Over the next few weeks, Alex’s other teammates and friends joined them for lunch in ones and twos, until their table had become the popular kid’s table.From social outcasts to the top of the pyramid gave Ry whiplash.Not only were the other students nicer to him, but the teachers and faculty were too.
After a month, Alex even started hanging out with them after school.Ry was the primary host: the biggest house and no parental oversight, with his dad away for work and his mom long since a memory.Normally, Brand would drive the group around since he, Alex, and Lon lived relatively near each other.
But Alex had a car too, and tonight, he’d come separately.Both Lon and Brand left to go home for dinner, but Alex lingered.Ry didn’t give it much thought, but a knot twisted in his stomach.A fresh wave of longing washed over him: the crush he had at the beginning of the year had only deepened.Alex was not only attractive, intelligent, and charming, but most importantly, a decent human.
“So, I don’t have to be home for a while.”Alex picked up a book and thumbed through it.“Don’t really want to go home anyway.”
“Fight with dad?”Ry hesitated in the doorway, Alex’s scent of cedar and lemongrass lingering in the air.
“Yeah.”Alex sat on the desk chair, leaning his arms against the back.He watched Ry, his gaze a silent testament to his pain and fury.
Ry flopped onto his bed, trying to think of what to say.“Damn.”
“Change of subject: what do you want to do?”Alex fidgeted with the book in his hands.“Movie?TV?Music?”
Ry glanced at Alex, swiveling back and forth on the desk chair.“Or we could play a video game or something?”At least with a game, he could forget about his crush being in the same room with him.Alone.
“You and Lon are the gamers.Not me.”
“Even Brand will jump in now and then,” Ry said, his attempt at persuasion feeble.
Alex shrugged.“How about a movie?Since you didn’t decide.”
“Okay,” Ry said, his palms sweating.“Um, then we gotta head back downstairs.My dad doesn’t think it’s a good thing to have a TV in one’s bedroom.”
Alex stood up.“So, let’s go.”
“Alright, alright.”Ry rolled over and stretched, trying to prolong the moment where he’d be hyperconscious of Alex.
“Too slow!”And then Alex swooped down, slung Ry over his shoulder, and carried him out of the room.Ry squeaked and tried not to blush, but failed.The only saving grace was that Alex couldn’t see him and Ry had a fantastic view of Alex’s rear.Why didn’t I kick him out?This is gonna be the worst night ever.
“You know I have legs that work,” Ry said, repeating what he said every time Alex picked him up.
“Yeah, didn’t look like you were going to use them though, so I helped.”
“Helped?”Ry fell limp.“Well, I’m not gonna argue.”Even as he spoke, his mind whirled with thoughts and his heart raced.Alex set him down in the living room.The room smelled of stale popcorn from the last movie night.
“Since you were so indecisive about getting out of bed, you pick the movie.”
“Ugh,” Ry said, still disoriented.“Any direction on what genre?”
“Explosions?Fighting?Something cool?”
Ry surveyed the shelves in the back of the room.“You couldn’t have said foreign film?Those are all my dad watches.”Cool.Explosions.What kind of movie?Then he found something that they hadn’t already watched dozens of times.
“James Bond?”
“Huh?Oh, yeah, those movies are cool.”
So Ry started the film, then sat at the far end of the couch, figuring it was the right move.Hanging out with Alex one-on-one left him feeling a nervous flutter in his chest.
“Hey what are you doing all the way over there?I mean, I get it when it’s all of us, but I swear I took a shower today.”Alex even sniffed to double-check.
“Uh, well, this is my usual seat, and that’s your usual seat.”
“So?How am I supposed to talk shit without talking over the movie?”
Ry awkwardly laughed.“Okay, okay.”
