenna's cat curled up on the top.

He found his way up the stairs more carefully than he had conquered the rest of the house. The third step from the top squeaked when weight was assigned to the middle, so Jake made sure he skipped over it completely as he fumbled his way past his last obstacle. Even in the fatal darkness, Jake found his way into his room without tripping over anything and considered it a win when his door closed behind him with the faintest latch. As soon as the lights were on to illuminate the mess he left behind when he was getting ready for school that morning, he dropped his backpack down on the floor with a sigh and picked an old football sweatshirt up off the ground.

His dresser slid open without a fight, so Jake folded the sweatshirt in his hands back into a neat square and set it inside. He took inventory of the shirts he had clean in front of him, which consisted of a work shirt, this season's football sweatshirt, and a plain blue tee he only wore on days when he was desperate. Squinting his eyes at his mostly empty dresser drawer did nothing to fabricate more clothes, but he refused to acknowledge that he really needed to do laundry that bad. Jake was a victim of having only five rotating outfits to wear at any given time, so given his embarrassing prospects, he figured he would just throw on a different sweatshirt tomorrow with the jeans he had worn for the past two days and call it a day.

Laundry can be Wednesday's problem.

Unless I take Connor home on Wednesday...

Then this needs to be a right now problem.

A light knock on the door shook away all thoughts of Connor as his mother walked in the room without Jake even acknowledging it. He fished into the back of the drawer for a shirt to sleep in and then turned around to face his mother like he had done nothing wrong. She had sat down on the side of the bed gently, as if she were afraid to break it—despite the fact that Jake knew if that bed could handle when he body-slammed Aaron into it, it could handle anything.

"You didn't text me that you were going to be out so late. Missed dinner."

"Yeah, sorry." His hand brushed over the back of his neck. "It slipped my mind."

"You didn't come home after school, then you didn't respond to my texts. That wasn't very nice of ya."

"I know, I know. Sorry."

"You lucky I got friends in this town looking out for you, or I mighta thought you were dead."

The way her mouth twitched led Jake to believe she was inclined to laugh, but he knew she wouldn't. She wouldn't, because if she knew Jake was alive, she knew where he was, and if she knew where he was, she knew who he was with. Jake swore his heart skipped a beat as he prayed his cheeks didn't flush red. Damn this town sometimes.