Chapter 2a
It was Monday and Jared was late. On the day before, he had asked his friends if any of them would be willing to watch his two dogs while he was at training. Because coach Morgan liked to schedule surprise-training-sessions without actually telling him beforehand.
Sandy, as the good friend she was, offered to baby-sit the dogs. She was like a younger sister to Jared, with her petite body, happy personality, and kind soul; she always rescued him whenever Coach Morgan went strange. But this time she told him he had to collect his dogs exactly at five o’clock; otherwise she wouldn’t be able to arrive at her acting class in time.
Sandy’s class had started half an hour ago and Jared wasn’t even close to her house. In fact, he had just been run over by an incredibly good looking guy with amazing green eyes lacking the ability to stay upright. Jared liked him immediately and would have happily asked him out then and there, if he didn’t know Sandy was waiting. So, he made sure he would see the good-looking guy again and started running.
Sandy was in front of her house, hair in a ponytail, foot tapping rhythmically. Jared braced himself and came closer. As he expected, Sandy welcomed him with a death glare, shoved Harley and Sadie’s leashes into his hand and walked out. “I’m late,” she said over her shoulder, her voice dry, “Talk to you later.”
Jared blinked twice and ran after her, his dogs on his heels. “Wait, Sandy!” he said. “I’m sorry I was late but-”
Sandy span around facing Jared. “I’m late, Jared. I’ll talk to you later,” she said, and started walking again. Jared followed her. “The training went longer than usual,” he explained aloud ignoring Sandy’s request. “I don’t know why Coach Morgan thought it would be a good idea to discuss this new block formation in mid-season, but who am I to disagree, right? That’s why I keep wondering what went trough my mind when I decided to play beach volleyball,” he continued while trying to talk and run at the same time. “Then I went running to your house. But this really pretty guy tripped and fell over me-”
“Ok!!” Sandy exclaimed suddenly. They were in front of the studio. “Enough, Jared.” Jared stopped.
“I’m really sorry,” he said one more time.
Sandy stared at him, her eyes weren’t angry; they were exasperated. Jared thought she looked cute like that. But of course he wouldn’t say it when Sandy was late and was all because of him. She could be amazingly scary for such a small woman.
“Jay, when will you learn?” she asked.
Jared shrugged and lowered his eyes ashamed, managing to do an incredibly accurate imitation of a small child. “I really really didn’t want you to be late to your class.”
Sandy sighed. Jared knew he should be glad that Sandy was such a patient friend. After a few seconds, he saw her eyes shine kindly. “I can’t stay angry with you,” she said smiling.
“I’m sorry anyway.”
“Yeah, yeah, Sasquatch.” Sandy dismissed him. “Will you let me go to my class now?” she asked.
Jared waited, then, he smiled testing the territory. Sandy was smiling back at him. It seemed secure enough, so, he dared a joke: “Already?” he asked “Don’t you want to spend some more time with me?”
Sandy shook her head fondly. “Not right now.” She answered. “Go see if Chad wants to do something, ok? I really can’t afford to miss more classes.”
“Chad isn’t as enjoyable as you,” Jared replied. “Or as pretty.” Harley barked in agreement. Jared chuckled. He was so proud of his dogs.
Sandy rolled her eyes.
Suddenly, Jared smiled widely. “Sandy, when you become a famous actress, will you still remember me?” he asked playfully.
Sandy rolled her eyes. “Bye, Jared. Say hi to Chad for me,” she said, and entered the building.
Jared was still smiling when he lowered his eyes to his dogs. “You know, if I weren’t gay, I would so marry her soon-to-be-famous-self,” he said as if it were a secret.
The dogs didn’t show any surprise with the comment. Jared knew they were used to him confessing his secrets to them. By then, they knew not to show any emotion when Jared revealed bits of information about his life. It wasn’t any life shattering confession any way.
“And I wouldn’t even do it for the money.”
Jared arrived at Chad’s place at a quarter to six. The sun was beginning to set, but its light would shine for at least an hour. Jared loved the summer. The days were longer than in any other season.
Chad was on the porch; his surfboard was against one of the four metal chairs he had. Jared didn’t know why Chad had metal chairs. They were incredibly ugly and not all that comfortable.
“Jaybear!” Chad exclaimed. “Come over, grab a beer in the kitchen and sit beside me. Hey, you got your dogs back!”
Jared smiled, tied the dog’s leashes to the edge and did exactly what Chad had told him to.
“How are you doing, my man?” Chad asked when Jared made himself as comfortable as possible in one of the chairs. “Sandy was pissed when you didn’t show up on time!” Chad said laughing as if it were the funniest joke he had ever heard. Jared always thought Chad was a bit strange.
“She called me demanding to know where you were,” Chad continued. “And I said, ‘Sandy, baby, Jaybear isn’t my husband, I have no idea where he is.” Chad chuckled. “She went ballistic!” Jared knew Chad was all too proud of himself for pissing Sandy more than she already was.
“I thought she was going to murder me,” Jared said. “I have never seen her look like that!”
Chad laughed. “That serves you right. I told you Sandy has claws! She uses them all the time when I’m with her.” He ran his hands through his hair. “In fact, I always thought it was unfair that she treated you so well and almost always ignored me,” he commented absently.
Jared smirked. “That’s because she always liked me best.”
“That’s true. Everybody likes you best,” Chad agreed. “And that’s fucking wrong. I’m a lot more enjoyable than you! I’m handsome! Women should be throwing themselves at me,” Chad concluded.
Jared chuckled. The irony of the statement was that Chad was handsome. Jared knew that. But Chad was also a douchebag. And Jared also knew that. As knew all the girls they met. In fact, Jared had never known a girl that could spend more then fifteen minutes with Chad and not reach this same conclusion.
Chad was special in his own peculiar way.
“You are delusional,” Jared said instead.
Chad looked at Jared. “Jaybear, you break my heart when you say things like that,” he said faking a pout. The face was so wrong that Jared wondered if Chad could actually convince anyone of his innocence with it. He probably couldn’t, but neither would he ever stop using it.
“You’ll survive,” Jared said, deadpanning.
“Now, see, that’s the problem with you,” Chad said with a know-it-all tone. “You don’t give credit to your friends.”
“I don’t credit to you.”
“You are fucking doing it again!” Chad exclaimed pointing at him. “That’s what I’m talking about. Don’t belittle your friends, man. Someday you might need us.”
Jared ignored the comment. “You know, I was run over by the most beautiful guy I have ever seen,” he said instead. He was dying to tell somebody about Jensen and Chad conveniently was beside him doing absolutely nothing except being annoying.
Chad drank some of his beer completely unbalanced with the topics change. With Jared, it was normal. “Yeah? By ‘ran over’ you mean…?” he asked.
“The guy tripped, lost his balance and fell over me.”
“Oh.” Chad looked disappointed. “I thought it was some king of gay-code-word.”
Jared knew he would regret his next question, but he did it any way: “For what?”
Chad made an obscene gesture with his hands. Jared raised one eyebrow. “Chad, how many times do I have to tell you? We don’t have code words.”
Chad shrugged “I wouldn’t know. I’m not gay.”
“I’m telling you!” Jared exclaimed exasperated “We don’t have code-words! Now will you shut up and let me tell you about this guy?"
“Do I have to?”
“Yes, of course!” Jared answered at once. “If I have to listen to you talking about your one night stands, you could at least let me babble about this guy! Its called being equals!”
Chad seemed to think about it. Finally, he sighed resigned. “Okay. Tell me about this beautiful man you’ve met. But spare me of the sordid details.”
Jared sometimes wondered how Chad had become his best friend. He figured he must have done something incredibly wrong along the way. “Chad, there is no sordid details.” And then Jared started recounting how he was running to arrive at Sandy and suddenly this guy appeared out of nowhere and fell over him and couldn’t get up and how he was adorably shy and beautiful. As he was already talking, Jared decided he should ask Chad if he would please go back to the beach with him because he wanted to see if he could meet Jensen again.
Jared thought Chad was going to refuse, but instead, Chad asked: “Does this guy have a sister?”
And Jared should have known Chad would ask this kind of question. If there was anything that could convince Chad was women. “I have no idea,” Jared answered. Then, in a fit of evil inspiration, he added, “But there was another guy with him.”
Chad shot him a scandalous look, as if the thought of him chasing a man haven’t even crossed his mind. “A man?” he asked, “What would I do with a man?”
Jared smirked. He was waiting for Chad to ask that question. “There’re lots of things you could do with a man, Chad,” he said in his most neutral voice. “For example, you could-.”
“You are a very cruel man, Jared Padalecki,” Chad said disgusted
Jared laughed smugly. “I know.”
Chad stayed silent for a few seconds, thinking. “But there really is no sister?” he tried again.
Jared sighed. Faced with this kind of maturity, Jared decided to change tactics. “Do you wanna find out if he has a sister?”
Chad’s eyes shone with interest. Then, he slowly smiled. “I think I do.”
Jared smirked. He was a genius. “Awesome.”
Jared’s plan would have worked perfectly if it wasn’t for a small detail: Jared had forgotten to ask Jensen where he was staying. In fact, now that he was thinking about it, he remembered telling Jensen where he lived, not the other way around. Jared was the most stupid person in the planet.
“So let me get this straight,” Chad said. “Pardon the expression,” he added. Jared rolled his eyes. “You have no idea where the-incredibly-good-looking-guy lives?” Chad asked, his fingers doings the ‘quote’ gesture.
Jared nodded in agreement and braced himself for the worse.
Chad didn’t disappoint him. His face became red, then purple, his eyes widened, his mouth opened and closed twice. At last, Chad let out a series of extremely colorful and creative curses.
If Jared didn’t know Chad, he would be embarrassed. But, as he knew him, Jared only shrugged. “Sorry,” he said.
“Shit, Jay! I’m can’t fucking believe it! Not only you drag me in a quest for your fucking gay crush, but you but also me make walk all the goddamn beach while you are babbling about him! For fucking two hours!! My masculinity is at sake here!” Chad continued with his tirade ignoring puppy dog eyes Jared was shooting him. “I’m telling you right now, Jaybear. My suffering has a price! And you will reward me.”
Jared was in the middle of the beach receiving suspicious looks from every corner, trying to calm a Chad Michael Murray that was doing a great impression of a crazy person. It was the second time he was screamed at in one day. He didn’t find Jensen or his friend. He was exhausted from the training in the afternoon.
Jared figured he had nothing to loose so he sighed and agreed to do whatever Chad wanted.
As long as Chad agreed to come back to the beach with him the next day. After all, he still wanted to find Jensen.
Jared had been looking for Jensen for three days with no luck.
Dawn broke at Friday morning quicker than Jared would have wanted. At half past eight, he found himself seated cross-legged on the sand at the beach arena trying to pay attention to coach Morgan’s last instructions of the training lesson for the day. It had something to do with serving.
Jared once saw a video of a beach volleyball player serving. The man was planning to throw the ball over an immense bridge. The ball had gone so high and so fast it was nearly impossible for the camera to follow. The man in the video had looked so proud and happy that Jared just wanted to be like him.
Coach Morgan kept talking and talking. Jared’s eyes were following his movements but not really listening to what he was saying. He was more interested in drawing patterns in the sand in synch with his coach’s steps.
“Are you paying attention to me, Padalecki?”
“Yes, sir,” Jared said immediately. After four years training with the same coach, it was instinct, even if it was a lie.
Jared prayed the man wouldn’t mind just this one time.
“Ok, kiddo,” Coach Morgan said. “Try to stay focused next time, will you?” Jared nodded relived. Coach Morgan sighed. “See you, tomorrow.”
Jared was grabbing this backpack when he saw Chad approaching. His friend was wearing a bright orange shirt that didn’t mach with his blond hair and black sunglasses. Jared smiled widely.
It was time to go Jensen-hunting.
“I feel we’ll find him today,” he exclaimed excitedly as soon as Chad was in hearing distance.
Chad took his sunglasses off his face, revealing two monumental dark circles under his eyes. Jared presumed he stayed up all night partying. He didn’t ask. He didn’t want to know.
Chad glared at him. “I can’t believe you convinced me to go on this gay quest again,” he said. They were walking along the sand line. Jared was taking his moment to study every blond he spotted. “Do you know what time I went to bed yesterday?”
“I don’t want to know,” Jared said distracted.
“Dude, you are acting like a crazy stalker,” Chad informed Jared. “I bet that if you don’t find this guy today, you’ll look even crazier,” Chad continued. Jared saw Chad’s eyes widen. He knew his friends well enough to know when an insane idea crossed his head. And Jared knew himself enough to know that whatever Chad said next, he wouldn’t like.
“Chad-.”
“I like this idea.” Chad said. “Let’s not find this Jensen and see what happens to you!”
Jared didn’t really want to know how Chad’s mind worked, but, sometimes, he would like to have a manual of how to control the urge to kill your best friend.
“Chad. That’s not a good idea,” Jared informed him.
Chad’s smile fell. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to look crazier than I do right now.”
Chad seemed to think about the answer. “Ok,” he said. “That’s fair,” and kept walking.
Jared really didn’t understand him.
“So, tell me more about this guy. How high is he again?”
Jared smiled “He isn’t small, but he’s not taller than me.”
“Jay, nobody is taller than you.”
Jared ignored him. “I think he’s this tall,” Jared put his hand at the same height of his cheek.
Chad nodded. “Ok, not small then. What more?”
Jared thought of his brief encounter with Jensen.
“His eyes were emerald-green, his hair is a darker blond, his lips… God, Chad! His lips were-”
“Ok, Jaybear, to much inf-” Chad said
“Jensen!” Jared shouted suddenly.
Jensen and his friend were walking on the other side of the street. They appeared to be looking for something pointing and talking about the people on the beach.
Jensen was even more beautiful than he remembered. His green eyes were shinning so much that, for a second Jared thought they weren’t human.
He wondered if Jensen remembered him.
“Jensen!” he shouted again. This time, he waved with his hands, trying to catch Jensen’s attention.
Jensen looked in Jared’s direction. He saw Jensen return a shy smile and wave back.
“Come here!” Jared shouted from the other side of the street. Jensen nodded and started pulling his friend along with him.
“That’s him?” Chad whispered.
“That’s him.”
Chad studied Jensen while he crossed the street and was almost hit by a car. “He is pretty,” he commented.
Jared smiled smugly. “I told you so.”
Jensen sprinted the half mile separating them, his friend right behind him with a serious expression in his face. Jared was certain Jensen’s friend didn’t like him.
“Jared,” Jensen said with a serene smile.
“Jensen,” Jared answered. “We meet again,” his eyes got distracted wandering through Jensen’s face. “Hey, you have freckles!”
Jensen smiled shyly, “And you have dimples.”
Jensen’s friend rolled his eyes and snorted. Jensen elbowed him. Chad laughed at them.
“If Jaybear won’t introduce me, I will,” he said extending his hand to the two men in front of him “Chad Murray. Pleased to meet you,” and he smiled innocently.
Jared couldn’t believe it.
“Kane,” said Jensen’s friend. He pointed to Jensen. “This is Jensen Ackles.”
Chad smirked wickedly. “Jensen! Jared keeps talking about you, man! He says you ran over him.”
Both Jared’s and Jensen’s eyes widened.
“I beg you pardon?” Jensen said
“Fuck, Chad,” Jared said.
“Seriously,” Chad continued unaffected by Jared, his attentions all focused in Jensen’s who looked like a spooked animal, big round green eyes glued on Chad. Inappropriately, Jared thought he looked cute. “He wanted to meet you again. Dragged me all over this beach. It was kinda scary, really.”
“That’s not true!” Jared replied scandalized before Chad could humiliate him any further.
Jared heard Kane laugh.
“I think I’ll like you, son,” Kane said to Chad.
Chad smiled mischievously. “I think you will.”
Jared knew Chad enough to be afraid of that smile.
“I’m heading to the beach,” he said aiming to distract Jensen from his crazy friend. He looked at Jensen. “You want to come?”
Jensen looked at him surprised. “Who?” he asked.
Jared rolled his eyes. “You. Want to come to the beach with me?” he tried again.
Kane sobered immediately. “That isn’t a good idea, son.” He said at the same time that Jensen said “I’d love to. But I can’t right now.”
Jared’s smile disappeared. “Oh. Ok, then.” At least Jared had tried.
Chad looked at Jensen with murder in the eyes. Kane stepped a little closer to his friend, shielding him from Chad’s eyes.
“I’m really sorry,” Jensen said moving away from both of them and meeting Jared’s eyes.
Jared smiled anyway. It wasn’t Jensen’s fault if he was fantasizing about him for almost a week. There wasn’t any evidence that Jensen liked him. And he was probably straight.
“I’ll see you around, then, yeah?” Jared asked and cringed when he heard the wobble in his voice.
Jared saw Kane study him. For a wild moment he imagined the man was reading his deepest thoughts. Kane was smaller than Jensen but his presence was as menacing as if he were a giant.
Kane, Jared decided, was scary.
“Yeah,” Jensen answered, lowering his eyes. “Count on it, Jared.”
And Jared shouldn’t be as happy as he was to hear his name from Jensen’s month. “Awesome.”
On Saturday, Jared wasn’t as excited as he normally was. The spark of hope Jensen had planted with his comment the day before had decreased considerably. His self-esteem wasn’t as high as he wanted it to be. He started to second guess Jensen’s motivations for agreeing to meet him some other time. For all he knew Jensen wasn’t interested.
Chad didn’t let Jared mourn in his house. Dressed in his dark green trunks and grey flip flops, he had let himself in, and informed Jared he was going to the beach with him and Sandy.
As a surfer, Chad believed the beach and the sea could solve all their morning problems. Of course, Jared tried to tell him his mornings problems had nothing to do with drinking, but Chad wouldn’t listen. In fact, as Jared tried to explain to him, Chad shoved Jared’s flowered trunks in his hands and told him do move, because Sandy was waiting for them and wouldn’t be held responsible if she got angry that they were taking to long.
Jared agreed the beach was the best pace to raise his spirit. He had always felt safe in it and the wilderness of the ocean didn’t frighten him, instead, it made Jared want to discover all its secrets. Because Jared knew there was more to the deep blue ocean than its beautiful color.
Sandy was sunbathing when they arrived. She was wearing a yellow bikini and her sunglasses were enormous. Jared thought she looked like a bee. A beautiful bee, but a bee none-the-less.
He refrained from telling her that.
“Sandy on the sand!” Chad exclaimed. “You look Cute.”
Sandy rolled her eyes. “The joke became old a few years back, Murray. In fact, it was always lame.” She said. Jared knew she wasn’t mad at Chad, not really. They had met at the seventh grade in high school when Chad had hit on her constantly for almost a year. She ignored him completely. Jared tried to tell him that making jokes with sexual innuendos wasn’t exactly the best way to win a girl, but Chad hadn’t listened to him.
In the end, frustrated for losing an entire year with only one girl, Chad had given up, stomping over where Sandy was sited and told her that she wasn’t all that and that she would never find anyone better than him. Sandy had been so surprised with the outburst she couldn’t even understand what had happened. When Chad had calmed down sufficiently to explain the problem, Sandy smiled sweetly and told him she had never realized Chad wanted to go out with her.
It took Chad half a minute to act. “Oh,” he had said as if everything had made sense in that moment. “Do you want to go out with me?” he asked.
Sandy giggled. “I’m sorry, but I have my eyes set on another,” she told him while ogling Jared.
Chad followed her gaze. “What? Jaybear?” he asked disgusted. “Sweetheart, he is gay.”
Sandy’s eyes widened in understanding. “That’s why he never hit on me.” She said relived. “I was beginning to think the problem was with me.”
Chad laughed. “Trust me, sweetheart. The problem is all Jared’s.” They shared a secret smile and just like that, they had become friends in their own special way. Sandy never accepted Chad’s invitations to go out and whenever Chad could, he would scare Sandy’s potential boyfriends away.
They had been in that dysfunctional dance for almost ten years now.
To that day Jared still felt strange knowing their first real conversational topic was his sexual preference.
“Jay’s crush doesn’t like him,” Jared heard Chad’s voice saying, dragging him brutally back to the present. Chad and Sandy were seated on Sandy’s towel, leaning into one another. Jared smiled knowing they didn’t even realized what they were doing.
“Really? Why not? Jay is gorgeous!” Sandy asked. Jared felt his ego inflate with the compliment.
Chad shrugged while spreading sun block in his skin “I don’t know. I don’t understand gay people.”
Jared saw Sandy shaking her head. “You understand Jared,” she replied. “He’s gay.” She pointed to Chad’s right shoulder. “You missed a spot.”
Chad tried to reach the missed spot with no luck. “Yeah, but Jaybear is special.”
Sandy sighed and took the sun block from Chad spreading it over his shoulders and back.
“Will you please stop talking about me as if I’m not here?” Jared asked suddenly. “I’m here!”
Sandy smiled softly, cleaning her hands in her towel. “We know you are, Jay. Kinda hard not to notice, you being a sasquash and all…”
Jared wondered how Sandy could say things like that with a neutral face.
Chad chuckled. “Man, I love this woman.”
Sandy blushed.
“Ok, you know what?” Jared said “Why don’t we talk about Chad’s night out?”
Sandy made a face. “Ew. I don’t wanna know about that.”
Chad smiled triumphantly. “Sorry, Jay. Talking about your life is funnier.”
Jared sighed and accepted his fate. Sandy and Chad continued to discuss Jensen and his ulterior motives for not accepting Jared’s invitations to walk with him.
“I mean. If Jared invited me, I’d go,” he heard Sandy say. She had lain down on her belly and was oblivious to how Chad was staring at her. Jared had the impression Chad too was oblivious to how he was staring at her. He had labeled these two as a lost cause long ago.
“I say this Jensen guy is not worth all the work Jared did,” Chad said and turned to Jared. “Jaybear, he’s not worth it!”
Jared sighed again. Sometimes his friends didn’t know how to stop.
“Would you please leave the subject alone?” he asked again. “Talk about Sandy’s acting class.”
Jared saw Chad and Sandy exchange glances.
“Jared-” Sandy started.
“Just let it go, ok?” Jared said.
“Do want us to find him for you?” Chad asked. “I’ll do it, Jay.”
Jared shook his head. “No, that’s ok. He said he would meet me some other time.” he said. “Maybe he wasn’t just humoring me.”
Sandy frowned. “He said he would meet you some other time?”
“He said he was counting on seeing Jay again,” Chad corrected.
Sandy smiled at him. “That’s even better, Chad!” She looked at Jared. “Jay, he probably wasn’t just humoring you.”
“He wasn’t?” Jared asked.
“He wasn’t?” Chad asked.
Sandy rolled her eyes. “Of course he wasn’t.”
“How do you know?” Chad asked surprised.
“Well, contrary to you, Murray, I understand people. This Jensen wants to meet Jay again.”
Jared and Chad became silent. Chad recovered faster than Jared. “Ok, then. Problem solved, Jaybear. You can start stalking him again.”
Sandy giggled. “Trust me on this, Jay, he wants to meet you.”
“But… what do I do?” Jay asked
“You go after him, silly,” she answered with a smile.
“Oh, yeah!” Chad agreed. “Stalking time!”
Jared took a deep breath. “Ok, then. Let’s go after him.”
By the way Sandy smiled, Jared would say she approved of his resolution. Jared wondered if he could survive another week like the last one.