Don't Shout - 6. Chapter 6

Jared had stood and groomed Cole’s horse when they had come back to the stables, running his fingers over the soft fur over well-formed muscles. Dune’s nose was like the most amazing velvet, super-warm and delicately soft to his touch. The big horse had been scary to Jared when he had first seen him, but Cole had moved around him as though born to it and Jared didn’t want to disappoint his boyfriend.

The farm was amazing, scenery and sky so big it was overwhelmingly like drowning in heaven. Cole’s family even had a lake and Jared wondered how much man power it took to keep a place like this working. As the evening drew in, the light fading too early, Cole had duties to do. He had lifted Jared up, sitting him on the bonnet of the Hilux, before going about his chores. Jared watched him, only minding a little bit about being treated like a child. The speed with which Cole worked, the surety of his big hands was surprising, and when he started throwing hay bales from the roof Jared realised how his lack of being able to hear anything might become dangerous rather than inconvenient.

Cole made dinners for the horses, left them soaking, skipped out, rugged up Dune and went out in two batches to get the other horses, leading three in at once it what seemed to be a complicated system of various rope lengths and a firm hand. Cole fed the horses while Jared watched, locked up the tack room and shut down the stables for the night, leaving the radio on to keep the horses company. He returned to Jared smelling of grass, hay and molasses. Jared took his big hand in his own and kissed the hard knuckles, sniffing him.

You smell funny. He held up the tablet, on which he had been playing while Cole worked. Do you do all this every day?

Cole nodded, smiling, and reached out his free hand to wrap around the back of Jared’s head, rubbing the short hairs and leaning forwards. Jared responded with a noise that was nearly a purr, meeting Cole halfway for the kiss. Cole’s lips were rough and indescribably warm and to Jared he smelt like a heady mix of horse and ozone and eventually he released Cole’s tongue with a sigh, dizzy with lust and a little bit of love.

Oh no, you can’t be falling for him already…. Jared cursed his scepticism, which felt a lot like a presence of his sister, He doesn’t know anything, you can’t be all head over heels just because he made the first move.

Cole pulled him from the bonnet of the truck and opened the door.

‘Come on. Dinner time.’

The house itself made Jared gape. Cole pulled the Hilux into the cobbled space next to the quad and his mother’s Jeep. Black Rock Farm house was a sprawling mass of varying tiled roof lines, brick and flint cladding, lead lined windows.

You live here?

Cole put the truck into neutral, killed the engine and nodded.

Yes. Scared yet?

‘Brothers? Sisters?’

Cole recognised the signs, knuckles rubbing together and a hooked finger touching the bridge of his nose.

‘One sister, three brothers.’ Come and meet everybody

The kitchen was a long whitewashed room with thick wooden beams crossing the ceiling, the huge green enamel Aga at one end. Cole greeted his mother with a wave and toed off his boots, kicking them into the coat room which lead off the kitchen. Jared untied his shoes and handed them to Cole as the dogs ran up to him, apparently yapping, wanting attention. Jared stroked the biggest of the spaniels, a black and white mottled creature with big friendly eyes and avoided facing the idea that he was in a room with lots of people he didn’t know. And only one of them knew any sign language at all. It was going to be a long evening.

Jared pretty much stuck himself to Cole as the older boy stood at the back of the kitchen, chatting idly to his mother as she stirred something on the Aga which smelt like meat and heaven and rosemary. Jared wrapped his arm around Cole, holding a fistful of his shirt, trying desperately to calm his pulse. Cole looked directly at him when he spoke, making the signs for the bits of speech that he did know.

“It’s OK, you have to be scared. I’ll introduce you.” he stopped speaking and Jared felt him nuzzle his hair, at that moment he quite liked being significantly shorter than Cole as the boy used the hand that rested over his shoulder to sign ‘boyfriend.’

Jared smiled and waved at a succession of people who looked like increasingly younger, paler versions of Cole. Everyone in his family had that same blond hair, though not quite as sun-streaked as Cole, and Cole finger spelled for him a litany of names; Clayton, Caden, Chase, Cory. And every single one of them started babbling at once. Jared felt Cole’s chest vibrate as he snarled at them, silencing his younger siblings.

‘He’s deaf.’

Which was met by one statement from four mouths.

“What?”

Jared felt himself shrink back as Cole explained, not wanting to be involved in the conversation. Cole’s movements became tight and hard as he continued to explain and Jared turned from the staring, confused and inquisitive faces. With his free hand he signed to Cole.

‘Cole. I don’t like it. I’m nervous.’

Cole took his hand and kissed his fingers, bright blue summer eyes looking directly at him. Here in Cole’s own world he was so much braver and open than Jared thought he could be. Now that the barrier of touch had been breached, Cole couldn’t keep his hands off him.

‘Stay.’

Jared sat down at the chair directed to him at the end of the table with Cole’s little sister Cory to his right. Cole stroked the back of his head, and went to help with dinner, bringing plates, drinks and steaming dishes to the table. Caden reached for the food and had his hand slapped away by his older brother. Jared caught what he was saying, because he faced him and Clayton’s facial expressions were very clear.

“Wait. We have a guest. You’re such a moron.”

“Cole kissed him.” Caden hissed, and Jared realised he didn’t want to know what was going on in that conversation. He turned to find Cory staring at him.

‘Hi.’ Jared didn’t expect an answer from the little girl but smiled and waggled his fingers.

‘How are you?’ Cory signed slowly, with both hands, obviously concentrating on doing it right.

‘I’m hungry,’ Jared replied, beaming as Cole’s hand rested on his shoulder.

“Cory have you been in my room again?” He sat next to Jared and pointed to the jug of water on the table and then the cider he held in his hand, ‘Which?’

Jared stuck to water and waited patiently while Cole got his family round to the idea of lips reading. Carla explained what was for dinner and Jared echoed the signs back almost automatically. Lamb, rosemary, roasted vegetables, onion gravy. Cole served him, which Jared could see was an unusually affair in this household, a pile of gleaming crisp vegetables, slices of pink touched lamb and garlic like golden jewels scattered over his plate. Jared remembered the first meal he’d ever had with people outside of his family.

He’d been ten. His best friend that autumn had been Logan, who had attached himself to Jared from the first day of term and got him to play in every single pretend game, friendly football match and game of catch going on. Shelby had been jealous but his parents had thought it was good for him to have other friends. When Logan had asked him for dinner and a sleepover he’d been excited and gone along with pyjamas and sleeping bag in hand. It had not gone well. Logan was an only child, his mother was very traditional, his father completely conventional, and Jared had fiddled nervously with his food as the pair made no effort whatsoever to talk to him. Having found out that he was deaf Logan’s mother had made a little wrinkle-nosed expression of disgust at the odd sounds he made when he signed and talked. It took Jared longer to eat than most people, having to use his hands to talk as well as consume and dinner ended when Logan’s father finished. Jared had watched in anguished hunger as he watched most of his dinner being whisked away from him and into the bin. They had never gotten as far as the sleepover part of the evening, Jared had beeped his parents to come and get him and spent the rest of the evening holed up in his room with Shelby, eating cookies and giggling over comic books.

‘Jared?’ “You in there?”

Jared smiled at his boyfriend and stole a wedge of carrot from his plate. His brother’s looked shocked.

“Cole if one of us had done that to you, we’d be bleeding by now,” Clayton made sure he had Jared’s attention before he continued, “You’re lucky he likes you,” he blocked Caden’s attempt to steal his meat with one arm, “You have to fight for your food around here.”

Jared had his tablet on the table on the corner he shared with Cole and typed with one hand.

Can you thank them for me? They’re trying.

Cole chuckled, Jared could see the feeling running through him and smiled to see the way Cole lit up.

“They could try harder,” he heard something and stilled, “Dad’s coming.”

Please forgive me for anything stupid my father does.

*

“Hi Dad,” Cole turned from his boyfriend, yes, yes he is, god it feels so good to say that, and got up to greet his father. William Sathie had already dealt with his eldest son being gay this week, and had handled that very well, but he was not known for his tact, and Cole couldn’t bear the idea of his father doing anything particularly stupid in front of Jared. “Dad, this is my boyfriend. His name is Jared. He’s deaf. Yes really deaf. Speak normally, face him and please don’t be…er…like you normally are.”

Jared leant around Cole and waved a hello, he saw the look of half panic and love on Cole’s face and smiled.

“Well hello Jared,” Cole got out of the way so that his boyfriend could speak with his father, “Don’t let me interrupt your food. Someone will steal it.” Jared turned from William’s words to find a hopeful looking brown and white spaniel at his elbow, nose an inch from his dinner.

Cole shook his head quickly when Jared looked at him with pleading eyes and pushed the dog away.

“Don’t feel bad for them,” Chase said, “They eat plenty.”

Jared finger spelled a question to Cole. It took longer, but until Cole learnt more and could lip read properly it worked well.

‘Why does your mum call you ‘pup’?’

Cole laughed and used the tablet to draw a picture which went along with a sign which looked like two fingered-two handed running.

‘A-dog.’ Cole showed Jared the picture, a rough sketch of a tall female figure surrounding by what looked like a pack of funny four legged stick men. Jared typed back, and Cole took the opportunity to touch his arm with one hand, loving the contact and closeness of the smaller boy.

If your mum is the big bad Alpha wolf, what does that make you?

Cole gnashed his teeth and Jared fended off his now rabid-boyfriend with his hands on Cole’s chest. Cole turned his attention away from Jared as Clayton reached over to try and steal his food and narrowly avoided being stabbed with a fork. Carla came to sit down next to her son and deposited a big steaming bowl of lamb and vegetables in front of her husband.

“So did you boys have a nice ride?”

Jared nodded his agreement and knuckled Cole’s shoulder.

“Yeah, Jared’s a real good rider,” Cole thought about his words and signed while he spoke; Jared-good-riding, and felt Jared’s hand move across the back of his neck. He leant into that touch, practically purring, Jared’s fingers in his hair letting him know that he was doing well, done good. Cole turned to look at Jared and found his boyfriends darker blue eyes shining with some emotion that made Cole’s heart burst out of the stable gates and canter up into the sky. He could barely believe the feeling, and suddenly his rough work jeans were painfully tight. When Carla made Chase and Cory get up to deal with pudding Cole was eternally grateful to whatever luck made his other two siblings get up to clear plates without being asked.

Cole took a couple of big deep breaths and tried to still the frantic pounding of his blood through heart and crotch, the rushing in is ears that rendered him useless as a hearing person, his eyes only for Jared.

“Ice cream!” Cory’s high pitched eight-year-old voice snapped Cole out of his reverie as the steaming bowl was put down in front of him, another for Jared.

“And crumble,” Chase added, “Thanks Mama.”

“You’re welcome pup. Good god Cole,” Carla clipped him across the top of the head, “Quit gaping and let the poor boy eat something.”

Cole buried himself in his dessert as his father spoke. William had taken his oldest son’s instructions well and Jared was able to understand him clearly when he talked.

“So you’re at college with Cole? How did you two meet?”

With a smirk that Cole was starting to worry about Jared mimed the throwing of a ball and then being hit in the head. Cole groaned and hid his face in his food.

“Nice move big brother,” Caden grinned, “At least you didn’t hit him with that damn truck.” When Cole groaned again and Jared nodded all eyes widened, “You did? Nearly did? Christ Cole.”

“He is not teaching me to drive,” Clayton piped up, spoon full of rhubarb and crumble quickly stolen by Chase.

‘What is this?’ Jared’s signal were easy to read, pointing at the filling of the crumble like it might be a strange alien. Cole smiled and reached across for the tablet.

Rhubarb. You not had it before?

Jared shook his head. Mum says it’s too expensive.

Cole couldn’t stop the tide of laughter that spread through him. Jared jabbed him hard on the arm, and Cole realised his reaction had been confusing for the deaf boy, unable to get an actual response.

We grow it, by the bucket load. Mum keeps it stewed in the freezer over winter. We’ll send you home with a tub.

You’re going to send me away?

That made Cole tense, all thoughts of rhubarb forgotten

*

Watching his oldest brother with his boyfriend was an interesting experience for Clayton Sathie. Cole’s seemingly never ending trip of emotions was like watching a dog on a rollercoaster, all at once funny, confusing and weird. Clayton was fairly certain that people in love were supposed to be happy all the time, or at least that was the lie spun by television, movies and the internet. What seemed weird to Clayton was that Cole looked like he wasn’t sure yet. Clayton tucked into his crumble, wondering how on earth someone as headstrong as his older brother could be unsure about anything.

After his thick as shit comment the other day and the ensuing lecture from his father Clayton was not up for teasing his older brother. He liked Cole in the best way he could. The boy was his only older sibling, which meant that hating Cole was a part of loving him really. Plus Clayton was convinced that his father turned into a bear when he was angry. Clayton wondered if it was weird that he saw people as animals most of the time. He had not been totally on board with Caden’s idea with the pink pyjamas, but hadn’t been braced for the strength of Cole’s reaction.

Cole hadn’t been a moody teenager, hadn’t thrown things or fits like Clayton knew he was prone to do but was wearing out of now. Caden was the big one for proper tantrums, always had been; whereas Chase had never had a cruel outburst in his life, tempered by three older brothers whose tempers could each be measured in seconds. But unless Clayton was very wrong, and he was due the best exam results going, Cole’s temper got shorter and shorter, especially if the object of teasing was linked to the strange small deaf boy sitting at their table.

Cole had been ready to kill them both when their father had intervened, and now there was a sweet looking, smiling brown haired boy sitting at their dinner table, having conversations that appeared in the air and giving his brother looks that were halfway between hungry and nervous. Clayton wondered if that’s what love looked like. What annoyed him most was that he couldn’t talk to Jared, couldn’t find out what he was like. Trust Cole, ever ambitious, to try and bridge two gaps at once with half the length of rope he needed. Not just a boyfriend, which could have been a big communication gap by itself, but a deaf boyfriend. Cole knew how to throw a curve ball.

Clayton shivered to remember the red hatred in his brother’s eyes, now so easily replaced by that half hunted, half cat-with-cream look when he stared at Jared. Clayton wondered if Cole even knew he was doing it, but he’d been acting like a kid with a shiny new toy, at once proud of Jared and at the same time the angle of his body and set of his shoulders was possessively ‘mine.’ He looked like the horses did when they were out to defend their dinner from each other, wary and poised to strike out. Clayton decided right there and then that he was going to actively try not to piss off his older brother which is why he groaned aloud when Chase next spoke. Trust the rebellious one in the family to go after winding up the only person on the planet who would willingly beat him to a pulp at the dining table.

“So which of you is the girl?” Caden’s tone was obviously meant to tease and mock, but it worked too well, because Cole went from being almost but not quite hopeless in love with Jared to furious ball of rage in the time it took the rest of the family to blink. Clayton had enough time to shout;

“Oh you’re such a fucking prat Cade-!” As Chase grabbed Cory and pulled her away, and then Caden was sprawled on the stone floor, his lip bleeding, Cole half kneeling over him, one knee in his younger brother’s sternum, fist held ready for a second blow.

“Say anything and you’ll be spitting teeth,” Cole’s voice was more or less a snarl, and it that moment Clayton didn’t see him as his older brother, but a raging beast, something that would be to a horse what a tiger was to a house-cat, an evil stallion the size of his truck.

“Cole!” William pulled his sons apart, flinging Cole against the white washed wall like so much paper. Cole snapped and snarled, but did nothing, glared at his brother with mad blue eyes. Clayton’s eyes went to Jared, who was still sitting in his chair, the one Cole had occupied over turned, looking like a deer in headlights.

“Cole.” Clayton kept his voice carefully neutral, not wanting to get hit, “Cole…” when there was no response chase reached out and touched him. Cole jumped like his finger had been a cattle prod, “Cole. Er…Jared?” Cole turned to look at his petrified boyfriend and Clayton could see the rest of the world shutting out of his vision. Jared was so clearly all that mattered to Cole.

Clayton busied himself with clearing plates and pudding, setting the room to rights as his father growled and gruffed, dressing down Caden for being a total moron for the second time in one week. Cole tried to speak to Jared but the deaf boy pulled from his hands with a wordless cry of anguish and fled the room. Cole didn’t wait before he followed.

*

The punch had been a shock to Jared, even though he hadn’t been hit himself. Whatever Cole’s little brother had said it had been enough for Cole to explode in anger. It wasn’t a side of him Jared had ever seen before.

Of course not, his inner monologue mocked, you’ve only known him about a week…

When Cole had come near him with knuckles bleeding, cut by his brother’s teeth, Jared had freaked out and ran, not knowing where he was going. He ended up in a dark hallway with a big curving staircase and ran up it without thinking. He managed to find a bathroom, slammed the door behind him and turned the lock just as the door vibrated with the force of Cole hitting it.

Jared assumed that Cole was shouting his name, apparently that was the done thing according to Shelby and the television, but since to Jared his name was a symbol with no sound attached it didn’t mean a lot. He sank to the floor on the opposite side of the room from the door, realised he had left his phone and tablet downstairs and began to cry.

His parents had wondered that their son, being deaf, could apparently learn to talk. Not well enough to pass for a hearing person, but enough to communicate with most of the world. But Jared hadn’t wanted to. He saw the looks people gave him when he made sounds when he spoke. He knew they weren’t words, but Shelby and his parents encouraged him, coaxed and coached him to form actual syllables when he signed. Shame had stopped him, and that day he’d gone for dinner at Logan’s house had sealed the deal. Jared had stopped trying to learn to talk, making do with lip reading and signing, relying on Shelby to translate him into something other people could understand.

This dinner hadn’t ended much better than the one at Logan’s house when he was nine; after all, now he was crying locked in a bathroom, his boyfriend on the other side of an opaque door. It didn’t matter if Cole shouted, Jared couldn’t hear him. He sobbed, feeling the broken noises in his throat, and tried to shake the anger in Cole’s eyes from his vision.

Cole had a temper, that was certain and sure. Jared had bitten Joel’s tongue, but that had been self-defence. Whatever Caden had said, and Jared was sure it had been something uneducated and homophobic, it hadn’t warranted being smacked in the mouth by his brother. Cole hit like a hammer, direct, fast and forceful and now Jared couldn’t shake the image of the fury from his mind. What would happen to him if he ever pissed Cole off?

*

Cole had spent a useless three minutes pleading through the door of the bathroom, then another five slamming his fists into the wood until his knuckles bore wood-grain imprints and his shoulders ached. Then he sagged against the door and ended up in an undignified teary heap in the passageway. Cole didn’t much feel like speaking to anyone, and was grateful when no one in his family came upstairs. He heard them move around the ground floor, kitchen and longue, and wished he was down there on the big sofa, fire crackling in the grate that he usually built, Jared tucked under his arm, smiling and happy, teaching Cory and Chase how to sign. In his head the evening was perfect.

It took Cole about twenty minutes to realise that he had no way to communicating with Jared through the door and another two to raid his bedroom for paper and pen. His handwriting was rounded and simple, and Cole knew from experience that it made him look dumb.

I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. Caden was being really rude about us. Please come out and talk to me.

He slipped paper and pen under the door of the bathroom and waited. It seemed like an age before a slip of paper got pushed back.

NO.

Cole growled, wanting to thump the door again, just to hit something and release the tension he felt building in his body

Jared please. You can’t stay in there forever, Cory will need to brush her teeth before bed. Cole paused, then wrote one sentence very carefully. You must know I’d never hurt you.

And how do you know that. You hit your brother Cole, really hard.

Cole was silent, he couldn’t think of a single thing to say that would have been welcome. Another slip of paper was pushed under the door.

I don’t trust your temper. Go away.

Cole exhaled heavily, thought about banging on the door again but deliberated against it, so he got up, dropped the note and headed despondently to his room. He lay fully clothes on top of his duvet and stared at the ceiling. Jared didn’t trust him. Didn’t trust his temper. The idea of Jared’s big blue eyes full of hatred and fear for Cole made his heart ache painfully. The idea of raising a fist to Jared and seeing pain in his face for Cole alone… never, never, never. Cole knew he had a short temper, it came with being a son of this family, but usually he could control it, not snap at people. It was just something about being near Jared, the smaller boy made him irrational and rash. Cole lay on his bed and released that he was head over heels in- well, in something, with this boy.

They were not emotions that Cole knew much about. Confidence and fear he could do, desire was rare but not unknown, but this mix of heady lust and infatuation and need that he couldn’t put a name too wound through his body, setting him on fire and turning his rational brain to ashes. Did everyone feel like this at some point? So utterly out of control? All Cole knew was that if Jared didn’t come out of the bathroom in the next five minutes Cole was going to bash the door down rather than spend another moment without him. The broken sounds of anguish that Jared had made Cole’s heart break.

The knuckle against his door made him snap upright, every nerve twanging at the sight of Jared in the doorway. He looked awful, his eyes huge and red rimmed, and he clung onto the door frame like it was the only think keeping him upright.

‘Jared?’ Cole asked the question with his eyes, desperate to have Jared forgive him, to understand how he felt. Jared tossed a folded slip of paper to him and vanished.

Take me home. Now.

Cole followed Jared without even deciding to get up and found the boy standing wrapped in his coat in the boot room, hands thrust into his pockets in a gesture that meant he wasn’t going to talk. Cole opened the door of the truck for him, but by the time he had gotten to the driver’s door Jared had hunched himself up into the corner, his face turned away. Cole kept his eyes on the road and an uneasy silence filled the car as he drove into the night. They reached Jared’s house all too quickly and before Cole could move the boy had opened the door and fled.

Not thinking much at all, Cole leaned over, closed the door, his hand resting on the seat still-warm from Jared’s body, put the truck in first and drove away. His hand hit the button for the stereo automatically and he was halfway home when the song came on. His brain tuned into the lyrics without him really thinking about it, tears streaming down his face.

‘Two headlights shine through the sleepless night/And I will get you get you alone/Your name has echoed through my mind/And I just think you should think you should know/That nothing safe is worth the drive/And I will follow you follow you home…’

Cole parked the Hilux on the grass verge in the middle of nowhere and cried. He shouted at the steering wheel, at the world, at himself – and then felt no better. The girl on the radio spoke to him and he his head the words echoed back around his skull. Nothing safe is worth the drive. If you don’t go get him now, you’ll never get another chance.

Cole stared at the lit dashboard.

He loved Jared. The nameless fucking feelings that had made him irrational and jealous, lustful and hot headed and really short tempered; that was love. Fuck. Was it always this awful? Swinging between wild totally immersive joy and all-consuming depression from minute to minute?

He loved Jared. It was so simple.

Cole threw the truck into gear, whacked the steering wheel around and u-turned a mud streak across the tarmac. Foot to the floor he drove. One way or another, he was going to let Jared Parker know that he loved him.