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Hoyt stops inflating the mattress, then looks at me. His eyes are blank and unreadable.
“So who are you, Hoyt?” I ask with a simple shrug. “The guy who made my life hell? Or the guy right now who’s making me a bed and … and plays dolls with his little sister?”
Hoyt gives me a shrug of his own. “Can’t I be both?”
“No.”
After a second’s thought, he returns to inflating the mattress. Then he lays a blue-and-white-striped bed sheet over it and, while tucking it in at the corners, asks, “Do you know how Julio and I became friends?” I lift an eyebrow, waiting. Hoyt snorts and goes on. “The guy tackled me to the ground one day during recess and shoved sand down my pants. We were kids. My dad had just died. Things were weird. And the next day, we played on the swing set like nothing happened, and that summer, we joined the same little league team.” He goes back to his closet and pulls out a pillow. “And as for Benji? Sixth grade, he grabbed me at a birthday sleepover, sat on my face, and ripped the loudest one I’d ever heard, in front of everyone. Well, probably was loud ‘cause my ears were right there,” he adds with a laugh, pulling a pillow case onto the pillow. “But hey, I returned the favor while he was sleeping that same night, and there you have it.” He tosses the pillow at the mattress, gives it a light kick with his socked foot, then nods at it. “Should be comfy.”
I’m staring at him, at a loss. “And what exactly is your point?”
“My point is, I mess with you ‘cause I like you. Guys mess with each other like that. We’re like …” He shrugs, thinking. “Rocks in a riverbed, or somethin’. Rubbin’ up against each other. We toughen each other up. Pull pranks. It’s my ‘love language’.” He laughs when he says that. “A therapist used that term in family therapy once, awhile back. We don’t go anymore.”
I think I’m still staring at Hoyt in complete, utter bafflement. After almost a decade of knowing this guy, I wonder if I ever even knew him at all. “I … didn’t know Spruce had a family therapist.”
“It doesn’t. It was Reverend Arnold. Is this gonna be comfy enough for you?” he asks, giving the air mattress another kick.
I shrug. “It should do.” My hands find my pockets.
Hoyt eyes me. “Are you … like, wantin’ an apology for seventh grade or somethin’?”
I roll my eyes and look away at the TV. “I dunno what I want.”
“Because I’ll apologize, if that makes you feel better. But why? You’re still standing, right? No scars? And like I said before, I ain’t ever laid a finger on you, have I?”
“The scars you gave me are the kind you can’t see.”
“So I did scar you? ‘Kay, how ‘bout this.” He steps up and puts his face in front of mine. “If you want, you can give me the biggest punch in the jaw. Right now. I’ll take it. Won’t even hit you back.”
“Are you serious?”
“Or a girly slap. Whatever suits you.” Hoyt points at his cheek. “C’mon. Rough me up. Make me pay for all those years of torment and teasing. Give me a real stinger.”
“I’m not gonna hit you, Hoyt.”
“C’mon. It’ll feel good. Then we’ll be in a different place, and you can get over your baby wounds and your baby feelings, and we can be two guys movin’ on with our lives.”
“Hoyt …”
“Hit me. Do it.”
After smirking at him long enough, I lift my fingers up and lightly flick him in the nose. Hoyt flinches back. “The heck …?”
“There. Now we’re even.” I quirk an eyebrow. “And you better be careful about coming that close to my face again. Last time you did that—”
“Oh, don’t worry none ‘bout that. I ain’t kissin’ you again.” He chuckles, then frowns at me. “I was really hopin’ you’d hit me.”
“I probably should.” I shrug. “And maybe demand an apology, too. But like you pointed out: why? I’m still standing, right?”
Hoyt smirks. “Well, that offer’s on the table. You ever feel like you finally wanna cash in your Hoyt-face-punchin’ coupon and just, like, really need to knock me in the kisser, you come and do it. But, y’know … a tiny courtesy heads-up would be nice.” With that, Hoyt hops onto his bed, lies on his stomach, and grabs the Xbox controller off the floor. “Now that that’s settled, let’s get back to killin’ each other. Whoever loses next gets their face sat on.”
I snatch my controller off the floor. “That’s not happening.” I sit on the edge of the air mattress he just made me and jump into the next round with him.
And like that, I’m back to playing games with Hoyt Nowak.
