by Dirk Hunter
I mean, I wouldn’t have actually done it. Sure, I was feeling a little miffed about Adam not being there, and just generally about being the gay dude outside the straight people’s all-you-can-eat buffet, but I wasn’t about to go hurting the guy who was becoming more and more important to me by the day. I only wanted to, you know, let that possibility sink in so I could bring it back up when I was alone, in the shower perhaps. Or reenact the fantasy later with Adam.
Of course, it would have been even better if Adam had been there, and we could have actually done it. Right there, in front of everyone, without anyone knowing. But this was not the time to dwell on that. This was a party, dammit, and Mel and I were going to rock it.
We danced with Kai until our ears wanted to bleed from the music, which, despite Charlotte’s best efforts, kept climbing higher. We won a doubles Ping-Pong tournament against two kids from the physics club.
Mel even beat Will Davis at a beer-chugging contest, and the rest of the football team lifted her on their shoulders and carried her around. At one point I joked to Mel that this night was so extreme there would even be a party going on in the front closet. I threw open the door and interrupted two people in the middle of a very personal sort of party. I couldn’t tell who one of them was — he jumped behind the hanging coats too fast for me to make out anything more than black hair and that he was very definitely a guy. The other one I recognized immediately.
“It’s you,” I said. “That kid I rescued from Adam way back at the beginning of the year. I guess he was right about you. How does he always fucking do that? What are you even doing here? Freshmen aren’t supposed to be at this party, much less in the closet….” I noticed the terrified, caught look on his face, and changed what I was about to say. “Completely alone. With your pants unbuttoned. All by yourself.” The kid’s look vacillated between surprise, confusion, and relief almost too fast to follow. “Excuse me,” I said, and closed the door, shutting the two secret lovers back in.
That was it. The last straw. The final bit of missed gay opportunity that I could deal with for one night. It was supposed to be me and Adam secretly making out in a closet, goddammit, not some fucking faceless whoever and that goddamned new-kid freshman.
We were supposed to feel the adrenaline haze of risky loving, with fear of getting caught only fueling our need. I was the one who fucking came out and dealt with all these bullshit people for years, not once getting so much as a lustful glance along the way, and this stupid freshman comes along out of the blue and immediately gets play? Meanwhile I have to be the one alone at the party, again, surrounded by straight people having the time of their fucking lives.
“Are you okay?” Mel asked, clearly having noticed the rage that boiled within me. I know she meant well, but it only made me madder.
Suddenly I saw the entire night in a whole new light. While that stupid fucking freshman was running around with his forbidden love, probably sneaking touches on the dance floor and exchanging longing glances over the Ping-Pong table before dashing off to give in to temptation in the closet, I was spending my night with a fucking woman. Sure, she was my best friend and I loved her, like, a lot, but I was so tired of my right-hand man not being, well, a man. I felt sick. It was hard to see the night I’d spent with Mel as fun anymore. All I could think of was how that freshman stole the night I should have had with Adam.
“I’m fine. I’m just done with this party. Can we leave?”
Mel’s brow furrowed with concern. She clearly didn’t believe I was fine, but knew that I wasn’t going to be talking about it here. “Sure,” she said. “Let’s find Kai.”
That was easy. Kai was right where we’d left him, making a fool of himself on the dance floor.
“Already?” he asked when I said I wanted to leave. “But we just got here!” “It’s been like four hours,” I said.
“But….” He looked from me to the girls on the dance floor and back. He gave a look like a begging puppy. Before I could say anything, Mel grabbed his arm and whispered something in his ear. He rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he said. “Let’s go.” We were heading to the front door when I saw him, standing in the corner behind a ficus, talking to Tiffany with that sort of forehead-to-forehead type of conversation that only comes with deep flirting.
It was Adam.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ADAM SAW me too. There was no mistaking it. Our eyes met, and I could see the panic in them. He hid it well, though. I doubt anyone else noticed.
Tiffany certainly didn’t. She kept talking as before, oblivious to the sudden tension in the air.
Mel saw him too, and gasped. “That bastard,” she said.
Kai was a little slower on the uptake. “I though you said he couldn’t make it? Wait, why is he with…?” His brain must have finally caught up to his mouth. “Oh. Oh. That bastard.”
“Do you want Kai to punch him?” Mel asked.
“Yeah, do you want me to…. Wait, why do I have to be the one to punch him? Dude’s huge!”
“Ladies never punch.”
“You punch me all the time.”
“It’s okay, guys,” I said. “I got this.”
I made straight for them, but I ignored Adam. Instead I focused on Tiffany. “Oh my God, bitch. Where have you been all night? You look fierce. Spin for me, babe. Let me see that little black number.” She did so, beaming at the attention. “Girl, what are you looking all pretty for?”
“Oh, you know,” she said, wrapping her arms around Adam’s bicep.
“Always gotta look my best.” She looked up at Adam coyly. “Never know when it will come in handy.” She put a special emphasis on the word “handy” like she was going for some kind of innuendo. Adam gave no sign he noticed her attentions. His eyes were glued on me.
I didn’t so much as bat a single eyelash his way. “Work it, girl. I’m going to dance. Adam.” I gave him the slightest of nods, acknowledging his presence, barely, for the first time. Then I turned and walked back to Mel and Kai. I could feel Adam’s eyes on me the whole way.
A rational human would be forgiven for expecting something a little more confrontational from me. And I’m not saying I didn’t have that desire. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a small part of me that wanted nothing more than to confront him, loudly, in front of everyone. But that was only a small part of me. The thing is, even pissed as I was, I cared about Adam. I didn’t want to hurt him. Well, no, that’s not true, I did want to hurt him. But, like, a small hurt. A punch-in-the-gut, maybe even the knock-the-breath-from-him kind of hurt. Not the colossal, world-stopping, soul-rending kind of pain that would happen if I outed him right then. I didn’t want him to feel that fear. A hint of that fear, sure, as he worried whether I would out him or not — but I wouldn’t actually do it.
Besides, if I did, he would have something to be mad at me for.
Something legitimate he could blame on me. And I wanted him to wallow in the totality of his guilt.
So I simply walked back to Mel, who was looking at me with admiration in her eyes, and Kai, who was looking at me in shock.
“What just happened?” Kai asked.
“That was diabolical,” Mel said.
“Who even are you?” Kai was dumbfounded.
I ignored him. Instead, I said to Mel, “Do you think you could…?”
“Already on it,” she said. She reached out and grabbed Miranda Brickmann’s arm, who was walking by right at that moment. “Oh my God, Miranda!” she said, joining her in walking toward the kitchen. “I’m so glad you came! Good. I say fuck him.”
“What do you mean?” Miranda asked.
“You didn’t know? Oh God, I’m so sorry. Forget I said anything.” If I didn’t know Mel even half as well as I did, it would be remarkable how sincere she sounded in all this.
“No, tell me. What is it?” Just like that, Miranda had gone from slightly confused to full-on concerned.
“It’s nothing. It’s just, I heard that Adam was going to
ask you to this party, but apparently….” Her voice faded into the general din of the party as they walked away.
Kai was still staring at me, wide-eyed, like he had never seen me before. “What? Playing the sassy gay best friend is fun, sometimes,” I said, guessing what had thrown him for such a loop.
“Okay,” he said. “Sure. But what’s this that’s happening, right now?”
“Oh. That. Well, I gave Tiffany the encouragement she needed to throw herself completely at Adam. Figure if he wants to pretend to be straight, he can damn well deal with the ramifications of that. Presumably Mel is doing the same thing with Miranda, and probably Caroline. And almost definitely Samantha.”
“Did you two plan this?”
“No, we just make a really good team, especially when it comes to spinning elaborate lies in tandem.”
“Well, a lot of things suddenly make sense in hindsight,” Kai mumbled to himself. “Okay, but am I the only one who worries that this is, well, kind of evil?”
Before I could formulate an answer, James P. Hogan appeared around the corner. “Dylan! Malachi! How’s the party?” he exclaimed, putting a hand on each of our shoulders and squeezing.
It was a sign of my mental state that James’s close proximity and affectionate physical contact didn’t trigger an immediate bout of giddiness. I barely even noticed the heady scent of cologne tinged with sweat, or the tantalizing way his muscles rippled in his forearm.
Barely.
“It’s a great party,” I replied.
“Swell,” Kai said, without taking his narrowed eyes off me.
“Okay…,” James said suspiciously. “I’m missing something here.”
Right then, he noticed Adam, still in the same corner with a heavily flirtatious Tiffany. Only now Miranda was there too, latched to his other arm. It was a neck-to-neck flirtation war. A few other girls were starting to gather around the edges, some even throwing themselves into the fray.
“Oh my God,” James said, letting go of Kai, grabbing my shoulders and turning me toward him — and away from Adam. “Are you okay? Did you two split? What happened?” He was looking at me with genuine concern.
I swooned a little. I’m only human. “I’m okay. It’s under control.”
“Wait, he knows?” Kai broke in, incredulous. “He didn’t know before me, did he?”
“Well,” I said, “I mean… he figured it out….”
“I can’t believe —” Kai started.
“What do you mean, under control?” James began.
Mel showed up, interrupting them both. “Operation Raining Bitches is a go,” she said with a self-satisfied smirk.
I turned and found Adam drowning in a sea of girls, each desperate to get their hands on him. “Holy shit! How did you do it?”
“Trade secrets,” she said.
“Remind me never to piss you off,” Kai said.
“That was something you were in danger of forgetting?” Mel replied sweetly. Too sweetly.
“You guys did this?” James asked. “Uh-oh. Charlotte is not going to be happy.”
As though invoking her name summoned her, Charlotte materialized at James’s elbow. “Hon,” she said, a dangerous edge to her voice. “Why do I sense drama at my party? I’ve worked very hard to keep all the drama out of this party.” Her eyes took in the expressions on all our faces, then quickly glanced once over at Adam. Finally, her gaze settled on me and, in those eyes, I saw my doom. “I see. Revenge drama, is it?”
“Wait,” I said. “You know?”
“She does?” Mel and Kai said in unison with identical amounts of surprise and jealousy.
“You told her?” I said accusingly to James.
“Actually, I told him,” Charlotte said.
James shrugged at me with a look that said “What? We both know I’m not the smart one in this relationship.”
“That’s not the point,” Charlotte continued. “Melanie, you promised me you wouldn’t use your powers for evil.”
“What makes you think it was me?” Mel said indignantly.
Charlotte turned those doom eyes to her. “I recognize the touch.”
Mel visibly withered.
“I’m sensing a story here I wish I knew,” Kai whispered to me.
“I know,” Mel said, sounding halfway to apologetic, “I remember what happened last time —”
“Really wish I knew.”
“— but when you mess with the people I love, the claws come out. Sorry I’m not sorry.”
Charlotte turned back to me. “Dylan, I expected better from you. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“That’s fine,” I said before anyone could protest. “We were just leaving, anyway.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
WE GOT back to my house in time to watch the ball drop with my parents.
They didn’t say anything about our early return, though they exchanged many looks. Probably had something to do with Mel and Kai’s uncharacteristic silence. Or maybe the grim look on my face. Afterward, the three of us headed to my room to play video games. After a few halfhearted rounds of losing, I quit and let Mel and Kai play on their own.
The way I figured it, there was no need to ruin their fun with my sour mood. Before we had been home much longer than an hour or two, there was a noise at my window. In unison, Mel and Kai looked at each other, then at me, then dove behind my bed, out of sight. The knocking came again. I threw back the curtain and opened the window, only a few inches.
“What?”
“Let me in.” It was Adam — as if there could have been any doubt.
“No.”
“Come on, Dylan, I just want to talk to you.”
“You could always try the front door. But then, that wouldn’t be secret, would it?”
“Is that what this is about? If you would let me explain —”
“That’s not what this is about.”
Adam growled with frustration and tried to pull off the window screen like he had so many times before. Only this time it didn’t budge.
“What the…? Did you nail this thing down?”
“Screws, actually. But yes.”
“Goddammit…. Dylan, listen, you have every right to be mad, but —”
“Mad? Who’s mad? I’m not mad.” Lies. But he didn’t need to know that.
“Then why the fuck are you doing this? If you’d just let me finish a fucking sentence, maybe I could explain —”
“Explain what?” Okay, I’ll be honest, continually cutting him off was giving me far too much pleasure right then. Whatever, I felt no shame. “You don’t need to explain anything. I understand. Really, I do. You’re scared of people finding out you’re gay, right?” Adam was staring at me, obviously dumbstruck that I wasn’t yelling at him, that I wasn’t rising to meet his anger. Instead, I spoke calmly. “Let me guess. You thought people were starting to suspect. Someone — probably Will Davis, am I right? — started giving you shit about how much time you spend with me, how disinterested you seem in girls these days, blah blah blah. So you decided to stop the rumors before they could spread by being seen, very publicly, flirting heavily with a girl. And voila, problem solved. Well? Am I right?”
Adam refused to meet my eyes.
“That’s what I thought,” I continued. “You know how I knew all that? Because it is such a fucking cliché! So I’m not mad at you. I’m not mad that you’re scared. I get that. I’m not mad that you want to keep our relationship a secret. I told you I was okay with that. I’m not even mad that you’d go to extravagant lengths to try and prove to everyone you really are straight. I sort of figured going into this there’d be a few of those attempts. But you know what I’m not okay with? Being your kept boy, essentially your mistress. I’m fine with you not telling people about us, but not with being your little affair on the side. And, fuck, Adam, Tiffany is my friend, and she really likes you. She doesn’t deserve to be your beard. Did you even think about how she would feel when she eventually reali
zes you don’t care for her at all?” I’m a little ashamed to admit that it was only then, saying that to Adam, I realized that I, too, had used Tiffany. In that way, I was no better than Adam. Worse, even, since he was only afraid to tell the truth, but I was acting out of a petty desire for revenge. I’d have to bake a cake or something in apology. But I wasn’t about to mention any of that to Adam.
“But do you know what the worst part is, Adam? The part I’m most hard-pressed to overlook? You lied to me. If you had told me what you were feeling, I could have helped you through it. At the very least, I could have told you that I’m not okay with you pretending to date someone else, that it would end our relationship —”
“Oh, you are really one to talk, Dylan,” Adam burst in, rallying his anger and making one more attempt to turn the tables back on me. “Did you tell me before you went and fucked Malachi?”
“There are a million and one reasons why that is different, and you know that full well. For one, I broke it off when I realized how it affected you. Are you prepared to do the same?”
“What —” The anger finally drained from Adam. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to come through that front door and commit to actually being my boyfriend. Or I want you to leave.”
For a long while he stood there, staring at me. I could see him teetering on the edge of a decision, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out where he was going to land. When finally he turned his back and walked away, I knew he’d made his decision. And I knew he didn’t choose me.