by Will Walton
“TRETCH!”
His voice comes from behind me.
Oh God, I think. Why would he come?
I turn and call out his name.
He saw me singing. He saw me singing with the Warmouth Methodist Church Choir.
Matt crosses over from a table passing out hot sausages. “Great singing, dude!” He puts a hand on my shoulder. Matt with his shining face and deep green eyes, his bushy wintertime hair. I vaguely hear the countdown as the crowd shouts, “Five … four … three … two … one … MERRY CHRISTMAS!” and someone somewhere flips a switch. The Warmouth Christmas tree explodes in bright gold light. I see it reflected in Matt’s eyes.
“I didn’t know you were in the choir!” he says to me, smiling.
I laugh. “Uh, yeah. Something my mom likes me to do.”
“Cool, man!” He’s looking past me now at Amy. So, she’s the real reason, I think. She’s the real reason he came. He waves bashfully. I don’t know why he’s still acting shy.
Amy says hi and hands him a cup of hot chocolate. He smiles and takes a swig. “Mmm,” he says when he pulls the cup back. “Mabel’s finest.”
I think I should make like the steam coming from the hot chocolate and evaporate into thin air—but then Matt gives me the surprise of my life by turning back to me and asking me if I want to sleep over.
Uh, let me think about my answer for a second …
YEEEEEESSSSSSS!
Somehow I manage a calm but still excited-sounding “Of course!” Then I realize I’m going to need permission in order to do this. I spot Mom and Dad across the lawn at a table where the Ladies Auxiliary is handing out eggnog. Spiked eggnog.
“I’ll be right back—I’m just going to make sure it’s okay,” I tell Matt, trying my hardest not to act like this is all I want for Christmas.
“I’ll be here,” Matt says, using it as an excuse to touch Amy’s shoulder.
But I don’t dwell on this. I have better things to think about.
“Dad! Mom!” I approach them from behind while they drink nog and talk to our pastor, Reverend Greene, and her husband. I like Reverend Greene a lot, and not just because she has blond bouffant hair like Dolly Parton.
Reverend Greene is the first of them to see me. “Well, hey, Tretch!” she says, holding her own cup of nog. “How is everything?”
“Hey, Reverend Greene. Everything’s going good.”
“Happy to hear it.” Her face looks like polished porcelain. Dad says she must be at least sixty, but I don’t believe it. Her husband, whom we just call Mr. Greene, shakes my hand and gives a polite “Greetings.”
“What’s up?” Dad asks, already pink-faced from the nog.
It wasn’t really part of my plan to ask permission to stay over at the Warmouth gay couple’s house for the night while standing directly in front of a preacher. But it’ll call more attention if I try to pull them aside, so I decide to just go for it.
“Mind if I stay over at Matt’s tonight?”
It’s not like I’m expecting shrieks of horror. More like a polite excuse to make the problem go away.
Mom steps up next to me and puts her arm around my neck. “Well, of course you can, Tretch!” She squeezes the fabric of my sleeve around my shoulder. “It’s spring break! I mean, winter break, after all!”
Dad grins, red-faced. “Have fun, Tretch. Y’all gonna walk there?”
“Yes, sir,” I say.
“All right. Just give a call before you’re settled in.”
“Will do.”
“Love ya, Tretch.”
“Love you, too, Dad.”
“Love ya, Tretch!”
“Love you, too, Mom.” I laugh, and my smile meets up with Reverend Greene’s.
“It’s nice to see you, Tretch,” she says. “You were really good in the choir tonight.”
“Thanks so much, Reverend Greene!” I say. “Nice to see you, too!”
It feels like I just drank a gallon of spiked nog. Or maybe just the spiked part, not the nog. As I return to Matt, there’s a celebration sprouting up inside of me, like an illumination of ten thousand Christmas-tree lights, all neon and golden. I honestly have to stifle a skip. I’m that happy.
Back at the hot chocolate table, I practically shout, “Matt! I can stay! I can stay over!”
“Good deal, man,” he says. We high-five. “Okay, let’s go! Amy, you coming?”
Wait. What?
“Yeah,” she says. And it kills me, because she looks excited, too. “I just gotta push this cart down to Mabel’s and stick it in the kitchen.” She starts to pick up the half-empty percolator, and Matt steps over to help her. “Thanks,” she says as he takes his place at the back of the cart, offering to push. Amy places a hand on the cart. “We’ll push it together,” she says.
“Need me to push, too?” I ask.
“We need your moral support,” Amy answers. “Stay close!”
I follow them down the sidewalk. They chatter and chatter and occasionally toss back a question to me.
From Matt: “So, Tretch, do you like singing in the choir?”
“Oh,” I say. “Yeah, sometimes.”
From Amy: “Okay, singing or dancing? What do you like more?”
I snort. “About equal, I guess.” I know I’m being a drag. I know I should knock it off and loosen up. I watch my steps on the sidewalk, missing each crack, and think, Okay, get a grip, because there is no reason for you to be like this. All you should be right now is happy. The door to Jim Cho’s, where families are getting Chinese takeout and hanging around long enough for their kids to tell Santa what they want, is open. Some paper napkins float down the sidewalk in the cold air, along with some more paper trash. I catch a glimpse of red ink on one tiny, tiny scrap of paper and pick it up. A fortune.
YOU WILL ALWAYS BE SURROUNDED BY GOOD FRIENDS.
LUCKY #S: 1, 23, 10, 34, 49, 35
“Oh, cool,” I say.
“What you got there, Tretch?” Matt halts the cart, and he and Amy turn to me.
“From a fortune cookie,” I say. I read it aloud to them.
“Hoo-wee!” Matt whoops like a cowboy. “Good fortune!”
We continue past Jim Cho’s, Christmas music drifting out the open door on a tide of polite talking and children’s voices. Inside the restaurant, everything has a festive, bright red feel. Part of that is because of the lighting in Jim Cho’s, which is always kind of low, and the rust-colored walls. But everybody inside looks joyful. Parents and young kids alike, all rosy-cheeked and smiling. The Jim Cho’s Santa Claus is doing his laugh, Jim Cho shouting, “Say cheese!” and kids responding, “Cheeeeeeese!” We don’t stop for long, but it’s enough for me to feel festive again. Just chill out, Tretch, it’s a good night. I step up beside Matt as he and Amy push the cart down the remainder of the sidewalk, Mabel’s on the corner up ahead.
Amy lets us into the kitchen with her staff key, and Matt and I hoist the cart up over the threshold. He nudges it inside, and we leave it there.
“Mabel said she would wash it out tomorrow,” Amy says. We step outside, and she locks the door again. Matt looks at me and smiles. “Cold,” he says, and blows out a big cloud of breath. Amy steps beside him and blows a cloud of her own into it.
Watching this could break my heart a little bit. But I won’t let it. Instead, I blow a little fog of my own into their cloud. They don’t seem to mind, or even really notice.
Amy grins. “Y’all ever been on the roof?”
This is one of those cool high school things Matt and I haven’t done yet. But all it takes is a climb up the two-story fire escape, with Amy in the lead.
At the top, we look over the edge, down at the street not too far below. We are above the streetlights, so we’re in no danger of being seen. People are filtering out of Jim Cho’s, and slowly the noise is dying, everyone heading home to hit the sack. The courthouse at the end of the street has turned off its lights, but the Christmas tree shines bright. I think about my parents, about how funny toni
ght is shaping up to be. The festive lights make a kind of haze along the tops of the stores. It’s like Barrow Street is right below heaven or something, and Matt and Amy and I are right above it.
“This is great,” Matt says.
“Yep yep.” Amy nods. “And now you’re cool.”
“For real,” I say.
We stay up there and watch as Jim Cho’s shuts down for the night. The lights inside switch off, and we even see the lonely Jim Cho himself, the last man to leave, amble down the street to his car.
“Wonder where the Jim Cho’s Santa sleeps?” Matt says. Amy makes a closed-mouth I don’t know sound, and we stand there waiting to see if the Jim Cho’s Santa emerges. It doesn’t appear that he’s going to.
My hands are cold, so I slide them into the pockets of my jeans, eyeing Matt’s pockets as I do, picturing what it would be like to slide my hands into them, an imaginary moment where he allows it, welcomes it even. No Amy Sinks, just him and me, my hands flattened, passing over the terrain of his hips, the front of his thighs, and finally in between. Rooftop, through-the-pocket hand job. Is that even possible? But that’s as far as I’ll allow myself to go for now. I take my hands from my pockets and cup them together, doing my best to ignore the feathery feeling at the tip of my semi-hard as it tests the bounds of my underwear.
Luckily (I guess), Matt and Amy’s shoulders are touching, which is a boner kill. They are leaning into each other, smiling little warm smiles of contentment. I can tell they’re both feeling it. “What time is it?” I ask.
Matt checks his phone. “Eleven fifteen,” he announces, and Amy says, “Hmm. Well, guys, it’s been fun.” She nudges Matt’s shoulder. They’re already acting like a couple.
“Time to go home?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Amy says. “Curfew’s eleven thirty.”
“Alrighty, then,” Matt says. “We better split.”
I’m the first to the ledge. I sling my leg over and land on the fire escape. I start down and turn when I hear Amy say “Thanks.” Matt is holding her hand. I see it brush his shoulder as she steps down. “Whoops,” she says. “Hair.”
He laughs, bashful. And the grin on Matt’s face is something special. I whisper “I love you” as they climb down, and I’m not exactly sure if I’m saying it directly to Matt or if I’m putting the words into her mouth and speaking them for her. But I see happiness there. I see happiness I want so badly, and while he holds her arm as they make their way down, whispering things that cause her to laugh, I think, Amy Sinks, you stole him, even though I know that’s not true. It’s not like I’ve ever even had a shot, but still—
Maybe, in my head, I thought that it might someday be possible.
And I might, in my head, somehow still believe that it is.
So I’m sorry, Amy and Matt, if I can’t really want this for the two of you. Matt hops the last few steps and spins around to face her. “Ta-da!” he calls out, the magician of the moment. But just know that I will try. I will sure as hell try. “We better run! I’m gonna be late!” Amy jumps off and starts down the alley.
“Come on, Tretch!” Matt calls.
We take off down deserted Barrow Street. And, again, I get the feeling like someone has turned on the switch in me to light me up. I wonder if that’s how Matt and Amy would describe it, too. That feeling.
Matt gets that crazy look in his eyes and hops onto a bench, pulling Amy up with him, then the two of them pulling me up next. We all teeter there, trying to balance, and we’re laughing. I’m laughing so hard my eyes sting. When we finally hop down, we take turns swinging around lampposts. These are friends, I think. These are my friends. At the edge of the courthouse, we climb the William Griggers statue.
“Good evening, Sir Griggers!” Matt says, swinging from the memorial’s stone shoulder. We all hang on by an arm and hand, one leg suspended. “Merry Christmas!” Matt yells. “Merry Christmas, Warmouth!”
“Merry Christmas, Warmouth!” I chime in.
“Merry Christmas, Warmouth!” Amy thirds.
Then we all just shout out whatever comes to us.
“Ha-ha! Old fart town!”
“Sleepy old town!”
“Wake up, Warmouth!”
“Wake up, Warmouth!”
“Wake up!”
Somewhere a dog barks.
“Go to sleep, puppy!”
We swing down from William Griggers and run some more. “I feel great,” Matt says when we reach the corner of Barrow Street. “I feel really, really great.”
Amy’s house is only a block away. We walk her to the mailbox. I’m about to say good-bye when she leans in and kisses Matt. It doesn’t last long, but it definitely lasts. When they pull apart, they’re even brighter than before.
Amy comes over and gives me a hug. “Bye, Tretch!” she says.
“See ya.” I pat her shoulder.
She looks at Matt one last time and smiles—“Well, I’d better scoot”—and runs up her driveway. He keeps watching as she disappears inside the garage.
We stay outside until we see the kitchen light in Amy’s house flip on, then off, and finally see a light on the second story turn on.
“Her bedroom,” Matt says reverently. “Must be.”
“Yeah,” I say, like a bedroom’s no big deal.
We start the walk to Matt’s house, moving quickly with big steps, like we’ve both just realized how cold it is.
It’s just the two of us, I think. Now if I can just manage to make it feel like one more than one instead of one less than three.
Matt is undressing in front of his bedroom mirror while I try not to look.
“I’m so glad your parents actually let you stay tonight,” he says. A button unsnaps. A zipper unzips. Pants go sliding.
“Uh, yeah. All thanks to the Ladies Auxiliary eggnog, I guess.” I smile at the wall opposite Matt. My safe wall, I think. Nothing suggestive here. Not unless you count an old poster for the movie Dune.
“I think Amy thinks we’re cool, man. I really do.”
More fabric sliding this time. The underwear, I’m sure. Why does he do this to me? “You think?” I ask. “Both of us?”
“Oh yeah, dude! I’m sure. Why else would she have invited us to her party?”
“She invited us to her party?”
“Yeah, dude! New Year’s party! Over at Sinks’s Young-’n-Fit … Oh, by the way, little secret …” Matt takes an audible step forward, a slight creak in the floorboard—it’s like the soundtrack to the hard-on I’m getting. “Amy’s friends with Lana Kramer, and she says Lana’s totally into you! And Amy says she wants to bring you to the party as, like, a date!”
I turn my head (reflex, I swear), and there he is, standing (totally naked, oh my God, oh my God), his hands resting confidently on his waist, as if he’s saying, Hello, world! Here is my penis!
“Uh, I, uh—” My eyes close, and it’s like they’re communicating, a tin-can telephone conversation with my brain as the connecting string.
The left eye: That’s big, am I right?
The right eye: Yep, I’d say so.
“Hmm.” I press my fist hard against my forehead, a plea for silence. “To tell you the truth, I figured she kind of liked me, but—”
“But what?” Matt says, another short step forward. The eyes open; I look up. Above the waist, Tretch, above the waist. But above the waist is nice, too.
“I just … I mean, I didn’t even realize she and Amy were friends.”
“Well, sure they are! Why wouldn’t they be? And, plus, you love to read, and so does she.” Matt argues this like it seals the deal for sure.
“Well, in that case,” I say, “bring on the marriage license.”
This challenges him. His bare shoulders slump. “Why, Tretch?” he says. “Why not at least try?”
“She’s not my type, Matt.”
“Well, what the hell is, then?”
You are! “I don’t know.” I shrug. “Not yet, anyway.”
“How c
an you not know?” Matt asks. He turns. A slight swaying from his groin area sends out shock waves to mine.
I can’t help but look at his butt as he steps inside the bathroom.
“I mean, are you going as Amy’s date?” I call. I can’t follow him in there. I can’t even stand—not as long as there’s a chance that he’ll pop back into the bedroom.
“Yuh!” he shouts. The surge of the water stream chirps into life. “Hope so, anyway!” There’s the rattle of the curtain, and the squeaking sound of feet on the tub floor.
Now that Matt’s in the shower, I’m safe to stand. I sidle out to the hall and tiptoe down the stairs. Ron and Landon were asleep when Matt and I got back. I was honestly pretty sad about that. I wanted to talk to them. But I certainly don’t want to wake them now.
I flip on the light in the kitchen and look around. There’s a nice kitchen table, speckled granite countertops. A row of cookbooks next to a fancy-looking coffeemaker and a painting of a chicken on the wall. Some clean white wooden cabinets. I see Matt’s bicep flexing as he reaches for a coffee mug. “You want anything to drink?” he asks. “I’m parched.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Parched.”
But this is all, of course, just in my imagination.
I open the fridge and look in. I see brown eggs in a dish, organic yogurt, organic chocolate milk, almond milk, some organic smoothie-looking drinks, a casserole that must have been taken out of the freezer to thaw, some chicken breasts from chickens raised cage-free, some ready-made salads and salad dressings. I think about how expensive all that fancy food must be. In one drawer is a block of Toll House cookie dough. I think about how good cookies would be right now, maybe with some of that almond milk.
“You like almond milk?” he asks, lifting the carton.
“Mm-hmm.” I nod. He pours two glasses, both to the brim, and turns—“Whoops”—sloshing some of the milk down the front of his shirt. “Oh, well. You know my motto. No shirt, no problem, am I right?”
I want to stop thinking about this.
I mean, it’s not like I haven’t seen Matt naked before. I’ve seen him undress in the locker room loads of times, but that’s different, way different, in fact. Being alone with him in a room—his room, no less—watching him slide out of his clothes so casually, just talking to me, as if this is part of our routine and shortly we’ll be brushing our teeth together, turning out the lights, and crawling into bed.