by K. Z. Snow
As far as I could tell, Rider hadn’t done anything out of line.
I was no sooner in the hallway than a black-haired girl named Della came up to me. She seemed a little nervous.
“Um, Jake?”
I pulled up short and gawked at her.
“You look really nice today.”
“Thanks.” I reflexively touched my shoulder to adjust my backpack, which was a nervous habit I had while talking to people I didn’t know very well. Only, the backpack wasn’t there. Brody had suggested we start keeping our books in our lockers during the school day so we wouldn’t ruin our makeovers by looking like clones of the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
“Do you want to hang out sometime?” Della asked. “Like this weekend?”
I darted a glance through the window in Ms. Anderson’s door. Maybe I was hoping Rider would come out and rescue me. Not that his presence would suddenly give me an answer to Della’s question, but it might help me feel less adrift. No girl had ever asked me such a thing before.
What I saw in that second threw me off even more than Della’s invitation. Ms. Anderson, who was leaning quite invitingly against her desk, reached up and touched one of the beads in Rider’s hair.
Okay, so it wasn’t like sticking her hand down his pants. She probably wanted to know more about Rider’s braiding and hair-decorating techniques. Fancee Nancee was always doing herself up in different ways.
I cleared my throat. My gaze drifted over the triangular floor tiles on its way back to Della’s expectant face. “Like, hang out where, doing what?”
Della shrugged. “Whatever you want.” Her cheeks were pink. I couldn’t tell if the color was natural or brushed on.
Shit, I thought. Shit, shit, shit. Della was quiet and bright, not shrill and silly—I seriously cringed when girls got shrill and silly, just like I cringed when guys acted like barbarians—and she was kind of pretty. She had blue eyes that weren’t all gloppy with makeup and a sleek, blunt-cut hairstyle with bangs.
“Okay, I guess so,” I said, and immediately began stressing out over her interpretation of “hanging out.” From what I’d been able to gather, it could mean anything from playing cards or video games to getting a blow job. Most guys hoped it meant the latter. I didn’t. “I don’t have a car, though, so we’ll have to stay on campus.”
“That’s cool,” she said brightly. “We could go skiing or just chill in the lounge, maybe watch a movie or listen to music or something.”
I relaxed a little. “Yeah, okay. It’ll have to be Sunday, though. I’m going ice fishing tomorrow.”
Della smiled. “Great! That’ll give me something to look forward to while I get my homework done.”
She asked for my phone and gave me hers, and we entered each other’s number. Don’t look forward to it too much, I thought as she jogged away.
Maybe I should’ve warned her I wasn’t Mr. Excitement.
I slipped another look through Ms. Anderson’s window. She was standing up straight now, smiling into Rider’s face. He gestured toward the door.
I couldn’t tell if he was eager to get away or regretful about having to leave. In any case, I had to get to my next class.
BY THE time our gang met for supper, it was apparent Brody had yapped about the virginity thing in his sixth-hour H and H class. A smartass senior we privately called Andre the Giant, because he liked bragging about his penile endowment, pointed at us in the cafeteria and called out, “Virgin alert! Virgin alert!”
“Hold your heads high, boys,” Brody muttered to us without moving his lips.
Oddly enough, I didn’t have a problem with that. I’d finally begun to feel more confident. Being asked out by Della was an ego boost, sure, but it was Rider calling me “beautiful” that had worked a strange and powerful magic on my psyche.
In a way it was painful too. I’d been inching up to a glaring new reality in my life, the kind that’s impactful and permanent and can’t be ignored. Recent events had given me a big shove toward facing that reality full on. The prospect had my insides tied in a hundred tight knots.
I hoped Della’s invitation would loosen the knots. In fact, I hoped spending time with her would untie them completely and forever take away their reason for being. Never again did I want some dude on Teen Wolf or any other TV show filling me with vague yearning. Never again did I want a simple compliment from my roommate putting me on a cloud.
“I got asked on a date,” I blurted out once we were all seated at our table.
What a picture! The savory steam sent up by plates of roasted chicken wreathed four wide-eyed stares.
“Seriously?” Rider asked. I couldn’t read his expression aside from the mild surprise registered there.
I nodded.
“Told you how good you looked today,” he said, giving me one of his signature gazes, the kind that went straight through the pupils. His eyes and his words seemed to trip along my stomach lining.
“Way. To. Go. Jake.” Brody raised his hand, and we high-fived.
“Dude!” Carlton did the same.
“Who is she?” Tim asked with a smile.
“Della Belizaire.”
“Oh yeah,” Tim said, “she’s in a few of my classes. Smart girl. Friendly too. She’s acing environmental studies.” He carefully buttered a dinner roll.
“How come you never asked her out?” Brody wanted to know.
Tim shrugged. “Guess she doesn’t move me in the right way.”
As I dug into my food, I hoped with the power of a particle accelerator that she’d move me in the right way.
Chapter Four
THE COLDER it got and the longer it stayed cold, the more ice-fishing shanties and pickup trucks appeared on the bay. From the vantage point of Ben Raphael’s frontage, they spread to the east, northeast, and southwest as if they’d erupted from the water. Thin curls of smoke from chimney pipes marked the locations of the better shacks.
We didn’t have a shanty, much less one with a woodstove. All we had was a big communal hole. In the ice, I mean. Fishing was a lot more fun when we did it this way—sitting in a circle, shooting the shit and laughing, feeling the tugs on our lines, sharing the triumph of actually catching fish (although we released them), and drinking beer or booze from insulated cups. Not that we were old enough to consume alcoholic beverages, but when in the history of civilization did laws ever stop kids our age from doing shit they weren’t supposed to do?
Getting our grubby mitts on illegal drinks was simple. Most of the students with cars made regular runs into nearby towns. One girl drove to Green Bay nearly every weekend, where she had an older sister willing to make cigarette and liquor purchases for her. Those of us who wanted stuff from the drivers put in orders. Booze, beer, and weed were the most common requests. We buyers never stiffed the drivers and always tipped them well, so it was a lucrative racket for anybody willing to take a few risks.
Condoms were rarely on the shopping lists. Guys could get those on campus. Girls could get birth control too, with their parents’ permission. Ben Raphael’s administration wasn’t composed of nitwit religious zealots. They realized if students wanted to have sex, they’d have sex, so it was in the school’s best interests to prevent pregnancies and the spread of STDs.
Our fishing hole was well beyond the large, cleared rectangle that served as Ben Raphael’s intramural hockey rink. We didn’t want to listen to the jocks braying and bickering and bashing each other. Whether liquid or frozen, the bay was our peaceful place.
Students could rent all kinds of sporting gear from the school’s outfitters, a building near the shore to the northeast of the main campus. By showing our student IDs and signing our names, we got pretty much everything we needed for our fishing outings, although we did have to pay for live bait. Through the same simple procedure, we could also rent canoes and kayaks, cross-country skis and different kinds of skates. Other outdoorsy stuff, too.
None of us rented a tip-up, though. Our fishing hole was too wi
de.
Three of us set up the white buckets we’d sit on while the other two broke the thin ice that had formed over the hole. We had it well marked with three four-foot stakes. They were topped with plastic reflectors and wound with reflective tape, so drivers or snowmobilers who ventured over this way wouldn’t plunge into the frigid water. But few locals bothered coming near the academy’s frontage.
Last year, Rider had punched out a senior named Trey who’d removed the stakes, obviously hoping someone would fall in. My roommate never got into trouble with Admin for this offense, so Trey must’ve been too embarrassed to rat him out.
I’d been so proud of Rider I’d spontaneously hugged him. The other guys had merely clapped him on the back.
“What’re you doing on your date?” Brody asked me as he dropped his line into the water.
I’d just poured some vodka into my mug full of Bloody Mary mix. We all had bottles shoved in our pockets except for Carlton. His coat was lumpy with cans of beer.
“I’m not sure. Maybe go skiing or stay in and watch a movie. Depends on how cold it is tomorrow.”
“Plan on getting lucky?” Rider asked.
I couldn’t read his expression. Although the day was overcast, he wore sunglasses, and his face was downturned as he stared into the water.
“Nah,” I said nonchalantly. “It isn’t that kind of date.”
“Jesus, Rider,” Carlton blustered, “Like, where could they even get it on? Jake doesn’t have a car, and it’s too cold to fuck in the woods. His dick would snap right off—if he could even raise it in the first place.”
Rider chuckled. “Good point, CC.”
“As usual,” Tim said.
I assumed they were both being ironic.
“Besides,” Brody threw in, “we need to stay pure for at least a while. Otherwise the Ben Raphael All-Star Virgin Order will look like all-star schmucks.”
“Or momzers.” Rider yanked on his short fishing rod to set the hook but apparently lost whatever had been nibbling.
“What’re momzers?” Brody asked.
“Sly, deceitful bastards. It’s a Yiddish word.”
“You seem to know a lot of Yiddish words,” Tim noted with mild curiosity.
“Some. My mother’s Jewish.”
I felt my eyes widen as I looked at Rider. He’d never identified with any religion. In fact, he had nothing but contempt for organized religion. And although I knew he had a stepmom, whom he called by her first name, he’d said very little about his biological mother.
“I didn’t know that,” Brody said. “Did you guys know that?” He glanced around at the rest of us.
“There’s a lot you don’t know,” Rider muttered.
I wondered what he meant.
Carlton took a swig from his covered mug full of beer. “Well, that explains one thing.”
Everybody gave him a puzzled look.
“Which is?” Tim prompted.
“What happened to his foreskin.”
Rider snorted. Tim reached into his bait bucket and pitched a minnow at Carlton. Brody laughed, and I tried to smile, although I could tell I was blushing. We’d all seen each other naked at one time or another—we’d gone skinny-dipping together and had to use the gym’s communal showers after phys ed—but I hadn’t seen Rider unclothed so far this year. And this year I seemed especially sensitive to his… charms.
Nobody said anything more about religion, a subject that wasn’t of much interest to us, or my date with Della. We slipped into our fishing routine: getting buzzed and talking bullshit and occasionally catching panfish. The bullshit always seemed a whole lot funnier or weightier than it actually was, and we always forgot about it the next day.
When Carlton pulled up a good-sized northern, he got all excited about taking it to a taxidermist. Tim told him to throw it back—he didn’t want a stuffed fish hanging in their room, especially an ugly one—and Brody tried to convince Carlton that hauling it to shore was too big a risk because it might not meet the minimum length requirement for northern pike.
I was feeling pretty looped by that point, not to mention chilled to the bone. I also had to pee something fierce. After laying down my fishing jig I made for shore, where I could at least stand behind a tree while I relieved myself.
That’s when my memory took a crap. I wasn’t entirely used to drinking.
The next time I opened my eyes, or was aware of opening my eyes, I was lying in a snow bank. Rider was kneeling over me and lightly slapping my face.
“Come on, Jake, get up. Come on. Keep your eyes open.”
“Why’re you hitting me?” I struggled to sit.
“To wake up your monkey ass and get you indoors. Now come on. Stand.”
“Where…?” I looked around me. The day’s gray light was waning fast. A yellow patch on my right blazed in the snow like a buried sun.
I was about to touch it when Rider grasped my wrist. “Jesus, don’t put your hand there. You must’ve taken a leak before you passed out.”
I gave him a lopsided grin—at least it felt lopsided—and held up a forefinger. “At least I didn’t piss in the fishing hole.” Brody had once bitched at Carlton for nearly doing that.
Rider held in a smile as he helped me to my feet. “Yeah, as full as your bladder was, you would’ve contaminated the whole bay.”
After stumbling a little, I managed to stand. Then I freaked. “Oh shit, man, where’s my jig?”
“You left it behind. I think Tim grabbed it and took it back.”
Rider held me around the waist while we trudged toward Bolger Hall. I was surprised I’d made it to shore. Damn, was I cold!
As we approached the dorm, Rider let his arm fall away from me. That was smart of him. If Ian, our house fellow, saw us, he’d know something was up. Students got suspended for drinking, first offense, and expelled if they were ever caught again. I willed myself to walk straight. Maybe that nap in the snow had helped sober me up.
“You’re shaking,” Rider said.
Like I needed to be informed of that. “Dude, I am fucking cold.” As soon as we were indoors, the snow on and in my clothing began to melt.
“Why did you open your jacket?”
“I don’t know,” I said miserably. “Probably to get my dick out of my pants.” My jeans and thermals were damp from the snow. My two shirts were damp from the snow.
“Hang on. We’ll get you warm.”
Good thing nearly everybody was in the dining hall. We took the stairs to our floor, which guaranteed we wouldn’t fill the elevator with liquor fumes. Only one guy spotted us, a derpy freshman named Alec, but he was so intent on tapping out a text, he barely managed a “yo.”
Once we were in our room, Rider locked the door and immediately ordered me to strip.
He had no ulterior motive. It was the sensible thing to do. After kicking off my boots, I peeled away my clothes, layer by layer, and let them plop onto the floor at the foot of my bed. Rider hung my jacket on the outside of the closet door so (I assumed) it would dry faster and flattened my gloves on my dresser.
“Oh God,” I groaned when I got to my jeans. “I left my damn fly open.” I pushed the jeans off my legs.
Rider laughed. “You must’ve really been out of it, man.”
I paused when I was down to my underwear. Moisture had wicked into my briefs. Although the room was warm, I was shivering uncontrollably.
“Take ’em off, Jake.” Rider stood behind me, holding up my bathrobe. I slid my arms into it, shoved down my briefs, and kicked them aside. He steered me toward my bed, which he’d turned down while I shed my clothes. “Now get under the covers.”
I didn’t have to be told. As I peered at Rider from beneath a sheet, blanket, and comforter, my teeth chattering, he did the most astonishing thing. He stripped too and put on his robe.
“Aren’t you going to dinner?” I asked.
“I’ll grab something at the café once your body temperature is back to normal. Now move over.”
“What?”
“Move over so there’s room for me.”
“In my bed?”
“No, Jake, on the fucking ceiling.”
He slipped beneath my covers before I had a chance to do anything but move over. He lay close to me, very close, and put an arm and leg and half his robe over me. The heat from his body pulsed against my skin.
I closed my eyes and tried to calm my breathing.
“Even your damned eyelashes are wet,” he murmured, gently drawing his thumbs over them.
“I don’t have any eyelashes.”
Rider chuckled softly. “Yes you do. They’re just… delicate.”
“You’re being nice. You don’t have to. I know what I—”
He silenced me with his lips. By putting them on mine. His lips. A mewing sound fluttered in my throat. My chilled shivering stopped as a new sensation shot through me.
We were kissing!
I didn’t think a guy’s lips would be that soft and warm. But there was no mistaking this for a girl’s kiss. Whiskers poked at the skin around my mouth. And Rider didn’t smell like a girl. And he sure didn’t feel like one.
The kiss didn’t last for more than a few seconds. We hadn’t used our tongues, as much as I’d wanted to.
Rider eased back and ran a hand over my hair. “Was I wrong to do that?”
My head swam. “I’m not sure.” And I wasn’t. But I still wanted him to do it again.
Rider sighed. “I’m not either.”
“Then why’d you do it?”
“Because I’ve been wanting to for a long time. Because I like you a lot and feel close to you and it’s getting harder and harder to pretend I’m not attracted to you.” He shifted slightly, putting more space between us. I wanted to pull him back. “Maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part, but I get the impression the feeling is mutual. That maybe it has been since freshman year.”