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builtbykittie · 4 months

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The right side of my neck

J.t.k x f!reader

Summary: when you attend a New Year's Eve party, the last thing you'd expect is to run into your old best friend, let alone fall in love with him all over again.

Warnings: 18+, alcohol consumption, mentions of underage alcohol consumption, very very SLIGHT angst, fluff?, kissing, longggg make out sesh, veryyy touchy, no smut (yet..)

A/N: are y'all tired of the Jake fics yet? Anyways, go listen to the right side of my neck by Faye Webster then come back because it's basically the entire theme of the fic. Also can I just say I love doing song inspired fics??? Enjoy!!🫶 (part two coming soon??)

You stare at yourself in the mirror, your head tilted to the side as you try to come to a conclusion. The dress your roommate picked out for you is very pretty, but skimpy. It's incredibly short and if you're not careful enough you could flash everyone at the party, whether it's your boobs or your ass.

"Y/N, you ready?" Your roommate shouts from the living room, and you realize just how long you've been staring at the dress. "Yeah, I just.." you walk out of your room, dropping your hands by your sides in defeat. "I don't know."

"Oh come on, girl. You look hot!" She walks over to you, brushing your hair away from your eyes. "I'm going to flash someone, Ana, seriously," you take a step back, silently telling her to take another look at the dress. She quirks a brow and looks you up and down, a smile playing on her lips "at least you'll look good doing it."

"So are you wearing it or not?" She crosses her arms, growing impatient. "Fine," you mutter, slinging your purse over your shoulder. Ana's eyes light up, a big grin growing on her face "Yay! Maybe you'll catch someone's eye..."

Ana was the first to take you in after moving to Nashville. You originally knew her from when you lived in Michigan as kids, she moved to Nashville a few years before you did and you got in contact with her as soon as you found out you were also moving.

"If I embarrass myself in front of an entire party I'm blaming it on you," you smile, slipping in the passenger seat as Ana starts the car. Ana got invited to a New Year's Eve party hosted by some musician she'd somehow become friends with and could bring one other person, she chose you.

"Are the people gonna be all... Pretentious?" you giggle, resting your face on your palm. "Well.. it isn't just musicians. I mean I got invited," Ana smiles, pulling out of the driveway.

It wasn't very long until Ana was pulling into the driveway of a large house, cars lined up along the street. Ana introduced you to her friend and people she knew, staying by your side for the majority of being there. She wasn't wrong, there were plenty of 'normal' people, but there was also plenty of artists.

Living in Nashville, you see countless musicians, but you never really talked to any of them until tonight. "See, I told you it wouldn't be so bad," Ana grins, pushing your hair from your face and throwing back her drink.

"Oh my god," you grab Ana's arms, a smile pulling on your red cheeks. "What!?" She practically yells back, her eyes wide. "I love this song!" You shout, grabbing her hands and moving them to the song playing. You watch her face relax, a large grin growing on her face as she starts to dance with you "Jesus girl you scared me."

Just then, you catch a glimpse of something that nearly takes your breath away. Something you never thought you'd see again.

"Holy shit," you mutter just above a whisper, taking a complete step back. "Ana, holy shit," you look to your roommate, your lips parted and your eyes comically wide. "What, Y/N?" She looks around, confused at your shock until she also sees it.

"Y/N is that.." Ana gasps, her palm over her mouth. You both try not to stare, try to pry your eyes from him, but neither of you can help it.

Just as you go to say something, his head turns in your direction and you watch a look of pure shock wash over his face. Jacob fucking Kiszka.

You take Ana's wrist, practically running away from him and pulling her with you. Jake was your best friend growing up, you guys did absolutely everything together. You were always by each other's sides and when you weren't, you made it your job to let everyone around you know. You were smitten with him, it was a bond nobody could ever break, that was until you had to move away after graduation.

When you moved, you completely lost all contact. It killed you. The first year was the worst, you grieved him as if something horrible had happened. As if he'd passed. Sometimes you still find yourself wondering what it'd be like if you never left Michigan, or maybe if in another universe you stayed friends, even after all these years.

You knew you should be happy to see him, but all those emotions from that year just came rushing back to you. You weren't ready to talk to him, not yet. "Y/N, oh my fucking god!" Ana shouts, her mouth wide open. You stop in a darker area, desperately hoping people won't notice you as tears form in your eyes and you start to practically hyperventilate.

"Oh, Y/N," Ana runs her hand through your hair, pulling you into a hug. You're more than grateful that she understands, if you were with anyone else they would've interrogated you about everything. The sweet scent of her perfume calms you down slightly, giving you enough courage to pull away and collect yourself.

Your mind had been running a thousand miles, so many emotions running through your head at once. "Not to overwhelm you but... Do you think you're gonna talk to him?" Ana questions, walking over to the sofa with you and sitting down.

"I... I don't know," you drop your head "I feel like I kinda have to, you know? I spent so much of my life with him." Ana nods, tucking your hair behind your ear as you talk. "Hm. I think you should. I mean, no offense but I feel like it'd be.. I don't know.. bitchy to not say anything. I just don't want you to be sad again," she smiles sweetly, looking up and finding none other than Jake's twin brother.

"Y/N," she whispers, bumping you with her elbow "Josh is here too." Of course, as if you weren't distraught enough by Jake, Josh is here too. He knew exactly how you felt about Jake, you trusted him with your life. There were countless nights you'd stay up telling him your deepest secrets, including how in love you were with Jake.

"Y/N?" You hear your name get called from across the room by a voice nobody could ever mistake. You and Ana look at each other with wide eyes for a moment, having a silent conversation before you toughen up and face him. "Oh my god. Y/N!" Josh practically runs over to you, taking you into probably the tightest and longest hug you've ever experienced the second you stand up.

"It's really you, huh?" Josh pulls back slightly, his hands still on your back as he marvels at your all grown-up look. "Mhm," you smile "this is crazy. I really never thought I'd see you again." The look on Josh's face is pure serenity, so excited to see you. You wish you felt the same.

"You look amazing!" Josh nearly shouts, exaggerating every word with his hands. "Are you kidding? You look incredible," you grin, placing your hands on your hips and watching him shy away, a genuine giggle slipping past your lips at the sight.

Josh moves on to Ana and you stand there silently, conflicting emotions coursing through your head as they catch up. "What are you doing in Nashville?" Josh quirks an eyebrow, his eyes so bright and genuine. "I live here now. Well, we live here," you gesture to Ana. "Yeah. She sleeps on my couch," Ana jests, crashing her hip into yours.

"Are you serious!?" Josh exclaims "we live here!" Your eyes open comically wide and your cheeks turn burning red "you're joking." A loud chuckle erupts from Josh's mouth "I'm not."

"That's so- I mean- when did you move? Why?" You stammer, frantically looking back and fourth between Josh and Ana. "We just needed a place to settle down, you know? I mean we'd just been basically living out of suitcases," Josh smiles, but quickly picks up on the blank look playing across your features. Suitcases? Settle down? Now you're really confused.

"Oh my god- you don't know, do you?" Josh's face lights up, a certain glimmer in his eyes becoming evident. You simply shake your head with a tight-lipped smile, your eyebrows tipped slightly up in confusion. "Remember that little band we had?" You can tell Josh is proud of what he's about to say.

Josh's grin somehow grows even larger as he watches you connect the dots. "Shut up," you nearly whisper "are you serious?" Josh simply just wears a proud grin as he nods. You're overwhelmed with excitement, however it seems to turn into something else. Shame maybe?

Your cheeks flush pink and suddenly you're filled with guilt. You didn't even care to find out about what they've been doing. You could've easily searched his name and instead you chose to be ignorant.

"Oh my god I can't believe I didn't know! I mean, we spent so many years together and I didn't have a clue what you guys are up to now. I'm so sorry, Josh." He gives you a weak smile and shakes his head "no, it's okay. I understand. Don't worry, Y/N." His reassurance should make you feel better about yourself, but it doesn't. You muster up a tight-lipped smile but fail to hide the hint of shame behind it.

The next few moments are quiet, and you tell he's hesitant about what he's about to say next.

"Have you talked to Jake?"

For a split second you can almost feel your heart stop. No. No, I didn't talk to him because I ran. I was too afraid to even look him in the eye, you think to yourself. But what could you possibly be afraid of? Shouldn't you be overcome with joy? Completely and utterly sublime?

"Uh... No, I haven't," you drop your head "but I did see him." Josh's brows furrow in confusion, but he seems to understand. "I don't know what happened. I just- I saw him and-" you start to stammer, but fortunately, Josh just cuts you off. "Hey, it's okay," josh giggles, smoothing his hand over your arm.

You let the gentle feeling of his hand calm you down, an upside-down smile making it's way to your lips. "But, I think you should go talk to him. Alone," Josh's tone gets slightly more serious. You know he's right.

You stand there for a moment, collecting the thoughts that have been bouncing around every inch of your skull. "Okay," you all but whisper as you smooth out your dress. "How do I look?"

You let Josh and Ana shower you with praise for a little, letting them boost your confidence. You definitely need it. "You guys better stay right here," you nervously smile "in case I can't find him."

The two wish you good luck and send you on your way. You feel giddy as you make your way through the party, zigzagging through bodies, heaven only knows how badly you want to stop. How badly you want to run back to josh and Ana. You feel your palms and the soles of your feet start to sweat, but you can't turn back. Not again.

Just as you're about to give up, you spot him. Some girl is practically hanging on him, and suddenly you're not so sure about going up to him. Why should you care if a girl's with him? It's not like you ever dated, and after all the years you think you'd be over him by now.

Suck it up. You stand up straight, fixing your dress and hair, watching as the girl places her hand on his chest, running it down his torso. She's gotta be his girlfriend... But he doesn't look too infatuated with her. God, why does it matter? What difference does it make?

You take a step, your legs carrying yourself towards him before you can even get your thoughts sorted. You take another step, then another, then stop. You're closer now, but there's still plenty of space. Maybe you're not as ready as you thought you were.

You can't stop watching the girl. You're about to just ignore it and toughen up when he looks in your exact direction. This time you don't immediately run away, you stand there, holding eye contact for a couple seconds before you almost run to the bathroom.

In the corner of your eye, you're almost positive you see him shrug off the girl and start to practically run after you.

You speed up to the bathroom and quickly shut the door behind you, as if a killer was chasing after you. As you observe yourself in the mirror, there's a gentle knock on the door, followed by your name. It's Jake.

You clamp your eyes shut, wishing that, for a moment, you could cancel out the world around you. Sucking in a deep breath, you reach for the doorknob, your shaky hands slowly opening the door. "Hey," Jake's voice is soft and raspy, sending a chill down your spine.

You hesitate, your eyes raking over his entire body "Hi, Rockstar." A shy smile finds it's way to his lips, and you can't help the grin pulling on yours. As you step out of the room, he holds out his arms.

You practically throw yourself into him, you never really realized just how badly you'd craved his warmth until right now. "I missed you," you mumble into his chest.

"Oh Y/N, you have no idea," Jake chuckles, rubbing your back. Tears prick your eyes as all those memories come rushing back to you, but you hold them back as best as you can. Finally breaking the embrace, the two of you silently just look at each other. Your eyes rake his body, though he's still relatively young, he's aged well from the last time you've seen him. You can't deny, he looks amazing.

"I think Josh and Sam might've thought of kicking me out if I mentioned you one more time that first year," Jake chuckles, "but we all missed you." Oh come on, Jake, you think to yourself, because your eyes become glossy with tears yet again.

"I was actually the opposite," you confess, your cheeks suddenly burning up. "I couldn't bring you up without crying," you giggle "but I swore I smelled that cologne you used to wear every single day for months." A soft grin plays on his lips "I've upgraded since then."

"Congratulations, y'know, on your band," you smile and playfully push him. "Thanks. You surprised we made it?" He jokes, but you can tell there's slight sincerity behind it. "Not even," you roll your eyes with a grin, starting to walk towards the kitchen, silently telling him to follow.

"Oh yeah?" He smirks, hastily following you through the bodies of people. "Yeah, I mean, It's always been your dream. I can't imagine you being anything other than a rockstar. I mean, you guys had room for improvement, of course," you giggle, your eyes set on shot glasses on a table in front of you.

A chuckle bubbles up from his chest "yeah. Hey, have you heard us?" You reach the table, silently pouring yourself and Jake shots "uh... no. If I'm honest, I didn't even know you guys.. you know... Still made music."

Jake's eyes widen slightly "Really? Not even on the radio?" You shake your head, suddenly feeling extremely guilty. You can tell he's just a little hurt, not mad, just upset that you never even cared. Who can blame him?

"Who knows, maybe I have heard it," you hold out his shot with a slightly guilty smile, jake accepting it with a grin. The two of you throw back the shots on the count of three, flashbacks of your graduation party resurface in your mind. It was one of those nights when you just wished nothing could ever change, but of course, everything did. If only you knew then what would happen.

"So," jake smirks, that cocky little expression you recognize from your teens. You hum and step closer, returning his energy. "Wanna talk about that night?" Your eyes blow wide, your cheeks flushing an embarrassing shade of red. That night. One of the last times you'd seen him. It was a going away party. You were practically on top of him, and he had to turn you down because of how drunk you were.

"Oh my god. Seriously, Jake? That was years ago," you whine out of embarrassment, remembering just how desperate you were. "I remember it like it was yesterday," he grins, poking your side. He puts on a high pitched voice, mocking you "Jake please, I want you..."

"Jake!" You whine "how do you even remember that?" He erupts with a cocky laugh "how could I not?" You roll your eyes, your cheeks so red and so hot you feel like you need to dunk your face in ice water. He's still as cocky as you remember.

"So, you talked to josh, huh?" jake smiles "y'know I'm hurt, you ran from me yet you had no problem talking to my twin." He puts his hand over his heart, pretending to be wounded. "Well, I didn't really have a choice. He kinda cornered us," you giggle, turning around and pouring yourself something sweet.

"Mhm," he smirks and steps up to your side, leaning against the counter. "You look so.." he doesn't finish his sentence. "What? Gorgeous? Sexy?" You grin, sipping the concoction you'd put together and mirroring his position.

"I was gonna say old," he chuckles, grabbing a champagne glass and the bottle of Dom Perignon off the counter. "Wow," it's your turn to look hurt "I could say the same thing about you." But you couldn't. He definitely looks more mature, yes, but far from old.

"You guys live here now? Like, all of you?" You sip your drink. "Well, only the three of us. And Daniel of course," he grins, and you watch intently how his plush lips close around the edge of the glass he drinks out of. You quickly, and awkwardly avert your gaze once he catches you, a chuckle slipping past those pink lips.

"So," he practically purrs "you got a new years kiss?" Your cheeks flush red and you make a rather disgusted face "god no." Jake tilts his head to the side with a smirk at your question. "Do you? I saw that girl all over you earlier," you poke his chest, that warmth of his on the tip of your finger makes your heart ache for another embrace.

"Oh, no," he smiles bashfully, shaking his head. "She was making me rather uncomfortable, actually," he snickers, fixing his almost completely unbuttoned shirt. This is the first time tonight that you completely took in his outfit. Two beautiful silver necklaces resting against his bare chest, his signature unbuttoned shirt, a black blazer over the top of it and black pants "you grew out of the old flannels?"

"Of course not," he stands straight in protest "I just wanted to be a little more fancy."

Before you knew it, it was almost twelve and you'd completely forgotten about josh and Ana. The two of you were so lost in conversation, or you just trying to stand up against his cockiness, that you lost all track of time. You and Jake had absentmindedly wandered through the house over some time, not taking account of how much alcohol you've had.

You found that Jake still had an effect on you, could still effortlessly make you blush like a little girl. You also found that those feelings you felt all those years ago might've never left.

"Oh shit," you mutter as you notice the time on your phone, mindlessly taking his hand and dragging him with you as you wander through the large house.

"Where are we going?" Jake practically shouts and you hear the giggle in his words as he stumbles along behind you. "To find Josh and Ana! It's like eleven fifty-eight!"

As you're about to give up looking for them, you crash into someone, sending you to the cold wooden floor. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!" You fix your hair, your cheeks beet red as you grab your purse. Jake reaches his hand out for you, pulling you to your feet in one quick movement.

As soon as you get up, the countdown starts. Ten! You look at Jake with wide eyes. Nine! You start to giggle. Eight! Jake begins to laugh with you, still holding you close. The countdown seems to be going by too fast. Five!.. Four! You now have three seconds to decide what to do. Three! You look around to the couples getting ready for their kiss.

Jake seems to be just as lost as you, you've both stopped giggling now. Two! You look at Jake, his low, slightly bloodshot eyes stare back at you, a grin pulling on his cheeks. Your hands come up to cup his face and his large hands pull you in by your waist. One! Jake pulls you in even closer and before you can think, your lips find his.

Your hands move to his hair, the tips of your fingers massaging into his scalp as your lips mould with his. You almost feel as if electricity is flowing through every part of you and you never want this moment to end. The warmth of his body and the lingering taste of alcohol on his breath is addicting.

Your nose presses into his face, pressing yourself as close as possible into him and you start to lose your breath, but you cant get enough. When you finally lose your breath completely, you break the contact with your lips, resting your forehead against his. "I have waited... Far too long for this," Jake whispers, his hand coming up to cup your cheek, gently caressing it.

You almost forget you're in public until someone bumps into you two. You break the embrace and you look at each other, silently coming to the realization that neither of you are done. Without hesitation, he grasps your wrist and pulls you through the people who probably saw the two of you kissing. The thought makes you grimace. PDA has never been your thing, even at parties.

Once Jake finally manages to find an open bathroom, he pulls you into the room and gently presses you up against the closed door. You reach your hands up to cup his cheeks, drawing circles into his warm flesh with your thumb. You pull his face close to you and once again let your forehead rest against his.

The two of you just stand there for a moment, breathing each other in and gently running your hands along each other's body. "I thought I'd never get to touch you again," Jake whispers, taking your hands in his, and kissing every one of your fingers down to your palms.

The moment he's done, he drops your hands and pulls you into him, running his tongue along your bottom lip. The way he's exploring your body, praising you and being so gentle, could almost make you cry. You know saying goodbye is gonna be impossible.

His lips press against yours again, his large hands cupping the back of your neck. "I just want to.." Jake breathes between kisses "make up for all that time I should've been kissing you." Your heart aches at his words. You don't know how you'll ever be able to stay away from him after tonight.

Jake's calloused fingers wander down your body, running past your shoulder blades down to the small of your back. No matter how close he pulls you it never seems to be enough for either of you.

Like his hands, his kisses begin to wander down. His lips light your body on fire as they drag along your neck. "Jake," you breathe, your fingers entangled in his wavy hair. You feel a smile on his lips and he hums against your neck, a shiver creeping up your spine once he bundles up the fabric of your dress in his fist, leaving your ass slightly exposed.

He doesn't fail to kiss every inch of your neck, sucking the skin behind your ear into his mouth and lapping at the skin. Soft, barely audible breathy moans escape your mouth, each one further encouraging Jake. Slowly and gently, he makes his way back up to your lips, his hands still resting on the small of your back and grasping your dress.

Your hands find his face, your fingers coming up to his lips, feeling the plush pink flesh beneath the digits. You finally have him at the tips of your fingers, literally, and you're not gonna waste it.

He smiles, letting you take full advantage of the moment, knowing that you've both waited years for this exact moment. One of your hands moves his hair away from his face and you cup his cheeks, kissing his forehead down to the very tip of his nose. You draw lines of kisses all across his face, over those cheek bones you've always loved, his jawline, his temples.

Finally, your lips return to his, his tongue brushing over your lip. You part your lips, allowing him access to your mouth. His tongue dances with yours so beautifully, as if you've kissed him like this thousands of times, and god, the taste of him.

He bundles up your dress at your waist, his fingers digging into the flesh of the back of your thighs as he lifts you up, and you can't help but erupt in a fit of giggles, grasping onto him. He carries you to the counter and gently places you down, his rough hands running down your bare thighs sends a shiver up your spine. "Hi," You smile, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and pulling him into you.

He takes your bottom lip between his teeth and pulls on it before smashing his lips into yours. You lean into him, your hands cupping the back of head. His hands are still on your thighs, slowly moving further and further upwards with each second. His thumb caresses the smooth surface as his fingers gently squeeze the skin.

A shiver creeps it's way up your spine as you feel Jakes calloused fingers sneak up under where your dress is bunched up at your waist, slowly moving up your tummy. Just as his fingers reach your breasts, someone knocks at the door.

This startles you, and you both flinch back. "Hello? Is Y/N in here?" Calls a voice from behind the door, it's unmistakably Ana's.

"Uh," you clear your throat "yeah!" Jake grabs your waist and helps you down without making much noise. You both look at each other, panicked. "Hey, I don't mean to be boring I gotta go, so.." she shouts over the loud voices and booming music.

"Oh, no it's okay! Don't worry," you try your best to flatten out your dress, noticing the large wrinkles from where he grabbed at and bunched up the fabric. You shakily open the door, your cheeks flushed bright red.

"I checked every bathroom. Well every one I could fin-" she cuts herself off once she notices the man behind you. He lets out a low chuckle, "she drank a little too much, we tried to find you but it would've been too late. Poor girl." You stand awkwardly as Jake makes up a story on the spot and rubs your back, watching Ana's grin grow bigger.

"Ohhh I see," Ana smirks, grabbing your wrist and pulling you through the door. "Sorry, Jake. I wish we could talk more but we really gotta go. Especially if Y/N is sick," she grins, slinging her arm over your shoulder. "We should have lunch soon!" She digs through your purse and grabs your phone, opening your contacts and handing the phone to Jake.

Once he's done typing in his number, she drops your phone back in your purse, saying bye and beginning to walk off. "Ana, why don't you go? I'll catch up," you smile, subtlety giving her a look that she instantly picks up on. "Oh, of course," she smirks, blowing a kiss and walking away.

"So," you flip around, straightening out Jake's jacket "see you soon?" His grin grows wide and his eyes glimmer with something you can't quite place. "See you soon," he chuckles and leans close to your ear "I'm not finished with you."

The words send a shiver down your spine, and your cheeks turn an embarrassing shade of red. He kisses your warm cheek before grabbing your chin and placing a peck to your lips.

"Bye," you nearly whisper, smiling like a little girl. "Don't be afraid to call me," Jake winks, placing a kiss to your forehead and walking off. You can't help but look back at him, the thoughts in your head swarming around like bees.

As you catch up with Ana, you catch yourself smiling, unable to knock the stupid expression off your face. You know you're in deep.

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heartsofminds · 2 years

Text

Pink Stripes

Jake rolls his eyes. “I need to come over.”

“Is that how you talk to your hook-ups? Cause if so, I’m still not seeing the appeal.” or Jake Seresin’s upbringing shapes him into the best Navy pilot there is and also the best dad ever.

There’s something about watching a stiff ceiling fan turn in the middle of a heat wave while it storms outside in July.

The soft “swoosh” the panels make can be mistaken for the subtle breeze outside as the rain taps on the windows relentlessly. The sound is extremely reminiscent of the knock of an annoying younger sibling wanting access to your room; the softness due to their developing muscles and the persistence because they tend to have one-track minds.

Stained glass windows of the Southern Baptist Church hide the dreariness outside but if you had been attending there long enough (which most of its patrons had been; newcomers and visitors were far and few between) the overcast was extremely obvious.

Webster, Texas was the hottest it had ever been and this fact proved evident to sixteen-year-old Jacob Michael Seresin who was sitting in a church pew with slacks that are way too big around his waist and a white button-down that is way too starchy for his liking. The shirt is translucent around his armpits and the small of his back; the wife beater underneath sticking to his skin like a shitty temporary tattoo.

So much for thanking God for the rain and the cooler weather it supposedly brings.

Jake liked to think that he believed in God, that he was a good enough Christian that if he died today he would find himself in the line that got him a seat in Heaven. But he knows that he falls short in comparison to the people who he goes to church with.

He doesn’t read his Bible the way his mother and father had wanted him to. He cursed quite a lot whenever his parents weren’t around. He was an asshole to his sisters more often than not. He gets distracted when he prays before bed; oftentimes floating off into Dreamland before he can say “amen.”

Worst of all, he thinks, is that he can’t stay focused on the sermon to save his life.

His MeeMaw always used to tell him that his mind was fast; that he was always thinking so much and so quickly that it was almost impossible for everyone else around him to keep up. So when his thoughts start to drift off into what he’s going to eat for lunch or what path to run will serve him best as the quarterback on Friday night or even how he can avoid his obnoxious little sisters once he returns home, he lets it slide because, after all, he does have Meemaw’s blessing.

Right?

His grandfather, the Pastor of the small church that his family had been attending since before he was born, reads off a verse from the Book of Philemon and Jake studies the people around him.

He sees Miss Mary Lou who is well in her eighties with her church hat on and her little paper fan that supplies a placebo of cool air. She used to sit with him and his sisters in the nursery when they were younger and spoil them rotten with butterscotches and those strange strawberry candies that stores never seemed to sell.

She still lays on her blue eyeshadow thick and her red lipstick even thicker and although it may look cheap and tacky and so grandma-ish to anyone else looking at her, it warms Jake’s heart; good childhood memories brandished in the bow of vacation Bible school and “Jesus Loves Me” sang softly to him whenever he was cradled in her lap. He often pitched fits after his mother would leave him in the nursery (call him a Momma’s boy because it’s simply the truth) and that was the only thing that could calm him down.

He sees Bria Grace McLeod sitting all prim and proper with her perfect blue sundress on and her perfect white cardigan hiding her exposed shoulders. Her perfect blonde hair sits with clear butterfly clips holding up the front two pieces and she looks so angelic, but Jake knows it’s all a facade. Just the night before she was on her knees for him in the corn field that all the teenagers in Webster hung out in.

He was leaning against his truck and she was going to work on his cock; sloppy and amateur as all get out but who was Jake to complain? Bria Grace was a bit of a biter and he was scared that if he commented on it she would bite him intentionally, so he stayed quiet, busted in her mouth, and drove her home.

He sees the way her face softens at the mentions of “living like the world” and how the “world” is littered with sex and homosexuality and abortions. The sensitivity on her face shows Jake that she’s feeling remorseful. Shameful. Dirty, even, for what she had done with him last night.

Jake wants to feel bad for her, wants to push her butter yellow hair back behind her ears and tell her that it’s alright, but he knows that it won’t change anything. He was a horny boy and Bria Grace was a horny girl. She’ll be in his backseat with her legs pushed up to her chest come Friday night. She only feels guilty in the moment, but it’ll cease to exist once church lets out and she gabs with her friends on the landline about who she blew last night.

Guilt.

It’s quite a humorous thing, Jake thinks as his eyes find his father, the assistant Pastor of Webster First Baptist, sitting on the stage behind his grandfather at the pulpit. His suit coat is unbuttoned and fat bullets of sweat stream down his face.

Call it a sixth sense or a superpower or a gift (as MeeMaw liked to call it) but it never took Jake longer than a few seconds to drink someone in and see how they were feeling. And if he had a dollar for every time his dad sat on that church stage and looked guilty as fuck, he would have enough money to shove up the asses of those fuckers who had good ole Texas oil money and never seemed to shut up about it.

Jake always found himself equal parts confused and angry at how hypocritical his father could be. When his dad wasn’t ignoring him and his sisters, he was belittling Jake for coming home late and drinking beer in the cornfields with his friends; telling him how disobedience is a sin and how if he truly gave a fuck about going to the Naval Academy, he wouldn’t put that shit into his body.

And Jake used to always repent and feel guilty. His old man was right, he used to think, until he realized that his dad was nothing more than a cheater who was routinely moaning the name of his eldest daughter’s nineteen-year-old roommate behind his children’s mother’s back.

How drinking underage was a sin but adultery was fair game never seemed to sit right with Jake, but he chalks it all down to the fact that he’s no Aristotle or God or whatever the hell is more powerful than God. He just figures that if his dad were as much of a Godly man as he claimed to be, he would know that wrong is wrong no matter what.

Jake Seresin doesn’t claim to be a righteous Christian, but fucking your daughter’s barely legal friend unbeknownst to your wife has got to get you extra hell points than underage drinking with your friends, he would assume.

He doesn’t quite know for sure, though.

God is funny like that sometimes.

The choir director sitting beside Jake and his family catches his gaze and sends the boy a tight-lipped smile. Jake doesn’t return it; just sends daggers his way before moving his eyes elsewhere. He tended to do that a lot, nowadays. His eyes often swam in the ocean of his surroundings only to be met with nothing than dryer than dry Webster, Texas. At least with the pouring rain around him, he can pretend like the town he resides in isn’t a shitty mock-up of the movie Holes.

Jake feels his mother pinch his side subtly. The almond shape of her maroon-colored fingernails paints a stark contrast to the shiny gold of his grandmother’s pearl ring perched on her pointer finger. He tries to ignore the wedding band that shines brightly even in the dreariness of the church. He doesn’t need reminders of his father’s infidelity.

“Your daddy wouldn’t be happy that you’re noddin’ off during church, Jakey,” she whispers in a sweet tone. Her mouth barely opens and she remains looking straight ahead at his grandpa with her Bible in her lap and a tissue clutched in her other hand.

Jake freezes; his breath catching in his throat and his mouth going numb like it does when he’s had one too many shots. If his mom told his dad that he wasn’t paying attention in church today, he would surely be in for an earful of hurtful words later.

He likes to pretend that he’s big and bad and that words don’t hurt but he’s come to realize a long time ago that he internalizes everything; every utterance, every look, every vocal fry embedded in his book of ways to make himself less of a nuisance. It’s a survival guide to help him not look like an idiot, and even though he’s the coolest guy in school, can have any girl he wants, and isn’t too bad on the eyes (It’s cocky to think that, but from the way he hears his sisters’ friends giggling down the hall from his room, he knows it’s true), his father’s approval is the only thing he truly cares about.

He can never put it into words; can never explain how he hates his dad so much but wants to please him so badly.

Dads are supposed to care. Dads are supposed to love you unconditionally. Dads are supposed to have a hard time showing emotion and that they care, but somehow will always have your back.

And despite that being what the norm is and wishing for it while blowing out his candles on his cake every birthday up until this past year, his dad always made him feel small. Inadequate. Hard to be around. Downright un-fucking-lovable.

Reverend John Marshall Seresin is a hometown hero; the town’s golden boy before he went off to the Naval Academy like his father and his grandfather and generations upon generations of Seresin men before him. He was a carbon copy of his father, Marshall John, and Marshall was a carbon copy of his father, John Michael.

And with faces that told the story of a legacy crafted decades and decades before Jake was even thought of (he’s not even sure he can even begin to fathom how many years of difference are between his great great great grandfather and he) invited the pressure.

All Seresins were Texas born and raised with Navy blood running rampant through their veins. Jake’s father (and grandfather, and great grandfather, and great great grandfather, and every other son of a bitch who shared the same last name as him) was the star quarterback of Webster High turned Naval Academy graduate turned Rear Admiral turned Southern Baptist Preacher.

Jake’s just not so sure that “turned cheating low-life who steps out on his wife and four kids to play House with his daughter’s college roommate” is a life achievement that everyone in his family shared as well.

The cheating was something that Jake found out by accident; sneaking in hours after his curfew and walking by his dad’s shed on the way to crawl into his bedroom window with shrieks and moans from a voice that was certainly not his mom’s. And he tried to ignore it; tried not to let the idea that his dad may or may not have cheated on his mom escape his mind but he kept finding himself in the same situation every Friday evening when he was sneaking back in from getting lucky in the cornfield with his hookup for the night.

He pieced together that the mistress was his sister’s college roommate (Natalie, he thinks her name is) during Christmas break a few months ago; the hickies she had on her neck were concealed to the untrained eye but noticeable to someone looking for clues. Her voice matched the one he had heard screaming in the shed for weeks and her frame matched what would have fit into the baby blue bra he had found stuffed in his dad’s toolbox.

The realization had made him physically ill. Fuck them for making him miss out on MeeMaw’s Christmas ham.

The worst part wasn’t the fact that his dad was a cheater or that his mom was oblivious. The worst part for Jake was knowing that he was the only one who knew, and as much as he liked to hold things over people’s heads or revel in the fact that he knew a secret that no one else was even slightly aware of and the burden weighs heavy in his chest.

How long does he let it fester? How would he even go about telling his mom? Would she even believe him? Would his father skin him alive if he knew that his son knew everything about his affair? If his parents divorced, where would that leave his sisters? Him, even?

The questions filled his mind like a twelve-foot pool, yet every time he thinks he has an answer, he’s diving into the shallow end and screwing himself over. He guesses his theoretical spinal injury is significantly better than all the drama that would ensue from the word about his father’s extramarital affair.

If he could just keep it buried long enough, he would be fine.

That’s how Seresins stayed afloat.

That’s how all of Webster stayed afloat if he’s being honest. You let bygones be bygones and hope to God no one knows.

But you know that you’ll be talked about ruthlessly by those sweet, old Southern ladies during their Wednesday night Bible studies because they tend to gossip and scheme and come up with scenarios that aren’t too far off from the truth.

And they’ll call their kids and tell them and then said kids who are on the PTA make it school-wide gossip and before you know it, you’re the talk of the town in every hairdresser, barber shop, grocery convenience store, and small prayer group within a fifteen-mile radius, but it’s not like anyone really cares.

Except they do.

And they’re judgmental.

And even though the downfall of his family hasn’t happened yet and if it did, it would be no one’s fault but his father’s, Jake doesn’t know if he could handle the aftermath.

He knows he’s not ready to tuck his mom into bed after she cried so hard she blacked out. He knows he’s not ready to put every guy his little sisters bring home under the microscope with the prayer that they’ll be nothing like their shitty, cheating dad. He certainly isn’t ready for the freezer full of casseroles and the hushed whispers paired with the “bless their hearts” as he and his family walk by a group of women in the grocery store.

The saying is sweet to an outsider, but it says all that Jake needs to know.

“Well, aren’t they shit out of luck?” And he figures that at that point, he wouldn’t be able to do anything but agree. How lucky would he be to have to pick up the pieces of his parents’ messy divorce? How lucky would he be to have to scoop his sisters off the floor after being thrown away so carelessly by their sweet daddy who used to do anything for them?

How lucky is he now to know something that no one but God knows, and feel like he has an atomic bomb strapped to his chest?

Jake thinks the only lottery he’ll ever have the pleasure of winning is the shitty hand of cards he’s been dealt by being born a Seresin.

Honor, courage, and commitment; “Go Navy” his ass.

He feels his mother pinch the side of his thigh and a small puff of air signifying her annoyance in his ear. He can see her lips stretch into a thin line at the sight of her son ignoring her earlier request.

Jake’s for sure in some deep shit with his father later. There’s no way his mom is going to let this slide. He can already envision his father’s glare from the rearview mirror on the way home from church; his dad’s ears bright pink from both the humidity outside and the pure rage that Jake seems to strike in him.

His dad wouldn’t start yelling at him until he turned down the dirt road near Prickett Street where there were only longhorns, wheat, and longhorn shit for miles. Just miles upon miles of nothing; not even golden rod-colored paint marking the road for two lanes of traffic.

John Marshall never liked for people to see him in any way that could be construed as negative. His dark side was a secret that was meant to be kept within the confines of their home (and his Chevy Tahoe, apparently). Jake’s scoldings often occurred on the drive home or in the sanctuary of his dad’s tool shed outside; outbursts of anger followed by apathy.

His dad would damn near shun him after he finished giving him a stern talking to. The lack of attention, the lack of feeling like his dad even gives a shit that he has a son that wants to be loved and accepted by him; still makes Jake’s eyes water despite losing the ability to cry over his dad’s treatment years ago.

There’s just something about a black hole of a heart that comes to mind when he cries; especially the skin-melting pain that was felt to rip a hole in the fabric of the universe (which in this case, is Jake Seresin’s heart).

The lump in his throat makes him feel small again even though he stands six feet even and is the same height as his dad. It transports him back to the more than unfavorable moments in his life and his world is blacked out by flashbacks of his father’s disappointment.

He’s six and being given the silent treatment after his first flag football game for not running the ball to the end zone. He’s ten and his dad lays into him about striking out during his travel baseball game despite hitting two home runs in the last three innings.

He’s twelve and being told that he’s stupid; that he won’t amount to anything if he tried, and that he “Should’ve been a girl if you were gonna be this goddamn useless!”

Now he’s sixteen, sitting on the fear of being berated on the ride home later and trying to keep it all together.

“And all of God’s people said.”

“Amen!”

The rush of people getting up to go to the back of the church can be heard and despite his entire family getting up, Jake remains frozen in place. He can’t move. He can’t breathe. His mind is moving faster than his body.

MeeMaw waltzes past him. She puts her bony hand on his shoulder and squeezes it.

“It’s okay to not want to get your hair wet, baby. Know you Seresin men spend so much time on it,” she teases, smile grazing her sunken in features and church hat perfectly placed on her head.

Jake offers her a small chuckle, the apples of his cheeks rising and falling. “Is this the nice way of calling me conceited?” he asks, voice small but a teasing edge to it.

MeeMaw laughs before pressing a kiss to his cheek. Her magenta lipstick is sure to leave a print on his face until he can use some of his sister’s makeup remover later.

“No, it’s the Southern way of sayin’ it. Now, come help your MeeMaw to the car before I say something unkind to MaryLou about her eyeshadow.”

Jake takes his grandma’s arm and catches his father’s gaze in passing before quickly averting his eyes elsewhere. His confidence dwindles significantly when he’s aware of his father’s presence.

The fifteen-minute drive from the church to his home is always uneventful unless he was getting screamed, at which he’s sure is happening at some point.

He takes his seat between his two little sisters. If Anna Caroline was here, she would bully the youngest two to squeeze in the middle so she and Jake could have the two window seats. Being the oldest and the oldest sister seemed to always get you what you want.

But with AC moving to college this past year and leaving him alone with two girls who could barely even be considered teenagers, Jake is outnumbered. Arguing with his little sisters is another losing battle he has to face regularly, and Jake thinks his time is better spent keeping his mouth shut rather than getting into screaming matches with people who had to look up at him to make eye contact.

Sitting in the middle seat was torture though because Jake had a front row seat to his father’s eyes through the rearview mirror. Jake’s father is equally as introspective and knit-picky as his son. Jake’s entire personality is built around walking on eggshells around his dad.

He wonders if in another life he would be less of an ass but quickly dismisses the thought. It’s hard to believe that his father can be nice to him written anywhere in his psyche; even a make-believe one.

His mother sits with a scowl on her face. She’s made it clear that she’s upset with his father because he forgot to shut their bedroom window this morning like she had asked. There’s no way that with the storm being as harsh as it is that the carpet near the window is anything synonymous to dry. She also is pretty annoyed at Jake for not listening earlier and nodding off during the sermon.

His mother usually handled him with grace. She knows her husband can be a lot and Jake is a momma’s boy to the max. But she does keep him in check and she’s not afraid to let his father deal with him if she has to.

What she doesn’t know is how awful his father truly treats him.

Jake will never say anything and his father sure as hell would never tell on himself. How he’s treated is their dirty little secret.

“Your son wasn’t paying attention to the message today,” his mother speaks and Jake’s shoulders tighten at the sound of her voice.

His dad has his right hand on the steering wheel and his left fiddling with the toothpick sticking out of the side of his teeth. “Hmm,” is all he says. His mom runs her fingers through her bleach blonde hair and she sighs.

Her annoyance is obvious and he knows that she’ll go to their room and take a nap before they’re due back at the church for the evening service. “Are you even listening to me?” she whispers, turning her body to be closer to the passenger side door.

His father shifts his stance, his right hand abandoning the wheel and resting on his mother’s thigh. “When have I ever ignored you, honey?”

Jake has to stop himself from rolling his eyes. He has to withhold a gag when his dad brings his mom’s knuckles up to his hand and kisses them. The only reason why the younger Seresin’s eyeballs aren’t looking at the tops of his occipital bones right now is the fact that his dad could see him. He doesn’t want to take the chance of his dad coming unglued on him.

All he can think about is how those lips were on another person; another woman (if a nineteen-year-old could even be considered that, of course) feeling the same facial feature in places way less holy and pure as his mom’s hands.

He can hear the grunts and can see the subtle shaking of the tool shed in the backyard; the light beaming a soft yellow from some of the small holes in the wood and the indigo sky swallowing it like an abyss.

Jake’s had his fair share of shitty feelings and, of course, evoking those shitty feelings onto other people but he knows for a fact that he could never live like this; the sneaking around and the lying. The crazed caution and the heavyweight in his chest of knowing that what he’s doing is wrong. Jake knows he’s a sinner, but he could never be a sinner like his father. And if he ever finds it within his poor, damaged, and disgusting soul to cheat on his wife one day?

He’ll knock on hell’s door his damn self.

Jake clenches his fists at his sides and grinds his teeth. He figures the best way to keep from violently outbursting and confessing his father’s sins for him is to tune out his surroundings.

He focuses on the environment around him; how the pleather of the car seat feels against his church slacks, how his little sister’s elbow pokes into his ribs despite having all the room in the world near the window seat she so ruthlessly stripped him of. He focuses on the sound of small gravel stones being kicked up from the wheels of the car and flung to the side of the road.

He thinks back to a time when this wasn’t his life; where he wasn’t the crypt keeper of secrets and things were fine and dandy and he didn’t have to worry about slouching or winning the football game or studying his ass off for his ASVAB and ACT so he could get into the Academy. He thinks back to when he was a kid and the harsh reality of life was banned from infiltrating his perfect bubble filled with Arthur reruns and lukewarm apple juice.

Sunday afternoons were his favorite when he was little. His siblings would scatter around their house finding things to do and doing as they pleased. His parents would always take a nap; his mom on top of the duvet in their bedroom and curled up with a throw blanket and their dad passed out in the recliner, their family dog Chaps sitting at his feet and soft snores coming from both of them.

He and AC would terrorize their little sisters; chasing them around outside with bugs and frogs in their hands. Sometimes when he wasn’t feeling like being a God-awful older brother he would bring out his baseball and play catch with them. He even taught them how to play Chess and Go-Fish. On the rare occasion when they begged hard enough, he would find himself in a ridiculous church hat of his MeeMaw’s that she “donated” to her granddaughters to play dress-up in, pinkie up and sipping imaginary tea on a small, pastel pink stool.

Now Sunday afternoons give him the shakes. He knows that he has about fifteen minutes to hop in his truck and leave the house before his father came to find him and work his nerves. His brain doesn’t even process that his dad has pulled into the driveway of their home until his little sister, Maggie, closes the car door a little too hard.

“God, almighty,” his mother sighs, shaking her head at her daughter’s roughness.

The family treks inside and goes their separate ways. The creaky floorboards signify the movement in different spots in the house and Jake bolts to his room; taking off his church clothes at lightning speed and throwing on a sweatshirt and some shorts. He damn near breaks his neck running to the shoe rack by the front door with his keys in his hand before he feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

Most people get that goose-pimpled feeling whenever they’re nervous or chilled beyond belief. Jake seemed to always get that feeling around his father; when it was just Jake, him, and God with no bystanders.

The unthinkable always had a propensity to happen in settings like these.

“Need you to come out back to the shed with me, son.”

Jake pushes his foot into his Nike. He feels frozen.

“You not gonna say anything?” his father chides, loosening his tie and crumpling the object in his hand. Jake’s father meant business and he’s extremely curious to know what his deal is with him now.

“Yes, sir,” Jake manages to speak and he hears the light tap of his father’s church shoes getting smaller and smaller as the distance between them widens.

Jake pushes himself off of the floor, heart heavy with nerves and stomach tied in knots tighter than any Cub Scout leader could bear to manage. His feet feel like they’ve been forced into slabs of concrete as he grabs his rain jacket and heads to the Pandora's Box of secrets; his dad’s tool shed.

His father is already in the back, the lightbulb sticking out of the ceiling lit and casting a golden hue across the small building. Jake can’t hear himself think. Moments like these, ones where it’s just him and his dad, send him into flight mode.

His father stands with a tarnished yellow cloth in his hand; wiping down some part that was supposed to be put in MeeMaw’s car later this week.

“Shut the door,” his father says, not once acknowledging Jake in the mere thirty seconds he had been standing in front of him.

Jake nods and grips the handle of the shed with shaky hands. His mind is screaming at him to run and scolding him for not telling his mother he was going out back with his dad. He had noticed whenever he made a point to let his mother know where he was when he was to be alone with his dad that his father wasn’t nearly as harsh as he usually was.

The silence is ominous; harrowing in the worst way possible. Jake almost has the nerve to speak up and ask what the hell his dad needed him here for, but alas, his mouth is dryer than dry and his words get caught in his throat.

This can’t be good. This can’t be good. This cannot be good at all.

The frenzy of thoughts his mind sends him into is cut short by the slam of metal on the janky table that homes all of his father’s tools and “Honey, do” projects.

“You wanna tell me why David McLeod is runnin’ round my fuckin’ church? Knockin’ on my goddamn door sayin’ that he caught my son bending his sweet daughter over in their front yard two nights ago?” his father’s voice booms.

And there it is.

Jake bites his lip to keep from laughing. His dad has quite the nerve when two nights ago, he caught him screwing AC’s roommate’s brains out. Who the hell is he to be screaming at him for enjoying himself?

Jake shakes his head and continues to bite his lip; his eyebrows pent upwards to withhold the smart allecky comment he has brewing in his mouth.

“You not gonna say anything, kid?” his father throws down the rag and stomps closer to his son, “I’m fucking talking to you!”

Jake swallows before he lets his comment loose. He knows he shouldn’t; knows that disobeying your parents and talking back is a violation of the Ten Commandments or whatever (Baptist Christians are batshit crazy, he’s determined a long time ago). He knows he shouldn’t, but he does.

“Just think it’s funny you keep saying your church when it’s Papaw’s.”

John Marshall Seresin, does in fact, hate that answer.

“Listen here and listen fucking good, kid,” his father spits, grabbing the shirt of his collar and pushing him up against the door. “You better not go ‘round here fucking that girl and lettin’ her daddy catch ya. They’re a bunch of low lives anyway.”

The way his father is so easily ready to demean someone else; to talk down on them as if they amount to nothing yet be a smiling plastic figure in their faces come Sunday morning strikes a match in the flame that resides in Jake’s stomach.

Jake shakes his head, a sarcastic laugh sitting on his lips and falling off his lips faster than he can register.

“What’s so fuckin’ funny, Jakey?” his father sneers.

And Jake knows that he should stop. He knows that speaking his mind isn’t the brightest idea he’s had. But Jake chalks it all down to the fact that he’s smart. Wise is something that he never claimed to be.

“It’s just hilarious that you’re calling them low lives for what?” he pushes his father off of him before backing his old man into a corner, “Because they’re poor? Because they’re not “Navy” bred? David is a piece of work, but at least he’s not fucking his daughter’s friend.”

John Marshall’s eyes widen the size of a full moon at his son’s admission of knowledge. He knew that someone had noticed and he had figured it was a matter of time until one of his children (preferably any of his children that weren’t Jake) would find out.

“You don’t know jack shit, young man,” his father demands, face as bright red as the tomatoes in his mother’s garden.

Jake is beyond terrified. He knows that he’s in for some deep shit and that his father’s words will cut deep. Despite his brain screaming at him to diffuse the situation, to walk with his tail between his legs and carry on as if nothing happened, he ignores it.

Above all else, he’s angry. He’s angry that he lets his father talk to him the way that he does. He’s angry that his father gets a free pass to act however he wants with no one there to check him. He’s angry that his father will inevitably tear the family apart that Jake’s spent the better half of fifteen years attempting to keep together.

So he doesn’t bite his tongue this time around. He doesn’t shy away from being the true smart-ass everyone in Webster knew him as. He rolls his shoulders back and clenches his fists at his sides.

“What I do know is that this is awful and mom doesn’t deserve that,” he calmly speaks. He braces himself for his father’s touch bulldozing him through the wall or a punch to the gut. Jake’s dad very rarely put his hands on his son, but on the handful of occasions that he had, Jake always walked away with some kind of bruise that his mother would pester him about until it healed.

The push or smack or punch doesn’t come and Jake almost relaxes before he jumps out of his skin at the sound of his father’s hands slamming on the metal table.

“You’re just fucking stupid, aren’t ya?” His dad shakes his head and laughs, a deep chuckle coming from his belly as if Jake had just told him the funniest goddamn joke in the entire world.

“Stupid enough to nod off during church. Stupid enough to fuck that no-good tramp. Wonder if you’re stupid enough to ruin your mama’s life, son,” he gripes. “If I go down, so does this whole family.”

And Jake thinks that his father is wrong about a lot of things, but he has to give him credit where it’s due. The revelation would tear his family to absolute shreds. MeeMaw and Papaw would be judged for raising such an awful son. His mother would be laughed at behind her back with the embarrassment hanging over her like a raincloud. “How could she not have known?” being thrown around every hairdresser and nail salon in the area. AC would lose her mind, he’s sure. He can’t even be somewhat delusional with himself and think that she wouldn’t do anything slight of going fucking bananas.

“But it’s your move, Ace. If I were you, I’d keep quiet. Especially if you want a shot of getting out of this hellhole like you told Bria Grace.” His dad fixes the tools haphazardly on the table; trying to make it look as uniform as possible; as perfect as possible. Just like his family on the outside.

His father walks to the door before stopping and turning to his son whose blond hair looks white in comparison to how pink his face is. “That bitch ain’t as good of a secret keeper as you thought she was. How the hell do you think David found out?”

The door slams before Jake can even react and for the millionth time in his life, Jake feels small. All he can manage to do is hold his cries in until he starts to hiccup and the flow of his tears streaming down his face match the rainfall gracing dryer than dry Webster, Texas.

So much for thanking God for the rain and the blessings it was supposed to bring.

ii.

Today is Jacob Seresin’s eighteenth birthday.

Although he thoroughly believed that birthday wishes were a scam and that people treating you slightly better on your “special day” was bullshit, some part of him still enjoyed the fact that it was his birthday every year.

He can’t decide if it’s the overwhelming amount of love his mom and sisters gift him on the morning of his birthday or if it’s because he’s one year closer to distancing himself from his father’s wrath.

And as Jake’s alarm clock sounds and he’s formally shaken awake by his mom and sisters busting open his door, his heart aches for moments like these that he’ll miss once he moves out of the house.

There’s just something about waking up on the morning of your birthday at home and having happy birthday sang to you before you can even blink the sleep out of your eyes. The small moments like these make his life not so much of a living hell and he can almost gaslight himself into not wanting to go so far away; to defer his acceptance into the Naval Academy and to stay at home for another year.

His mom would always make her infamous banana walnut pancakes and pair it with an awful rendition of “Happy Birthday.” She would joke that God didn’t bless her with good vocal cords but did bless her with good cooking. And with one bite of her pancakes, Jake decides why he loves his birthday.

Simply just because of his mom’s banana pancakes.

He loved the cards his sisters would hand make him every year too. They would corral his bed and wait with their eyes wide open as if they hadn’t been born with eyelids to see how he reacted to their cards. AC’s always having some cartoonish drawing of him that was slightly offensive and Maggie and Rosie are always having words misspelled in a stew of comically large vowels and consonants.

He can never figure out if they actually enjoy making him cards or if it’s some sick, twisted, girlish game that they play to determine which card he likes the most that year.

Jake almost is a good brother and plays into it, before he decides that his job as a brother is to be annoying, and dutifully says that he loves them all equally even though they all know (him included) that he’s lying straight through his teeth.

If he had to pick, he would always pick AC (though he does admit, Rosie has been giving her a run for her money as of late).

And because of these festivities and because of the unconditional love his mom and sisters give him, he almost would be content staying in Webster for the rest of his life.

He dreams of having a big house with a big dog and a big yard and a wrap-around porch down the street from his parents’ house. He dreams of Saturday night football being watched with his pretty wife and his precious babies and then those precious babies growing up and making him a grandpa and he and his wife growing old.

The fantasy he creates in his head is almost perfect and he almost considers it until he waltzes into his kitchen to find his dad reading the paper in his pajamas with a solemn silence surrounding him like a plague.

And it’s then that Jake realizes why he longed for this day since he was eleven and why the only college he applied to out of state was the Academy.

He tries to tiptoe around his dad like an utter dumbass and he knows that he isn’t tiny or quiet in the slightest and when his plate and fork clatter in the sink louder than he anticipated, he’s met with the quick rustle of newspaper and the sunken in green eyes of his father peering back into his identical ones.

His dad clears his throat before taking a sip of his coffee. Jake wonders if his dad is stalling if he was planning on avoiding his son just as he was planning on avoiding his dad today.

“Anna Caroline is coming in tonight for your birthday dinner,” his father speaks barely above a whisper.

Jake nods before turning on his heel to head back upstairs to get ready for school. “Noted, sir. Thank you.”

His father offers a straight-lipped smile before turning his attention back to the paper. The creaks that shadow Jake’s movement toward the stairs seem louder than any fighter jet or rock concert even though they could barely be heard between Maggie and Rosie’s arguing and Chaps’s barking.

“Happy eighteenth, Ace,” his father manages to say before dumping the rest of his coffee in the sink and resorting back to the master bedroom to get ready for the day.

Jake just nods and feels an eerie sense of calm run up his arms. He just had a feeling; something in his gut telling him that something wasn’t right, that something really, really bad was set to happen but he boils it down to the Calculus test he had later today during fourth period.

Only girls got gut feelings, he remembered AC saying to him once. So he shrugs and heads up to his room before hopping in his truck to make the ten-minute drive up the road to stroll into Webster High School.

Jake can’t shake that eerie feeling all day. It makes it hard to eat, to think, even to write. His hand shook horribly whenever he went to write the sign for a derivative during his math test and he erased the goddamn thing at least five times until he was sure one more fuck up would leave a hole in his paper.

He ends up leaving the question blank. He has a ninety-seven percent in the class and already got into all the colleges he applied to anyway. It’s not like a measly three points is going to be the end of the world for him.

Jake still feels the knots in his stomach as he hops into his truck to drive home after football practice and no matter what he does, he can’t exactly put his finger on what would make him feel like this. He almost has half the mind to whip out his cell phone and call AC to talk about it, but he knows that she’ll go into older sister mode once she hears any slight indication that he’s in the car and will go off about texting and driving and how immature her brother is even being eighteen years old today.

He can practically see her caramel brown hair pulled up in a ponytail and a summer dress on her body while she shouts at him through the phone about any and every grievance she has ever had with him because once Anna Caroline gets started, she never stops. People who think that Jake is a firecracker have never been in the same room as AC because she was a goddamn nuclear bomb compared to him.

He grins when he sees her white Jeep Cherokee in the gravel of their driveway with a sorority sticker embellishing the back window.

Jake damn near sprints into the house to hug his older sister before he stops cold in his tracks and sees her.

Anna Caroline brought her roommate home to celebrate Jake’s eighteenth birthday with his family, and it’s then when he determines that life could not fuck him forwards, backward, upside down, and right side up more than it currently is with his dad subtly trying to eye her tits and Jake trying to bite his tongue.

The freckled, teeny, tiny strawberry blonde who was the owner of the light blue B cup bra Jake had found in his dad’s toolbox and probably the owner of a magenta thong he had found tucked in the driver’s pocket of his dad’s car a few weeks ago.

And as she waves to Jake and gives him a slight hug and an even slighter, “Happy birthday,” attached to it, Jake decides that the girl is pretty. She’s certainly not a stranger as she’s been to the Seresin home a multitude of times since rooming with Anna Caroline freshman year of college. She’s sweet, friendly, and a tried and true friend of his sister’s. In another world, Jake thinks she would be his type, but only if that other world is one where she’s not fucking his married fifty-five-year-old father behind his eldest sister’s back.

“Jakey!” Anna Caroline hollers, running towards her younger brother and wrapping her arms around his neck like a boa constrictor. Jake swears she does this shit on purpose; playing “nice” but torturing him so secretly that he could never say anything without being called a drama queen.

He chuckles before forcibly unclasping her hands from cutting off his breathing. “Don’t choke me out. I’ll punch you in your throat if you do.”

His mother gasps and hits his shoulder with a dishtowel. “Jacob Michael! That is no way to talk to a woman.”

Jake and AC share a conniving grin before his dad clears his throat and starts his journey toward the dinner table. The soft squeak of the wooden oak chair sliding across the floor signifies that his father was ready to eat, which means everyone should be ready to eat.

The awkward silence fills the gap of what should be a happy birthday; a day spent celebrating Jake and his last year at home and stories of his growing up to this point in his life. But it’s far from being about Jake at all, he realizes, as he catches his father’s gaze; his sea glass eyes throwing the stone in to the river of possibilities that Jake very much could blow the roof off of his house of secrets.

After his father blesses the food, a regal quietness plagues the table; the sounds of forks and knives on his mom’s good Chinaware mixed in with the quiet giggles of Rosie and Maggie and the eyes of Natalie who looks like she’s about to throw up at any second.

And Jake wants to turn his brain off, wants to rid himself of that stupid skill he has of reading people like a goddamn People magazine headline, but he can’t.

All it takes is one look and Jake sees in her what he sees in his dad every Sunday sitting behind his grandfather on the stage.

Guilt.

And if this was on one of those shitty sitcoms his sisters liked to watch on Wednesday nights after church and in between homework time and bedtime, he would almost laugh and plead with someone to change the channel.

But it isn’t an episode of Gilmore Girls or One Tree Hill, and he can’t even fool himself to pretend like it is. The ten-pound heap of bricks of his father’s infidelity sits on his chest and ruins the ability for him to even imagine that completely.

Jake is lost in his train of thought as he mindlessly chews on his steak before his arm is haphazardly knocked off the table by AC. His fork clatters on the ground and she sends him a shit-eating grin; one that older sisters only have the capability of sending with just the right amount of childishness but also holding an heir of authority. She holds in her giggle before answering their mother about her boyfriend she has back at A&M and Jake is sent shaking his head before lowering himself beneath the table cloth to retrieve his utensil.

Although being tall was something that most certainly worked in his favor more often than not, Jake wishes his height didn’t make small things like this so difficult. He holds in a grunt as he gets down on the floor beneath the tablecloth and stretches as far as he can go to retrieve the fork that falls in between the chairs of his father and Natalie.

His eyes catch the slight glimmer of his dad’s wedding ring and he can see his father’s hand rubbing Natalie’s bare knee. He sees his dad’s hand slide farther and farther up Natalie’s leg and Jake feels his face getting hot; the weight of the secret he had been keeping for two years now choking him.

His head catches on the table with a loud thud and the dishes and silverware clank as a result. His mother gasps and his sisters laugh as he rubs his temple harshly, his fork gripped in his palm like a vice.

“Came out screamin’ and you’re still making a ruckus. What am I gonna do without you here next year?” his mom comments, her manicured fingers coming across the table to pinch his cheeks like how she used to when he was little.

“Jump for joy and pray he never comes back,” Anna Caroline remarks, purposefully biting her fork and letting the metal scrape her teeth. She knows the sound grinds Jake’s gears like no other.

“You know, there was a time when you weren’t a bitch,” he says quietly, hoping that his mother and father don’t hear the curse word slip from his lips. As far as they’re concerned, he’s never smoked, drank, cursed, or had sex before in his life.

His father straightens in his seat, his hand still hidden underneath the blue gingham table cloth covering the dinner table. He shoots his son a knowing look; one that has “Watch your mouth” written all over it.

He cowers in his seat and tries to cover his uneasiness with a cough.

The table falls silent once again before his father decides to perk up and start a conversation.

But the problem with that is that no conversation is ever truly a conversation with John Marshall. Every speaking point somehow turned into a lecture or a gloat or some kind of pointed remark that made you feel small inside, and Jake’s not sure how he got through the Naval Academy with an attitude like that or how he was so well-liked, but for some reason, he always made it work.

“You ready for this week’s game, Ace?” he asks and Jake’s face pales because he knows that he’s soon to be met with confrontation.

The pause before his answer is pregnant and as he opens his mouth to say something, his dad beats him to fill the air with his voice.

“You and this delayed speech. Would think I was raisin’ a Helen Keller the way you go about ignoring adults.”

Jake was told that he was a very calm and mellow baby and despite his asshole-ish nature that’s developed alongside his God complex the older he’s gotten, it still remains somewhat true. And he knows that what his father said wasn’t even the worst of things that have ever been said to him and he knows that he has no right to blow the lid off Webster, Texas’s new cover story (especially at his eighteenth birthday dinner over steak and potatoes), but something in Jake snaps.

He thinks about not saying what he’s about to say; about not breaking the dam of tears that will flood his house, but he ignores the caution sign anyway and forces the comment out of his throat instead.

“Yeah, well, at least you ain’t raisin’ a cheater.”

He can see AC raise her brows at him in a “what the fuck” manner. His dad chokes on his water before clearing his throat. He sends his son an aggravated look before sighing and rubbing his temples with his hands. Natalie looks pale completely; her hazel eyes wide with guilt and fear as if she had seen God himself in front of her and turning her away from Heaven.

His mother purses her lips before clutching her napkin in her hands. “What do you mean by that, Jakey?”

And Jake really should stop. He knows that this is unfair. He knows that he’s being unreasonable. He knows that this will be the end, but he can’t bring himself to give any less of a fuck than he does right at this second.

“Oh, you know. Just think it’s nice to know that you and your husband aren’t raising a guy who cheats on his wife and fucks his daughter’s roommate every Friday night, is all.”

The silence around them crafts a bubble of disbelief.

No one dares to say anything. No one dares to move. No one attempts to look anyone else in the eye.

The world has officially stopped turning.

The tears in his mother’s eyes freeze and create an ocean in her sockets. She sniffles before sliding her chair back and escaping quietly to the back bedroom. The door slams shut and click with a lock before Jake is really aware of what he had done.

Natalie runs to the nearest bathroom, the sound of her retching into the toilet echoing through the house like a tornado siren.

His dad kicks the kitchen table and he and his siblings jump at his action. His face is bright red and the veins encasing his temples bulge out like a warning.

“Good job, Ace,” he says, patting his son's shoulder with the force of an anchor before grabbing his keys and speeding off from their driveway to God knows where.

His youngest sisters sit at the table shocked; not quite old enough to understand what Jake was implying with his words but knowing that whatever just occurred in front of them at their dining table was bad. AC shakes as she gets up to usher them to their room.

One look at her pink ears and the hairs at the base of her neck sticking to her skin with angry perspiration makes Jake wish he could take it back; that he could hold the secret in for a few more years until it eventually came out. But what’s done is done, and he can’t even really believe the avalanche of what he had done with just a compound statement.

He sits at the table in disbelief for what feels like hours before Anna Caroline rounds about the corner and places her hands on the chair furthest away from him. Her head is bowed as she sniffles, gray mascara tears running down her face and stopping at her chin.

“Do you have any fucking clue what you just did?” she asks weakly, her voice nasally with sadness and betrayal.

Jake shakes his head slightly. He’s never been good at being guilty. “It just came out.”

Anna Caroline whips her head up, her face back to bright pink and her eyes narrowed as sharp as daggers.

“It just came out? It just came out my ass! You fucking knew for two whole years,” she screams, stepping closer to him to where Jake can feel the blistering heat radiate off of her body, “Two whole fucking years and you didn’t think to tell me about it?”

Now is Jake’s turn to be pissed off. “You weren’t fucking here! You went off to college and got to pretend like you only had a family when you weren’t too hungover to drive home!” His chest heaves up and down and he has to take deep breaths through his nose.

Anna Caroline gets in his face; her anger is reminiscent of their father’s when he was really pissed off. “I know for a goddamn fact that you’re not calling me selfish when this whole fucking episode of yours just imploded our family from the inside out,” she spits, her forehead damn near touching Jake’s, “All you ever seem to fucking do is think about yourself, Jacob.”

Jake pushes himself backward in his chair to create some space between himself and his sister. “Think about my- Anna Caroline, you were the first person I fucking thought of!”

She scoffs and rolls her eyes, her nostrils flaring slightly to allow more air into her lungs before she explodes. “Obviously, you didn’t think enough because while you’re away at the Academy this summer, I’m gonna be sitting here in this hellhole with a fucking civil engineering degree playing Mommy Homemaker until our parents’ divorce is finalized.”

Jake opens his mouth to shoot back a charged comment, but he closes it. He’s done enough damage tonight.

“You were “thinking” about me, yeah. You were thinking about how somehow you were gonna make this my problem while you get to do fuck-all in Annapolis,” she accuses.

“Why are you-”

“And did you think about how unfair that was to mom? To Natalie? To our fucking little sisters?” she puts her hands on her hips as she paces back and forth near their kitchen table, “No and you know why? Because Jacob Seresin can’t stand having dirt on someone and not humiliating them for the sake of his own entertainment.”

“AC it’s not even-” he starts, but his sister’s nuclear bomb-like anger beat him to it.

The guilt-ridden expression Jake wears on his face makes Anna Caroline even angrier, as she moves toward him to push him back in his chair.

“Just,” she shoves her finger in his chest, “Like. Dad.” And her palm lands flat on his chest before forcibly pushing him back farther in the oak seat than he had sat before.

The wind is knocked out of his ribcage before he can even process what’s going on. She stomps her way up the staircase before pausing halfway and leaning down to scream at him once more.

“You’re fucking dead to this family, Jacob,” she seethes, “And you’re fucking dead to me.” With that, she turns on her heel and like their mother hours before, slams the door of her childhood bedroom shut.

Today is Jacob Michael Seresin’s eighteenth birthday, and is also the day he tore his family apart.

iii.

Jake Seresin always dreamed of being a dad, but he had never anticipated that he would become a father as instantaneously as he is right now.

Jake is thirty-two years old and is a man who has had sex. A lot of sex, may he add, and being deployed and single as one of the world’s greatest naval aviators was a dangerous setup for him to limit the number of hook-ups he currently had tallied.

There were some pretty great ones that he can recall and even though he was raised by great Southern women and with sisters, he can’t help but fall into the misogynistic trap that is the military every now and again, and he’ll find himself getting into the nitty gritty of who he last fucked with his friends after a couple of straight whiskeys at whichever bar was accessible to them at the time.

And Jake’s not disgusting with it; never says anything demeaning but he’s sure that if the girl he had hooked up with heard how he was describing her flexibility or how she was able to give him some of the best head of his life, he knows her face would be flushed bright red.

Although getting married and having kids is a dream of Jake’s, he thought that for his age and for his status, it was a pipe dream.

That is until one fateful morning a full week and a half before he’s due to report back to Lemoore from sunny San Diego he hears a knock on his door.

Jake gets up off the floor from doing his morning ab workout before he checks the clock on his stove.

“6:21 AM,” it reads.

And although the neighborhood he was staying in was filled to the brim with families that had young children and older people (who had certainly been awake for at least two hours now), he can’t think of anyone he had encountered that would knock on his door at this hour.

He peeps through the peephole to see if he can catch a glimpse of a girl scout or a teenager who happened to accidentally hit his car with their bicycle on the way to school or something, but he’s met with the absence of a person on his front porch.

He figures it must be a package he had forgotten he ordered or a newspaper that was to be delivered to the people next door, but his eyes damn near pop out of his skull once he peels the door open.

There’s a little pink car seat with a baby that couldn’t have been more than five months old; purple nubby binky plunged in between her lips and a pink onesie adorning her slim torso.

This can’t be one of those things; one of those plots to those TV shows where a guy fucks around and gets a girl pregnant and she leaves a baby at his doorstep when he’s least expecting it. He rubs his eyes ferociously with his hands to see if his knuckles would make the kid go away, but as he blinks away the white spots in his vision, the baby is still there.

She blinks up at him with sea glass eyes and a face that looks just like his. Her tan skin and the soft caramel curls tell Jake who the counterpart of his creation would had to have been and his mind instantly flips back to a girl he had been casually seeing at USC a year ago.

Her name was Talia (he thinks) and she was a graduate student who could’ve put any US Olympic gymnast to shame by how goddamn bendy she was, but alas, Jake wasn’t looking for anything serious and the distance between Lemoore and LA proved itself to be too far to keep anything sustainable besides a few quickies every couple of weeks.

And while Jake was always careful and more than cautious with girls he was hooking up with, he can remember taking the riskier side a couple times with this chick which is why he’s looking at a tanned and curly-haired reincarnate of himself sitting in a goddamn baby carrier wondering how the hell she got dropped off at this dumbass’s doorstep and not someone who was capable of actually taking care of a kid.

Beside her is a manila envelope with a brief note from Talia explaining how she couldn’t take care of her anymore, a birth certificate, a social security card, and a shot record.

Jake can’t pretend like he isn’t somewhat surprised that for a girl who isn’t a day over twenty-three, she had all of these things together and was able to track him down and leave before he even noticed.

Jake picks up the car seat and drops it into the doorway of his home before doing what any sensible person would do. He whips out his phone, scrolls through the millions of contacts he has, and starts to dial the kid’s mother.

He almost grins to himself because he’s a genius and is calm, cool, and collected. He rehearses his lines for what he’ll tell her; that he’s about to get stationed somewhere in Florida and that he can’t take care of a baby by himself. He even puts a mental note in the back of his mind to meet with a lawyer about child support and setting that up before the dial tone sounds and all thoughts he has of this possibly working out the way he wants it to ends.

“The number you are calling is no longer in service. Good-bye.”

Oh shit.

And the panic starts to kick in. He starts to pace back and forth before doing something he would’ve never thought to do ever in a million years before a few days prior.

He dials Bradley Bradshaw’s phone number.

“Please pick up. Please pick up. Please pick up.”

Bradley answers his phone with a slight grunt signifying that he was just now rolling out of bed. “What the hell is it?” he asks, and it’s no secret that despite being called Rooster, Bradley was anything but a morning person.

“Bradshaw, I have an SOS. I repeat, I have a fucking SOS,” Jake says, a sense of urgency plaguing his tone.

Jake can hear bedsheets rustling on the other end of the line. “Jesus, Hangman. What did you do? Do you need bond money or something?”

Jake rolls his eyes. “I need to come over.”

“Is that how you talk to your hook-ups? Cause if so, I’m still not seeing the appeal.”

“Bradshaw, you know that I would take you up on any opportunity to brag about my bangin’ sex life, but right now, I really need your fucking help,” he sighs, fixing his gaze back to the baby sitting in the carrier, “Can I please come over?”

Bradley lets out a pensive sigh before finally giving Jake the answer he wants. “Sure. I’ll see you in ten.”

Before Jake can thank him repeatedly, Bradley hangs up.

At the sound of the dial tone, Jake pulls up a YouTube video on his phone about how to buckle in a car seat and he’s about eighty percent sure he did it wrong and is one hundred percent sure that he has no fucking idea what he’s doing at all, but he’s sliding into the front seat of his truck and racing down the street and around the corner to Bradley Bradshaw’s childhood home.

He slams the door shut and grabs the baby with lightning speed, his fists banging on the door and almost knocking Bradley dead in the nose as he opens it with an irritated grunt.

“Why are you knocking like the goddamn poli-” Bradley pauses, hand still on the door and eyebrows raised in disbelief, “What the fuck is that?”

Jake rolls his eyes before pushing past the sandy-haired pilot and plopping down on his living room couch, the baby carrier taking a seat next to him.

“It’s a baby, Bradshaw,” he rolls his eyes, “God, I thought you were smarter than this.”

Bradley scoffs before closing the door and leaning on the wall in front of his living room. “Well I thought you were smarter than having raw sex with all your random hook-ups, but clearly I’m seeing evidence that you’re not.”

Jake shakes his head and rakes his hands through his hair. ‘That’s so not the poin- I’m screwed here, Bradshaw!”

Bradley lets out a slight laugh that he didn’t know he was holding in. “I mean, yeah. But you came to the right place. I love babies.”

He makes his way over to the blond sitting on his couch and touches the car seat holding the baby and before he can move his hands down to the black plastic securing her chest, Jake slaps his hands away.

“My baby,” he says and Bradley rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, but my house,” he retorts.

“But my baby,” Jake reiterates and a purple binky is spit out and a loud wail fills the space of Rooster’s living room; her little voice so loud that it echoes.

“Jesus, she’s definitely your kid,” Bradley jokes, “Loud as hell and doesn’t have any interest in shutting up just like her dad.”

Jake takes her out of the carrier and cradles her to his chest, his finger holding the silicone pacifier to her lips before she takes it out of his grasp and continues sucking on it.

Bradley watches in awe because in the past three days, he’s seen more character development in Hangman than he has in the past twelve years of knowing him. Bradley and Jake are snapped out of their own respective worlds at the sound of a knock on his door.

“Who the hell did you invite over to my home?” he asks and Jake shrugs.

“Well, I did text a few people about coming over here because I had news.”

Bradley sighs before opening his front door to see the entire Dagger Squad before him and stepping aside to let them in without a greeting.

“What the fuck!” they all yell in unison, and Jake doesn’t even look up because he’s too busy staring into the eyes of a little girl whom he had fallen in love with in only fifteen minutes.

Jake Seresin was certainly not ready to be a dad when he woke up this morning, but he feels more than ready now.

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