"Mitch?" I cried in alarm.
He shoved me out of the way and shut my front door, locking it. I took the time to eye him carefully, and relaxed slightly, realizing that his nose was bleeding, and his shoulder was bleeding through a tear on his shirt, but other than that, he was alright.
"What the hell happened to you?" I demanded.
"Got involved in a fight. Shit got real. We ran off. I'm just hiding out here for a little," he said.
"Fight with who? What?" I asked.
"Don't worry about it," he said dismissively. He looked down at his bleeding shoulder. The blood had soaked through his shirt. He looked up at me. "Can I borrow a shirt? And a band-aid?"
I sighed. "Come with me."
"Jace? What's going on?" my mom called from the kitchen.
I shoved Mitch into the hallway so that she wouldn't see him. "Mitch is here. We're just going to hang out for a little," I called back.
I pulled Mitch into the bathroom and locked the door. He pulled his shirt off as I pulled out bandages. He grabbed a tissue and held it under his nose.
"Who did you get in a fight with?" I asked.
"It was nothing," he said.
"It was something. You're hurt," I said, wetting a paper towel and wiping at the cut on his shoulder.
"If you tell me what's been up with you lately, I'll tell you who I got in a fight with," he said, watching me and wincing lightly as I rubbed at his cut.
"I'm just..dealing with personal issues," I said, since that was about as honest as I could get without actually telling Mitch that I probably liked him.
"Lucas Rivers and lan Patterson started a fight with me and my friends," he said. "Lucas cut me with a broken beer bottle. They were wasted. We ran off once they started swinging broken bottles around. Best not to get involved with that kind of shit."
I carefully bandaged his shoulder, fighting off the anger inside of me. Anger that someone had hurt Mitch.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
"I'll be fine. Just don't tell my mom," he said.
"Mitch, you've done this before. Disappeared and turned up hurt," I said. "What the hell do you do in your free time?"
He shrugged, wincing at his shoulder. "My friends are I just aren't well liked, I guess."
I helped him up and led him to my bedroom. I tossed a shirt at him and he pulled it on, looking around my messy room.
"Do you ever clean this?" he asked.
"Nah," I said, kicking some dirty clothes out of my way to make a path to my bed. "It's summer break. Why the hell would I bother cleaning my room?"
"It would bother me if my room was this messy." he said.
"Well it's not your room," I reminded.
"True." He sat next to me on my bed and wiped at his nose to make sure it had stopped bleeding. "Thanks for letting me borrow your shirt and hide out."
"Are they going to show up at your house?" I asked, worried about shane.
"Nah. But I think Lucas was chasing me, and your house was nearby," he said. "Don't worry; I made sure no one saw me come here."
"If they give you any more trouble, let me know. Shane and I will help you," I said.
"Don't tell my brother," he said. "It won't turn into a problem. They were drunk, and that's the only reason it escalated the way it did. I can handle myself, Jace."
"I know you can," I said, dropping my gaze.
"So, personal issues?" he asked, and I groaned.
"I don't want to talk about it!" I whined. First my mom and now Mitch. Great.
"It's eating you up inside, though, Jace," he said. "Is it your dad?"
"No," I said flatly. "It's got nothing to do with my dad."
"Did you and shane fight or something?" he asked.
"Nah" I said, leaning back against the wall. "Look, don't worry about it Mitch. I've got it under control."
"No you don't. But your business is your business," he said.
"How long do you need to hide out for?" I asked, hoping it was for a long time.
Mitch shrugged. "Probably not long. But I'm here, so do you want to hangout? Unless you were spending time with your mom. I don't want to interrupt that."
"No, it's fine!" I said quickly.
"Well, I'm hungry. Mind if we make lunch?" he asked.
My stomach growled and I nodded. "Yea, I'm hungry too. Let's go."
I grabbed my speakers and we went to the kitchen, where my mom was putting away the brownies and lemonade. She smiled at Mitch.
"Hi Mitch!" she said. "Thank you for cutting off the jungle that my son called hair. It was driving me crazy."
"No problem Erica," Mitch said.
"In return, you could make me lunch." He cracked a grin.
"I think that's a fair trade," mom said, laughing. "I'll make you boys mac and cheese."
I turned my music on and Mitch and I sat down together as my mom started making lunch. I leaned back, tilting the chair to a dangerous angle.
"Been around the world, don't speak the language, but your booty don't need explaining. All I really need to understand is when you talk dirty to me," I sang along cheerfully.
"Jace, don't lean back in your chair like that. How many times do I have to tell yo that you're going to crack your head open?" mom said in annoyance.
"Our conversations ain't long, but you know what is," I sang, continuing to lean back in my chair.
But I leaned back a little too far and would've cracked my head open if Mitch's arm hadn't shot out and righted the chair. I blushed and glanced down at my feet.
"You should probably listen to your mom," Mitch said.
"You should probably shut up," I grumbled.
"I did just save your life," he said. "I think that gives me the right to talk."
"You're in my house, so I make the rules midget," I said.
When we were younger, Mitch had been embarrassingly small. He had been short and scrawny. But by the time he was 13, he hit an impressive growth spurt and was now nearly as tall and built as me and Shane despite being younger than us. But Shane and I had always called him midget, and as much as he hated it, it had stuck.
"Next time I'm going to let you fall and crack your head open," he said.
"If I die, I'm going to haunt the hell out of you," I warned him.
He laughed and flashed me that crooked smile of his. I admired how good looking Mitch was, with his crooked smile, his smooth skin, and those pale blue orbs he called eyes. My eyes fell to his front teeth. His top one was slightly chipped from a game of truth or dare gone horribly wrong
"Are you staring at my teeth?" he asked, raising an eyebrow and running his tongue over the chipped tooth.
"That was a fun night," I said.
"Until I chipped my tooth on a freaking beer bottle," he grumbled.
"You chipped your tooth on a beer bottle?" my mom asked in surprise, glancing at Mitch. "I never even noticed it was chipped. When did that happen?"
"Two years ago. You usually can't tell unless you're looking for it," Mitch said.
"What were you doing with a beer bottle two years ago? Wait, Jace, you were with him?!" My mom looked at me accusingly.
I blushed. "It was two years ago! It's a little late to ground me for it!"
"Did you hurt your tooth because you were drunk?" mom asked, glaring between the two of us.
"No one was drunk that night," Mitch said. "We just had a few beers. Shane got a hold of a pack. We had a few people in Shane's room, and we were playing truth or dare. My dare was..uh..it involved a beer bottle."
I burst into laughter, remembering the dare quite clearly. Mitch glared and punched me roughly in the arm.
"Shut up!" he said.
"I'm..sorry!" I managed, trying to get my laughter under control.
Shane had dared Mitch to give a blowjob to the beer bottle. We'd had just enough to drink to have a light buzz going, and it had been enough for Mitch to hit himself in the tooth with the beer bottle while laughing during the dare.
"We don't talk about it," Mitch said to my mom.
"We do talk about it, actually. We just talk about it when Mitch isn't around," I corrected. I winced as Mitch punched me again. "Stop doing that My arm is already bruised from you punching me yesterday!"
"Is that what happened to your arm? I was going to ask you, but I was afraid of the answer," mom said.
"Yea, Mitch kept punching me,"I said.
"You deserved it," he said with a shrug.
"Oh, shut up," I said.
"Stop fighting," mom said to us with a sigh.
"Mitch and I don't fight," I said, slinging my arm around his shoulders.
"Never," Mitch agreed, slinging his arm around my shoulder. "We just ocasionally beat the shit out of each other."
"But in a friendly way," I said.
Mitch nodded. "Nothing says 'bonding' quite like trying to break each other's faces."
"Sometimes I lie awake at night and wonder why I couldn't have had a shy daughter instead of you," mom said.
"Oh, you'd miss me," I said with a wink.
She offered me an affectionate smile before turning back to finish making us food. I leaned back in my chair again, making sure I wasn't too far back this time.
"Here you go," she said, setting the mac and cheese down for us.
"Thank you Erica," Mitch said hungrily, scooping some into a bowl and beginning to eat.
"Fatass," I said before also beginning to eat.
"Leave me alone," he said, turning away from me as he ate.
"I guess I can't pick on you too much. You're not messy like Shane," I said.
"No one is messy like Shane," Mitch said with a sigh.
He moved to crack his back, but winced when he moved his shoulder wrong. He gently rubbed at the spot.
"Are you okay?" I asked, frowning at him.
"I'm fine. Just a little sore," he said.
I fought down the pure fury rising in me. I wanted to find those assholes who had hurt Mitch and kill them. How dare they even touch him.
"Hey, Hulk, calm down. You're going to break the fork," Mitch said.
I looked down at my fork, which I was gripping unnecessarily tightly. I loosened my grip and stared at my mac and cheese in embarrassment.
"Man, calm down. Im fine. I promise," Mitch said.
"Yea, yea, yea," I mumbled. "I know you're fine. If a little fight was enough to hurt you, I'd be ashamed."
He cracked a grin. "I'd be ashamed too."
We ate and cleaned up the dishes. Mitch followed me down to my basement and we lazily laid on the couch together.
"I'm bored," Mitch said after a few minutes of staring at the ceiling.
"Me too," I said with a sigh.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out, answering it. "Hello?"
"Hey, I know today is your bonding day with your mom or whatever, but some people are coming over tonight and we're going to hang out and drink. You in?" Shane asked.
I shrugged, my shoulder brushing against Mitch's as I did so. "Yea, I'm in. What time?"
"Any time you want to come," he said. "Jake is heading over now. I tried to get a hold of my idiot of a brother, but I swear he just turns his phone off and keeps it in his room all day."
I nearly laughed. "Well, I'm sure Mitch will turn up," I said. Mitch snickered.
"Whatever, he's not important. Just let me know when you're heading over," he said and hung up.
I shoved my phone in my pocket and sat up. Mitch copied me and we jumped off of the couch.
"Want to go hang out with Shane, Jake, and whoever else?" I offered.
"Yea, sure," Mitch said. "I've got nothing better to do."
We went upstairs and I searched around until I found my mom in the kitchen cleaning up. She glanced over at us.
"Yes boys?" she asked, wiping her hands on a towel.
"We're going to head back to Mitch's house," I said, and bit my lip guiltily. "Uh...for the night."
She gave me a small, encouraging smile. "Well, go on then. Go have fun with your friends, Jace."
"I'll be back tomorrow," I promised her, feeling bad for leaving her despite having claimed I'd spend the day with her.
"Okay," she said, the smile staying on her face. "Have fun, and behave!"
We left my house and got in my car together. I turned up the music, trying to ignore the guilt eating away at me for leaving my mother alone again.
"So here we go, I know, you'd kill for everything to stay the same. In vain we had to go our separate ways," my music sang.
Mitch reached over and turned the deafening volume down. "You could've just stayed with your mom," he said.
"I know," I said, keeping my eyes on the road.
"Jace, she gets it. You don't want to be in that house," he said.
"Yea, well, she doesn't want to be there either, but I leave her alone in it for weeks at a time," I said.
"Is that whatť's been bothering you lately?" he asked.
"Nah," I said. "Look Mitch, don't worry about it."
"It's hard not to when you're constantly acting weird," he said as I pulled into his driveway.
"I'm fine," I said, getting out of the car before he could say anything. Mitch followed me out of the car and up to the front door. We walked inside together and up to Shane's bedroom, letting ourselves in.
"Mitch?" Shane said in confusion. "What the hell?"
"I found him," I said, gesturing to Mitch.
"Yea, hey" Mitch said, sitting on the floor. I sat down next to him.
"Hi guys," Austin's old roommate, Jake, said with a wave.
"Hey Jake," I said.
"Shane told me you guys ran into Austin. I am so sorry for you," he said with a sigh.
"We ditched him so it's all good," I said.
The doorbell rang and Shane jumped up, leaving the room to answer the door. I peeked over at Mitch, who was scrolling through his phone. He reached up and carefully rubbed his injured shoulder.
I clenched my fists and looked away. I hated seeing Mitch hurt. But there really was no way for me to protect him since he tended to disappear without a trace half the time.
I sighed and leaned back. I might be the one acting weird lately, but Mitch was the one who had turned up injured. I just hoped that he would be alright.