by Anna Martin
They huddled together with the rest of the group, Scott moving their teammates around so Evan shifted to quarterback. It was a less familiar position for him, but Evan knew this play, knew the magic Scott was going to pull out of his bag of tricks. He was a competitive little shit and, even for a midnight beach game, wouldn’t want to lose.
“Ready?” Scott asked, and they broke with whoops and cheers, then settled easily into positions.
Karen, on the other team, called the start of play, and Evan jogged back a few feet with the ball, faked to the left, then passed the ball to Katie, who’d run behind him.
It was slick, too quick and too dark for the other team to notice what they’d done. Evan jogged alongside her as Katie took off along the outermost left edge of the field, then passed to Scott as she made contact with him. He vaulted over Marcus, playfully shoved Josh, then dove into a touchdown that was totally unnecessary.
Scott danced like an idiot in celebration, and Evan threw his head back and laughed to the moon.
The light in his basement wasn’t the best for painting. Because of the way his mom’s house was built on a hill, the basement opened out onto the backyard, so there was some natural light down there. Years ago he’d convinced his mom to let him convert it from her personal minigym—which she’d never used—to Evan’s studio.
He’d been serious about art for about four years. For a long time, he’d sucked. But wasn’t that always the way of it? First you sucked, then you practiced, then you got good.
Evan cocked his head to the side, appraising his current piece.
Thundering footsteps interrupted his contemplation.
“When your mom said you were painting the walls, this isn’t what I imagined,” Scott said, pausing on the bottom step and grinning at Evan.
“Couldn’t find a canvas big enough,” Evan said. He didn’t mind the interruption, not when it was Scott.
“Is it a… what is it?”
Evan laughed. “It’s a painting.”
“Mural?”
He made a noncommittal noise. “It’s a painting on a wall. And it isn’t finished.”
“Well, duh,” Scott said sarcastically. He bounced down from the bottom step and walked over to stand just behind Evan, so close Evan could feel Scott’s heat at his back, his breath on his neck.
Evan stood very, very still.
“Why don’t you ever show people stuff like this?” Scott asked softly. His whole demeanor had changed. He was quiet now, soft. Gentle.
“Because I don’t want to,” Evan said mildly.
“Yeah, but, Ev….”
“Scott.”
“This is incredible.”
“It’s not finished.”
“Okay,” Scott said, apparently not ready or willing to push. “Okay. Did you forget?”
“Probably.”
“We were supposed to go meet people at the mall.”
“Oh. Which people?”
Scott pushed his shoulder and laughed. “Girls. And some guys. We were going to grab a milkshake and then maybe a movie.”
“How incredibly wholesome.”
“Then Andy got some weed to smoke out the back of the parking lot after, when it’s not so hot.”
“Oh, thank God,” Evan said dramatically. “I was starting to worry about you.”
Scott pushed his shoulder again and plucked at the denim shirt Evan was wearing. It was covered in paint.
“Come on. Go change. We’re running late already.”
Evan didn’t want to put the paints down, not when he’d finally found a rhythm with this piece that felt good, organic and inspiring at the same time. It fizzed through him and made his fingers twitch for another brush, thick and heavy in his hand or delicate and fine. Blue or gold.
“Evan.”
“Okay,” he said, turning away from the painting. It would be good to take a break from it, to see it again in a different light. Literally. “Can you pack this away for me?”
Scott knew how to preserve the paints so they wouldn’t crust over. He knew the Kings didn’t have a lot of money to spend on things like paint.
“Sure. I’ll meet you back upstairs.”
Evan nodded and took the back staircase, the one that went from the basement to the second floor, where his bedroom was. It was the same room that had been his own his whole life, his single-child status meaning it had never been shared.
In recent years, some of his older posters had been taken down, and over Thanksgiving weekend the previous year, Evan and his mom had repainted the whole room a neutral cream color. They’d upgraded his bed too, which had been desperately needed. Evan was tall, and the old single bed was way too small. These days he had a queen-size, covered in navy-plaid sheets, with drawers underneath to hide the things he didn’t want his mother to find.
Instead of the posters, Evan had hung some of his favorite pieces on the walls. He wasn’t particularly fond of his own work, or displaying it, but these had particular significance. The hazy charcoal portrait of his six-year-old self and his mother—the photo taken long before he’d met Scott. A pencil sketch of their house in a tiny frame. The big, bold canvas of red and gold that was Scott. Not the shape of Scott, not a picture of him, but the only attempt Evan had made to try to capture his best friend’s essence. Bold and bright and imperfectly perfect.
Evan skimmed his fingers over the acrylic as he walked past it to the closet, then quickly changed.
Ten minutes later, they were in Scott’s Honda, a gift from his parents for his birthday. Scott was a summer baby, so almost a whole year younger than Evan.
That was only the start of their differences.
Scott’s family was still in one piece. His parents were still married, after twenty-five years, and he had an older brother who was in college and a younger sister who was not a brat anymore. Scott’s mom worked at the hospital, doing something with blood that always turned Evan’s stomach when she talked about it, and his dad worked in insurance. Scott’s mom had helped Evan’s mom get a job at the hospital too, and she’d worked there as a receptionist for almost ten years now. Evan knew it was the sort of kindness that would be repaid for a long time.
In the crudest terms, Scott’s family was rich, and Evan’s mom wasn’t. The only thing that she’d been left with when his dad abandoned them was the house, and thank God, or they’d likely be living in a tiny apartment somewhere. It wasn’t much, and it was a money pit, and Evan had been working weekends and summers since he was fourteen to help out around the house.
And Scott had never made it awkward.
Scott was good at everything—at school, football, and he was a pretty decent singer. He was attractive in both conventional and unconventional ways. His dark brown hair was too long on top; it flopped into his eyes, meaning he had to push it out of the way all the time. Evan sometimes thought that was on purpose. His eyes were bright, bright blue. There was a dent in his chin, and when he smiled, deep dimples appeared in his cheeks.
Scott had a habit of drinking cherry slushies, which stained his mouth dark red, and Evan knew, from paying slightly too close attention, that Scott’s bottom lip was plumper than the top. Especially in the middle.
The Sparrow family didn’t flaunt their wealth, not like some of the other families in town. They didn’t drive ostentatious cars or go on family vacations to Europe. But their kids always had new, clean clothes and brand-name sneakers. The Sparrow kids all had college funds and inheritances, which were tied up until they graduated.
Evan wasn’t jealous; jealousy was the wrong word. He looked into Scott’s family with a strange sort of longing. It wasn’t just that he came from a single-mom, only-child family and they had a lot: siblings and cousins and grandparents. It was that they all had one another. There was so much love to go around.
Scott sang along with the radio at the top of his voice, windows down even though the car had air-conditioning, letting the summer spill inside. The mall was a good choice in this hea
t; out-of-towners flocked to the beach, where they’d sizzle and burn. The locals hid in the cool malls and movie theaters or their own backyards. For a week or two more, then school would start and the beaches would be safe again.
Evan laughed at Scott and joined in on the choruses. He noticed that he still had acrylic paint on his cargo shorts. There was cerulean blue matted in his leg hair, and that was going to hurt like a bitch when he scrubbed it out.
They swung into the parking lot at the mall, in one of the few spaces that would be in the shade for the rest of the afternoon. Scott treated this victory like any other—a stupid, butt-wriggling dance that always made Evan laugh.
“Come on. The others will be there by now.”
Scott rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically as he hauled himself out of the car and slammed the door, pressing the button on his key to lock it. He threw his arm around Evan’s shoulders as they walked into the blessedly air-conditioned building, taking the shortcut through JCPenney to the food court.
“You’re too tall now,” Scott complained after Evan ducked out from the hug, sick of stooping as they walked along.
“I grew almost three inches this summer.”
Scott leered.
“In height, you asshole,” Evan added with a laugh. “My bones hurt.”
“Really? Is that a thing?”
“Apparently so. My mom asked someone at work, and they said to just take Tylenol for it. There’s not a lot anyone can do.”
“That sucks.”
The burger bar in the mall was independently owned, rather than being part of a chain. Kids from school liked it because of the big booths, meaning they could make out without being seen from the main thoroughfare in the mall.
Evan liked it because they made a chocolate milk shake with chocolate ice cream, which had real chocolate in it rather than just weird chocolate flavorings. There was something almost childishly reassuring about good chocolate milk shake.
“Two, please,” Scott said when Evan recounted his order to the waitress. “What? I’m in the mood for chocolate milk shake.”
“Why don’t you just share one?” Andy teased.
“Gay,” Cassie sang, drawing out the word.
Scott was too much of a gentleman to tell a girl to fuck off, even when Cassie was being obnoxious, and Evan was used to shrugging off those kinds of insults. Scott’s mom nicknamed him “Teflon,” because nothing ever stuck to him. It had taken him years to get the joke.
“Because Cap has the appetite of a walrus, and I want my milk shake,” Evan said easily.
Scott laughed and pushed his shoulder, and it was fine.
The movie was terrible, and Scott spent most of it making out with Katie McCarren. Evan excused himself to the bathroom halfway through and took a new seat, on the end of the row, when he returned. That way he didn’t have to watch or listen to his best friend slobbering into some girl’s mouth.
Evan skipped the joint the rest of his friends indulged in after the movie, not liking the woolly feeling it put in his head, not when he wanted to go back to his painting when he got home. If he got high, he’d just spend the evening watching TV and eating Doritos, and though there was merit in that plan, he had better things to do.
“How are you getting to school on Monday?” Scott asked as he pulled up in front of Evan’s house. Evan wasn’t convinced Scott was okay to drive, but he’d insisted, and Evan hadn’t been in the mood to push.
“I’ll walk. Like I always do.”
“I’ll pick you up.”
“It’s fine, Scott,” Evan sighed. “Seriously.”
“I’ll pick you up,” Scott insisted. “Be ready for seven thirty, or I’ll come in and drag you out of bed myself.”
“Fine.”
It was seven thirty-five when Scott pulled up, blasting his horn, apparently not caring that Evan had neighbors. Neighbors who had kids.
He grabbed his backpack and slung it over his shoulder, then jogged out of the house. His mom was working but not until later. Evan would be on his own for dinner.
“Get in, loser. We’re going shopping,” Scott called out the open window.
Evan laughed as he opened the door and shoved his backpack between his feet. “You are such a geek. I have no idea why people think you’re cool.”
“I am cool,” Scott said as he pulled away from the house. “I am.”
“You keep telling yourself that.”
“Are you ready?” Scott asked as he stopped at the red light at the end of Evan’s street. “Last year of high school, yo.”
“I think so. Doesn’t matter, either way it’s gonna happen.”
“True. How long do you reckon it’ll be until some teacher starts reminding us about GPAs and college applications?”
“Fifteen minutes?”
“Ten bucks says it’s five.”
“You’re on.”
Evan only lived a few blocks from the high school. He’d been in this area long enough to know all the cut-throughs, the paths down the side of his neighbors’ garages that no one minded him walking, ducking under fences that led onto the football field. It almost took longer to drive around than it did for Evan to walk.
The parking lot was already starting to get busy when Scott pulled in. There wasn’t any assigned parking for staff or students, though school tradition said the teachers parked close to the school building. It had become cool to park as far away from the teachers as possible, at the back of the lot under the cover of trees. That meant you could smoke in peace, smoke pretty much whatever you wanted, and no one would notice or care.
Evan and Scott had the same homeroom class, one toward the back of the school building. The first day of the new school year was always crazy, people swarming everywhere, kids who didn’t know their way around standing wide-eyed, stunned into silence. Evan kept his head down and didn’t offer to help.
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Andy called as he strolled over on long legs. Scott’s nickname was inevitable; with the surname Sparrow and his position as captain of the school football team, it had arrived and then stuck firmly the previous year.
“Andy,” Scott said, saluting.
“When are tryouts, then?”
“Are you serious? I haven’t even gotten to my locker yet.”
Andy sighed dramatically. “Come on. You’re supposed to have all of this organized and ready to go. People are going to be asking me all day, and I want to have an answer.”
“I really don’t know,” Scott said, stopping at the locker bank where he and Evan had shared side-by-side lockers for the past two years.
All of the padlocks got reset at the beginning of the year to a 0000 code; setting it took concentration, and Evan tuned out of the conversation as he adjusted the number to 0808—Scott’s birthday.
“I’ll talk to Coach, set up some dates,” Scott was saying as Evan unloaded a few textbooks and paperbacks he needed to return to the library into his locker. It was empty from when he’d cleared it out at the end of last year, so since he didn’t have anything to pull out, he slammed it shut and leaned against it.
“Okay.”
Scott threw his arm around Evan’s neck, pulling him down into a rough hug as they started up the hall toward their first class.
“Get off me, asshole,” Evan laughed. He pushed Scott away, then punched him on the arm so Scott knew he didn’t really mind.
“Sure I can’t convince you to try out this year?” Scott asked.
They turned the corner and both paused at the bottom of the school’s main set of stairs. This was how Evan worked out—four flights of stairs up to homeroom every morning. Not that he was unfit. Far from it.
“I don’t want to play for a team, no,” Evan said. He swung his arm into the second strap of his backpack and settled it over his shoulders.
“You’re good though, man,” Scott complained. “And we’re good together.”
“Gay,” Andy sang from behind them.
“Fuck off,” Sco
tt said easily. “Seriously, though. We’d win with you.”
“You’ll win without me,” Evan said.
“Well, yeah. But we’ll win by more points with you.” Scott shot him a devilish grin.
“It stops being fun when people get all competitive.”
Evan had had this argument with Scott too many times before. He liked sports, didn’t even mind the competition from time to time. But people turned mean on a football field or the basketball court, and it always managed to rub him the wrong way. It wasn’t fun when someone was screaming at him to stop being such a girl, or calling him a pussy if he pulled out of a rough tackle. Or a faggot if he didn’t throw hard enough, run fast enough, be butch enough.
“The competition is what makes it fun,” Scott argued.
“For you.”
“You’re not going to win this one, Cap,” Andy said. “Leave him to his pretty pictures.”
Evan stopped abruptly, causing Andy to stumble behind him on the stairs. He frowned down, and Andy put his hands up, a gesture of surrender.
“Your beautiful pieces of incredible art,” Andy amended.
“That’s better,” Evan grumbled.
He was sure there was some irony in his situation. He didn’t get picked on for being artistic or needing reading glasses or being, as his mom put it, a “sensitive soul.” He got away with all these things because he was only a few days away from his eighteenth birthday and already six foot two and around a hundred and sixty pounds of fairly solid muscle.
Genetics, inevitably, played a part in this. From what he knew of his father, the man had been a Marine and built like one. His father had left when Evan was around three years old, and Evan remembered him only in the vaguest of terms. His parents had been married for five years in total, and for four of those, Evan’s dad had been out of the service. According to his mom, Mitchell King had never adjusted to civilian life and had chosen to rejoin the military when Evan was still a toddler. His mom kept the house, on the agreement that Mitchell didn’t pay child support. In the long run, it was probably a good deal.
Even though he’d inherited his father’s build, Evan’s features and temperament were all his mother. His skin was quick to tan like hers, and his hair lightened to almost white in the sun. She didn’t like it when he wore it too short. Evan guessed it was because it made him look too much like the Marines that reminded her of Mitchell, so he kept it long, tucking around his ears in softly curling strands.