CHAPTER NINE
We fooled around in the shower, washing each other and then jerking off until the water began to run cold and then I jumped out of it quickly, shivering and grabbing a towel. Embry stayed where he was under the cold water for a few minutes, complaining that he was so hot he couldn't stand it.
"Are you alright?" I asked. "You're not getting sick, are you?"
"I don't think so." He smirked suddenly. "It's your fault, you make me hot."
We stayed up a little while longer, helped ourselves to snacks from the kitchen and then returned to Embry's room. We lay talking and cuddling for a while and then eventually fell asleep in each other's arms. When I woke in the morning Embry was still sleeping, his head resting on my shoulder and one hand on my chest. I stroked my hand over his hair and he stirred slightly, snuggling closer, but didn't wake. I just lay there grinning stupidly, relishing every minute of being in bed with him even though we weren't doing anything. I didn't want the weekend to end and only wished that we were older, that at least one of us had our own place so that we could do this all the time.
I slid away from Embry carefully so as not to disturb him and went to use the bathroom, borrowed his toothbrush and drank a glass of water. Then I went back to bed. Embry hadn't moved and I leaned over him, gently brushing my lips against his until he suddenly opened his eyes and smiled up at me.
"Morning," I whispered.
"Hey." Another kiss. I was already getting hard and I slid my hand under the quilt, stroking his chest.
"Wait. Just give me a couple of minutes."
He rolled away, left the bed and went to the bathroom. When he returned we spent another hour or so in bed, kissing, touching, licking and making love again until once again we were sweaty, sticky and in need of another shower.
"When's your Mom coming back?" I asked as I squeezed out a handful of shower gel and began massaging it over Embry's body.
"Late afternoon."
"Do you want to go out and do something?" I suggested. Through everything we had only actually been on one proper date.
"Love to."
I went home for a little while and spent an hour with Dad, telling him as little as I could so I didn't have to lie too much. He just told me to make the most of my birthday weekend and gave me another twenty dollars for lunch and bus fares. Sue and Harry Clearwater were coming over to spend some time with him and he didn't mind what I did. I set off to the bus stop, having sent Embry a text asking him to meet me there and we got the bus into Forks. I took him to a diner for some lunch, then we wandered around the town together for a while before we returned to La Push and headed down to the beach. It was cold and windy and I zipped my jacket up to my chin and held Embry's hand as we walked, surprised that his fingers were warm and he didn't bother to fasten the hooded sweatshirt he was wearing.
"I can't believe you're still hot," I said.
Embry grinned, but didn't answer as his cellphone suddenly rang. It was his Mom and he spoke to her for a few seconds, then hung up again beaming.
"She's not coming back until much later," he said. "About ten, she thinks."
"Good, does that mean we still have time to break a few more bed springs?" I blurted out, laughing.
Embry giggled and we began to make our way slowly off the beach. We paused as we heard a loud yell and looked around curiously. No one else was on the beach, but when we looked up at the cliffs a little distance away, we could see two guys standing up there wearing only cut-off pants. Glancing down another was visible in the sea, his head bobbing on the surface and one arm waving.
"Oh, my God! Those guys are insane!" I gasped.
"Yeah, I know, I've seen them jumping off there a few times," Embry said.
"Who are they?" I squinted as one of the two still on the cliff suddenly took a running jump off the edge and hurtled towards the choppy water below.
"Paul and Jared and Sam Uley."
"Are you kidding? What the hell are they doing that for?"
"Makes them feel big maybe," Embry shrugged. "Sam probably put them up to it; they seem to do anything he says. Look, there he goes. Crazy fucker."
We watched as Sam launched himself off the cliff, his body stretched out in a perfect line, arms above his head, and sliced into the water head first.
"Shit," I muttered. "They must have a death wish."
Forgetting about the three guys quickly, we headed back to Embry's house and wasted no time in returning to his bed. I remembered how we had fooled around naked in the Rabbit, him sitting on me and we tried this, Embry kneeling astride me again, but with my dick inside him, his hands gripping my shoulders as he slid up and down, slowly at first and then harder and faster until we came together once again. Afterwards we lazed around cuddling each other, hoping the afternoon was never going to end, but of course it did and eventually I had to leave him. We parted reluctantly at the door and I walked home, hating to go. I didn't want to even let him out of my sight for a minute and the thought that we couldn't be together again like that for some time was agonising. Of course I would see him at school the next day and we could probably have a couple of evenings together in the week, back in the shed again, but now it seemed like it wouldn't be enough.
I didn't sleep well that night even though I was tired. I kept thinking about how good it had been sleeping with Embry in my arms, waking up with him snuggling against me, making love to him. It wasn't even arousal keeping me awake for once, but just longing for him to be with me. When I finally got out of bed in the morning I felt like hell and didn't relish going to school. The only thing that got me out of the door was the prospect of seeing Embry in just another ten minutes. I hurried towards Quil's house, my heart thumping with excitement. We hadn't seen anything of him all weekend and I wondered if he would guess we had slept together. Neither of us had told him anything, but he would probably put two and two together with Embry's Mom being away.
Quil came out as I approached the house and he was alone. Immediately my heart sank and I guess my face fell a mile too.
"Don't look so happy to see me," Quil said.
"Sorry. Where's Embry?" I checked my phone, even though I knew there was no message. It would have bleeped.
"I don't know, I haven't heard from him. Maybe he's sick."
"He felt like he had a fever yesterday," I said.
"Oh, you were feeling him, were you?" Quil snorted.
"Fuck off." My face quickly grew hot.
"So maybe he came down with something," said Quil.
"He would have sent me a text."
"Well, maybe he's still asleep, or too sick to think about texting."
"Oh, God," I groaned, my stomach knotting up. What if he really was sick? What if he was lying in bed delirious from some terrible fever?
"Jesus, Jake, get a grip," Quil scoffed. "I'm sure he'll get in touch later."
"Maybe I should go see him."
"Don't be stupid. His Mom'll go crazy."
"She'll have gone to work," I protested.
"Not if he's on his death bed, she'll be looking after him."
"Quil!" I exclaimed, now imagining him virtually unconscious, his Mom mopping his brow. Ridiculous, but I couldn't help it.
"You're a jerk," he responded. "He'll be fine. Now can we get to school?"
"Yeah, ok," I sighed. He was right. I was a jerk. I'd just been looking forward to seeing Embry so much and now I couldn't and he had actually felt like he was much hotter than was normal. It was probably nothing.
I suffered all day. I didn't hear anything from Embry and twice I begged Quil to text him in case his Mom checked his phone and saw the message was from me. The second time Quil typed out, 'Where the fuck are you?', but there was no answer. When we left school, I lurked out of sight of Embry's house while Quil went over there to see what was wrong with him. I paced around chewing my nails, my heart in my mouth and my stomach somersaulting until Quil came back a few minutes later.
"Where is he? Is he alright?" I demanded.
"He's not there."
"What?"
"His Mom almost went for me; she thinks he's with one of us. She had a fight with him last night. Apparently one of the neighbours told her you'd been there the whole weekend and she went mad at him. He ran off in the middle of the night and..."
"Oh, God! Where is he? Why hasn't he been in touch?" I almost wailed. "Why didn't he come to me?"
"Hell, Jake, I don't know," Quil frowned, but I noticed he actually looked worried. "I don't get why he didn't take his phone with him."
"Shit," I muttered. "How do you know he didn't?"
"Because his Mom checked it and she gave me an earful for saying 'fuck' in my last text to him."
"Oh, God," I groaned, suddenly realising that if his Mom checked the last couple of messages, she probably checked the rest of them as well. Embry didn't delete the old ones and I knew there were a number of sexy texts I had sent him, plus several saying 'I love you.'
I felt like crying. Where could he be? Why hadn't he just talked to me? If things were that bad for him at home, I would have plucked up the courage to tell Dad what was going on and ask for his help.
"Hey." Quil reached out suddenly and gave my shoulder a squeeze. "I'm sure he's fine. He'll probably call later or something."
"Yeah. I guess. I'm going home."
I turned away from him and walked slowly home, feeling cold and lost and scared. Where was he? I heard nothing all night and when I got up in the morning, having got virtually no sleep again, Dad asked me what was going on.
"You look sick, Jacob, are you alright?" he asked.
"No, I'm fine." I had to say something. "Me and Quil are a bit worried about Embry," I went on. "He disappeared the other night after a fight with his Mom. He didn't even take his phone and no one knows where he is."
"I'm sure he'll turn up. He probably went to stay with a friend."
"Me and Quil are his best friends," I reminded him.
"I know, but I wouldn't worry too much. He maybe didn't want to talk to anyone. Get to school now. He's probably there."
"Yeah, I guess so."
I grabbed my bag and left the house, my heart thumping anxiously. He had to be back. He had to be there waiting with Quil for me to get there. I knew he would be. I had almost convinced myself of that by the time I got to Quil's and then only Quil came out again. I stopped still and waited for him to reach me, wrapping my arms around myself and shivering. He shook his head.
"No sign of him. I called his Mom again and she said she hasn't heard from him."
I started crying. Nothing could possibly have stopped me at that point and tears rolled down my cheeks. I didn't even care that I was behaving like a girl in front of Quil. I was so worried I felt sick and so desperate to see Embry or at least hear from him, that my chest hurt.
"We better ditch school today," Quil said, not taking the opportunity to tease me for once. He grabbed my arm instead and began to lead me away from the street and the houses in the direction of the beach. I sniffled and choked for several minutes until I managed to get control of myself and by then we were out of sight of anyone else.
"Jake, did anything else happen other than Embry fighting with his Mom?" Quil asked. "I mean...at the weekend. Could he be...avoiding you maybe?"
"What? No!" I cried.
"You didn't fall out or anything?"
"No! We slept together! He said he loves me!" I exclaimed and then flushed and shut my mouth.
Even then Quil didn't wind me up. He just sighed heavily and frowned. "I don't get it," he said.
"Oh, shit, what if something happened to him? Maybe he ran off after fighting with his Mom and then something else happened. What if someone hurt him? Didn't his Mom even report him missing?"
"No." Quil shook his head. "She thinks he's just sulking and keeping out of her way for a while."
"Well, then maybe we should call Charlie Swan and tell him," I said. "God, he could be lying somewhere dead!"
"Stop it," said Quil. "He'll be fine."
"What if he's not?"
We decided in the end, as unwise as it probably was, to go and see Embry's Mom and suggest reporting him missing. She really didn't seem to be concerned, but it would have to be her that made an official report if the police were called. I knew Charlie would probably listen to me, but we thought we had still better speak to Tiffany Call first. We went over to the house as soon as we knew she would be home from work, hoping that by some miracle Embry would be there and that we could stop worrying.
"What do you two want?" Ms Call asked, looking annoyed when she opened the door and found Quil and I standing on the porch.
"We're worried about Embry," Quil said. "Has he been in touch yet?"
She ignored his question and glared at me instead. "I don't know how you have the nerve to show up here! Leading Embry astray; he used to be a good boy until you started sending him off the rails!"
I saw Quil smirk despite the awfulness of the situation. Little did Tiffany know that it was over a year since Embry realised he was gay and that it was him liking me that had made me think about it.
"Ms Call, please, just tell us if you know where he is," Quil begged suddenly. "He's our friend; we're worried about him. And people are asking at school where he is."
"He's in Seattle staying with his aunt," she said sharply. "Now, I'd thank you to both leave him alone and get off my property!" The door closed in our faces.
"Do you think that's the truth?" I asked Quil as we walked away.
"I don't know. I thought he ran off in the middle of the night and without even his phone. I can't imagine him suddenly taking off to Seattle."
"Maybe he wanted to get away. Maybe it's me," I said suddenly. "Maybe he regrets it."
I remembered how we had been together, how sweet and how exciting the weekend had been, how he said several times that he loved me, how we parted so reluctantly on Sunday evening. I couldn't believe that in just a few hours he would have changed his mind. Even though his Mom apparently found out and they had a fight, he had said before that he didn't care what she said, he would still be with me.
Suddenly I wanted to get away from Quil and just go and hide in my room. I knew I was going to cry again and I thought I had probably embarrassed myself - and him - quite enough for one day. I told him I would see him at school the next day and we promised to call each other if anything came to light about Embry. Then I walked off as quickly as I could and hurried home.
"That you, Jacob?" Dad called out from the living room as I went in.
"Yeah!" I held my breath, my eyes full of tears, hoping he didn't want me for anything.
"School ok?"
"Yeah. I'm just going to...take a shower."
"Want some dinner?"
"No...thanks, Dad...me and Quil got a burger."
The last word sounded more like a squeak and I shot into the bathroom, closed the door and turned the water on before I broke down. I stripped my clothes off, tears streaming down my face and stepped under the hot water, leaning my head against the tiled wall and trying desperately not to howl so Dad wouldn't hear me. I couldn't bear it. I was sick with worry and scared that something happened to Embry, or otherwise that he changed his mind about being with me and I couldn't stand either option. Pain ripped through me and I slid down to my knees in the shower cubicle and wept as the water cascaded down onto my head. Could I really have lost him forever?
