by John Goode
EPIC!
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
ADVANCE STEP
I WANTED a Mustang; he wanted an SUV. I wanted another Jeep; he wanted a Volvo. I wanted a convertible; he wanted a minivan.
“Did you get turned into a forty-five-year-old soccer mom when I was in the hospital?” I asked him at the third lot we looked at.
He didn’t say anything, but he had a sour look on his face.
I thought car shopping would be like actual shopping but for much cooler things. Instead it turned out to be a lot of numbers and safety figures that did not take into account how cool metallic red with a deep clear coat looked. I wanted something stylish, something flashy. He wanted something practical, something that would save on gas.
But there was more to Dad’s shopping than that.
He was asking way too many questions, doing so much more than just kicking tires. I’ll admit it took me till the fourth lot until I noticed it, but give me a break, I did notice it.
“What’s going on?” I asked him as we looked over another mess of cars we weren’t going to agree on.
“What?” he asked me back. “I want to make sure we get the right car.”
“Right for what?” I said, not letting him off the hook that easily. “I mean, what’s your criteria here?”
He didn’t say anything at first; he just walked around this ugly Geo like he was really thinking about buying it, but I knew he was just stalling for time to put the right words in order. Finally he sighed and looked up at me. “The last car I bought ended up saving your life. Do you think I’m going to ask anything less from this one?”
That shut my big mouth up in a hurry.
Finally we were able to come to a compromise. We got a Ford Fusion—one, because it looked the least nerdy of the cars he liked, and two, because it got great gas mileage along with that emergency thing on the mirror that lets you talk to someone. So if I broke down or had an accident, I could push a button and get help. The car wasn’t cheap, but the insurance settlement covered it with very little to spare.
Just enough to get to Dallas and back, it turned out.
“You do know I should take what’s left and put it towards insurance, right?” my dad said as we drove back to base.
“Yeah, but you wouldn’t do that because I’m your only son and just got over a debilitating car accident, so you want me to be happy.” I glanced over at him during a red light and gave him the widest-eyed, most innocent look I could muster. “Right, Daddy?”
He burst out laughing as the light turned green. “Okay, okay! If you never call me Daddy again, I’ll drop it.”
It was a fair deal all around.
“So no texting in the car,” my dad began, reciting to me his version of the Ten Commandments when we got home. “No drinking, no speeding, no anything you would not do if I was in the car. If I find you’ve broken even one rule—”
“You will take the car away and throw me in the dungeon I’m sure you’re in the process of building,” I finished for him.
“You’ll be lucky if you’re alive to get to a dungeon,” he warned.
“I promise,” I said to him, texting Nate. “I am a complete angel in the car, no second chances.”
“Danny,” he said, getting my attention. “You had a second chance—you almost died. Let’s just act like there are no more do-overs, okay?”
I nodded, realizing he really was worried for me. Or, more likely, scared out of his mind.
The next week was like living in slow motion.
School sucked, but that was the same as it always had been. Except with no basketball, it seemed even worse. Every single second was another second that kept me away from the weekend. Nate had e-mailed me directions to Amy’s house, and I plugged them into the car’s GPS. I was so ready.
I threw enough clothes into my duffel to last me a week because I had no idea what we were going to be doing up there, and I wanted to be ready. My dad made sure he had the numbers of someone living everywhere I would be, and even called Amy’s parents to make sure they knew I was coming. I mean, the president went places with less fanfare than this.
Finally Friday arrived, and I had been wrong. This was the longest day in the entire world. First period was, like, a week and a half, and by the time it was over, I was close to gnawing my own arm off to get away. Second period was even worse, so by third I texted my dad and asked if I could just bounce during lunch to get a head start.
He texted me back that I could, but only if I didn’t have any work for those classes.
Luckily for me, I had already thought of that.
I texted him back that I was good, and he said to call him every hour or so on the road.
My feet never touched the ground as I flew to my car and took off.
As soon as I was out of Corpus, the world I knew as Texas fell away. There was nothing as far as I could see on either side, just a flatness that, I had to admit, was a little overwhelming. Not many people really understand how huge Texas is until they’re in the middle of it and have to stare it down. I mean, you could put, like, four other states in here and still have room left over, and most of it was a lot of nothing. Just land and land that went on for miles with nothing to break it up but the horizon. As I drove, the nothing was just something to get through to spend time with Nate. But as the hours went on and on, I realized the nothing was larger than I had thought. I had driven four hours straight, and I was barely halfway there. I pulled over and got myself some much needed caffeine for the next part.
I completely ignored the fact my leg was aching when I walked the minimarket, grabbing a couple of Monsters and a Snickers bar to go. I desperately wanted to lie down and let my leg relax, but the fact I was over six and a half feet tall made that an impossibility. The small benches in the minimart would have barely fit me if I was normal sized, so I was shit out of luck. I absently rubbed the side of my leg as I waited in line to be rung up.
Which was when I saw the guy across the store staring at me.
I was so shocked this guy was intently looking at me that I didn’t even notice he was halfway cute. A little older than me, he looked like he was in college and was trying to bore a hole through my head the way he had locked eyes with me. When he saw me looking, he smiled and nodded. I nodded back and looked away, confused. Did I know him? He didn’t look familiar, but that didn’t mean anything. There were days I’d forget my name if it wasn’t written on my driver’s license. I glanced over again, and he was pretending to look at something on the shelf, but his eyes were still looking up at me.
He motioned his head to the right.
I had no idea what he was talking about.
He jerked his head again, and I looked to the right and saw the bathrooms.
When I looked back at him, his smile got wider, and he nodded.
“You’re up, stretch,” the cashier called out to me.
I paid for the gas and my stuff quickly as my mind began to decipher what was going on. Was that guy hitting on me? Like, for real? I got my change and looked over again, and he wasn’t there. He had no doubt gone to the bathroom to wait.
I almost ran to my car in fear.
My hands shook as I tried to put the key into the ignition. I wasn’t an idiot. I knew there were guys who cruised rest stops and bathrooms like that. I’d just never thought it would happen to me. I mean, did he know about me? Was I giving off some kind of sign he could tell? I almost stalled the car as I tried to race out of the parking lot. I got maybe ten miles away before I stopped checking my rearview mirror to see if he was following me. I knew it was stupid, but I was still terrified.
I suppose I should have been flattered, but I felt the same way I had in Germany when my dad asked me if I’d done what Joshua had said. Dirty, ashamed…. I pulled over and threw up on the side of the road.
I washed my mouth out with a Monster and continued toward Dallas a few minutes later. I made sure not to stop again.
An hour from the city, I
got a text from Nate asking me where I was. I pulled over to call him back and explained where I was. “It says, like, an hour with traffic,” I explained, talking over the cars that rushed past me on the freeway.
“Yeah, once you get through Dallas it’s, like, just north of it,” he explained. “Just keep on I-75 and you’ll be fine.” I heard someone ask something in the background. “Yeah, you’re going to be cutting it close for the show. You want to just meet us there at the school? ’Cause we’re going to dinner after.”
I’d finished my last Snickers about fifty miles back, and dinner sounded good. “Yeah, text me the address to the school, and I’ll put it in the GPS.”
His voice got high. “Oh, look at you with the sophisticated GPS. Aren’t you special?”
“I am,” I quipped back. “But it’s okay, Nate. I’ll still tell people you’re my friend.”
He laughed. “Whatever, smartass, just get here already.”
He hung up, and a few seconds later he texted me the school’s address. I punched it into the GPS and took one last stretch before getting back into the car. I was almost there—one more hour and I could stop fucking moving. Dallas was a huge city, and I had to admit I wasn’t ready for it at first. I had been lulled by Corpus, and Texas in general, to believe that it was more a sprawling mass of nothing than an actual modern place, but as I drove into Dallas proper I found I was completely wrong.
More than just big, it was modern, sleek—in a word, exciting.
The traffic was horrible, of course, but even that was cool to me, since the most traffic we ever saw in Corpus was when some dumbass couldn’t figure out how to get off the freeway correctly and tied up traffic for a whole ten minutes. This was actual traffic from too many people all going somewhere at the same time. It was kind of cool.
For about twenty minutes, and then I was over it.
I honked my horn a few times and even screamed at a few people as I slowly but surely made it through downtown intact. I followed Nate’s directions faithfully, and within a half hour, I was through the mess and on my way to Richardson. I pulled up in front of the school and realized I might have actually read the directions instead of just blindly following them.
It was a Catholic school.
Well. I assume Catholic because that was the beginning and end of everything I knew about religion. It looked like a nice place, all things considered, but as I parked, I couldn’t help but feel like I was sneaking into enemy territory. I texted Nate I was there, and minutes later he came out of the school with a huge smile on his face.
“Magellan has arrived!” he called out to me. “I had even odds you would get lost somewhere downtown.”
I hugged him and took a second to relish the fact I was with him again. “Almost, but the thought of food kept me moving.”
He patted me on the back and walked me into the school. “It’s about to start, and then, trust me, Amy’s parents always go to this kickass BBQ place that will fill you up.”
The halls we walked looked just like a normal high school except for the religious imagery all over the place. There was a case with sports trophies just like ours, except there were a crap ton more trophies. “So her brother goes here? Like, for high school?”
He nodded as we walked into a huge auditorium. “Yeah. Amy went here too. It’s a great school if you can get in.” When he saw I was confused, he explained, “It’s a private school, and not a cheap one either.”
I couldn’t imagine, having gone to high school for free; paying for it seemed insane.
There were almost a hundred parents in the auditorium, all of them dressed like they had way more money than my dad ever made. Nate walked us almost to the front, where there was a collection of people sitting waiting for the show to start. I recognized Amy from her appearance on Nate’s Skype sessions.
She gave me a huge smile and stood up quickly. “Danny!” she exclaimed like we had been friends forever. “You’re taller than he said you were.” She hugged me, and I hesitated for a second before hugging her back. You ever meet those people who are just so happy, they make you happy by osmosis? Amy was one of those people.
“Yeah, trust me; ‘little brother’ is a joke on many levels,” Nate said from behind me.
“Mom, Dad, this is Nate’s brother, Danny,” she said after we hugged. Her parents gave me warm smiles, and her dad shook my hand.
“How was the drive? Had to be tiring,” he said as we sat down.
“It wasn’t bad,” I lied, my leg throbbing from being still for so long. “I had a lot of caffeine and music, so it was all good.”
They nodded and laughed, and I looked over to Nate. “Brother?”
He shrugged. “Might as well be,” he said, smiling. “’Sides, what do they care?”
The lights went down, which was good because it hid the huge smile that had broken out across my face.
The first few presentations were from younger guys, like freshman doing some lip syncing and one guy doing a violin thing that looked like it was hard as shit to play. Next were the sophomores, and you could see the routines were getting a little more involved with costumes and set decorations. Some were cool, but it was mainly parents who were digging it.
Then the juniors came out and did their thing, and the difference was like night and day. Where before there were just groups of guys going up there lip syncing, these guys were actually singing and doing a pretty good job at it. After the normal kids sang, the football team came out in their letterman jackets and sang an a capella version of a One Direction song. It was better than it sounds, and the girls in the crowd went ape shit as the jocks bumped and ground to the beat.
Nate nudged me and said the guy on the end was Amy’s brother.
They got a standing ovation, of course, because who doesn’t like seeing jocks sing and dance in rhythm? The juniors cleared off and the announcer introduced the varsity baseball team, and the crowd got quiet in anticipation. The lights went down, and the familiar guitar thrum from “Stacy’s Mom” came blaring over the speakers. I heard a couple of girls scream when the lights flashed once and a spotlight hit a jock who was singing. At the next beat, another light and another jock. Three beats, then the song started, and the lights came up on stage, revealing the baseball team.
In board shorts, sunglasses, a pair of socks, and nothing else.
If I thought people went crazy over the football team, it was nothing compared to the sight of a dozen shirtless baseball players singing on stage. They were all ripped and hot. I mean, that was obvious, but all of them together just multiplied the effect tenfold. They looked like the youngest troupe of male strippers in the world. My mouth went dry, and I felt myself get a little hard as the song began.
I watched the guys on the end push around fake lawnmowers while the guy in the center sang, and I was just blown away over how hot these guys were. They were all wearing white socks, which made the whole effect even hotter for some reason. My eyes had no idea where to look, but when I focused on the guy singing, I knew I had been looking at the wrong guy this entire time.
The guy was Sam.
I want to say “my Sam,” but that’s silly, since I had never even said one word to him. But it was still how I felt. That was my Sam, and he was shirtless up there being the hottest guy in the world. His hair was wild, the shaggy blond locks glowing under the stage lights making him look like an angel. His body was even better than the pics had shown. Every single cut of every muscle was perfectly defined as he stalked the stage, singing to the audience. He owned that song and the crowd. He grinned at the girls, singing how Stacy’s mom might need a guy like him, and I knew if there was a universal symbol for sex, Sam’s grin while he sang was it.
The guys behind him kind of swayed together to the beat, but trying to watch them was useless, because I couldn’t tear my eyes off my Sam.
He pushed his sunglasses up onto his head, and I could see the bright blue of his eyes glimmer at me from the lights. He was leaning fo
rward, and I could see a string of puka shells around his neck that made him look like the perfect surfer boy. Girls ran up to the stage and waved their hands at him as he passed by, like he was an actual rock star.
This guy was openly gay? How did that happen?
He paced the stage as he asked if Stacy remembered when he’d mowed her lawn, and even more girls screamed in response. I looked around and no one had anything less than a huge smile on their face. People were standing up and swaying with the music. Most of them women.
What was going on?
I looked over at Nate, and I caught him staring at me with a small smile. He leaned closer to my ear and whispered, “Don’t ever tell me I didn’t get you anything.”
He sat back, and I just gaped at him in shock. Erotic shock, but shock nonetheless.
A few people performed after the baseball team, but I don’t recall them. Every time I closed my eyes, I could see my Sam’s body in front of me, like I had been staring at the sun too long. If I had thought he was perfect after looking at the pictures on Facebook, I was assured he was more than perfect by seeing him in person. Midway through the senior presentations, Amy’s brother, Conner, came and joined us, his letterman jacket under his arm since he had looked like he was ready to pass out on stage.
Amy introduced me to him in whispers so as to not interrupt the people on stage.
“Oh yeah,” he whispered, shaking my hand. “The basketball guy, right?”
I nodded, wondering what Nate had told them about me.
He looked me up and down for a few seconds and then chuckled. “Yeah, Sam’s going to love you.”
I felt my heart skip a beat as he went back to watching the presentations.
Turning to Nate, I grabbed the front of his shirt and asked, “What did you tell them about me?”
He looked a little worried by the intensity of my question. “What, dude? You wanted to meet him, right?” I said nothing. “I talked to Amy who talked to Conner who talked to Sam.” When he saw I wasn’t even breathing, he patted me on the back. “Calm down, man. If we can get a man on the moon, we can get at least one under you.”