Page 12 of Ginjuh

Austin stared at me but his expression softened.

“First rule is you don’t disrespect my grandpa.” I stared into his eyes. “Understand me?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“We’re not friends, either.” I snapped.

Austin Mankins didn’t necessarily deserve my ire, even though I thought he might be weird, but I couldn’t abide him disrespecting Grandpa with “okay” for an answer.

“Are you saying I have to call you ‘sir’, too?”

“No.”

My freaky side wouldn’t mind.

“I’m just making that clear.”

He nodded.

Austin just waited, like a robot waiting for instructions or programming. I sighed deeply, then crossed my arms over my chest.

“What size pants do you wear?”

“What?” He actually frowned.

“I’m not letting you wear skinny leg jeans to do this work.” I waved at his lower half. “You’ll end up crushing your nuts or busting a seam or passing out from heat exhaustion. The t-shirt’s okay, I guess, but those jeans have to go. I got some basketball shorts in my trunk that might work.”

He coughed. “Um, a medium usually.”

I nodded.

“Come on.” I waved him towards my car with a sigh. “Why aren’t you driving yourself out here anyway? You’re my age. Fail your driver’s test?”

Making small talk wouldn’t hurt any. Might even make the experience of working with Austin bearable. At the very least, maybe we could actually become friendly over the course of making a corn maze for Grandpa.

“I don’t drive.”

“I guess that’s an answer.” I shrugged as I popped the trunk of my car. “You’re pretty thin, so I’m guessing you actually wear a small. I wear a medium. But these have a drawstring.”

I reached in and pulled out an old, but clean pair of gray basketball shorts for Austin and held them out towards him. Austin accepted them tentatively, looking down at his legs, as though it never occurred to him that skinny jeans were not farm clothes. Of course, basketball shorts weren’t either, but at least he could bend and move in the shorts more than he could in the skinny jeans. My testicles ached just thinking about squeezing my lower half into such an article of clothing. Not that Austin didn’t look okay in them and all…

I shook my head to clear my thoughts.

“All right.” I shrugged. “Suit up, man. We got work to do.”

“Here?”

“You wearing underwear?” I laughed.

“Well, yeah.”

“Then no one is gonna see anything they shouldn’t.” I shrugged. “And no one is out here besides me and Grandpa. Trust me. Neither of us is going to be peeking, either.”

Austin stood there, holding the basketball shorts, his notebook tucked under his arm. He looked completely out of place and confused.

“Just throw your, uh, jeans and the notebook in the backseat,” I said. “They’ll be safe there while we work. No one will bother ‘em.”

“Don’t watch me change,” Austin said simply.