The finishing touch to the sculpture is a single sticker, classically black-and-white by design, reading: Just wear it.
My giggle fit strikes again when Brodie won’t let Kellen put additional stickers on the sculpture. “It’s a work of art,” he says. “It only needs one plaque—art speaks for itself.”
“But—” Kellen says, a sticker without a backing in his hands.
“Here,” Brodie says, and takes it from him. Then with a mischievous grin, reaches around and slaps the sticker across Kellen’s ass. It lands on one pocket, the condom shape pointing suggestively at its target.
Kellen’s face flickers with annoyance, but he’s too much of a man to be scared off with a little gay reference.
I burst out laughing.
“I love you, man,” Brodie tells Kellen.
“And that”—Kellen points at Abe-the-condom-covered phallus—“looks like you, dude, not your dick.”
“I can’t believe we’re doing all of this and we’re not going to be at school tomorrow,” Challis tells me. “We won’t see everyone’s reactions.”
I fold up my knees and wrap my arms them. It’s suddenly cold.
“Yeah,” Mason says. “I’d like to see Mr. Purdy’s face when he sees Abe.”
“Totally,” Challis agrees.
“Eden will tell us,” I say.
“Eden’s going to school on senior skip day?” Challis asks.
“Yeah, her parents. Hey, you wanna be in the pictures?” I ask, pointing to the gathering crowd.
“Why not?” she asks with a smile. She stands up, puts her cigarette between her lips, and offers me both hands.
I take them and she pulls me to my feet.
The three of us join the crowd around the pink, condom-ed sculpture. We lean into the frame while Hailey Beth takes a photo.
“Jamie!” Kellen shouts. “Get in the middle, man. This is your work of art.” He tugs me front and center and wraps a beefy arm across my shoulders.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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TWENTY-SIX
“Wake up, sunshine,” someone says, shaking my shoulder. “Road trip!”
I roll over and look up. Mason is peering down at me because I’m lying on the floor of his and Gabe’s room in a sleeping bag. I flop one arm over my eyes. “I’ve got a headache.”
“Too much Gatorade?” he asks. “Or not enough?”
So much for the concoction curing its own hangover. “Thanks for the warning.”
“I didn’t see the vodka either,” he says. “But you puked it up—so you’re gonna be fine.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Right.”
“You remember everything, don’t you?” he asks.
“Yeah, Abe’s a dick,” I say, because I know that part is true. Deciphering what happened between us, however, is a little less clear, and more likely to be fiction—a product of the vodka and my overactive imagination.
“Brodie, man,” Mason says.
“There’s a reason he’s class president,” I say, and slide out of the sleeping bag.
Mason offers to fill my gas tank and I let him. He also buys us a bag of breakfast sandwiches and cups of orange juice at the fast-food place. Then we are on the road, first driving west across town, then north through bare, rocky canyons. We leave the desert and sagebrush behind as we pass the tree line. It’s been forever since I’ve been to Frank’s condo—probably since Ann Marie suddenly decided she didn’t like her car seat and started screaming the whole way. It’s relatively quiet in my Honda, the radio playing softly over the sound of the engine, my best friend beside me—the way road trips are the movies or, at least, without toddlers.
I promise myself I won’t weird out around Mason. I won’t let my mind wander about the fit of his shirt, the amazing of his smile, the zap of heat when his fingers brush against mine. I send up a silent thank-you that he isn’t wearing that tux—that was a problem. I couldn’t even form a damn sentence, I was so infatuated. But I am not going to go there today. Mason needs a break from school, work, and his family and the general craziness of senior year, and I’m his best friend—not some brainless zombie with a crush on him.
I point to the odometer as it changes from 149,999 to 150,000, and Mason leans over the console to see.
“Seven, six, five . . .” He counts off the tenths of a mile as we pass the airport and the cabin with a tree growing through the roof.
“Three, two, one!” we chant together, and the nines blink to zeros.
“Where to?” I ask as the little lakeside town materializes around us.
“Ponderosa State Park,” Mason says.
We start with a hike to the lookout, where we sit on the rocks and watch the boats go by on the lake below. We snap a few photos, then walk back down to the water’s edge. We jump from rock to rock, edging our way out into the lake without getting wet. I dip my fingers in and jerk them out again, wondering how it isn’t still ice, or maybe snow, like on the surrounding mountains.
For lunch we sit at a picnic table near the water and unpack the little cooler Mason brought: sodas, hoagie rolls, cheese, a container of cold cuts, another of macaroni salad, a can of chile peppers—his favorite—plus a selection of cookies.
“Looks great,” I tell him, knowing if I packed lunch it’d be two PB&Js and half of a two-liter bottle of soda from the back of the fridge.
Mason smiles at the compliment and hands me a plate.
“Plates?” I ask, and then see the napkins. And silverware! Not to mention the can opener that he’s using for the peppers. “You went all out.”
I assemble a sandwich, careful to use a fork and not my fingers.
Mason spears an olive-green pepper with a knife and offers it to me. It reminds me of a slug, but I let him put it on my sandwich anyway. They aren’t very spicy.
He serves himself a plate of food, pops open a soda, and starts to eat without saying a word.
“This is really good.”
Mason shrugs. “I figured we’d be out doing stuff. Get hungry.”
“Yeah. This is nice. Thanks.”
“Just me and you,” he says.
I pause with my soda halfway to my lips. What does that mean? It’s always me and him. Right? “Totally.”
“I mean, Eden’s nice and all, but . . . ,” Mason says.
Oh. I get it. Eden. I wait for him to say more, maybe tell me what he thinks of her.
He doesn’t.
“You two should shoot zombies sometime; she’s pretty good,” I say.
“I dunno,” Mason says. “She kinda gets on my nerves.”
I know the feeling. “Yeah,” I say. “But she’s all right—if you ignore the annoying stuff.”
This makes Mason smile. “So you’re not, um?”
“Me and Eden?” I choke on pepper juice and start to cough. Tears well in my eyes, and I try to cough the tickle from my throat. I down the rest of my drink before it goes away.
When I recover, Mason raises his eyebrows as if to tell me to get back to the point.
“We’re just friends. She’s a lesbian.”
“You sure?” he asks.
And I hope to God that wasn’t supposed to be a secret! I don’t think it was. Was it? “Pretty sure. But don’t tell anyone. I don’t know if I was supposed to say that.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t.”
And from the tone of his voice, I am certain Eden’s maybe-secret is safe. Mason’s like that—if he says he’s going to do something, it’s as good as done. He keeps secrets as well as he holds grudges. I think about my own secret. And how I haven’t been guarding it as much as I have in the past. Eden and the art-geek girls know, and probably the Gumshoe staff too. And last night, well, my guard was way down.
I look at Mason and watch him eat. I wonder if he knows that I’m gay, and if he’s just waiting for me to tell him.
We
have never talked about gay things: not celebrities, not gay marriage, not the fact that 10 percent of people we know are probably bent. Each silent year that goes by makes it harder and harder to bring up. So now, four years in the closet later, the topic has become a huge rainbow elephant in the room. And I’m afraid of getting trampled.
College is looming, exciting and unknown at the end of August, and the thought of it has my stomach vaguely queasy. It’s a huge change. I’ll be moving out of the house where I’ve lived my whole life. I won’t see my mom every day, won’t have to put up with Frank’s enthusiasm, mow the lawn, or watch my sisters. I should be excited, but part of me is nauseous. The only Alka-Seltzer in the situation is Mason. I need to come out to him, need to face the elephant, and stare it down. But first, I need some guts. I need to know that Mason will be okay with me—the whole me—because I can’t imagine my life without him. The idea of having him with me calms the worst of the fear bubbling inside me, but when I think of coming out to him, it all comes boiling back.
I avoid the topic and ask, “So what about Bahti?”
“What about her?” Mason replies.
“Um, you—” Were kissing her! “You seemed to hit it off at prom.”
“Yeah,” he says. “She can dance.”
“That’s not all. I mean, if I recall,” I pry.
“Oh, that.” He looks down at his sandwich and stuffs the last bite in his mouth.
I wait while he chews.
“Whatever,” he says. “We were a both little buzzed.”
“So you’re not going out or something?”
“No,” he says, and laughs—an I-can’t-believe-you-just-said-that laugh. “I don’t date in high school.”
“Too much drama, I know,” I say. “But high school’s almost over.”
“So I should date someone who’s going to Berkley when I’m going to WSU?” he asks. “Talk about long-distance drama.”
“Maybe not her, but someone,” I say. “Take a break from the books.”
“Yeah, like you’re taking advantage of your chick-magnet status?” he challenges me.
“What?”
Mason laughs. “Uh, yeah.”
“I am not a chick magnet.”
“Okay, let me rephrase that, a stalker-girl magnet.”
“I’m hardly the one all the girls want. Lia and Holland were gushing over you after prom,” I retort, shifting the focus away from me and wanting an answer I wasn’t getting out of him.
“Yeah, right. They think I’m a nerd.”
“They do not.” I leave out what they did call him for the sake of my argument. “They said you cleaned up nice.”
“Sorry, Jamie,” Mason says with a shrug. “I don’t need a summer fling. I’m working full-time mowing lawns for Sal, then I’m outta here.”
Sorry, Jamie? What does that mean? “You don’t need to apologize to me.”
“Don’t worry about me, okay?”
I’m not worried. I’m crazy about you. And if you had a girlfriend, it’d be a whole lot easier to turn off the crazy.
“Hey,” he says after a while. “We should get going.” Then he starts putting things back into the cooler.
“Sure.” I didn’t think we needed to be anywhere anytime soon, yet I follow along. I wipe off the plates with a napkin and slide them into a ziplock bag. He eats the last chile pepper like someone might eat a single strand of spaghetti, tilting his head back and slurping it down.
When we’re back in my car and driving into town, Mason points me to the marina parking lot. I pull in but don’t cut the engine.
“The marina?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer but flips open his cell as if checking the time. Then he gets out of the car.
I hurry to put it in first and set the parking brake. I wiggle the keys from the ignition and open my door. “Mace?” I ask.
“Could you open the trunk?” he asks.
I get out and unlock it.
Mason sheds his long-sleeve shirt and tosses it in the trunk. He has a T-shirt underneath—white and new. And even though I had told myself I wouldn’t drool over Mason, I admit I like the way it looks. See, Mason and Gabe share the same closet. The new clothes usually start life on Gabe’s side and migrate to Mason’s after they’ve shrunk or Gabe outgrew them. And the spotless, white, still-has-creases-from-being-folded T-shirt? It makes Mason’s skin look darker and his smile brighter.
Then he unzips his backpack and pulls out a pair of shorts.
He’s already wearing shorts, so I am completely lost—which must show on my face because Mason can’t keep a straight face any longer.
“You are so bad at surprises, Jamie,” he says, and starts laughing.
“A surprise?” I ask. “What kind of surprise?”
“Duh! A marina kind!”
This makes no sense.
He puts his bag and cell phone in the trunk and shuts it.
“A marina surprise?” I ask, following him inside.
At the counter he tells the woman, “Jet Ski rental under Viveros.”
I’m still processing this as she smiles and says, “Yes, I have your paperwork right here. Have you rented from us before?”
“No. First time.”
“Well, welcome!” she says before delving into the page of details, how much it costs, and how we need to watch a short movie about safety.
And it sinks in. Mason rented a Jet Ski and we are going to take it out on the lake. Which is very cool, but at the same time, very expensive.
Mason nudges me. “You excited yet?”
“Yeah,” I say. “For a second there, I thought you were going to pull a Frank and rent a canoe.”
“And paddle in circles all day?” Mason asks, remembering the day Frank took us canoeing. “Never again.”
We watch the video. And after I change into the shorts Mason brought for me, and we both ditch our socks and sneakers, the marina employee hands each of us a life jacket. We zip and buckle as we follow her out the door to the dock.
Stopping at a red Jet Ski, she says, “Here you go! Full tank. It’s yours for an hour.”
Mason steps onto it and straddles the seat. Waves splash over his bare feet.
“Put your hand though here,” the woman says about the strap that is attached to the key. “You won’t want to swim after it. Plus, there’s a little clock so you can tell the time.”
“Great,” Mason says to her, his wrist through the strap. Then to me, “Climb aboard.”
Which sounded like a great invitation. Right? But climbing onto a small, bobbing watercraft from a small, bobbing dock without grabbing on to one’s rather cute best friend’s arm, shoulder, or waist is harder than it sounds. Especially when said watercraft sinks under your weight and you get wet up to your ankles in freezing-cold lake water. I stifle a yelp.
“Have fun, boys!” the woman says as she gives the Jet Ski a little shove so we move away from the dock.
I look back at her and she’s still waving. I wave too.
Mason steers it out of the bay and we putt along like we’re in a golf cart. I put my hands behind me, wrapping my fingers around the sides of the seat so I won’t topple off into the lake if a wave comes our way.
Then, as if the last of the NO WAKE signs is a checkered flag, Mason guns the engine. The Jet Ski lunges forward and I shoot backward. I catch myself before I splash into the lake. Glad to have an excuse, I wrap my arms around Mason and hang on tight.
“Slow down!” I shout in his ear as I grip his life jacket.
“Why?” His question is torn to shreds by the wind.
“You’re going too fast!”
So Mason slows down. Not golf-cart slow, but to something more tolerable, like a Volkswagen bus. And I slowly peel my arms from around him. The buckles of his life jacket have etched squares in my skin. “Better?” he asks.
“Yes.”
He slows down even more, taking a route along the shore like we are on a tour. “You gave me the Heimlich
maneuver there.”
“Sorry. I didn’t want to fall in.”
“It’s witch-tit cold!” he agrees. Then after a few more minutes of scenery and watching other boats, he asks, “Can we go fast again?”
This time, I wrap my arms around his waist and get good grip before he guns the motor. But I still close my eyes when he crosses through the wake of a big boat and we shoot into the air. I think I count the seconds before we land—and my heart is pounding triple time.
“You see that?” Mason asks, cranking the handlebars and aiming back toward the wake. The Jet Ski slides into a steep turn, and the cold lake water splashes up our legs.
“No. I had my eyes closed.”
He slows the Jet Ski, turns to look at me. His eyes are sad and serious. “Jamie, this is supposed to be fun.”
I shrug. “I’m just not used to it.” A half truth. The rest of which is I’m scared out of my skull of landing in the lake—my body instantly becoming frozen fish food.
“It’s probably because you’re not driving,” he reasons. We slow even more, and he cuts the engine. “Switch with me.”
I don’t know what bothers me more: that we might drop the key into the water and have to swim after it, that I might fall in, or that Mason and I will, um, brush against each other in such a way that renders me speechless. Okay, well, that one wouldn’t be too bad.
I step onto one running board and he steps on the other. The Jet Ski wobbles, reminding me of a soon-to-capsize canoe. When I sit down, Mason sits behind me, close enough that I can feel how warm he is compared to my own damp skin. My brain empties of all other thoughts.
“. . . the throttle, and that’s the gas.” Mason is reaching around me and pointing to things on the handlebars.
Oh, God, he’s explaining something. And I missed it.
“Got it?”
“Yeah,” I say, although the only throttle I’m familiar with is on a lawn mower.
He pulls the strap from his wrist and hands me the key. His arm brushes mine, and I close my fingers too soon. They close on air. My heart leaps at the thought of dropping the key.
“Here,” Mason says, pressing it into my fingers and practically closing them over it.
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