Charlie pulled his hand back and took a deep breath. Once again, Griffin followed suit. “Ready to try again?” Charlie asked.
Griffin closed his eyes and took a moment. He recalled the feeling of tenderness he’d felt as Charlie touched his chest for those brief moments. He committed it to memory.
He opened his eyes, nodded, and slowly eased up on the brake again.
3
I can’t believe the sword is made of… moon
Griffin smiled at the message when he woke up the next morning. Judging by the timestamp, Charlie had stayed up pretty late reading the book Griffin had lent him.
He mentally pat himself on the back – both for making it through their first lesson without mishap (well, further mishap after the brake incident), and for convincing a skeptical Charlie that Moonsword would change his mind about fantasy. While silly in concept – a barbarian finds a sword that falls from the night sky and uses it to vanquish creatures descending on Earth from the dark side of the Moon – Griffin loved it for its heart and campy charm. He hoped Charlie would too.
He was also acutely aware that Moonsword was rife with queer subtext. The barbarian joins up with a troupe of freedom fighters – all men – who live, and eat, and share quarters together. They brand each other joyfully, bonding to each other for life as they defend the night. He wondered if Charlie’s mind would race at the unspoken whispers between the lines like his had.
Griffin wrote him a message back.
It’s right there in the title, buddy.
He felt… weird about using the word buddy. Something about it felt right and wrong at the same time. It offered him a certain amount of distance or aloofness. But it also made him feel a twist in his gut – the same twist he’d felt many times before when being dismissed or teased by guys his age. He wondered if Charlie knew that feeling. He hoped he hadn’t just introduced him to it.
He sat up in his bed and immediately grimaced. Charlie had been right – he did have a bruise in the center of his chest.
4
When Griffin saw Charlie at school that day, chatting with a group of guys on the soccer team outside their first-period class, he panicked. He’d told himself he was going to go out of his way to be friendly with Charlie when he saw him – in the way that seemed to come so naturally to his project partner. He hoped they could become real friends eventually. After all, there weren’t many people that would stay up just to read Moonsword.
He hadn’t planned for there to be other people surrounding Charlie like an impenetrable wall of social danger. He hurried past the group, eyes pointed straight ahead to avoid any incidental eye contact.
“Griff!” he heard called out just after he’d made it past the group. It was Charlie’s voice. He turned and waved, a bit sheepishly.
Everyone in the group waved back, which surprised Griffin. He was pretty certain at least two of the guys next to Charlie actively pretended he didn’t exist. Charlie broke free from the huddle and jogged a few paces over to Griffin, grinning for miles.
“Hey! How’s the chest?” he asked.
Charlie reached towards him and tapped him lightly on the sternum. He winced in response. “Me too!” Charlie said excitedly. He lifted his t-shirt up to his chin, revealing a small black-and-purple bruise in the center of his chest. Griffin pushed out a laugh and flicked his eyes up from Charlie’s torso before his gaze could be construed as staring.
“I guess we’re matching,” Griffin said. He thought about lifting his shirt to flash his own bruise to Charlie, but his soccer player buddies were still standing a few paces behind him and staring at the two of them.
Charlie didn’t seem to notice the calculating hesitation on his face. He nudged Griffin on the shoulder with his knuckles. He seemed to like doing that.
“Just like the Branded Brothers of Night, eh?” Charlie said.
Oh God, Griffin thought, he’s making that Moonsword reference. And he has no idea what he’s saying. That was the moment that Griffin knew he was in trouble.
He had a big, dumb, incorrigible – and certainly unrequited – crush on Charlie Hess and he needed to get out of there immediately.
“Definitely!” Griffin yelped. “See you in English, brother!” he said, meaning to nudge Charlie back with his own knuckles. In his nervousness, it landed more like a punch. He turned and quickly walked away, not daring to look back. As he turned the corner at the end of the hall, he caught a glimpse of Charlie staring confusedly after him and rubbing his shoulder where Griffin had punched him.
The next few hours passed painstakingly slowly for Griffin. He relived the brother! moment endlessly in his mind. He considered taking himself to the nurse’s office and feigning something – anything – to get himself sent home early. Or, at the very least, out of his fifth-period English class.
He never quite managed to stitch together a believable story for himself, though, so a short while later he found himself walking into Mrs. Wilcox’s classroom and scanning it for Charlie. He hadn’t shown up yet.
Griffin set his eyes on a seat in the back corner of the class, but before he could make his way there, he felt a familiar nudge in the back of his arm. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
“Hey, Griff!” Charlie said behind him, just as enthusiastically as ever.
“Hey, partner,” Griffin responded meekly. Somehow partner felt even worse than buddy or brother.
“I believe it’s howdy, partner,” Charlie retorted with an exaggeratedly gruff Western flair.
“Boys, you’re blocking the door,” Mrs. Wilcox chided from behind her desk. Griffin peeked over his shoulder and saw a line of students lingering lazily behind Charlie. Charlie pushed him gently into the classroom.
“Oh, hold on a sec–” Charlie held him back for a moment by the shoulders. Students filtered in around them, like a boulder cuts a stream. “Your backpack is open,” he whispered as if it was a secret worthy of keeping between them. Griffin listened to the zipper shut behind him and tried to stare blankly ahead. He couldn’t fathom why his cheeks were choosing this moment to flush with rosy warmth, but it was the last thing he needed standing there in front of the entire class.
“Thanks,” he muttered and made a beeline for the seat in the back corner – even better now that there were no open desks around it for Charlie to follow him. He dropped his backpack on the floor and slid into the chair. I’m just going to have to open my backpack again in a moment anyway he thought to himself.
He looked down at the empty desk in front of him. He needed to avoid seeing the look on Charlie’s face when he realized Griffin had abandoned him.
“Hey Dinah, mind if we swap desks?” Charlie’s voice came from two rows over. “Tryna’ sit with my partner.”
Dinah, the girl sitting next to Griffin with short curly hair dyed black and dark lipstick to match, clicked her tongue and picked up her backpack. “Well, howdy then,” she said dryly as she stood and made for Charlie’s desk.
Charlie plopped down in the row next to Griffin, who shot him a weak grin.
“Are you feeling okay?” Charlie whispered through the space between them. A couple of heads ahead of them turned around, but just as quickly lost interest and turned back again.
“Oh, uh, yeah,” Griffin replied. “Just tired.”
“Heh, me too,” Charlie said. “Couldn’t put down Moonsword. It turns out you do have taste.”
Griffin’s heartbeat grew twice as loud in his chest. He could feel it pounding in his eardrums. His brain was working in a frenzy to decode every inflection in Charlie’s voice. Was he… flirting with him? It was impossible to know – Griffin had become so accustomed to the guys at school being dismissive or outright hostile, that he wasn’t sure he could recognize baseline friendliness anymore.
“So, uh, what’s been your favorite part?” Griffin asked.
But before Charlie could answer, Mrs. Wilcox clapped at the front of the class to collect the room’s attention and lessons began.
It was difficult for Griffin to pay attention. He kept stealing glances over at Charlie, who sat back slack in his chair with his eyes trained on the presentation ahead of them. He seemed both relaxed and laser-focused at the same time. Griffin admired that careful line that he embodied.
He also admired, for a bit longer than he intended to, the lean line of his jaw. Charlie turned at the wrong moment and caught Griffin staring.
“You alright?” He asked in his cluelessly loud attempt at a whisper. Heads turned again. Mrs. Wilcox shot them both a look. Charlie mouthed sorry to Griffin, and then to Mrs. Wilcox.
Class continued even more painstakingly slow than before. Griffin didn’t dare glance over at Charlie again, and he was hardly interested in the short story that Mrs. Wilcox was reviewing at the front of the class. He’d already read it a few years ago.
His mind wandered back to the car last night. To the gentle knuckle-nudges, and the soft warmth of Charlie’s hand over his own.
He snapped back when he heard his name being called out at the front of the class.
“–and Charlie, your theme for the semester will be…” Mrs. Wilcox scanned the piece of paper she was holding in her hands. “...romance.”
There was a whoop and holler from two of the boys at the front of the classroom. As they turned around to face Griffin, though, their voices caught in their throats. Charlie was staring back at them with a powerfully blank expression – as if to say don’t. They turned around again, silent.
Charlie turned to Griffin, suddenly all smiles. “We lucked out,” he whispered. “We get the fun, fluffy stuff.”
Griffin nodded back. It was the most he could muster in the moment. Class ended soon after, and students began filtering out. Charlie stood and said, “Pick you up at ten? I’ve already got some good films in mind to send you home with.”
“See you then,” Griffin replied, and then – in a fit of nervous uncertainty – he saluted Charlie with two fingers swiping off from his temple. He wasn’t sure where in his brain that gesture had come from, but he was immediately mortified.
Charlie – in his unflappable, charming way that Griffin was unmistakably enthralled by – rolled with it. He tipped the brim of an imaginary hat and said, “Til’ dusk.”
Charlie joined the final trickle of students exiting the room, and Griffin followed a few paces behind.
As he watched Charlie walk away, confident and casual and so easily a piece that fit the puzzle of their school, Griffin thought about how utterly doomed he was. For all his kindness, Charlie didn’t fit with Griffin. For all his generosity, Charlie would never look at him the way he wished he would.
And now he’d have to spend the semester talking with Charlie about romance – watching gushy movies he can’t relate to, recommending books he’ll have to pretend to have liked – all the while burying any inkling of his real feelings.
After all, even if he didn’t mind scaring off his partner and failing the project, he still wanted to learn how to drive.
5
Griffin spent his entire evening researching romance novels. He was looking for something that he could pass off casually as a decent read – something he’d stumbled upon, or maybe that was recommended by a friend. An ex-girlfriend, maybe? he thought, before dashing the plan. He didn’t have the confidence or memory for an elaborate lie.
He realized a few skimmed pages into Her Beauty Engulfs Me – the year’s most recommended novel for single (straight) men and a gift that he never got around to returning – that maybe he was getting away from himself.
Griffin worried that if Charlie caught on that he was developing a crush on him, he wouldn’t want to be his driving coach anymore. Or his project partner. Or his friend.
But at the same time, Charlie was sending him a lot of signals that were difficult to interpret. Were they even signals at all? he wondered. It was growing mind-numbing to try to puzzle out the intentions or lack thereof in an action as simple as a nudge on the shoulder.
Griffin decided he needed more data.
When Charlie rolled up to the curb that night – extra slow and cautious to avoid drawing the attention of Griffin’s mother – Griffin slipped into the passenger seat with a plan brewing.
“Evenin’, partner,” Charlie said, continuing the cowboy schtick from earlier. Griffin smiled, but caught himself before it grew too big on his face. He didn’t want to appear overeager.
“Evenin’,” Griffin replied. The word came out awkwardly, making him sound more like a Southern belle than a gruff Western scoundrel.
Charlie breezed past it. “Ready for lesson number two?” he asked. “I figure we’ll start with driving and then we can discuss the project after.”
Griffin nodded. It worked better this way for him, too.
Charlie pulled away from the curb and drove down the street towards the church like before.
Griffin didn’t want to let silence build up in the car, because he knew he’d find it impossible to break through if it did. It was time for him to collect data.
“So, are your nights always this free to teach helpless kids how to drive?” Griffin asked.
“Ha, yeah. I mean, I’m seventeen – it’s not like I’m moonlighting as a bartender or anything,” Charlie responded.
“Yeah, no, of course,” Griffin said. “But – no, like, girlfriend or anything?”
The car picked up speed a half-tick, and then slowed down abruptly as they approached the stop sign at the end of the street.
Okay, Griffin admitted to himself, maybe this wasn’t the most subtle approach.
“Uh,” Charlie started. He pulled the car to a full stop. Despite the quiet emptiness of the streets at night, he craned his neck to the left and right as if he was checking for cars in the dark. “No – no girlfriend,” he said.
It came out… cautiously. This was the first time Griffin had seen the air of casual confidence pull away from around Charlie. He felt a bit bad about it – but it was definitely interesting.
“Do you?” Charlie asked. “Have a girlfriend, that is?”
He pulled onto the next road and made down the dark, still street.
“No, not me,” Griffin answered.
He watched the streaks of passing streetlights roll over the car, just as they had the night before. He thought about the two books he’d packed into the backpack at his feet and imagined each of their covers illuminated beneath the rolling bands of lamplight. One was Her Beauty Engulfs Me, with a pale, curvaceous woman stepping out of the sea at night. She wears a white gown, which clings wet and translucent to her figure. Griffin never made it past the first few pages, but from the synopsis, he knows that she’s a modern-day Siren – and she spends the novel seducing and enthralling the protagonist. It was written in first-person, and as far as Griffin could tell, it was mostly wish fulfillment for the middle-aged man that authored it.
He felt somewhat slimy even possessing the book, but he had his mother to thank for that. He tried not to think about what she had been trying to say with this gift.
The other book in his backpack was actually not a book at all, but a thumb drive. It contained a digital version of Dip, a novella about two teenage boys spending the summer at their respective families’ beach house and falling in love – or something like it. Griffin had nervously downloaded it onto his computer a year ago and consumed it voraciously. He longed to own a physical copy, but didn’t want to risk it being discovered in his room. Still, he knew the cover well and could imagine what it would look like sitting on his lap now: two boys on the beach running towards the ocean, their hair wild and their thumbs in the waistbands of their bathing suits – one red, and one blue – as if they’re about to slip them off.
Night Rides Page 2