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I’m not sure why nobody else seems to be doing SP this year. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen the BBQ truck there in front of the Texaco…so maybe that’s why. Doesn’t matter to me. I’ll walk to the gas station and buy some Cheetos. Keep me from having to look at his smirking ass.
I move across the cafeteria with long strides. It’s a massive common area, the center sunken and dotted with tables, and the eating area surrounded by long walls of lockers. Hopefully none of my friends notice me bouncing.
Shit, it’s nice out. Cool for late summer—maybe eighty. Smooth blue sky with one big, fluffy white cloud. There’s a breeze, too. I start through the parking lot, looking down at my shoes as I walk, and thinking.
God, I can’t believe I let him do that. I’ve kept this secret since I realized myself, in fifth grade. Jamie Price, this guy in my class, came back to school that fall with leg hair, and it was all over for me. I’m a leg guy, and I saw his calves in my damn dreams. I heard he was going to Halloween as Satan, so I dressed as an angel. So many photo ops, and I kept them all on my laptop, pretending the two of us were a couple.
I bite the inside of my cheek and stuff my fists into my pockets. I got jerked off last night…for the first time ever. A hand that’s not mine made me come, and it felt so good.
That’s what’s waiting on you, I tell myself. But in the future, it’ll be with someone I like, who likes me back.
I try to talk myself up as I walk along the road between the high school and the gas station. Gotta get my fucking head on straight before I see him again. I’m rounding a bend in the road when I hear someone whistling—loud as fuck and clear as a bell.
“Got the music in you baby, tell me why… Got the music in you baby tell me why… Got the music in you baby, and you just can’t say goodbye…”
I’m smiling at how good this whistler is. Someone from band? Also, nice song choice, bruh. Sex After Cigarettes—“Apocalypse” is one of their new songs.
I duck under a branch as the road curves, and there is Ezra. He’s got a peach ball cap on crooked and a blue raspberry Icee in his right hand, which swings loosely as he walks with languid strides. In that fraction of a second that my eyes land on him, he looks different than I’ve ever seen him. His chin is tilted slightly up, showing his square jawline and thick, tanned throat. The bright ball cap is tilted on his head, and his face gleams in the sun as he whistles with his eyes half shut.
I realize: He looks happy.
Then he sees me.
His eyes widen for a split second. His features harden. Then his face is set to neutral, his lips pressed flat. His gaze sweeps down my body, slow and blatant. Then we’re passing by each other, arms swinging so close that I can feel the air shift in between us.
He says something that I think could be “Yo”—but also might be “Bro.” And I’m standing in the wake of cologne. It’s the smell from his bed times a thousand, filling my nose then my head until it’s swimming.
I stare as he walks off. I stare at his ass in those shorts. At his forearms, bare because he’s rolled his sleeves up. I stare at the ball cap, noting that it has a Georgia peach on the back. Is that ball cap gay? It’s so…peachy.
How does Ezra know about the senior privilege? If someone told him, why are they not with him? My heart’s pounding as I push through the gas station’s glass door and head toward the chip aisle. By the time I’m back at the school parking lot, I feel almost sick. This shit with Ezra is too much. Maybe I should move in with Dad.
I snort at that thought as I scan my ID tag, making the steel doors click open. In the cafeteria, everyone is everywhere. The bell has rung. It’s locker time. It’s physics time.
I try to hurry so I’m there first, but it doesn’t work. Somehow, Ezra beat me to it. He’s perched on his stool like a beautiful gargoyle with big, bulky shoulders and his fuckboy hair all in his eyes, looking down at something on the table. I realize he’s holding a fire alarm battery in one palm. His other hand is loosely wrapped around a little metal thing with two prongs and a base. He starts to twirl the metal thing as I come near him.
I smell the good cologne smell again as I sit on my stool. Then I catch a whiff of smoke, which makes it make sense.
