Here for You by Skylar M. Cates Page B

emotions, as Sam pointed out, were in upheaval. But when Cole said it was a mistake, he’d had such a mournful look on his face. His words said he wanted to go, but his eyes said the opposite.
    Ian went to change his sheets. But seeing the bed, he stopped and recalled Cole’s tender mouth on his, the sweetness of having Cole in his arms.

C HAPTER T WELVE
     
     
    T HE WEEK following the funeral, Cole remained restless, grief at his very center, but he trudged on as best he could. It was the worst time of his life. Worse than his parents’ bitter divorce; his absent, uncaring dad; his ugly fights with his mom and her boyfriends. It was worse than being on his own at seventeen and feeling totally unsure of his place in the world. Because now, well, he had a place—he had a home—but it was all slipping away. Cole had worked so hard to make their house a safe place—a real home, where they could be themselves, accepted for themselves, which none of them had before—and it had crumpled at their feet, buried with Brendan.
    They would need new roommates to try to cover Brendan’s and River’s absence.
    “I don’t want anybody else here,” Cole said.
    “We have to. We can’t afford the rent with two of us gone.”
    “Fuck that River!” Marc swore. “He’s such a screwup.”
    “Maybe he’ll be back. We could keep his room?”
    “No,” Cole said. “Let’s let somebody take River’s room and leave Brendan’s. I don’t want….” Cole cleared his throat. “I don’t want to disturb all his things. Or have some stranger in there.”
    Cole tried once to organize and pack Brendan’s belongings. Brendan’s parents hadn’t contacted them about it, and Cole considered donating them to Goodwill, which he thought Brendan would approve of. He’d gone into the room and run his fingers over Brendan’s books. Cole couldn’t tell one law book from another, but he smiled faintly at Brendan’s dog-eared, well-read Stephen King and Dean Koontz collection. His John Irving shelf and Hemingway—they’d argued once over the best author of the two. Cole loved A Farewell to Arms while Brendan’s favorite book was A Prayer for Owen Meany . It was one thing he and Brendan had in common: they both liked to escape into books. Sports bored the crap out of Cole, and he was terrible at math, but Cole had always loved to read. His grades in school sucked, though, mostly due to his mother shuffling them around, following one guy or another.
    Cole opened the closet and looked at Brendan’s clothes. What was left behind, all the colorful work shirts, carefully hung and pressed pants, worn shoes lined up like soldiers in a battle; but also the weekend T-shirts, all with silly sayings scrawled over the chest, and the scattered, mismatched socks. Cole shut the door. He wanted to hold them all to him, and he didn’t want to.
    It was too much. A hurricane of grief.
    Lost, he touched the walls, the neatly made bed. He wandered into the bathroom and stared at his brush, still holding some wispy hairs in the bristles, and at Brendan’s uncapped toothpaste, his Oral-B toothbrush, minty floss. He could see Brendan there, teasing them all about good dental hygiene.
    Cole left it all alone, feeling sick and weak. Tomas and Marc did not touch it either.
    “I’m not giving away Brendan’s room,” Cole said.
    “Agreed,” Tomas said softly, breaking the awful quiet. “We rent River’s room.”
    “Agreed.” Marc nodded.
    Halfheartedly, they put up a few flyers, made the rent cheap enough to lure guys to the house, but none of the parade of guys who checked the place out and sat through their interview wanted to move in. Who wanted to stay in this house? Feel its sadness? It was palpable. It permeated every wall. They all knew it.
    Cole decided if they wanted a break on the rent, he’d have to confront the problem head on, so he called Evie. She liked them. Cole only hoped she liked them enough to be patient. Evie had her own bills to