“When are you going?” Carey asked. He picked up the video game controller and turned on the console.
“Tonight. Didn’t I say that?” Brian said casually.
“No.”
“Oh. Well, it’s tonight, so I can’t really hang out with you. I’m meeting him at the theater at seven forty-five. But don’t go until I’m ready.”
Brian grabbed some clothes and dashed into the bathroom, leaving Carey alone in the room. He tossed the controller aside. He didn’t want to stick around to watch Brian drive off on his date with Mark Reynolds.
He sighed and wondered how long Brian would take to get ready. Probably an hour. Carey glanced at the clock. It was already seven twenty-two, and the theater was a good fifteen minutes away. Brian only had about five minutes or so before he had to leave. He would never have time to put on any eye make-up or all of his earrings.
Brian suddenly appeared in the doorway.
“Okay, what do you think?” he asked.
Carey stared.
“That bad?” Brian’s shoulders slumped.
“No. You look great.”
Carey took in Brian’s whole look. He was wearing the dark purple shirt and a pair of jeans. His hair was tamed from its usual curly style with some gel, and he wore a single gold stud earring, compared to the many earrings he normally wore.
“I look okay?”
“You look . . .” Carey said quietly, nodding.
“Thanks,” Brian replied enthusiastically. “Gotta go or I’ll be late.”
Carey followed him down the stairs and ended up watching him drive off to meet Mark anyway.
“You look really great,” Carey said again, to no one.
He walked down the street to Robin’s house to see if she was free.
◆◆◆
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Robin asked.
“What was I supposed to say? He was getting ready to go out with another guy.”
“Um, hey Brian, remember when I kissed you? It was because I really like you,” Robin suggested.
“Yeah, okay. I’ll do that when you tell Robbie Crenshaw you worship the ground he walks on.”
“Touché. But what are you going to do?” she questioned.
Carey flopped back on the sofa in Robin’s basement. “I don’t know. He said he wants you and me to go on a double date with them next time. Yeah, right, like I’m going to go anywhere with Mark Reynolds.” He stuck his tongue out.
“Why don’t you like him? He actually seems like a nice guy.”
“It’s a long story,” he said, flipping through the channels.
“What else do you have to do with your time?” Robin smirked. “I’ll go get a snack and then you can tell me all about it.”
Carey sat clicking the remote, looking for something to watch while he waited for Robin. He settled on a reality cooking show.
Robin came down a short time later with a big bag of kettle corn and two cans of Coke. She also had a bag of gummi candies.
“What are we watching?” she asked.
“That cooking show where they kick someone off every week until there are three left, then they have a giant cook off. Sometimes they bring back people who have been kicked off to help.”
“Oh, I haven’t watched in a couple of weeks. How many are left?”
“Seven. Thanks,” he said as she handed him a can.
“So, good, this is the kind of show we really don’t have to pay that much attention to. I want to hear why you don’t like Mark.”
Carey sighed. “Fine. It goes back to seventh grade. Actually, the summer after. Meghan Riley had a big party for her thirteenth birthday. Her birthday is only five days after mine, so I had just turned thirteen too. There were a lot of kids there and I spent time hanging out in different groups. I can’t remember why, but Brian couldn’t go.”
He took a long drink. “Anyway, some of us, actually, a lot of us started playing spin the bottle. It was fine at first. I ended up kissing Mary Pratt, Jess Whitford and some other girl. Then my spin landed on Mark. Everyone laughed, of course. And believe it or not, it was the first time the bottle landed on someone of the same sex.”
“Why were you mad at him? Doesn’t sound like his fault.” Robin took a handful of kettle corn.
“No, that’s not why. Do you want me to tell or not?”
“Yes.”
“Then don’t interrupt again,” he said, joking.
She took a handful of kettle corn and settled back to listen.
“So, anyway, we didn’t kiss. But nobody expected us to. The game kept going, and I think maybe I kissed Meghan. I’m not sure. It doesn’t matter.” Carey drank some of his Coke, then popped a gummi in his mouth.
“Come on, get on with it,” Robin urged.
“Okay. After the game, everyone sort of broke up into groups, talking and eating and stuff. I went out on the back deck to see who was out there, but no one was, so I sat down on a bench. A few minutes later, Mark came out with two cans of soda.”
Carey proceeded to tell Robin the rest of the story in as much detail as he could remember.
“Thanks,” Carey said as he accepted the can from Mark.
“No problem,” Mark answered and sat down next to him on the small bench.
They were silent for a few minutes, drinking their sodas.
“That was sort of awkward in there, huh?” Mark commented.
“Yeah.” Carey said. “It’s kind of a weird thing to play anyway, isn’t it? I mean, I didn’t even know that one girl’s name.”
“It’s a good way to get your first kiss out of the way,” Mark chuckled.
Carey shrugged. “I guess. Sucks if it’s not who you want it to be though.”
They each took a long drink.
Mark said, “I wonder if the two girls that kissed knew each other.”
“Yeah, I can’t believe they had the nerve to do that in front of everybody.”
Mark licked his lips. “I didn’t have the nerve.”
“Me neither.”
When Carey turned to look at Mark, the other boy was closer than he expected.
“Not that I didn’t want to,” Mark said quietly.
Carey remembered that he suddenly had butterflies in his stomach.
“Well, what happened next?” Robin asked when Carey paused a little too long.
“I’m not sure who started it. Him, I guess. But we kissed out there on the deck.”
Robin sat with her mouth hanging open. “How was it?”
Carey looked down and blushed. “It was . . . really nice. Even nicer than kissing those girls. Probably because it was a real kiss, not a game. I pretty much knew I liked boys as much, if not better than girls by then. But that was the clincher,” he admitted.
Robin frowned. “I don’t get it. Why don’t you like him?”
Carey sighed. “Someone came out on the deck and almost caught us. He got up and practically ran into the house. I didn’t blame him, really, because he wasn’t out yet. But later, when I was leaving, I found him to say goodbye. I stupidly thought . . .”
“What? You thought what?”
“I thought maybe we’d kiss goodbye or something.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what I thought was going to happen. Certainly not what did happen.”
“Which was . . ?”
“He kind of threatened me,” Carey said. “He said if I told anybody what we did, he would say that it was all me, and that I was a fag.”
“Oh.”
“So, I never told anybody. Not even after he came out two years ago.” Carey tipped back his can to finish he last of his drink. “Once in a while, he would smirk at me, I swear. You know, like he was holding it over my head. He came out, but I didn’t, and all he had to do was tell what happened at Meghan’s party.”
“Did he ever threaten to tell?” Robin asked.
“No, not exactly. He’d make references to closet queens around me, though. I never liked that he knew something so personal
about me.”
Robin nodded. “I can understand that. I’ve done some stupid things with people I didn’t know very well. I didn’t know if I could trust them to keep quiet.”
Carey grinned. “What kinds of things? Come on, I just told you something I’ve never told anybody.”
“Oh, nothing that bad. We snuck into a public pool after hours one time. And we got into a car with this older guy we barely knew and drove around town. Looking back, it was really stupid,” she said. “So, are you worried that he’s gonna tell Brian?”
“Maybe.”
“Would it be so bad? I mean, if you’re having trouble telling him yourself.”
“No, it would be awful if he found out from someone else.”
“Then why didn’t you tell him?”
Carey shrugged. “What if it makes things weird between us? Or what if he’s really mad, because all this time I was watching him get picked on and didn’t stand up for him?”
“You have stood up for him. And got picked on yourself,” Robin countered, then smiled. “What if he secretly likes you back?”
Carey’s eyes grew big. “That might be even weirder.”
Robin couldn’t help laughing, and Carey joined her.
They watched the rest of the cooking show, making comments on how gross half the dishes looked. Robin’s words echoed in his head. What if Brian did secretly like him? It would change their friendship completely. Then again, just Carey coming out would do that.
He couldn’t do anything about it at the time, so he enjoyed the evening with Robin. He watched her as she talked about some of her disastrous cooking experiences. She really was a great friend. If there was ever a girl that would catch his interest, it would have been her.
Carey put that thought out of his head. He couldn’t be stupid enough to fall for both of his best friends.
Chapter 8
“Aren’t you going to ask me how my date was?” Brian practically jumped up and down.
“Okay, how was it?” Carey relented. He was having a hard time being excited for his friend.
“Great. We met up at the theater and he had already bought my ticket for me. So, I said I’d buy popcorn and drinks. But he wouldn’t let me. He said he asked me out, so he wanted to take care of everything.” Brian grinned the whole time he was talking. “He was such a gentleman.”
Carey rolled his eyes, but Brian didn’t notice.
“Anyway, we found seats and watched the movie. He picked that movie where the annoying woman steals a man’s identity. It was . . . okay. I wanted to see the movie about the witch who has to choose between being good and evil.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“We should go next weekend,” Brian suggested.
Carey smiled. “Sure.”
“You can bring Robin and make it a double date.”
“Oh.” Carey was disappointed. At first, he thought Brian meant just the two of them.
“Anyway, about last night,” Brian continued, oblivious to Carey’s disappointment. “After the movie was the good part. We went to Burger Town. They’re open ‘til midnight on Fridays and Saturdays.”
Carey listened as Brian went on and on about his wonderful date with Mark. They shared an order of crab fries and a chocolate milkshake. Mark even held his hand under the table. Brian explained that while neither one was ashamed to be on a date in public, and everyone probably knew, they didn’t want to flaunt it in case there were people who had a problem with it.
Carey frowned. He intended to point out the hypocrisy, but he didn’t want to bring down Brian’s mood.
“So, it was good then,” Carey said.
“It was great. He walked me to my car and kissed me.” Brian flopped back on Carey’s bed and sighed heavily. “You have no idea how soft his lips are.”
Carey made a noise that Brian took as disgust.
“Sorry. I know you don’t want to hear about that shit.” He laughed. “We’re going out again tonight.”
“Again?”
“Yeah, he wants to take me bowling.”
“You hate bowling,” Carey frowned.
“I don’t hate it,” Brian said.
“Yes you do. Last time we went, you swore you would never wear such unfashionable shoes ever again.”
Brian slumped. “Fine. I hate bowling. But he asked me to go. You have to compromise when you’re in a relationship.”
“You’re in a relationship now?” Carey’s eyebrows shot up in disbelief. “You went on one date.”
“Yeah, but what a date,” Brian sighed. “Anyway, I didn’t want to turn him down. I don’t want him to think I don’t like him.”
“If it’s a relationship, shouldn’t he have to compromise too?” Carey pointed out.
Brian shrugged a shoulder. “Well, maybe we’ll do something I want to do next time.”
Feeling badly that he was belittling Brian’s date, Carey tried to be more upbeat.
“You should take him to the pottery painting place next time. You like that.”
“I don’t know. Mark isn’t really artsy like that.”
“So. I suck at it and I still like going with you,” Carey said, chuckling.
“Yeah, but that’s you,” Brian dismissed Carey’s idea. “We’ll probably go to the movies again. I probably should get going.”
“I thought you were staying for dinner.”
Brian giggled and hugged his arms around himself. “I’m too nervous to eat.”
If it hadn’t been Mark Reynolds that Brian was nervous over, Carey would have thought his reaction was adorable. He couldn’t help smiling though.
“Okay. Have fun, then.”
Brian skipped out of Carey’s room and downstairs.
“Hi Brian,” Jeannie Reid smiled. “Where are you going in such a hurry?”
“Hot date,” Brian grinned. “Bye.”
Jeannie’s smiled dropped, realizing that her son must have been feeling pretty down at the moment. She stood in the kitchen for a moment vacillating between minding her own business and going up to see if Carey was all right. She chose the latter.
“Knock, knock,” she said, standing outside his door.
“Hey, Mom,” he answered. He glanced up from his video game. “What’s up?”
“Are you doing okay?”
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I saw Brian leave.” She paused. “He said he had a hot date. Does he, or was he just kidding?”
He put down his controller and got up on the bed. “No, he wasn’t kidding.”
“I guess you didn’t say anything to him.”
He shook his head. “I tried, but . . . then he told me about this stupid guy that asked him out. And he was so excited about it.”
Jeannie smiled. “You don’t like this other guy much?”
“No. He’s a jerk. He isn’t right for Brian. But Brian only cares that he’s popular and smart. He made Brian see a movie he didn’t want to see. And he’s taking him bowling, for crying out loud.” Carey didn’t realize how upset he was until he heard his own voice raising.
“What’s wrong with bowling? Don’t kids go bowling anymore?”
“Brian hates bowling. It skeeves him out to wear shoes that other people have worn before. And he stinks at it. He never comes with me and Robin, but he’s going tonight with Mark.”
Carey flopped back on his bed.
“God, I sound like a jealous . . . I don’t know.” He covered his eyes with his forearm. “I sound like a girl.”
His mom didn’t mean to laugh, but she couldn’t help it. “I’m sorry. You don’t sound like a girl. You sound like a concerned friend.”
“Who’s jealous.” He sighed.
Jeannie stood at the side of the bed for minute, then sat down. Carey uncovered his eyes and looked up at her, anticipating words of wisdom.
“You know, your life isn’t always going to suck,” she said.
He laughed out loud. “You think my life sucks?”
&nb
sp; She raised her eyebrows. “No, but I thought you might. I was once a teenager, remember. Everything could have been going great, except my love life, which never went well,” Jeannie laughed. “And it was all I worried about.”
“It’s hardly the most important thing,” Carey said.
His mother nodded. “I agree. But it still hurts.”
“I’ll get over it.”
“Of that I have no doubt.” She smiled. “But in the meantime, I think you need to decide what you’re going to do about it.”
“What can I do about it? I can’t make myself not like him.”
“No, but you can make a choice to either tell him how you feel or move on.”
“Move on?” Carey questioned.
“Put your feelings aside and try to meet someone else. Or, maybe give someone you already know a chance.”
He frowned. “What do you think I should do?”
Putting her hand on his shoulder, she answered. “Only you can make that decision. But either one would be better than suffering through an unrequited crush.”
Carey rolled his eyes. “You make me sound like a Shakespeare tragedy.”
“Sorry,” she chuckled. “I didn’t mean to be so dramatic. I just hate to see you upset.” She stood. “I’ve got to finish making dinner. You okay?”
He nodded.
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out. You know, sometimes writing things down can help. Make a pros and cons list,” she suggested.
After she left, Carey lay on his bed for a while thinking about his mother’s advice. As much as he hated to admit it, she always had good advice, even if he didn’t always follow it. He got up and went to his desk. Maybe making a list would help.
He turned on his laptop and opened up a new document. He began to type the pros of telling Brian how he felt. Feeling a little paranoid, he got up and closed his door.
Carey sighed. After about ten minutes, he’d typed up all he could come up with for both sides of the argument. One list had the benefits of telling Brian everything, and having Brian reciprocate his feelings. The other listed the worst-case scenarios, or things that he would miss out on. He ended up with two columns headed Pros and Cons respectively. He looked at each carefully.
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