Riding With Brighton(5)
He props his head on his hand and looks up at me. “I’m sorry.”
“I mean, honestly, I think you’re cool. I wouldn’t mind hanging with you,” I tell him. Then I think, That was weird. Was that weird?
The bell rings, and Ms. Case dismisses us over the clattering of the desks. Shit.
I pack up my bag, then stand. When I turn to leave, Brighton’s standing in front of me holding out a piece of paper. “Seriously, I’m sorry. Hit me up sometime if you want.”
I take the paper and nod at him, and then he’s gone.
I look at the piece of paper and smile because a little bit of the fight just came alive in me again.
“Did that fag just give you his number?” Brian, one of my awesome friends, asks me with disgust in his voice.
“Fuck off,” I say, shoving it in my back pocket. “It’s Amy’s. I guess it fell out of my pocket and he picked it up.”
And then I feel that little bit of fight, that hint of euphoria, run the hell away from me screaming because why would it want to take up residence in some ass who willingly pretends to be a homophobic, closed-minded, judgmental prick?
Why would someone like that deserve to be anything but fucking miserable?
Chapter Two
Brighton
“HEY,” JAY says, walking up to the bench where I’m sitting. I turn my head to him with an amused smirk on my face.
With one glance I can tell the kid is nervous as hell. I figured he would be. When he called me last night to ask if I would meet him here, you could already tell he was freaking out about it. I was surprised he called at all. I thought he said that shit to prove how not-homophobic he was, and the only reason I gave him my number was because I felt bad about how much crap I had given him. “What’s up?”
“Uh….” He stalls, taking his baseball cap off, running his fingers through his blond hair, then pulling it on backward now so I have a clear view of his blue eyes. “Nothin’ really. Just, you know… finished practice.”
“Awesome.” His eyes veer farther away from mine, so I turn back around and wait for him to say something. I take the moment of silence to assess the situation. I’m pretty sure I know why he’s here. There’s really only one reason for Mr. Popular to want to meet me at the park. I mean, despite the fact that we have a class together and during that hour we’re cool, it’s not like we’re friends. And this isn’t the first time a guy has tried “getting to know me” or wanted to “meet up” because I’m the only gay guy they know and they’re curious if maybe they got some gay in them too. I learned pretty quickly that I don’t have the patience to counsel some confused kid through the perils of coming to terms with who they are, so I don’t normally do this.
But Jay… I didn’t see that one coming. I was too curious about what, exactly, he wanted from me. And a little too turned on by that athletic body to blow him off.
But one look at him and I can already tell how this is gonna go down. If he is here for the reasons I think he is, then he clearly jumped the gun—he’s not ready. And if something were to go down, it would end up in one of those shameful situations where he avoids looking at me for the rest of the year. And what the hell is up with meeting me at a park? For sure I’m not willing to be on the other side of a glory hole, which is totally how this park situation feels. I mean, isn’t a park the stereotypical place closeted guys think they should go to experiment? I keep glancing at the brick bathroom and shuddering at the thought of dried piss and sharp metal.
I’m not doing this.
“Listen, Jay…,” I say, leaning forward on my knees, cranking my head again to look at him. I stop, though, when his face tightens and his gaze hits the ground. For a second he looks completely vulnerable and not at all like the kid who runs the school.
“Shit,” he mutters, running his hands down his face. When he takes them away, he’s looking directly at me for the first time, and he smiles. And then he laughs. It’s damn cute, and I smile back. “Sorry,” he says, shaking his head and coming to sit next to me on the bench. His hesitation is gone now, the confident kid he usually is taking over again. He leans into the bench, propping his elbows on the back of it and stretching his legs out in front of him. He turns to me and gives me a crooked smile. Jay’s got a dozen smiles, but I don’t know the one he’s given me, twice now, today. By far, it’s the cutest out of all of them and, honestly, all his other smiles are damn cute already.
“What are you sorry about?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I just had a little ‘what the hell am I doing’ moment there. You gotta think I’m weird… asking you to hang out with me today.”
I laugh and sit back on the bench, mimicking his posture. “You’d be surprised how often random people ask me to hang out with them.”
“Really? I mean, we’re a little old to be making new friends, right? Like, ‘hey dude, I think the two of us would get along, and I’m tired of the friends I got, so I thought we could chill. What do you say?’” He laughs at himself and shakes his head.
And I’m confused. It almost sounds like that’s what he’s doing—trying to make a new friend. “Why do you think we’d get along?”