Ship It(73)

“That we were queerbaiting?” Jamie asks.

I stop short. I didn’t expect him to know the term. Because if he knows what it is, why the hell is he doing it?

“Yeah, I know what queerbaiting is. I get accused of it about every other day on Twitter,” Jamie says bitterly. “And okay. Yeah. Fine. We were queerbaiting. We knew what you fangirls like, and we were never gonna follow through, but we thought it was fun to joke about it. Aren’t you glad we did? Because otherwise you would never have loved our show. The only reason you liked it in the first place is because we were queerbaiting you.”

Oh my god, why am I not filming this? I want to put that admission on YouTube and have it go freaking viral. He just admitted they were playing into it on purpose. I knew we weren’t crazy! My brain is racing a million different directions at once. I pull my thoughts together into a coherent sentence.

“How could you intentionally layer in gay subtext and then go out there and call us crazy for seeing it and asking about it?” My voice is shaking I’m so frustrated right now.

“I think you’re confusing me with Forest,” he says, leaning forward in his chair. “I never called you crazy. Or if I did, it was for a totally legitimate reason, like how you hacked my fucking Twitter account.” He stands up, getting agitated again. “Are we done now? Can this be over? Is that all you wanted to hear?”

“It’s not that easy,” I say, and with my heart thumping in my chest from anger and adrenaline, I open Twitter, and post the second tweet.

He grabs for his own phone to see what I’ve posted. He stares at it, then looks up at me.

“Where the hell did you get that?”


FOREST’S FACE FLUSHED hot as he stepped into his trailer and turned around to see every wall, every surface, every chair, table, window, covered in the same photo of Jasper Graves’s square-jawed, heroic face.

Behind him, still standing outside in the dying light, he could hear Rico cracking up. Forest wanted to light a match. Send the whole trailer up in flames. He reached out and tore down a picture. Then another. Then a whole swath of them.

“Hey, hey!” Rico complained, climbing the stairs into the trailer two at a time.

“What the hell is this?” Forest waved a crumpled handful of pictures around wildly.

“You said you liked him,” Rico said.

“So you thought you’d…Goddammit, Rico—” Forest ripped pictures off the couch, Scotch tape sticking to everything, little pieces of Jasper Graves fluttering around. Forest’s stomach was tight, hard, screaming at him to get these down before anyone sees.

“Relax, Forest, man,” Rico said, “I’ll get Lynn to take them down.”

“Did she see these?”

“Yeah, she helped me put them—”

“Did anyone else?” Forest interrupted.

“Just Lynn,” Rico said slowly, calmly. “Hey, have a seat, relax.”

Rico started helping Forest pull pictures off the wall, a small blank area growing as he worked. Forest let him take over, falling onto the couch and dropping his head into his hands. Rico paused to move to the door and make sure it was closed (it tended to stick) and throw the dead bolt, just in case. Then he crossed back to the wall and continued to take pictures down.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t know it would upset you. You said one time that you had wanted a Jasper Graves poster as a kid. I just thought I’d make Li’l Forest’s dreams come true.”

“Yeah, well.” Forest breathed into his hands. “What I never mentioned is I got that poster.”

“You did?”

Forest nodded miserably. He hated this story, but he needed Rico to understand. “I bought it myself from the cool record store downtown. Brought it home and hung it up in my bedroom. It stayed up for all of three hours. And then my dad came home…” He trailed off.

Rico put down the pictures he was holding and turned to look at Forest, his brow furrowed in concern. Forest raised his head but didn’t make eye contact yet; he just twisted to one side, lifted his shirt, and showed a portion of his back—smooth pale skin punctuated by long, angry, raised scars.

“Forest…” Rico whispered.

Forest swallowed hard as he lowered his shirt. “Yeah.”

Rico moved to sit next to Forest on the stiff trailer couch. He put his hand on Forest’s arm, a soft, sad touch. “I’m sorry.”

Forest felt dumb then. He hadn’t shown Rico for pity; he had wanted him to understand. Now his birthday party had become a mope-fest. But Rico didn’t move his hand from Forest’s arm. And feeling it there, warm and solid, Forest thought of that text he had wanted to send Rico. Now was his chance to tell him, away from everyone, everything he wanted Rico to know.

Well, maybe not everything—not the thoughts that crept in after Forest had had a few, or late at night on the precipice of sleep, when he would imagine a warm body next to him, keeping him safe, telling him it would work out.

No, not just a warm body. Rico. Rico, with his strong hands, his easy laugh, his effortless confidence in Forest. Rico with the deep brown eyes that held on to you tight and didn’t let you pull away, even when everything in you begged to walk away. Those eyes were on him now, waiting for him to talk, pulling honesty out of him. Forest couldn’t meet his gaze, so he focused on that hand on his arm and spoke to Rico’s fingers.