When Everything Is Blue(24)

“I asked him if he had any decks for sale,” Chris says, then waits for me to respond. When I don’t, he says, “He didn’t.”

“You ask him to cut your hair too?” I don’t like Chris checking up on me, especially when I have something to hide.

“Why are you lying to me?”

“About Dave selling decks?”

“About everything.”

We exit off the bridge, and I pull over into a beach access and park the car, grab my stuff from the back seat, including my deck. I so don’t want to have this conversation with him. Chris has a way of getting me to spill my guts.

“What the hell, Theo?” Chris grabs hold of my arm and squeezes. He’s strong. Even though I’m pissed, I kind of like it. I never back away or flinch when Chris touches me. I like his grip. So messed up, I know.

“We used to tell each other everything,” he says. “Now you act like you don’t even know me.”

“It’s not that.” Chris takes everything so personal. I dump my stuff on my lap. The car’s still running, so I turn it off.

“What is it, then? Are you mad at me?”

“No.”

“Because of what happened in—”

“No,” I interrupt him. Chris can’t have it both ways. He can’t have me as his ever-faithful lap dog and expect me to just sit around and watch him hold court with every hot babe that struts through Sabal Palm High. It’s not fair. I’m friggin’ lonely. Dave is there, and he’s into me. He’s not Chris, but he’s not nothing either.

“Maybe I’m too dependent on you, you know?” I say to him. “Like, for the past five years, it’s just been you and me. And I do whatever you tell me to.”

“You don’t do whatever I tell you.”

I give him a look. We both know Chris gets his way more often than not.

“So, Dave is like, Chris 2.0?” He winces as though the thought physically pains him. As if.

“No, he’s not. Dave is just a guy I hang out with. He’s funny and we… get along. You can’t be the only person in my life. You have your surf friends and your family and your girlfriends and I… I just have you.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. I hate getting emotional in front of him. Makes me feel like such a baby. Chris stares at me. He no longer looks angry; he looks hurt. His gaze drifts out to the water. His lower lip juts out, tempting me still. What would Chris do if I just leaned over and pulled him in for a big, fat kiss? With tongue. Probably freak out.

“You can drive us home,” Chris says, completely deflated and still not looking at me. He cleans a patch of dust off the dashboard with his finger in a slow spiral. “I’m sorry for giving you shit. You can hang out with whoever you want. I won’t bother you about it again.”

I want to say something to make him feel better, but I don’t know what, so I toss my stuff in the back and take the shortest route home, trying to concentrate on the road and not on Chris, who stares out the window the whole way with his arms crossed in front of his chest, looking sad as hell.

The exact thing I wanted to avoid is happening—I’m losing my best friend.




I CAVE and end up going over to Dave’s that same afternoon. I’m too needy, a ping-pong ball being batted back and forth between Dave and Chris. Like my self-esteem is tied to one or the other, and I cling to the one who can provide me with some sense of reassurance. It’s lame on so many levels.

In any case, Dave is happy to see me. Usually we hang out on the couch and play video games, which usually segues into other things. Today it’s different, though. I’m not feeling it. I’m too stressed about Chris and how we left things. I hate that there’s friction between us. I wonder if he’s looking me up on his phone right now. I should take myself off the app, but at the same time, I kind of like that he’s semistalking me, and how messed up is that?

“What’s up?” Dave asks, retreating to his half of the couch, perhaps noticing that I’m only half-present (and half-aroused). The other thing about Dave and me is we never kiss. And our touching seems very focused on getting each other off and not necessarily connection. The things I want to do with Chris, I don’t want to do with Dave. Is it possible to only be gay for one guy?

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I tell him. “I’m in a funk.”

Dave grabs his bong and packs it. The couch is small, more the size of a love seat, and Dave sits in the middle of it with his legs spread wide so his knee rests against mine, kind of territorial. Chris does that too, takes up the maximum amount of space, even when he’s sleeping. In some ways they’re a lot alike. Alpha males.

Dave offers me the first hit like always, even though I’ve never taken him up on it. I shake my head. “Hugs not drugs, man.”

Dave lights the bong, sucks up the column of smoke as his cheeks hollow out all the way—it’s very phallic. It sounds like sucking through a straw in a mostly empty glass. His cheeks puff out as he holds it in, then releases a cloud of heady smoke that makes my eyes water a little. Chris went through a pot-smoking phase last year, but he hasn’t done it much lately. He says all it does is give him the munchies and make him lazy. I tried it once when we were in Sebastian on a surf trip, at one of the older surf rats’ shithole apartment, and I ended up holding my knees and rocking in a corner, thinking I was dying because my heart sounded too fast and my breathing too slow. Chris talked me down, and I felt bad for ruining both our nights. Later he said I probably just smoked too much, or the shit was too dank. Still, I haven’t tried it since.