As he sprinted up the wide, marble staircase after the dark retreating figure, Casey called after the boy in desperation. "Jayden, wait!"
He was completely ignored, Jayden instead choosing to walk down the deserted hallway at a brisker pace, head hastily bowed down, coller of the midnight leather jacket decidedly turned up. Not willing to give up on him, Casey hoisted up his skinny jeans and stubborned followed him as he slammed into the vacant bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. Zaveloff
"What is going on?" he hissed through gritted teeth, violently kicking the door shut behind him as he stared at Jayden, who stood, hands buried in his pockets, a slightly shell shocked expression dawning over his face that Casey had followed him into the bedroom. "Why are you acting like this with me? It's just not cool, dude!"
"I don't know what you are talking about," scoffed Jayden, but Casey saw his eyes darting from him to the thick oak door and back.
"Oh, don't give me that crap, you know exactly what I'm talking about, Jayden, you were practically eyef***ing me up there! How am I supposed to react to that?" he shouted, stomping towards the taller boy and stopping just short of him.
"I-I'm sorry," he stammered, shifting uncomfortably, his nerve clearly gone straight out the window.
Casey pulled Jayden by a leather clad arm, furious, yet even in his enraged state, he could not fail to notice the ever present flawlessness of his complexion; the way his crystalline blue eyes seemed desperate to defy inertia and meet his own matching emerald; the sweet scent of his impossibly tanned skin and the way his chest was rising and falling as rapidly as the passing of the precious seconds of time.
"Just- talk to me, all right?" Casey asked, attitude softening like pasta being cooked.
"I can't," Jayden whispered pathetically, shaking his head and averting his gaze profusely. "I'm so sorry, Casey, I can't do this, I can't, I just can't..."
"Can't what, Jayden?" Casey spat, temper flaring up once again, bitterness dripping poisonously off of every syllable. Jayden attempted to pull away, in vain. "Be honest with your friends about who you really are? Stand up to your family for once in your life? Take a chance for your own sanity?"
Jayden was gaping at him, stony faced and white as a sheet, those ocean deep orbs glazing over with rage.
"Casey, don't push me, I swear," he warned, voice trembling as he wrenched his arm from Casey's grip, but made no other movement otherwise.
Casey couldn't remember a time when he was angrier than this before; his face was a brighter hue than Harmony's fire engine red tank top, eyes bulging out of their sockets in a way he was certain could not be very attractive as he continued his tirade.
"What, are you scared of admitting to yourself that this something about you that you have no say in? That you're going to have to deal with eventually?"
"Get out of my face, Casey, I'm serious!" Jayden shouted right back, still glued to the spot, fists clenched at his side menacingly.
They were nose to nose now, could feel one an other's hot, labored breath on their faces, the tension hanging as precariously in the air as a suicide risk poised on the edge of a skyscraper.
"Are you that scared," Casey said quietly, in a low, dangerous tone, staring right into Jayden's angsty wild eyes, "to admit to yourself how you really feel about me?"
His words had the desired effect, detonating Jayden, who brusquely grabbed his slight shoulders and forced their lips together greedily, violently throwing him against the old faded yellow wall, kissing him fiercely as the ancient mirror beside them came plummeting down with a resounding crash. Casey was too taken aback by the assault on his face to care, and Jayden didn't appear to notice the damage they-mainly he-had done as they mashed their faces together needily. Feeling a tongue stab against his pearly, smooth teeth, Casey let out an involuntary moan, allowing Jayden entry, snaking his own muscle around the other boy's as the initial shock of the impulsing of the kiss wore off. Lips cascading against one another like rough ocean waves plunging over a sandy beach at high tide, several things suddenly occurred to Casey. He was kissing-no, being kissed by-no, being ravaged by- Liberty Zaveloff's boyfriend at her party, in her mansion, in her parents' bedroom, the wretched remains of a mirror that was likely a family heirloom laying mere feet away from them. He had never let Jacob do these things to him; perhaps it was because it was too soon after the rape, or maybe it was just because Jacob Natel was a jacka**, but whenever he tried to kiss Casey like this, he had always squirmed away anxiously, rather than melt underneath him and respond the way he was with Jayden at this moment, heavy breathing and all.
And, finally; he was shut up in a strange bedroom, in a strange house, with a boy he had only known since September; none of his friends downstairs knew where he was or who he was with, or that he was even planning on cornering Jayden tonight; what if Jayden regained his senses, realized what he had done, and took it out on him?
And why was he so frigging calm? The last boy who had done this to him was Jacob, who had acted as if being sexually tortured by a forty five year sociopath was nothing, who had treated him like s*** for four months before Andrew and Harmony had knocked some sense into his pretty little head, who had used him when he was hurting and needed someone to lean on. Why was Casey so willing to be kissed like this by an almost complete stranger? What was so different about Jayden?
He needs you to make him realize, a voice strangely similar to his father's, that this is too precious to forsake in favor of an ultimately worthless reputation.
Oh, great, now he was thinking about his father as the most gorgeous boy he had ever laid eyes on was sucking on his tongue. Life was really f***ing terrific.
Those hot hands on his shoulders ran down his arms and grabbed his waist, fingernails digging into thin denim, hard, allowing Jayden to animalistically drag himself even closer to Casey's quaking body, pinning him to the wall now, and any coherent thought left in his racing mind promptly flew out through both ears. This was perfect, this was sheer bliss, nothing and no one else would ever be able to compare to this amazing feeling of right slowly burning through Casey's brain, his blood, his entire being.
And then it was over.
Gently, Jayden pulled his lips away from Casey's shaking form. Confused, he slowly opened his blurry eyes. Jayden was staring at him again, face flushed, pupils dilated, hands travelling from his waist to trace his cherry red lips lightly.
"So soft," he whispered sadly, and Casey would have kissed him again right then and there if the door hadn't burst open the next second.
Jayden skidded away from him as if he carried some highly contagious disease, but the unkempt Casey remained frozen to the spot, attached to the wall.
Raiden, Brooklyn, Maddox, Matteo and Liberty's older sister Bronte piled into the room at once, the latter two going straight to the stack of needles that was the once-majestic mirror.
"Oh, my God..." Bronte whimpered, falling to her knees in front of the pathetic remains of the looking glass. Jayden and Casey both looked down at their feet awkwardly, trying their best to not look too guilt.y.
"See, guys?" Maddox roared, bloodshot eyes growing wide and switching from Casey to Jayden to the glass to the others. "Told ya something was going down up here!" He stumbled over to Casey. "Are you okay, man? What happened?"
"I'm fine, Madd," he assured his very drunk friend. "Why don't you go back downstairs and find Ariella now?"
Maddox didn't answer immediately, just looked at him. "Okay!" he smiled brightly after about ten seconds, then promptly turned around and sped down the hallway, missing the turn towards the staircase and instead ramming himself headfirst into the wall.
"F*******K!"
Raiden glanced at Casey, horrified, who already knew his question.
"Andrew's driving him home," he duly supplied, to which Raiden nodded and refocused his attention on the shell shocked Bronte.
She looked up at Jayden, face fearful. "What happened?"
"Jesus, it was so weird, we were talking and it just kinda crashed," Jayden said at once, sliding on the mask of diplomacy he had inherited from his father. "Right?" He shot Casey a pointed look..
"Yeah, we were on the other side of the room," him confirmed miserably, absorbed in his own admittedly awesome boots.
"Are you two okay?" Brooklyn asked concernedly, ever the mother hen.
Both boys nodded, averting the other's gaze.
"Your parents are going to kill you," Matteo said in awe. "What are you going to do about this?"
"I don't know!" wailed Bronte, eyes growing wetter in panic, "they don't even know that we were having a party, me and Libby didn't think that anything would be damaged, especially not this!"
"Can you replace it before they get back?" Brooklyn asked helpfully. "How much was it?"
"It was an antique from the Victorian era!"
"I guess that's a no, then," Raiden declared, trying to lighten the mood.
The expression Bronte sent zinging in his direction read bloody murder.
"Let's all just go downstairs, ask your brother what he thinks we should do," Matteo suggested, ushering his girlfriend out of the room and gesturing to the rest to follow.
As he brought up the line, Jayden turned to Casey, who had remained silent since addressing Raiden, as if he was going to speak; but after just simply looking at Casey uncertainly for a moment, like he wanted to reach out to him but didn't know how, the dark haired boy slowly followed his friends out of the grand bedroom, past an obscenity-spewing Maddox Chang, in search of Michael Zaveloff.
Still leaning against the suddenly freezing wall, he sunk down to the floor, knees drawn up vulnerably against his chest. As the sounds of the mediocre band below rumbled through the floorboards, Casey could no longer hold back the huge, hot tears that came pouring down his face harder than the raindrops banging desperately against the windowpane.