Could Tell a Love 3

Eric’s POV

"I’ll go get them." Miranda said, getting off the step, opening the door.

"I’ll come with you and help you out. They’re kinda heavy." Jared said, also getting up, following Miranda in the house, closing the door, leaving Beau and I alone outside while Skylar still entertained himself by the sidewalk with his sidewalk chalk.

I looked at Beau and he looked slightly bothered. I sighed and sat next to him.

"Eric, I’m gonna be straight out about this. Do you still have any feelings for me? At all?" He asked, looking at me, a completely serious look on his face.

I looked at the ground, kicking the little weeds poking out of the cracks of the sidewalk. "In all honesty, I don’t think so, but I’m not completely sure. It’s frustrating. I love Miranda to death, but every once in a while..." I couldn’t finish my sentence. The guilt was becoming too much on my heart. It felt like someone dropped one hundred pounds on it.

I heard Beau sigh. I couldn’t look at him; I didn’t want to feel any more guilt.

"Are you gonna try and make any moves on me?" Beau asked.

I looked at him, and his expression softened. His eyes were full of concern and compassion.

I shook my head. "I would never do that to you, Miranda, or Jared. I learned my lesson."

When I noticed that Miranda or Jared haven’t come back yet, I shot it right back at him. "What about you? Why would you think I still had feelings for you?"

"Well, your reaction to what Jared and I were doing earlier," He started.

I said nothing, waiting for him to continue.

"And I’ve been thinking about you a lot recently, and not in a father-son way like I usually do. I don’t know why, either, it just started a few days ago." Beau said quietly, picking at his fingernail.

"Does Jared know?" I asked.

Beau nodded.

"And what did he say?"

"He said that he’d understand if we end up doing anything, but as long as it doesn’t end up turning into anything too serious...but I’d feel so awful for doing something like that to him, ya know? And it’d be the same with you and Miranda, maybe even worse. Miranda’s not even gonna be there, and she’s pregnant with your kid." He put his face in his hands.

I scooted closer to Beau and put my arm around his waist as he leaned into me.

"It’s just all so stressful. I was hoping that nothing like this was ever going to happen again." Beau said in a muffled voice, sniffling.

"It’s gonna be okay, it’ll all work out. Hopefully all this confusion will pass and everything’ll be back to normal."

"I hope so, too." Beau said softly, leaning away from me, wiping his eyes.

"Is Jared telling Miranda about this whole situation inside?" I asked.

"I have no idea, maybe. He didn’t tell me he was going to. It would explain what was taking them so long, though."

"Should we go check on them?"

"No, they’ll come out when they’re done." Beau said. "Hey, Sky! Come here, please." He yelled.

"Coming!" Skylar said, putting all his chalk away but leaving the bucket in the middle of the sidewalk. I laughed a little. He stopped in front of us, slightly short of breath. "Hey! When did you guys get here?" Skylar asked, hugging me.

"A little while ago. Now Sky, you’re going to be living with Auntie Randi for a little while, do you remember what we told you last night?"

"Say please and thank you, don’t whine, don’t act spoiled." He said like he memorized it.

Beau smiled. "Good. You’re going to be living with one of Auntie Randi’s friends, too. You’re gonna like her a lot."

"Is she like Auntie Randi?" Skylar asked.

"Yeah, a little."

"Then I’ll definitely like her."

I laughed, as did Beau. Our eyes met and I couldn’t look away. The guilt rose in my chest again, and I realized that my arm was still around him. Beau’s face was full of as much guilt as I was feeling.

I tore away from his gaze and looked at the ground, then at Skylar, who just stood there, smiling, having not the slightest idea what was happening.

"You can go back and play with your chalk again, Sky. We’ll tell you when you’re gonna leave, kay?" I said, smiling back at him.

"‘Kay!" He turned and ran back to the sidewalk and plopped down on his butt, beginning to draw again.

"Are you going to say anything to Miranda if Jared didn’t?" Beau asked.

"No, she doesn’t need that stress. The doctor already said that her blood pressure was raised since she’s been pregnant, so she doesn’t need any of that kinda stress to raise it anymore."

"Definitely not." Beau agreed.

I finally got my arm from around him and scooted away a little. Right as I did so, Miranda and Jared came out of the house. I got up to help Miranda with the bag that she was carrying.

"Here, let me take that." I said, grabbing the bag.

She smiled and kissed me while handing me the bag. "Again with the overbearing husband thing." She sat on the step.

"I’m not going to be able to be overbearing for two months. I need to get in as much as possible before we leave." I said, walking to the car, Jared following.

He caught up to me and followed closer. "Did Beau talk to you about everything?" He asked quietly.

I nodded. "Did you tell Miranda anything?"

Jared shook his head. "She doesn’t need that on her mind while she’s pregnant."

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. You’re on the same track as me. So, Jared..." I started, opening up the trunk. "I wanna hear this come from you. What if something happens between Beau and I?"

He put the bag in the trunk. "I would understand, I really would. As long as it didn’t come out to anything too serious...and as long as you guys don’t like, plan on doing anything." Jared said, sounding slightly uncomfortable and concerned.

"I don’t think you have to worry about anything, ‘cause both Beau and I would feel horrible for doing anything that wasn’t with either you or Miranda."

He sighed and smiled. "That makes me feel a little better."

I laughed a little and threw my arm around his shoulders, closing the trunk and walking back towards the other two.

"So it’s only about 9:30, and Matt and Mike haven’t even woken up yet, since neither of them answered their phone when I called. Do you wanna go crash their place?" Jared asked.

"You read my mind." Beau said, getting off the step, getting on the other side of Jared.

"Wow, ‘cause Jared doesn’t look like a pimp at all." Miranda said, laughing, getting off the step. "Hey Sky! You gotta come inside with me. Beau and Jared are gonna go with Eric and get Matt and Mike, and we’re gonna stay here."

"Okay!" Skylar yelled, putting the chalk back in the bucket, and this time carrying it with him to the front of the house.

"Wow, you’re just a mess. We’re gonna have to get you cleaned up. See you guys later. Don’t get them too pissed off at you."

We all waved and piled in my car. I backed out of the driveway and we went around town with the music blaring. Beau and Jared were in the back and, as I suspected, they were all over each other, even though they were trying to be discreet about it, keeping low so I couldn’t see them in my rearview mirror. Even though it shouldn’t have even been there, there was a pang of jealousy in my heart. For some reason, I wanted to be the one all over Beau. I closed my eyes and shook that thought out of my head. No, I told myself. That’s not my place. My place is with Miranda and our daughter. Nowhere else. I sighed and pulled into the apartment driveway. We got out of the car and Jared opened up the door quietly. We saw both of them passed out in their living room; one on the floor, one on the couch. I had to hold in my laughter so we wouldn’t wake them up.

"Alright, so I’ll go tickle Matt, and you guys can jump on Mike. I know all of Matt’s ticklish spots." Jared said mischievously.

"Alright, lets do this." I said, walking with Beau over to Mike, who was passed out on the floor. I signaled for Beau to stay back while I leaned over Mike, trying to straddle him without waking him up. Once I figured out that it wasn’t working, I just sat on him and put my armpit in his face.

"Wake up and smell the daisies, Mike!" I yelled in my southern accent.

He didn’t struggle at first, but once he woke up, he started squirming. "Oh my god, get off me!"

Beau was laughing behind us. He probably remembered me telling about the first time I did that to Mike.

I laughed and got off of him so he could breathe. He shot up off the ground and hit me.

"Hey! Good morning to you, too, geez." I said, getting off the floor, offering Mike a hand. "Party a little too hard last night?"

"I don’t think I drank that much." Mike said groggily, scratching his head, messing up his hair even more. He turned his head to look at Matt and Jared. Jared held a finger up to his lips while he crouched over Matt. Then his hands flew to Matt’s sides and he started tickling him like crazy. Matt screamed and erupted into laughter. "Oh my god, what the hell is going on!?" He curled up into a ball to try and prevent Jared from tickling him, but he could still get him from other angles.

"Oh my god, I’m seriously going to piss my pants, stop it, stop it!" Matt said, sounding completely helpless.

Jared laughed and stopped tickling Matt. Matt leaped off the floor and ran to the bathroom.

"Wow, he wasn’t kidding." Jared said, laughing.

"He drank more than me..." Mike said, seeming completely delusional as to what just happened.

"Mike, go get some coffee or Rockstar or whatever the hell it is you drink to get energy. You need it. Go." Beau said, pushing Mike in the direction of their kitchen.

"Well that was fun while it lasted." I said, looking at Jared, then at Beau, who was looking at me as well. I looked away before I could get pulled into another gazing contest with him. I didn’t know how long I was gonna be able to keep control in this situation.

"Why the hell did you wake us up so early? We don’t leave for a loooong time yet." Matt asked, coming from the bathroom, his hair also all over the place.

"‘Cause if we didn’t, you two would’ve never woken up." Beau said.

Mike sighed, coming back in the living room with a fresh can of Monster in his hand. "This is true."

"Now we’re gonna skedaddle, and if you two aren’t ready to get picked up in an hour, we’re gonna come back full force with Miranda and Skylar and they’ll attack you. See ya." I said, opening the door, going out to my car, Beau and Jared following. I really wanted to talk to Beau about this whole feelings for each other thing. It felt like he was hitting on me with Jared right there, and he had no problem with it. The whole thing just felt so wrong.

I fell back towards Beau and Jared, walking next to Beau.

"I need to talk to you. Alone. Back at your house." I whispered just so Beau could hear.

He nodded in agreement and we got to my car. The ride home was a little less romantic between Beau and Jared, and I felt slight guilt thinking that it was because of something I did.

We pulled into Beau and Jared’s driveway and got out, seeing that Miranda and Skylar were in the house.

"You can go inside, Jared, I have to talk to Eric, kay?" Beau said quietly to Jared, kissing him tenderly before Jared went into their house.

Beau and I stood in an awkward silence before I broke it. "Beau...you said that you still had feelings for me. You also said that you wouldn’t want to do anything that would break you and Jared up. The way you’re acting is already telling me that you’re not really trying to control yourself..."

"What, just because I shot a few glances..?" Beau interrupted me.

"Just, hear me out, alright? Sure, it was just a few glances. But that could turn into a few pecks on the cheek and then a make out here and a fuck there, and before you know it, we’d be in the same place we were a year or so ago, except for the fact that you have a kid, and mine’s on the way. Would you really want to teach Skylar shit like this? Teach him that it’s okay to have a relationship with more than one person at a time? And with Miranda, imagine if she found out about it. She would probably want nothing to do with me and take full custody of our child. I don’t want that. I want to be able to see my kid grow up and go to school and graduate college and..." I wiped the tears falling rapidly down my cheeks, taking in a few shaky breaths before continuing. "And I just don’t think that would be a good life for either of the kids, or us, now would it?"

Beau hugged me and I broke down in his arms. I felt Beau crying as well.

"I’m so sorry, I never even thought about that." He whispered, resting his head on mine. We stood like that for a few minutes, letting each other cry. Once we were both calmed down for the most part, we let go of each other and smiled. "And I would like to see my grand kid grow up as well."

I laughed a little to myself. "That sounds so weird, calling yourself a grandpa even though you’re only 6 years older than me."

"It feels weird, but at the same time, it feels right. I feel that I should have more of a right to be grandfather to your baby than your biological father, even though I didn’t treat you much better." He said, sounding ashamed about the last part.

"Are you kidding me? Living with you was like I stepped into Heaven. Sure, you were an alcoholic at the time, but you got better, and you did the right thing by sending me to Casey’s so you could get better. Honestly, anything was better than being sent back to live with my dad." I hugged Beau again.

"I know, but I still feel so horrible for acting like that. I knew the responsibility that came with

raising a teenager, but I guess I never took it seriously." He explained.

"No matter how shitty you treated me, you saved me. Always remember that." I said into his chest, feeling another tear fall down my cheek, but it was a tear of happiness rather than sadness. Happy knowing that Beau put me in a better place, even if he did it indirectly.

"I think we should go back inside before Jared starts freaking out." I said, backing away from Beau again.

"Hold on, let me just try something." He said, grabbing my wrist gently. He pulled me behind the giant pine tree at the corner of his driveway.

I knew what he was doing. "Beau, don’t do anything you’ll regret." I warned.

He looked at the ground, then at me. "I don’t think I’ll regret this."

Before I could say anything else, Beau pressed his lips against mine. It was one of the most amazing feelings I’ve had in a long time. I’ve been longing to feel his lips against mine, I just never realized until I had it. His hands rested on my upper arms and mine on his hips. It felt so wrong, yet it felt so right.

We parted, both smiling, both blushing.

"I forgot how that felt." I whispered, looking up at him, brushing Beau’s hair out of his face.

"Yeah, me too." Beau said, almost sounding slightly breathless.

"We should really go back to the house." I said, realizing that my hands were still on his hips. This was the closest we’ve been in almost a year.

"Lets go." He said, backing away from me, walking around the opposite side of the tree, meeting me at the front of the tree, walking across the lawn. I looked at him and saw guilt flash in his eyes. "I shouldn’t have done that."

I sighed. "I know, but it happened. Just forget it did, at least for now, and act like nothing happened."

He nodded and walked into the house.