Chasing Snakes Won't End Quietly

Trent Thornton leapt up from the booth, the moment that he saw Gavin enter. He grabbed Gavin’s hand and pulled him into a sort of bro-hug, slapping Gavin’s back while the bespectacled teen feebly patted Trent’s broad shoulders, a little dazed. He’d been lost in his thoughts of Grace, and hadn’t expected any reaction when he walked through the doors, so Trent’s greeting, and the sheer enthusiasm of the other teen, surprised him. Parting, Trent reached down and picked up his beer, taking a swig before he seemed to notice that Gavin didn’t have a bottle, and hastily swallowed.

“Oh, shit, man, do you want a drink?” He asked, in mid motion to flag the waitress.

“No, no, no thanks,” Gavin hurriedly replied, looking to make sure the staff hadn’t seen Trent’s signal. “I’m not here to drink.”

“Really? Then why come to a bar?” Trent said, scrunching his nose in confusion. “I’m surprised to see you in town after yesterday. I would have thought you’d all be celebrating at the cabin today. Lord knows, the amount of pussy that got thrown at me up in that place, I had to convince myself to leave.”

“Ha, yeah, right.” Gavin chuckled awkwardly, not quite sure how to respond to Trent’s brashness. Though he had male friends, like Zack, none of them were quite as laddish as Trent. “Well, there are a few loose ends to tie up. I’m just here to meet someone though.”

“Someone?” Trent smirked as he raised an eyebrow. He slapped Gavin’s shoulder, and asked, “Is it a girl?”

“Well, yeah,” Gavin admitted, acknowledging to himself that Grace was indeed a girl, but he knew that Trent was referring to more than just her biological features. “But it’s not like that. We’re just friends.”

“And? If it’s not like that, then find a way to make it like that,” Trent urged him, leaning in a little closer. “I’m not talking about actual **** you know, but girls, they like a guy who can take charge. A little gentle persuasion goes a long way.”

Gavin wondered how true that was, considering most of the girls he knew were more than willing to take charge themselves. But, then again, his indecision and self-confidence had been a major factor in the dissolution of his relationship with Victoria. Grace certainly seemed like more of the take charge type as well, especially since she had been the one to strike up a conversation with him. So, he shook his head, and told Trent, “I don’t think Grace is into me like that, and I don’t need to be adding anyone else to my girl troubles.”

“Girls troubles, man I hear that,” Trent laughed, as he rubbed his neck. His eyes shot back up to Gavin’s face. “Wait, did you say Grace? Grace Smith?”

“Yeah. I’m not surprised you know her,” Gavin confessed thoughtfully. “The Computer Club isn’t a popular club, but Grace is popular all throughout the school.”

Trent nodded, agreeing. “So, you two never dated? There was a rumor round school that you two were together.”

“What?” Gavin also fell he was so taken aback. “Why would anyone have thought that?”

“Let’s see…it was about…just over a year or so ago, I think, maybe more,” Trent strained to remember, as Gavin thought about the time frame. That would have been right around the time that she started to distance herself from him, just before she ousted him from the presidency. Trent continued, “a group of upper classmen on the football team decided to ask her out. But she turned them all down, and told them that she was already seeing someone.”

“Not as far as I know,” Gavin said, before adding a shrug. “But maybe. She was very well liked around school.”

“You’re underselling her, man,” Trent replied with a shake of his head. “That girl is hot as fuck, and most guys would have given their left nut to the blow the right inside her.”

Gavin grimaced at the mental image, Trent put in his head, swiftly changing the subject. “Grace’s dad was quite strict though. I bet she just said that to get them off her back.”

“Could be,” Trent agreed. “Those guys didn’t want to let it go though. They wanted to know who the guy was. They never found anything tying her to anyone, except you. You were the only guy she hung out with, every day, so naturally, everyone came to the conclusion that you were the guy.”

“Wow, no, we were only ever friends,” Gavin explained, until a thought crossed his mind and he tilted his head as he considered it. “Wait. How come I never heard about this?”

“Oh, well, that’s kind of funny. Those guys were planning on pranking you. I don’t think they ever got past the idea stage though, when Grace actually caught wind of it,” Trent elaborated, the details of the story coming back to him as he said it. “She must have had something on them, because after that they refused to talk about it and told anyone who did bring it up to shut up. So, nothing happened and the rumor kinda quietly died after that.”

“I can’t believe it,” Gavin said, mostly to himself as he realized that Grace may have been involved in **** and extortion for much longer than it seemed. “She had something on them, like what?”

“Dunno quite for sure,” Trent admitted with a frown. “Heard that it might have been some embarrassing photos, but no one ever knew for sure, and Grace kept her end of the bargain, never releasing them.”

“I’m surprised she was looking out for me like that. Around that time, she started to change her attitude towards me,” Gavin noted. “Maybe she blamed me. If we didn’t spend so much time together, I wouldn’t be mistaken for her boyfriend, and if I’d been a little bit cooler, she mightn’t had to pressure them into leaving me alone.”

“Who knows; who can understand the ways of women?” Trent replied, not even trying to hide the disdain in his voice. “I asked Amber to meet me here, so I could smooth things out after Victoria…abruptly cut our phone call short. Bitch has had me waiting over half an hour already, probably trying to punish me.” He looked around the bar and then indicated towards the booth. “Wanna wait with me? It doesn’t look like Grace is here yet.”

“Oh, she’s here,” Gavin assured him as he started to walk past the black teen.

“Huh, where?” Trent asked, looking around to double check that he hadn’t missed her the first time, then following after Gavin. “Wait, hold up, I’ll come too.”

“Trust me, you won’t be allowed,” Gavin said, walking straight through the bar to a red fire door that read ‘BASEMENT’. “Besides, aren’t you waiting on Amber?”

“I’m tired of waiting for that bitch,” Trent replied, nervously glancing at the staff behind the bar as Gavin walked straight through the door into an old stone hallway. “Are you sure you’re allowed down here?”

Gavin chuckled, enjoying seeing the football player nervous for once, as he led him past a couple of rooms filed with barrels and bottles and other merchandise for the bar. The hallway was short though, and at the end was an old mechanical lift. Trent held on to the sides, not quite trusting the old non-electrical pulley system to safely carry them, especially as the elevator swung gently on the way down. It didn’t have to go down far before it stopped, and Gavin pulled open the gates.

Before him were two paths. One led straight, which he knew led to a funeral home across the road. During prohibition, when the Oh Henry Taphouse was a speakeasy, the gangsters in charge would have brought **** to the funeral home in coffins and brought it across to the bar. Conversely, bodies were brought to the bar, leading the mistaken idea that they were buried beneath, when in reality they were being taken across the road, because who would notice a little extra ash in a funeral home incinerator.

But the path Gavin took was to the right, another short corridor, leading straight to a door, reinforced steel with a small rectangular window about eye level, used for peering out. He glanced at Trent, smiling at the look of awe on the black teen’s face. He also knew that he was going to be very disappointed soon. Gavin knocked on the door and a few seconds later the panel over the window slid open, a pair of feminine, brown eyes looking back at him.

“Gavin Westher,” he declared.

“Are you a member?” She sounded unsure, as if she recognized his name.

“I was, but I haven’t been around in a long time,” he explained.

A pause, and then the voice belonging to the eyes said, “wait here.” And shut the panel again.

It was several minutes before there were anymore sounds from behind the door. This time though, rather than the noise of the window being slid open, the whole door was unbolted and squeaked as it was opened. A dark haired, green eyed girl stood on the other side, her expression a mix of shock and pleasure, like Christmas had come. He instantly recognized her. She could cut her hair or dye it, or change her looks however she wanted, Gavin would always know Grace Smith when he saw her.

“I believe your membership was revoked,” Grace said by way of greeting.

“No, I left voluntarily,” Gavin argued. “Besides, I don’t need to come in, I just need to talk to you.”

“Toe-matte-o, toe-mate-o,” she sang, rolling her eyes. “If you want to talk to me, you have to come in.” Her eyes moved to Trent, roaming over his body, trying to put Gavin and Trent together like an equation the just didn’t make sense. “Are you so scared of me that you brought a bodyguard?”

“No, I’m just a friend,” Trent said, the words sounding strange coming from his lips. But then, what else would Gavin have called another straight guy who’d had his dick in his ass?

“Well, you can enter,” she said, looking pointedly at Gavin, then at Trent. “You can go swing from a tree somewhere.”

“What did you say, bitch?” Trent growled.

“Stay,” she ordered mockingly, as she stepped aside to allow Gavin to enter and then, when Trent didn’t move, she added a cheerful, “Good boy.”

As the door closed, Gavin looked back at Trent and told him, “Don’t worry about me. Just go have fun with Amber.”

The heavy steel door closed with a loud crash, echoing throughout the underground room. It was bolted and locked again, before Grace led him through the large rectangular space, filled with makeshift tables, four or five tables on top and cables running everywhere. It was already full, with at least two or three people to every laptop, and others mingling. Heavy bass music pumped through speakers, unheard upstairs because the room was soundproofed. It was an underground computer club, dedicated to less reputable sides of coding and programming, and not always for legal outcomes, a safe space for the hackers and digital criminals of tomorrow to come and build their skills.

The place brought back memories for Gavin, though it had been a year and a bit since he’d last been, but little had changed. He was only ever a member of this place, and less enthusiastically so than Grace, who increasingly saw it as the primary means by which to strike out from under her father’s overbearing expectations. Even if she wasn’t ‘k3Y$Tr0kE’, she definitely knew who was, and that someone most certainly would be found in place like this.

Grace led him down a side corridor, fidgeting with something in her pocket. Probably a key or something, he suspected. Once they were far enough out of ear to be overheard, though that would have been relatively difficult with the music so loud, Grace stopped, which Gavin took as his cue to start talking.

“I was talking to Hannah-argh” Gavin began, as Grace turned towards him, only seeing the black object in her hand as it was thrust up against his neck. An electric current flowed into him, and he blacked out , his last thought, wondering where Grace got a taser.

Trent waited in his car outside Oh Henry’s, parked around back where he was certain that Grace would come out. People like that, using the basement of a bar and hiding behind steel doors didn’t come in and out of the front entrance. He didn’t trust Grace. Not just because she had been quite dismissive of him, he didn’t trust Gavin with her. Not that he was trying to protect Gavin, because he was a grown man who could look out for himself. This was just one bro looking out for another bro. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact he had his cock in Gavin’s ass just yesterday, he was certain of that.

His phone lit up, Amber calling again. She’d been calling and texting for several minutes now, no doubt pissed that she’d made him wait and he still wasn’t there when she arrived. Gavin was more important though. No, making sure Gavin was safe was more important. He could tap Amber anytime, but Gavin…not that it was about tapping Gavin, or that Gavin might be tapping Grace. It wasn’t jealousy. Trent didn’t get jealous, certainly not of other guys going after other girls. Maybe if he wished he could fuck their girlfriends or sisters, like Ashley and Madison; he’d never been jealous of them for spending time with Brandon, taking time away from him.

Wiping a hand over his face, he wondered what was wrong with him. He should never have taken up Chloe’s offer yesterday, the whole thing was messing with his head now. This wasn’t him. He didn’t chase guys, or stalk them, waiting outside bars to see them with another person. Those were female traits. Girls chased him, and checked up on him, and he enjoyed the attention, the self-satisfaction of knowing that they wanted him all to themselves. He enjoyed fucking them too, obviously, though honestly, no one felt as tight and snug as…

No, no, no, he shook his head to disperse the thoughts as his phone buzzed with a new message. Amber again, the text read ‘last chance’. Sighing, Trent reached for the ignition. He was being stupid and crazy. What he really needed was to just go fuck Amber and get this whole thing out of his system. Even Gavin had told him to go, so why was he overthinking this? He’d never over-thought a single thing in his life until now.

At that moment though, before the car roared to life, he saw them. Grace exited with Gavin’s arm around her shoulders. They seemed pally, much more friendly than they had moments ago. Gavin was stumbling, moving sluggishly, like he was drunk or tired. But Trent couldn’t see his face, he was wearing a baseball cap that he hadn’t had earlier either. She walked him around to the passenger side of her car, and helped him into the seat, glancing both ways as she straightened up, and closed the door.

It took a great deal of restraint not to run over and save Gavin immediately. But, if she was putting him into a car, that meant she wanted to take him somewhere. Wherever she was going might yield more answers than intervening right now, so, ignoring Amber’s text, and silently asking Gavin to hold on, he waited for Grace’s car to pull away from the curb, and then tailed her.