When Everything Is Blue

by Laura Lascarso

  “She’s completely off the rails,” Ryanne tells me. “Sometimes she’ll disappear for a couple days and we’ll get a call to come pick her up from some rando’s house, totally wrecked and out of her mind. It’s killing my parents.”

  I commiserate with her while we wait for the food. I tell her about my mom, who had to deal with the same thing with my dad, getting calls in the middle of the night to come pick him up from whatever bar he’d gotten shit-faced at, then having to fight with him to come home in front of everyone else, dealing with his sulky, woe-is-me attitude the next day. I can remember her actually apologizing to him for not being more understanding. What madness. My dad’s an expert gaslighter.

  “That’s bullshit,” Ryanne says, and I wholeheartedly agree.

  When we get back to the beach, we all dig into our subs. Chris tries to give me money for the food, but I tell him to keep it for gas. “I’m a working man now.” To get out of an awkward argument, I grab my board and head back out.

  The winds have picked up and the waves are coming in faster now, rolling a little higher, breaking with more force. I love how the waves can turn on you so quickly. And the summer storms in Florida—they’re the best. I love to watch the clouds roll in like the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the lightning tearing through the black sky like it’s splitting it in two. The way the winds make the palm trees bend to their will with so much power and ferocity. And then the whole thing blows over like it never happened and the sun breaks through again.

  I feel the undertow tugging at my legs as I paddle out to where the water’s beginning to curl. I let a few good ones pass by, then jump on a beastly bomb, biggest one I’ve seen all day. I turn my board away, catching it at just the right angle. But when I’m about to pop up, Lady Macbeth gets caught on the wind and turns up hard. Her nose goes completely vertical and dumps me into a swirly that sucks me in deep. The dump is such a surprise that it knocks the wind out of me and I don’t grab enough air before going under. My legs are trapped in the undertow, making it impossible to climb to the surface.

  I get rag-dolled by the wave, try to grapple my way out of it, and end up getting buried in deeper while the waves still pound me. My lungs are burning, and for a moment I can’t tell which way is up. I sweep with my arms and scissor my legs, kicking as hard as I can. Finally the pressure relents and I’m able to claw my way to the surface. Just as I breach the waves, two massive hands grab hold of my shoulders and yank me the rest of the way out. Chris is treading water right in front of me with a terrified look on his face.

  “Shit, Theo. What took you so long?”

  The alarm on his face makes me wonder how long I was under. I glance around for my board and see that Ryanne has trapped it way down the beach. It must have come untethered from my ankle in the swirly.

  “You okay?” he asks and shakes my shoulders a bit.

  “Should have waited half an hour before swimming,” I say weakly, still breathless and dizzy from lack of oxygen.

  He pushes me away and barks a harsh laugh. “Jesus. You’re such an asshole. You sure you’re all right?”

  “Yeah, caught me by surprise is all.”

  We swim back toward the shore—Chris keeps me at his bow—and catch up with Ryanne and my board. I thank her for retrieving it.

  “That board’s a crazy bitch,” Chris says, spitting into the shallows as we wade out. “You need to give her a rest.”

  “Can’t. She’s mine now. Got to tame her.”

  “Well, take five for my sake. I almost shit my pants.”

  I laugh, which is more like a gurgle, then have a little coughing spell. I must have taken on some water while I was under. Chris thumps my back, and I’m not sure it helps, but it does improve my spirits. Once on the beach, I wrap myself in a towel and lie down in the warm sand. Between waking up at 5:00 a.m. and the near-drowning, I’m pretty pooped. I pass out there on the beach and wake up hours later to find our spot mostly deserted and the sun starting to set.

  “Morning, sunshine,” Chris says. He’s sitting next to me, cheeks ruddy from the sun, hair stiff from the salt water but still with that cherubic curl at the ends. The freckles on his shoulders stand out more, like connect-the-dots. Is it strange that I want to lick the salt crust from his skin? Yeah, a little bit.

  “Where’s the party at?” I ask, sitting up and rubbing my eyes. That’s the routine. Surf till dark, then link up at wherever the beach rats are holed up for the weekend and drink. Or in my case, watch other people drink. My dad’s a high-functioning alcoholic, so I’m not too keen to go there, even recreationally.

  “I was thinking we could grab dinner and turn in early.” He stretches his arms and yawns. I resist the temptation to check him out. I also feel a little bad since I slept the afternoon away. He could have drowned on my watch. “That okay with you?” he asks when I don’t respond.

  “Yeah, it’s fine.”

  “Unless you and Ryanne had plans….”

  “We don’t.”

  “All right, then. I picked lunch. You pick dinner.”

  We grab a pizza and bring it back with us to where we’re camping. I set up the tent and Chris makes the fire. It’s kind of our routine. We go in for another round of pizza, then sit around and poke at the fire for a while. Chris is quiet, on the verge of moody, which is rare for him. He’s usually the conversationalist. I ask him what’s up.

  “Nothing.” He rubs his bloodshot eyes. “Just tired, I guess.”

  “I’m ready when you are.” I’m not tired, but Chris won’t turn in until I do. He always has something to prove.

  “Yeah, okay.”

  We each piss in the bushes and brush our teeth, dump some sand into the fire to put it out. I change out of my board shorts into some dry athletic shorts and a clean T-shirt. I don’t smell too bad, thanks to the salt water, so I skip the shower.

  Inside the tent I expect Chris to pass out right away, but he doesn’t. I can tell by his breathing and the way he keeps glancing over at me to see if I’m asleep. It used to be a thing between us, whoever fell asleep first got punked in increasingly bizarre ways—toothpaste mustache, words written on your forehead, Vagisil in your hand. We haven’t done that in a while, so I don’t think that’s what’s keeping him up. But honestly, a part of me still worries I’ll wake up tomorrow morning missing an eyebrow.

  “Can’t sleep?” I ask.

  “No.”

  “Thinking about ways to punk me?”

  He chuckles. “Now I am.”

  We’re each sprawled out on top of our sleeping bags because it’s hot as hell in here, even with the fly off. I can smell him inside the tent, rising up like heat from the pavement. Salt spray and sunscreen and something sharp and manly. So tangy I can almost taste it. The scent of him is so familiar, even while the desires it triggers are not.

  “That girl I was telling you about earlier,” he says, picking up the conversation right where we left it. It’s something he does; he’ll start a conversation, then drop it for hours or sometimes days, until he’s ready to share more.

  “Yeah, what about her?” I’d rather not know about Chris’s exploits, but this must be something he needs to get off his chest, and what kind of best friend am I if I don’t let him?

  “We were at this party, in some back room. It was dark and we were on the couch. There were other people around, but it wasn’t like they were paying attention. We were making out and she, like, wanted me to finger her. Right there.”

  I suck in a deep breath and let it out slowly. When Chris left for summer, he was a virgin, as far as I knew. Maybe not anymore. How do I feel about it? Doesn’t matter. He needs his best friend right now.

  “So did you?” I ask.

  “Yeah.”

  “How was it?” I’m mildly curious myself.

  “Mmmm….” Chris has a habit of humming while he gathers his thoughts, also while he’s eating. I don’t think he even knows he’s doing it. “It was… squishy.”

 
I laugh out loud. I can’t help it. “Squishy?”

  “Yeah, like a jellyfish.”

  “Did it sting you?” I chuckle again.

  “No,” he practically shouts. “It just had that… consistency, you know?”

  “I don’t know, but that’s a pretty good description.”

  He’s quiet for a moment and then he goes, “She wanted to blow me.”

  I feel my eyebrows crawl to the top of my forehead. Chris has no concept of TMI, at least not with me. “Did you let her?”

  “No, but man, she wanted to,” he says again.

  I don’t know too many guys who would turn down a blowjob. That’s, like, the thing at our school. Guys are always talking about who gave them a blowjob that weekend and how it rated with the rest. It makes me feel bad for the girls at our school, how meaningless and one-sided the guys make it seem.

  “Why didn’t you?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. I just met her, like, the day before. Felt… empty or something.”

  I say nothing, just imagine my best friend with a girl, his fingers all up in her jellyfish, her offering up a blowjob and him turning her down, even though it probably would have been easier to go with it. I’m kind of proud of him. And jealous of her that it was even a possibility he entertained. If Chris wants a blowjob, I’d totally take one for the team, but I’m guessing that’s not what he has in mind.

  “You would have let her?” he asks, like he might have done something wrong.

  “No, I mean, I don’t know. No one’s ever offered. But, in your situation, I probably would have done the same thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  We’re quiet after that. Chris is so open and honest. It makes me want to give something back, but whenever I think about expressing myself to him, my stomach gets all tied up in knots and my mouth cements shut and my brain screams no, no, noooo.

  “Wow,” Chris says.

  “What?”

  He chuckles.

  “What?” I ask again, feeling paranoid that he somehow read my mind.

  “I am so hard right now.”

  My breath hitches and my head swivels toward him. His eyes are aimed at his crotch, the tent that’s formed in his basketball shorts, the shiny material pitched in the middle like a beacon. I’ve seen his dick before in passing, but not when it was hard. Never on display.

  “So hard it, like, hurts,” Chris says and curls his shoulders a little, like the sensation is uncomfortable.

  My fingers dig into the fabric of my sleeping bag while my eyes travel to the tip of his tent, where his hard-on strains against the material, down the slope of his shorts to the waistband, the exposed skin, and the narrow trail of hair that leads to the hard lines of his abs.

  “Take a look at this,” he says and pulls down the waistband of his shorts so his dick pops up into full view, a little paler than the rest of him but just as hearty. Thick and meaty with a slight curve to it. Even in the dark, I can make out the swollen vein branching along his shaft. The head nods like a small man in a wide-brimmed hat, and a little drop of dew has collected at the tip. My heart races and my throat goes dry as my own cock starts to pitch and froth inside my shorts.

  Does he know what he’s doing to me right now?

  Instead of putting it away, Chris grabs hold of it and gives it a long leisurely tug, like he knows I’m watching. My eyes are transfixed on the motion of his hand over his cock, so casually confident, and the soft, shushing sound it makes in the quiet tent. When I glance up at him, he’s already looking at me, looking inside me, seeing the jumble of emotions I still haven’t sorted through—desire, friendship, trust, and fear all mixed together in a riot of indecision.

  “Feel how hard it is,” he says and slowly moves his hand away.

  I lick my lips and question him with my eyes. Is he for real right now? He wants me to touch his dick? Like, with my hand?

  Chris nods, so slight I almost miss it in the dark. I don’t know what else to do. He’s the boss in this two-man show. I swallow down my nerves, reach over, and grab hold. All five fingers wrap around his thick cock. It’s alive. Pulsing and warm, so smooth and ready. A real show-off, just like the rest of him. Chris closes his hand over mine and moves it up and down like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He curls inward a little bit, shuts his eyes, and moans, and I don’t need to guess what he wants me to do next.

  He slowly moves his hand away and raises his hips off the ground to give me a better angle. I grip him tighter, rolling my hand up and down in a rhythm I’ve used on myself countless times, teasing the head with my thumb. Chris groans and puckers his lips. His eyebrows draw together and he gasps like he’s in pain, but I know he’s not. Sweat droplets collect at his temple, and I focus on his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, nodding at me to keep on.

  “Yeah,” he utters from somewhere deep down as my palm rides him. “Oh shit, Theo,” he exclaims, so I pump faster, gliding up and down his shaft while his face contorts into one I’ve never seen before. I jerk him off until he erupts, his warm goo spilling over my knuckles and into his curly light brown pubes. I pull my hand away, staring at it in disbelief. Not knowing what else to do, I wipe it on my shirt. The smell of him is everywhere, his skin and sweat and cum. My shirt is stuck to me from the dampness of my own exertion. My hands are shaking. Mind racing and breathless, I feel like I’m trapped in that swirly all over again.

  “Let me do you,” Chris says, sitting up in the tent. He’s tucked his junk back into his shorts and his eyes have a drowsy, dreamy look. His mouth still hangs open, pearly pink lips shining with spit. I know he hasn’t been drinking, so this must mean he really wants to? I lean back on my elbows, and he reaches inside my shorts for my own throbbing junk, tugs at it until it’s at peak mass. It doesn’t take much.

  “I guess it’s true what they say about tall guys,” he remarks, and I have to hide my smile. Yeah, my junk’s pretty big.

  I watch him work me over, still struck dumb with disbelief and unable to process that this is really happening. Chris handles me with such ease, like it’s the most normal thing in the world. His tongue edges out the corner of his mouth and curls on the side as he jerks me off with a look of deep concentration on his face. No one has ever touched me like this before, and even though it’s Chris, my best friend, my straight best friend, it feels natural and right and sofuckingawesome.

  The sensation builds until I’m bucking my hips in rhythm with his hand. A ragged growl erupts from my throat as seismic tremors roll through me in quick succession. My mind explodes, my body convulses, and my dick shoots out stars like the Milky Way. I don’t even see where my spunk lands. Maybe the next galaxy over.

  “Damn, Theo,” Chris says and leans back, chuckling. “Been saving up for that, huh?”

  “Ha,” I utter, a little disoriented, a little delirious, clawing my way back into this new reality where my best friend touches my junk. Is Chris gay? My heart still pounds in my throat and a thin sheen of sweat covers my body and upper lip. I clench my teeth because I’m afraid to say anything that will break the spell. Chris lays back and spreads his arms, ruffles my hair, and generally takes up way more than his fair share of the tent. I listen to his breathing and wait for him to say something. Anything. Any day now. I count his breaths until at last, I risk a glance over and see that he’s already fallen asleep.

  I take a few deep breaths, trying to settle my nerves, then adjust my boys, who are still reeling in shock. I drag my hand across my shirt to find Chris’s cum trail has dried into a thin crust, proving I didn’t just dream it. Finally I roll over onto my stomach with the smell of him soaking into my pores, wondering what the hell just happened.

  This changes everything.

  Nope

  I DON’T wake up to breakfast in bed. Not even the smells of coffee and bacon.

  I wake up alone. And there’s a chill in the air. It sends a shiver through me and gives me a strange sense of unease.
/>   The sun is just starting to bleed through the trees when I crawl out of the tent. I take the opportunity to change out of my jismed shirt into a clean long-sleeve that used to belong to Chris. I actually love wearing his old clothes, mainly because they remind me of something we did together while he wore them. I take a leak in the bushes, then poke at the coals of our fire with a stick. I consider restarting it, even though it’s Chris’s domain, when he finally shows up with a beach towel thrown over his shoulder, clean clothes, and wet hair. He usually never showers on our beach trips, says the ocean is all he needs.

  I haven’t rehearsed what I’ll say to him. I’m trusting him to know what to do, since he initiated things last night. I study him as he comes closer, searching for some indication of where we stand. He looks a little nervous, embarrassed even, and keeps glancing away. I clear my throat while my guts do a Riverdance. His smile seems way too forced, like I could peel it right off his face. I’m balanced on the balls of my feet in anticipation when Chris finally opens his mouth and says, “I’m thinking donuts.”

  I run a hand through my hair and stare at my bare feet, which have been getting a lot of attention lately. He’s thinking donuts. How am I supposed to answer that?

  “Yeah, okay.”

  That settles it, I guess. We pack up the tent, and I notice the shirt he was wearing last night has disappeared. It seems along with it went any memory of what happened. Is it possible he was so tired he forgot? I couldn’t forget it if I tried. And I don’t want to. It was pretty awesome, I thought. Getting each other off like that? Way better than flying solo. Who knew a hand job could feel so good? And the fact that I care for him—right up there with my mother and sister—makes it all the more meaningful. But maybe he’s ashamed of it, or of us.

  We finish loading our camping equipment into the back of his car. I’m trying to think of a smooth way to bring it up when Chris turns to me and says, “Last night was crazy, right?”

  He says it like we’d both gotten wasted and hit on each other’s moms or something. Neither of us was drunk, and it didn’t seem that crazy to me, more like, I don’t know, amazing? But maybe he’s worried it will screw up our friendship, which would suck royally. Or it was just a one-off for him. He’s clearly uncomfortable about it, so there’s nothing I can do but go along.