Page 12 of Stars Like Confetti

After a while, I felt more than I saw Jordan approach, and the bench dipped with his weight. Thankfully, he gave me a few minutes of silence while I watched Shea play in the water. I didn’t think I’d ever get enough of the way he lit up when he laughed. Even from a distance, the bright Georgia sun reflecting off the surface of the lake had nothing on the sparkling sea of blue that was his eyes. The Da in me wanted to march over there and put sunscreen on his sun-kissed cheeks, but I refrained. Doing so would destroy the beautiful image in front of me. Emotion bubbled up in my throat, tightening and constricting like a fist, and it squeezed words right out of me. “I’m in love with him.”

“I know.”

I choked out a laugh. “How?”

“T, people make movies about the way you two look at each other. No one ever sees that shit in real life.” Jordan followed my line of sight, to the two boys playing. “It’s the kind of look people dream of getting from someone. Love at first sight⁠—”

“It isn’t first sight.” At Jordan’s silence, I glanced over. He crooked a brow at me, waiting expectantly. “I spent a long time falling in love with him, and even longer feeling the hole he left in my life. You know that tattoo on my chest?”

Jordan had been practically vibrating to cover up the gravestone since the day we met. “Shoddy work,” he called it, finding every which way to insult the thing for as long as I could remember, but I brushed off every word. It was so much more than just ink in my skin. It was a reminder. It was a memory, a magnet to hold onto the thoughts of the one that got away. The day we met, Shea etched himself into my brain and took up residence there like he owned the place.

It was in history class, when Shea blew me away with his knowledge of the First World War. I was new to the school, and hadn’t really met anyone yet. People warned me away from the Morelands, comparing them to infamous fundamentalist cults in history, but didn’t care. I was enamored. I would stop at nothing to have that person as a part of my life. No amount of money, no amount of southern family history or bible thumping was going to make me back down. The feelings were mutual, but Shea was much more fearful of his parents.

Our days were filled with stolen looks and lingering touches, hidden moments in dark corners where we could trade kisses with no one looking. I was his first, and letting him learn what made himself tick lit me up inside. The noise he made the first time I kissed his neck; I wanted to bottle it and savor it for the rest of my life. So I made him do it again, and again… and again. I memorized him inside and out. His favorite color, the snacks he hid from his parents. Where that scar on his knee came from—and the punishment he got for skateboarding in his best dress.

My parents loved him, and his hated me. But if anything, it only brought us closer. The temptation of the forbidden stretches back to the beginning of time, and teenagers bursting with desire who were told not to see each other? Well, that might have been the biggest seduction of all.

If days were spent sneaking around, nights were spent exploring without leaving our makeshift bed. Beneath the cover of night, with stars scattered across the sky, Shea and I discovered the secret parts of each other’s bodies. He liked it soft and sweet, just like him. I liked it firm and rough—confident.

And Shea? Well, when he wasn’t shrouded in his family’s shadow, he thrived. He knew who he was long before any labels made sense to him. The more confident he grew, the more enraged his parents became. His mom, specifically. She just couldn’t handle the thought of her perfect—only—daughter being anything but. Any of the letters in the rainbow were the ultimate sin.

It was a Wednesday night, and they were supposed to be at church. Out early, for the teenagers’ bible study, then home late since Shea’s father had specific deacon business to attend to after services. You could have set a clock by it. Shea feigned a stomachache, and I climbed the trellis to his bedroom window.

“They weren’t supposed to come home early.” My voice broke, and I felt the intensity of Jordan’s eyes on me. “I don’t know what they did to him, but he wasn’t the same after that. They packed up immediately, and the only reason they didn’t leave right away was because their new place needed some kind of inspection. Shea snuck out that night, and a friend of ours gave us the tattoos in his basement so we would always remember each other. I was convinced that my parents would kill me but I was so heartbroken after Shea left that they didn’t even care. It was all they could do to get me out of bed in the morning.”

“Damn, T. I didn’t know you went through all that.”

I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. The pity in his eyes—I didn’t like it from people back then and I didn’t want it now. Thankfully, Shea splashing in the water gave me a welcome distraction. “I don’t talk about it.”

“Clearly, but he’s here now.”

“If you say it again I will rip out your beard hairs one by--”

“Kismet!”

I swear that was the bastard’s favorite word, and he only used it because it was my least favorite. I’d never bought into the idea that things happened for a reason. It was the biggest line of bullshit I’d ever heard. Things happened because people made decisions.

My parents made the decision to love me no matter who I was, or how I identified. Shea’s parents, however, chose to follow the rules of some ancient book supposedly written by a man that no one had ever physically laid eyes on. Beliefs were between that person and whatever deity they believed in, but right and wrong? There was no book that taught that, no invisible being that supposedly loved or hated a person for who they were. Or if I did look at it the way they did, Shea was created exactly how he was intentionally. Who were they to decide that it was wrong?

Shea’s parents made a choice. A choice to rip him—along with his brothers—away from the only things they’d ever known. If he was having nightmares, if he was reliving those decisions they made every damn day he was away from me… there was no fucking kismet about that.

“T, no matter what you believe in, you have a real shot here to make up for lost time. Jordan’s hand entered my field of vision, pointing at the man I’d spent the last ten minutes watching. “That boy is here. Whatever happened to bring the two of you back together, it’s happened, and you need to take this shot before it slips from your fingers again.”

“He’s wearing a red wristband,” I said, ignoring everything that Jordan had just said. “He’s not interested in play.”

Tyler broke away from Shea, walking our way. Well, more like waddling with the telltale stance of a wet diaper. His approach thankfully chased away whatever inspirational line that Jordan was about to spout off. “You’re up,” I muttered.

“How do you know he’s not coming to you?”

“I doubt he even knows I’m sitting here. He’s been staring at you for two days.”

Jordan scoffed, but my theory was proven right when Tyler came to a stop in front of him. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

Tyler shuffled in place, pink in the cheeks and staring at the ground. “I… I’m wet. Could you help me change, please?”

Good. If Jordan was being a Daddy to someone else it meant he would leave me the hell alone and I could overthink Shea’s choice in wristbands in peace.

Out of the corner of my eye, Jordan smirked and got to his feet. “Of course, I can.” Tyler flashed a matching grin and Jordan put a hand on the boy’s back to lead him to the changing village. Just before he turned away, he muttered under his breath, “Go talk to him.”