The Maple Effect Page 12

  Aaron refused to let himself be intimidated as crawled onto the left side of the bed and collapsed onto his back. Thinking too much would only leave room for panic to settle. He breathed deeply, looking toward the doorway and the light coming through. He was lucky June didn’t ask him to turn it off before coming in.

  The sheets were cool; this was the only room in the whole cabin that had a proper fan (as long as he wasn’t counting the ancient, sluggish thing hanging in the living room).

  “I’m going to give my parents so much shit for only installing a fan in their room,” he whispered.

  June snickered, rolling onto his back next to him. The bed was big enough they didn't have to touch each other to lie comfortably. “You have no idea,” he stated. “Try sleeping on that pull-out couch with two other sweaty people. It’s sinful.”

  Aaron closed his eyes and smiled. His body relaxed now that it was cooling off. “Your siblings?” he guessed.

  “Unfortunately.”

  Aaron didn't know what that was like, but he had enough sense to know it was probably awful. He hummed in agreement.

  “I spent a lot of nights at Angie’s house,” June told him. “And a lot of nights on the couch…and some in a tent on the deck.”

  He wasn’t sure if it was just the early hours of the morning getting to June, or if Aaron imagined it, but the teen seemed gentler somehow. More open and honest, like he was ready to share all his fondest memories. His tone easier and words slower. Aaron wondered if now would be a good time to ask June why he came here alone this summer. Then thought better of it because that was a conversation he wanted to be fully present for.

  “I don’t recommend the deck. Too many mosquitoes.” June huffed.

  Silence.

  “Thanks for letting me sleep in here,” Aaron whispered. Waves of slumber licked at him.

  June’s voice was a soothing addition in the almost-dark of the room. “Sure.” He shifted again. Pulled the comforter over the lower half of his body and snuggled down into the pillow. “Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight.”

  Sleep took Aaron peacefully.

  June liked to consider himself a rather intelligent person for the most part. He’d gotten A’s through all of his schooling and even graduated in the top ten of his class. He liked to read and learn. Stored facts and new knowledge in his brain like a filing cabinet with colored dividers. He rarely felt out of his element and was always able to pull some kind of solution out of a rocky situation.

  However…Aaron Valentine was like a whirlwind. Kicking open the metal cabinet and sucking the pages and pages of knowledge straight out of it. He was not aggressive, but powerful and unstoppable nonetheless. June felt himself crumbling. Dented and lock broken. Felt everything he ever thought he knew about himself and other people sinking like a boulder in the bottom of the lake.

  He looked at Aaron and wondered why? Why now? Why at this phase of his life did something so big and so forceful have to come along and change everything? He’d had crushes before but never like this.

  They were never so aggravating nor distracting.

  June woke on the right side of the king bed, curled on his side with his cat also curled in the crook of his arms. A typical position for Quail. He blinked away the blurriness, feeling hazy in the tepid morning air. His mind was slow. His memory of last night not yet surfaced in his consciousness.

  Aaron lay mirroring his position. Curled up on his side with an arm thrown over Quail. Their forearms touched, which caused June to suck in a breath of surprise. For a split second, he couldn't figure out why the other boy was lying so close to him and spooning his cat. Then the events of the prior night rushed back.

  Aaron stayed up so late all the damn time that June had been determined to see him off to sleep. He’d kept himself lying awake in bed, entertained with his Mp3 just waiting to see if the stupid light in the other room would turn off. When it never did, it had left June speculating; listening for any movement or sounds that might explain what Aaron did so late at night.

  In the end, it was the most boring experience he’d ever had. However, Aaron had eventually emerged, and that was when things got interesting. When his filing cabinet was blown open and discarded without a care.

  Aaron had looked so tired shuffling around in the hallway, and June wasn’t a cruel person despite what some people might think. The master bedroom was the only room that had decent enough air flow, and Aaron had suffered long enough in the guest room. It was only fair the teen got a chance to sleep soundly for once.

  That didn't make offering him a spot in the king bed any less of an idiotic thing to do. June could have woken up to a churning stomach again. Or a bad coughing fit. Or (scariest of all) an erection. Then what would he have done? Rolled himself out of bed, out of the cabin, and straight into the lake? Changed his name and moved to another country? Dropped off the face of the Earth?

  June thanked his lucky stars that this morning held none of those unpleasant things, and sighed into his pillow. He could afford to sleep a little longer—judging by the lack of sunlight peeping through the curtains—but staring at Aaron was too big of a distraction.

  June had looked before. A lot actually. Especially when they were shirtless and swimming at the lake. But Aaron was different when he slept. Somehow impossibly softer. Slender pink lips slightly chapped and parted just enough you could see the bottoms of his front teeth. He had a faint scar below his bottom lip that June had never noticed, and of course, that much larger scar cutting across the square of his jaw. It was an elongated triangle shape, pointing up to his gently sloped cheekbone. His eyebrows were relaxed and almost perfect in their shape. His eyelashes long. Skin smooth and clear aside from the scab that had formed after falling out of the tree.

  Aaron was pretty. Not in the mysterious way June was, with his caramel skin and ink black hair, but in a “girl-next-door” kind of way. Only he was a boy. Obviously. Aaron was like the early morning sun. Soothing the earth between the shadows of the pines. Casting warmth across the green of the lake; a promise it would be another hot day. Aaron was a gust of wind that smelled like lemongrass and tree sap. He was soft. Settled. Mature. Timeless.

  June wanted to scream.

  How could one person be so fucking relentless on his feelings without even trying?

  Frustrated with how badly he wanted to touch Aaron, June unwound himself from Quail, carefully so not to disturb Aaron’s arm in the process. The cat stretched and yawned, curled his head into his chest and covered his eyes with his paws but made no attempts to get up. June waited a moment before he gently unwrapped his legs from the comforter, and then padded off to the bathroom to pee.

  He took his time brushing his teeth and washing his face, hoping the mundane ritual would spare him thoughts of crawling back into bed and making an idiot of himself. He stared at the mirror for a while, turning this way and that and studying the bronze canvas of his skin. He looked pretty good aside from the awful scar in his armpit.

  If he were Aaron Valentine, he would be attracted to himself.

  If he were gay, of course. Which Aaron Valentine was obviously not. Not with an ex-girlfriend. At the very most, June wondered if Aaron might be bisexual, and while it was possible, it felt completely idiotic to hope. It may be 2004, getting more and more progressive in the sexuality department all the time, but everyone still looked at bisexual men as gay men. So even if Aaron was bi, that didn't mean he was ready to commit to being gay. Could June really believe he would be the person to change that?

  When he couldn’t stare at himself any longer, June pushed back the bathroom door and shuffled past the bed into the hall. The damn light was still on in Aaron’s room, so he shut it off before making his way to the kitchen.

  The pale, lilac sky stretched beyond the front windows and the pine trees. The sound of wild turkeys in the yard promised today would be just another normal day. He sighed and allowed himself to bask in the glow of it all. Allowed himself to pick u
p the scraps of his brain and store them neatly away again.

  He wanted to believe he could do this. Wanted more than anything to spend this summer with his new friend and not constantly rattled by his presence.

  June sighed, not in the mood to cook like he usually did. He grabbed the box of Cheerios and quart of milk, a bowl and spoon, then carried everything in his arms to the sliding glass door leading to the back porch.

  It was a warm morning, but not unpleasantly so. A few puffy white clouds dotted the sky, casting splotches of shade over the mountain as the sun broke. The sprinklers in the lawn sprayed mist into the air; a desperate attempt to liven up the dry grass. June remembered a time when he and his sisters had put on swimsuits and run through them, grasping hands and swinging each other around until they were dizzy. August had slipped and broken her ankle, then cried several times when she couldn't get her cast wet throughout the rest of the summer.

  June crawled onto the wooden picnic table with his cereal, wondering what he might have thought of Aaron had they met last summer instead of this one. Aaron could have easily been another transplant to the area, working down at the dock filling boats with fuel for extra money. He could have been a friend of Angie’s from the tiny high school or a new neighbor down the street. His family could have met him in passing; invited him over for a barbeque. His sisters would have swooned over him first, leaving June to hold out hope for a summer fling, but knowing deep down it would never happen.

  He wondered if Aaron would have had a crush on either of his siblings. Would he like July? She was bubbly and outgoing and always had something to talk about. She would be the first to blatantly flirt with him. The first to ask him out and the first to get over him if he turned her down.

  August would keep her feelings under wraps but would go the extra mile to get noticed. She would do her makeup dark in the way their father hated. The lower half of her body would sport a pair of tight jean shorts, and the upper half would have nothing but a red bikini and warm vanilla body spray. She would walk with that undeniably feminine walk. Would ooze as much sex appeal as her eighteen-year-old body would let her.

  June had a hard time picturing Aaron with either of his sisters, which did nothing to help the situation he currently dealt with. He couldn’t picture Aaron with him either.

  “Stupid,” he muttered under his breath between spoonfuls of cereal. He vowed not to obsess over this any longer. He had to maintain some level of self-control.

  Halfway through a second bowl, June heard the familiar squealing of bad breaks and old belts on a miserable hand-me-down truck. It was old and rusty with chipped diarrhea brown paint and a mismatching blue passenger door. He perked up, scooting off the edge of the picnic table and stepping over to the railing just as the thing choked to a stop in the gravel driveway.

  Angie stepped out of that truck with as much dignity as she would a Ferrari, shifting her sunglasses up the bridge of her nose and whistling gleefully. She took the porch steps two at a time and caught sight of June leaning over the gate before she had a chance to knock at the front door.

  “Morning!” she stepped around a collection of potted plants. “Guess what!”

  “What?” June opened the gate and let her waltz onto the porch. His mood always lifted significantly around Angie. She carried a contagious kind of light and energy with her.

  “I managed to get the next two days off work.” She hoisted herself up onto the picnic table and grabbed the box of cereal. “And there’s a bonfire on the north shore tonight. Bunch of teenagers from the high school are going to be setting up tents and camping.”

  June and Angie had experienced their fair share of bonfires down by the lake before. Each one a fuzzy memory of alcohol, and smoke, and an occasional fistfight. Skinny dipping under the moonlight, playing truth or dare, watching your peers scatter into the woods to have sex when they thought no one was looking.

  It wouldn’t be a complete summer without at least one night camping by the lake. This was exactly the kind of good news June needed.

  “We’re invited?” he asked, blue eyes flashing excitement. There had been years in the past when they had to buy their way in with booze, but seeing as they were the oldest of the teenagers now, they should be on top of the invite list. Maybe even cool enough to help filter the less fortunate crowd from coming.

  “Of course.” Angie reached out and snatched the bowl from June’s hands. He waited as she shook out more cereal and added another splash of milk. “And I was told to bring whoever I wanted.”

  June didn't even care she had stolen his cereal; he was too pleased with their status. They had paid their dues for this. He had waited for this.

  “So, you asked Charlie?” he assumed.

  Angie gave him a knowing look just as she took a big spoonful into her mouth. Milk dribbled down her chin as she chewed. “He’s got to experience it at least once.”

  “Uh, huh.” June sat next to her, smirking. “And it has nothing to do with the big fat crush he has on you.”

  This was the first time he and Angie had been alone together since he realized the gangly teen had feelings for her. June had been waiting for an opportunity to bring it up, seeing as Angie so obviously liked the attention she was getting. Maybe even enough to like him back.

  “Ha, ha.” She pushed the sunglasses up into her wild curls and looked at him more seriously. “He’s a nice kid.”

  “Since when do we hang out with nice kids?” June teased.

  In the past years, June and Angie had kept almost exclusively to themselves. They were always a duo with other acquaintances at arm’s length away. And their acquaintances tended to be of a rougher variety. Older groups of teens that smoked and skateboarded and played street hockey simply because it was violent.

  “Oh…I don’t know, June. When did you start living with one?”

  She had a point. June almost groaned out loud as his brain turned over to Aaron again. He was so, so different than anyone he’d ever met on his mountain. So good and pure.

  “Guilty.” June leaned his elbows on his knees and hung his head. He tried to picture Aaron sitting around a campfire with a red solo cup full of cheap beer and failed. Tried to picture him stripping himself of swim trunks and stepping into the dark lake water and failed. Tried to imagine what kind of girl he would run off into the woods to have sex with—definitely failed.

  Angie’s voice was almost a whisper when she turned to him. “You really like him.” It wasn’t a question.

  “No, really? I hadn’t noticed…” thick sarcasm laced his words.

  Her dark eyes were sympathetic, and June figured she was thinking the same thing he’d been thinking about when he shuffled out of bed this morning. Aaron wasn’t gay, and…hell, even if he was, he probably didn't want to be with a guy as rowdy as June. He was a prep and June was a hop-skip away from the emo art kid. Aaron was mature and had a real job and June was a runaway that would eventually have to return home carrying the weight of shame for his actions.

  “At least he’s hot.” Angie set the unfinished bowl of cereal beside her and gave him a nudge. Her endless optimism was something June typically appreciated. However, she had gotten it all wrong.

  “What?” He blinked at her. “Aaron is not hot. You’re out of your mind.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Of course, he is. You just won’t admit it.”

  “He-He’s—” June glanced at the sliding glass door to make sure Aaron wasn’t about to walk out and catch them. “He’s cute. Okay. I admit that. But not hot. Cute.”

  “Cute and hot.”

  June thought back to Aaron's peaceful sleeping face this morning and wondered how in the world Angie had gotten the wrong picture. There was not one sharp angle on Aaron’s entire being. He was too fluffy.

  “He’s cute like…Jesse McCartney, cute. Babyface cute.”

  “You obviously spend way too much time looking at his face and not enough time looking at his abs.” Angie reached back into her s
horts pocket and pulled out a pink and silver cell phone. She flipped it open and arrowed around for a moment. “Here.”

  He took the device and shaded one half of the screen with his palm to block the glare. He looked at the picture she had taken. It was of Aaron and himself, soaking wet and standing beside that lipstick red convertible with their shirts off. She must have snapped it when he was too busy threatening Aaron never to tell a soul about his dancing to Beyoncé.

  The picture was small and a little fuzzy, but what he saw was nothing like the image he had made up in his head. In comparison to himself in the picture, Aaron was a teenager certainly made up of sharp angles. He was taller than June by about two inches, with neat arm muscles and a gently defined chest. His traps were strong, his shoulders ever so slightly broad. He had a slim waist. A perfect ass.

  June, blushing heavily, snapped the phone shut and handed it back to his friend.

  “Okay. He’s hot,” he admitted. And honestly, how dare June compare him to Jesse McCartney? Jesse McCartney was nothing compared to Aaron. He didn't think it was possible, but somehow suddenly he was falling even harder. “Thanks.”

  “So, you’re gonna ask him to come with us tonight,” Angie said smugly. Once again, not a question.

  June sighed. “Of course.”

  “And back to my original point.” She tapped one of her slender pink nails against the cellphone screen. “At least Aaron is hot. You have something nice to look at while you’re falling hopelessly in love… All I have is a beanpole.”

  June snorted. “You got that right.” At least she had admitted it. He wasn’t the only one with a summer crush. Although he couldn’t begin to understand what had corrupted Angie into falling for a nerd like Charlie. She had always been rather popular and…sort of untouchable when it came to relationships. June had seen many much more worthy contenders try and win her over, so why did she choose Charlie?

  “You’re way too good for him.” He folded his hands together and looked her in the eyes.