CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

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• The Clay Connection   CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

  ANTHONY’S POVIt felt like the first day of first grade all over again, except this time, my parents weren’t trying to pry my fingers off the hinges of my father’s car door after dropping me off.I was wearing Blake’s (new so no one would know that I spent the night with him) clothes and one of the new pairs of sneakers he got me for Christmas. My stomach was doing jumping jacks like a professional and I wanted to throw up every single drop of water I had chugged down this morning at Blake’s insistence. Since my parents were STILL not worried about me and hadn’t bothered to enquire about my whereabouts, I had crashed over at the hotel Blake’s father set us both up in the moment we got back from Boston. The only downside to having to sleep on the same bed with my boyfriend was the fact that his father dropped in on us every five minutes to ensure we were keeping it PG 13 even though he masked it up by saying he just needed help figuring out how to maneuver the new website for our count

• The Clay Connection   CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  BLAKE’S POVAnthony was acting weird. Don’t get me wrong, the kid was weird on a regular, but he was acting weirder than usual. He didn’t eat a single thing after the topic of that kid from conversion camp was brought up and I noticed how tensed he got when my grandfather said he didn’t think being gay was natural. I think that scared him a bit, but I couldn’t be certain if that was the main reason he was throwing up in the upstairs bathroom immediately after desert was served when he didn’t even eat anything.“Sweetie? Are you alright in there?” He had locked the bathroom door the moment he got in, hindering me from following him inside. I was forced to wait outside while I listened to him hurl out his insides in the toilet bowl.There was no response, but a few moments later, he unlocked the door and opened it for me. His face was damp and he smelled like toothpaste.“Are you okay?” I asked as he walked over to the bathtub. It was filled with water and my grandma’s bath soap that sm

• The Clay Connection   CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  ANTHONY’S POV“Tony! It’s so good to see you again. How are you?” I embraced Marlene, Blake’s grandmother as she hugged me. She didn’t smell like a grandmother (cookies and cream and mothballs). She smelled like the mall at Christmas mingled with sandalwood and a bit of old paper. “I am so glad you’re joining us for Christmas this year. I haven’t seen you in almost three years.”“That would be my fault,” Blake said and hugged her after I did. She gave him a big, wet kiss on his cheek and I thought that she may not smell like a grandmother, but she did act like one.“We are having a few guests over to dinner with us tonight. I’m sorry, but most of them are old boomers like myself and your father.”“Hey!” James whined in protest. “I am not old. I am barely touching forty.”“Dad, everyone here knows your age. Lying about it just makes you look pitiful.”“I don’t think you’re an old boomer,” I said and I meant it. Marlene Lindell was sixty-something, but she didn’t look a day over forty.

• The Clay Connection   CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  BLAKE’S POV“We will be spending New Year’s at your grandparents’ house. We’ll be there for just two days so I expect you to be on your best behavior, Blake.”“Dad, when have ever not been on my best behavior at grandma and grandpa’s?” I batted my lashes at him and smiled. He gave me a flat look.“No mention of your suspension from school or that you put someone in the hospital. Again.” Tony grinned sheepishly and ate a spring roll. He was so adorable, I wanted to bite him.“Also…” There was an awkward pause as my dad looked from me to Tony. “If you can just keep it quiet about your relationship while we’re there, that’ll be great.”Silence. Uncomfortable silence that did not sit well with me.“You don’t think they’ll be cool with me dating Tony?”“To be honest, I don’t really know what your grandparents view on LGBTQ is but I do not want to spend this New Year finding out about it. I’m not saying you should hide it forever; I’m just asking that you not make it obvious while we’

• The Clay Connection   CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  ANTHONY’S POVI was so excited it was almost impossible for me to keep my cool!I was a little chilly from being outside for so long, but now that I was indoors, breathing in the amazing smell of freshly baked goods and oven-roasted turkey and seeing all the cute baby pictures of my boyfriend (I still couldn’t call him that without blushing my head off), I was as warm as spring itself.“Merry Christmas sir,” I said as soon as James came downstairs. He was smiling, but I could tell he was a little worried about something. This was the first time I was meeting with him since the night of the dance. I know Blake said that he was okay with he and I dating and everything, but I still felt nervous around him for some reason. I wondered how he felt and what he thought about me. Did he think the same way my father did, that I turned Blake gay?“I am so glad you could make it and I am sorry for dragging you away from your family this holiday. I hope Kyle and Bonnie don’t hate me too much.” He

• The Clay Connection   CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  BLAKE’S POV“Are we going to grandma’s place for Christmas or are we just going to be sad and lonely together?”“Sad and lonely is a bit of a stretch, don’t you think? You’ve been smiling ever since we had dinner earlier this week. That’s not what a sad and lonely person would do, Blake.”I stopped going through the box of Christmas decorations to look at my father with a deadpan expression. “You’re making it sound like it’s all thanks to you. For your information, my boyfriend made me happy, that’s why I was smiling.”He dropped the star he was about to hang. “This is why you don’t let kids have their way. They are not grateful for what you give them and then you end up with a white tree for Christmas and all they do is just nag, nag, nag.”I chuckled at the way he said ‘nag’ with his face contorting into something similar to Mr. Bean’s.We were setting up our Christmas tree, something that we should have done a long time ago but didn’t because I was sulking and dad didn’t want to ha