Page 50 of Can't Stop Now

“Oh my god,” Will said out loud, genuinely shocked to see Jacob’s name. He had honestly thought that he’d never hear from Jacob again. He slowly picked up his phone and opened the text message.

“Are you home?” was all it said.Jesus, Will thought,is Jacob outside?!Will quickly stood up, put on some shoes and made his way to the door. He stopped and looked in the mirror on the way, making sure that he didn’t still have swollen eyes from crying the night before, but surprisingly he looked pretty good, certainly better than he felt. Will felt a sinking realization in his chest.Oh. I probably just left something in Jacob’s car and he’s coming to drop it off.

He took a deep breath and made his way to the front door. He opened it up to see Jacob.

“Hi,” Jacob said, a worried look on his face softening as he saw Will.

“Hey. Did I leave something in the car?” Will said, his voice cautious.

“What? Oh, no, no. I… Will, do you have a few minutes? To talk? Maybe we can go for a walk,” Jacob said, staring into Will’s eyes. His face looked concerned, and Will was worried that something awful must have happened.

“Oh, um… okay. Are you sure you want to go for a walk, though? It’s like, already 90 degrees out there…” Will said, looking outside at the sun.

“Yeah. I’m sure. I gotta clear my head,” Jacob said.

“Okay. Let me go grab my keys then, I guess,” Will said.

He went back to his room, finding his keys and wallet and stuffing them into his pants. He had no idea what was going on with Jacob, but whatever it was, it didn’t seem good.

He went back outside and met with Jacob.

“There’s a small mountain just up that way,” Will said, pointing north. “We could head that direction.”

“Okay,” Jacob said, and they started to walk.

Will expected Jacob to start spilling, telling him what was so wrong that he actually had comebackto Will’s house before driving to San Diego. But for the first few minutes of the walk, Jacob was silent. They walked side by side, and with every passing minute, Will could feel the heat of the sun growing hotter. They made their way to the bottom of the mountain and slowly started to climb.

“Well, this definitely isn’t how I expected my day to turn out,” Will said, deciding to break the silence.

Jacob let out a small laugh but quickly returned to silence again. They walked up the mountain, passing large rocks, bushes, and occasionally a saguaro cactus. They made it almost to the top of the mountain, Jacob not saying a word. Will found the small walk peaceful but was still concerned about Jacob.

“Okay, Jacob, I know something’s up. Why’d you come back to my house? What do you want to talk about? Should I be worried?” Will said, his voice concerned.

They reached a point on the mountain where the terrain leveled off, and they were able to stand on a stretch of flat land that overlooked the city. They weren’t very far up, but the view was still beautiful.

Jacob finally stopped walking. He turned to face Will, his brown eyes full of emotion. Will couldn’t tell if Jacob looked sad, happy, or a mixture of both. Will wanted to still be mad at him, to still resent him for turning him away, but he couldn’t – not when Jacob was standing right here in front of him, looking into his eyes.

“So, I was talking to Carrie last night. She called, wanting to know my opinions of what furniture she should buy, for her apartment,” Jacob said, shaking his head a little and looking out over the city.

“…You did not seriously come here to talk over girlfriend problems with me, right, Jacob?” Will said, raising his eyebrows at Jacob.

“Hear me out, hear me out. She was going on and on about furniture, so I got bored. I hadn’t signed into Facebook in a while, so I opened it up,” Jacob said, looking back at Will.

Shit, Will thought, remembering that he had uploaded those photos days ago that had Jacob in them.

“Oh. Is that all? Sorry, Jacob, if you don’t even want photos without me in them online, I can take them down,” Will said.

“No, no, it’s not that. I was looking through the photos, one by one. And it wasn’t the photos, really, that did it. But… they helped to make me see that for the past two weeks, I’ve actually been living the lifeIwanted to live. I wasn’t doing things just because all my friends were doing it. I wasn’t doing anything because I thought Ishould. I was just living, being myself… and I realized how fuckingwildthat is. That up until this point, I’ve been afraid to even make my own choices, my own decisions. To take a fucking chance,” Jacob said, his voice raw.

Will swallowed, feeling his heartbeat quicken slightly.

“And I don’t think I could have done it without you, Will,” Jacob said.

Will took a deep breath. “Well, thank you Jacob, but I don’t know why you had to come all the way back to my house to tell me that. I know I forced you to face your fear of heights and… I don’t know, taught you a little bit about art, but I hardly think that warrants coming to tell me all this in person,” Will said, confused, not knowing what Jacob had to say next.

“It’s not just that, Will. You know it’s not,” Jacob said, taking a step closer to him. “You’ve shown me that there are things about myself that I… I can’t ignore, anymore, Will.”

“Jacob… it’s okay that you and I did things together. It doesn’t have to ruin your relationship with Carrie, or something. Straight guys can experiment too,” Will said, trying to diffuse Jacob’s worry.