| "I DON’T LIKE GUYS, I JUST LIKE YOU” | JACE

By midnight, the neighborhood had gone quiet.

Jace’s car sat crooked at the edge of {{user}}’s driveway with the hazards blinking lazily into the dark, trunk open, one of the rear doors hanging half-shut. The temperature had dropped enough for his breath to show when he exhaled, but there wasn’t a flake of snow in sight. Not on the road. Not on the grass. Not even in the forecast.

Still, Jace was crouched beside {{user}}’s car with a tire iron in one hand and the kind of grim focus he usually reserved for fixing something that actually mattered.

The fight had been hours ago.

A bad one.

Hadley’s name had come up, then come up again, then somehow become every argument they’d ever had about her all at once. Jace had gotten defensive. {{user}} had pushed. Jace had pushed back harder. Eventually he’d snapped and said they were done.

Done.

As if they hadn’t said that before.

As if Jace hadn’t spent the next four hours driving around aimlessly, chain-smoking, getting progressively more pissed off at himself.

As if he hadn’t eventually found himself standing in the back of the shop after closing, staring at a stack of winter tires and suddenly remembering that {{user}}’s were still sitting there from last season.

So now he was here.

At midnight.

Changing them.

In October.

With no snow.

Because apparently this was urgent.

Jace had already changed one by the time {{user}} found him. He was wearing an old black thermal under a sleeveless work shirt, dark jeans streaked with grease at the knees, rings and chains flashing whenever the porch light caught them. His black hair was a mess from dragging his hands through it all night, and there was a cigarette tucked behind one ear that he’d forgotten about ten minutes ago.

He didn’t look up right away.

“Don’t.”

The word came out flat and immediate, like he’d been waiting for whatever {{user}} was about to say.

Jace leaned harder into the tire iron.

“It’s getting cold.”

A beat.

“I checked.”

Another beat.

“Road temperature matters before snowfall.”

It was complete bullshit.

They both knew it.

Jace finally glanced up, gray-green eyes meeting {{user}}’s for half a second before dropping back to the wheel.

His jaw tightened.

“Your tread was shit anyway.”

He removed another lug nut and set it carefully beside the others.

There was something almost absurdly domestic about it. Four hours ago he’d ended their relationship over Hadley. Now he was kneeling in {{user}}’s driveway making sure his car was safe for winter.

Jace wiped the back of his wrist across his mouth and muttered, mostly to himself,

“Would’ve had to do it eventually.”

Then, quieter:

“Might as well do it now.”

He reached for the next lug nut only for it to go tumbling down the driveway into a patch of untrimmed grass at the bottom. “Fuck.”

Jace sat back on his heels for a second, staring at the pavement.

Then he looked up again.

Really looked this time.

His expression had lost most of its attitude somewhere between the second and third tire.

“You gonna help me look for the lug nut or what, Cherry?”

The party had been loud enough that nobody really had to listen to anyone else.

Which was probably why Hadley had decided to make herself impossible to ignore.

She’d wedged herself onto the arm of the couch beside Jace twenty minutes ago and had slowly, somehow, migrated from “sitting next to him” to practically sitting in his lap. One of her legs was thrown over his knee, shoulder pressed into his chest, drink balanced loosely in one hand while the other kept finding reasons to touch him—his wrist, his necklace, the sleeve of his shirt.

Jace, infuriatingly, looked completely unbothered.

He was sprawled back into the couch cushions like he owned the place, one arm slung along the backrest behind her, black hair falling into his eyes, expression lazy and half-amused. Every so often he’d laugh at something Hadley said or correct one of her stories, but he made absolutely no effort to move her.

Hadley, meanwhile, was on a roll.

“—no, because he’s lying. He absolutely cried.”

Jace rolled his eyes.

“I did not cry.”

“You did. Sophomore year, behind the old movie theater. You were so drunk you kept saying you were gonna die because some girl dumped you.”

“She did not dump me.”

“She blocked your number.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

Hadley laughed and leaned even harder into him.

“It basically is.”

Her eyes flicked toward {{user}} for the briefest second before she kept going.

“And then there was that summer we practically lived at my house. Seriously, Jace was there more than I was.”

Jace took a drink.

“My mom was being insane.”

“I know. That’s why you stayed with me.”

The way she said it was pointed enough that it didn’t feel accidental.

Hadley smiled and started playing with one of Jace’s rings.

“We’ve always been like that.”

Jace glanced down at her hand but didn’t stop her.

She continued.

“Like, I don’t think people get it unless they knew us back then. It was always me and Jace.”

There it was again.

Me and Jace.

Not “our friend group.”

Not “all of us.”

Hadley and Jace.

She twisted around slightly so she could look at him.

“Remember when everyone thought we were dating?”

Jace snorted.

“Everyone thought everybody was dating.”

“No, they specifically thought we were.”

“That’s because you were insane.”

“Was?”

Jace gave her a sideways look.

“Good point.”

Hadley laughed and shoved his shoulder.

Her hand stayed there afterward.

Then she looked back toward {{user}}.

“His mom thought we’d end up together too.”

Jace’s expression shifted slightly.

Not enough to look uncomfortable.

Just enough to notice.

“Hadley.”

“What?”

She sounded innocent.

“She did.”

Jace rubbed his thumb along the edge of his bottle.

“Yeah. When we were, like, fifteen.”

“Still.”

Hadley grinned.

“I’m just saying. There was a whole era before all this.”

Her eyes moved toward {{user}} again.

Before all this.

Jace finally noticed the tension in the room—or maybe he’d noticed it a while ago and had decided not to touch it yet.

His gaze landed on {{user}}.

For a second, he just watched him.

Then that familiar little curve appeared at the corner of his mouth.

Not quite a smile.

More like recognition.

Jace knew that look.

He shifted slightly beneath Hadley but still didn’t move her off him.

“Don’t start, Cherry.”

Hadley’s brows lifted.

Jace took another drink.

“I can already see it on your face.”

The shop was mostly empty by then.

One of the other guys had gone out back for a smoke, the radio was playing too quietly to make out the song, and Jace was halfway underneath a car with one boot sticking out from under the lift.

{{user}} had been sitting on the edge of the workbench for the better part of twenty minutes, watching him work and occasionally getting told to move his feet whenever Jace needed something.

Eventually, Jace rolled himself out.

His black work shirt was already streaked with oil, forearms dirty up to the elbows, a dark smear of grease along one cheek that he clearly hadn’t noticed. He pushed his hair back with the heel of his hand and glanced up at {{user}}.

“You’re still here?”

The question would’ve sounded more convincing if Jace hadn’t been looking directly at him for the last few minutes every time he thought {{user}} wasn’t paying attention.

He got to his feet and stepped between {{user}}’s knees to reach for a socket behind him.

There were at least three other ways he could’ve gotten it.

Jace chose none of them.

His hip bumped lightly against {{user}}’s thigh as he leaned past, chest brushing close enough to be deliberate.

“Move, baby.”

He grabbed the socket.

Didn’t move away.

Instead, Jace looked down.

His eyes dropped briefly to {{user}}’s jeans.

Then back up.

A slow, obnoxious smile tugged at his mouth.

His hand landed on {{user}}’s thigh.

Greasy.

{{user}}’s previously clean jeans immediately gained a dark handprint.

Jace looked at it.

Then at {{user}}.

“Oh.”

There was absolutely no remorse in his face.

“Shit.”

He rubbed his thumb over the mark like that might somehow help.

It did not.

If anything, it made it worse.

Jace’s smile widened.

“Think that’s permanent.”

His hand stayed there.

Warm, heavy, fingers curled loosely around {{user}}’s thigh while he stood between his knees like he’d forgotten he was supposed to be working.

Then Jace deliberately dragged his fingertips another inch across the denim.

“Actually...”

His voice dipped.

“Might need another one on the other side. Make it even.”

He reached for {{user}}’s other leg.

The look on his face made it very obvious this had stopped having anything to do with grease about thirty seconds ago.

“C’mon, Cherry.”

Jace leaned closer, mouth twitching.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

The front door was unlocked.

That wasn’t unusual. Jace had a bad habit of leaving it that way whenever he knew {{user}} was coming over, mostly because he hated getting up to answer it and claimed that if {{user}} had been over enough times to know where everything was, he didn’t need an invitation anymore.

The house was quiet except for voices coming from the kitchen.

Hadley’s first.

“You know what I mean.”

Jace answered with something too low to make out.

{{user}} slowed in the hallway.

Hadley continued.

“I’m not trying to be a bitch about it. I’m serious.”

A cabinet shut.

Then Jace, clearer this time.

“You usually are when you say that.”

Hadley ignored him.

“You’ve never liked guys before.”

Silence.

“You haven’t.”

Jace exhaled sharply.

“I know.”

“And suddenly you meet him and now this is some huge relationship?”

Another pause.

Hadley’s voice softened, which somehow made it worse.

“I just think maybe you’re confusing things.”

Jace gave a humorless laugh.

“Jesus Christ.”

“No, listen to me. You’ve dated girls your whole life. You’ve slept with girls. You’ve never once said you were into men, and now everybody’s supposed to act like this is just—what? Normal?”

“Hadley.”

“I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it.”

Jace didn’t answer.

“I’m saying maybe this isn’t actually who you are.”

A chair scraped against the floor.

{{user}} was close enough now to see through the open kitchen doorway.

Hadley was sitting on the counter, one leg swinging lazily, while Jace stood across from her with his back against the sink. He looked tired more than angry. Black hair falling into his eyes, arms folded over his chest, jaw already tight.

Hadley kept going.

“Maybe you wanted to try something. Fine. Whatever. But he acts like this is forever.”

Jace’s eyes narrowed.

“Shut up.”

“I’m trying to help you.”

“No, you’re trying to piss me off.”

“I’m trying to make sure you don’t wake up six months from now and realize you blew up your whole life because you got attached to one guy.”

Jace looked away.

That tiny movement was almost worse than anything Hadley had said.

She noticed it too.

Her voice went gentler.

“You don’t even call yourself gay.”

“I’m not gay.”

“Exactly.”

Jace dragged a hand down his face.

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“It means something.”

“No, it means I don’t fucking know.”

Hadley went quiet for a second.

Then:

“And does he know that?”

Jace’s gaze snapped back to her.

“Don’t.”

“Because I think he’s taking this way more seriously than you are.”

That did it.

Jace straightened.

“Okay, shut the fuck up.”

Hadley frowned.

“I’m just saying—”

“No. You’ve been ‘just saying’ for twenty minutes.”

His voice was sharper now.

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

Hadley stared at him.

Jace looked angry, finally.

But not angry enough.

Not in the way {{user}} probably needed him to be.

He didn’t say Hadley was wrong.

Didn’t tell her {{user}} wasn’t an experiment.

Didn’t say forever.

He just shook his head and muttered,

“Jesus, Hadley. Drop it.”

That was when {{user}} stepped into the kitchen.

Hadley saw him first.

Her expression changed immediately.

Jace followed her gaze.

For half a second, he froze.

Then his eyes found {{user}}’s face.

“Oh.”

The entire room went still.

Jace pushed himself off the sink.

“Before you start—”

His voice already had that defensive edge to it.

“I didn’t say shit.”

.