Chapter 14 Garrett
Garrett
The silence after Aslan left the basement room was overwhelming, and in that silence, every ghost inside my head woke up.
Every monster. Every sermon. Every warning and vile little voice that had ever told me what I was allowed to want and what I wasn’t….
What made me pure and what made me disgusting. What made me strong and what made me weak. What made me supposedly a man.
And what made me a queer…
You're not a queer. You never were…. You are just confused.
Their voices echoed through my ears as I dragged myself up the stairs, troubled, conflicted, and slightly intoxicated—not on alcohol. I’d barely drunk that night—I didn’t need it.
I was drunk on him. On Aslan’s presence, on his breath in my face, on the way his mouth had parted when he’d stared at me like he wasn’t afraid. On the tear I’d forced out of him. On the sound he’d made—half broken, half choked—when my tongue touched his skin.
And the worst part? It wasn’t enough. It didn’t satisfy me the way cruelty usually did. It didn’t calm me, and that confused the hell out of me.
I was a seasoned bully. A professional asshole. I knew how to hurt people with surgical precision and then walk away like it was nothing. I knew how to smile in class the next day, how to sit at my perfect dinner table with my perfect name and my perfect reputation while somebody else’s whole life was falling apart because of me.
And I was also very good at ignoring the aftermath of my cruelty. Maybe because no one’s reaction had ever affected me in the fucked up way Aslan’s did.
I had expected him to fight me. To curse me. To lash out at me—I don't know, maybe spit on my goddamn face… And finally get the hell out of my life like any sane person would.
I was ready for that. Even though I knew I’d miss him more than I’d ever missed anything or anyone—there was no pretending otherwise. Except that now… I wasn't so ready anymore.
There was no trace of him upstairs. No flash of his dark curls in the crowd, no sharp mouth running off, no sad amber eyes anywhere, and somehow… that disappointed me.
I shook it off immediately. Better this way. Better if he was gone before I did something even stupider than what I’d already done.
I dropped back into the same chair, legs spread, elbows on my knees, staring at nothing while my mind ran in circles like a rat in a trap. I tried to figure out what the hell had triggered him so hard down there, in that way that didn’t look like anger at all. It looked like trauma.
The truth was, I hadn’t had much to go on when I cornered him tonight. Not really.
A week ago, Evan had come back with the result of his little “investigation.” He’d found a recent case involving some kind of school staff issue—something that had escalated into a court case. But the file was sealed—completely inaccessible. It could’ve been any kind of lawsuit against the school: stolen funds, some teacher crossing a line, unfair grading, a prejudiced staff member…. We had no idea, and it was probably some unusable, stupid shit that Ass-land goodie two shoes had reported.
So tonight I made up the rest. I made up the ugliest version I could imagine and threw it at him just to provoke him, just to watch him flinch… except it hadn’t just provoked him. It had hurt him. And that should’ve made me feel powerful, but instead it made me feel… sick.
Did I trigger a memory? Or maybe it was my rejection that affected him…. Because there had been a moment where it sure as hell looked like Aslan was showing interest in me. But that was impossible. He was just messing with my head. Testing me. Trying to get the upper hand.
Aslan was obviously interested in James—not me. Fuck… I couldn’t believe it when I saw them here. Tonight was supposed to be my night to disconnect from all of this. From him.
So when I turned around and saw Aslan there—laughing, loose, actually looking happy—it hit me like a punch to the throat.
“What the hell is Narnia boy doing here?” I’d asked Aitor, sharp enough that it should’ve been a warning. “I thought we brought our guys in to keep these assholes out…”
Aitor had just stared at me like I was the dumb one. “We are the assholes, Garr. And I'm the one who got’em in.”
I almost punched him.
“You got me here so I could get out of my head,” I’d snapped, “and you invited him?”
“I didn’t invite him, bro.” Aitor’s voice stayed calm, like always, like he was immune to my rage. “I just helped him at the door. There were enough people here that I figured you’d be able to ignore him.”
Ignore him.
I could ignore a lot of things. I could ignore pain. I could ignore guilt. I could ignore entire human beings.
I couldn’t ignore Aslan.
I couldn’t ignore watching him dance.
I couldn’t ignore all those hands on him, touching him like they had the right—it crawled under my skin, like a nail in my toe....
And I sure as hell couldn’t ignore it when James kissed him right in front of me.
The moment I saw James’s mouth on his, something snapped loose inside my chest. It took two full seconds for me to lose control—two seconds for six months of torture, “eye-opening,” and conversion therapy to almost go up in flames because one scholarship kid had the audacity to exist and look at me like that.
And once I dragged him downstairs, I'd been seconds from kissing him hard enough to ruin both our lives. Especially after he called himself my lion.
But then—thank God, or whatever sick thing came out of my mouth—Aslan cried before I could fully give in. I’d finally hit him hard enough to see what was underneath all that attitude, and the second I did... I regretted it.
Not because I was a good person. Not because I gave a shit about being gentle. But because whatever I’d just touched in him… I wanted it. I wanted it the way a starving animal wants meat, and I didn’t know what to do with that.
I didn’t know how to want something without destroying it first.
I was about to block it all out and drink myself into oblivion when a voice cut through the crowd and a mop of colorful hair appeared in front of my face like a fucking jump scare.
James.
It took another second for Aitor to reach us, already moving to intercept him, calm but alert. I lifted a hand, stopping him before he could step in.
Let him talk. I thought.
Because somewhere between wanting to snap James’s neck and ripping off the finger he kept wagging in my face, I was dying to know what the hell he had to say.
What the two of them actually were to each other, what kind of hold he thought he had on Aslan...
And most of all—
Anything he knew about my lion.