After School Activities (14 page)

It didn’t help that the ride back to my house wasn’t a short one. By

the time we made it there, I was practically quivering with worry. He

pulled up in front of my driveway.

Well, this was my chance. “Do you want to come in?” I sounded

totally nonchalant. Not insecure at all.

“I can’t.” Adam said, without turning his head. “I have school

tomorrow.”

“Oh,” I said, fighting to keep the disappointment out of my voice.

“That’s cool!” Oh God, I was being way too cheery. Overcompensating. I

need to play it cool. “Then I’ll see you whenever. I guess.” I got out of the car, feeling several different kinds of awkward. “Um. Bye.” I quickly shut

the door and hurried up the driveway.

I heard Adam’s car door opening behind me. “Wait,” Adam

called. I turned around but kept my eyes firmly fixed on the ground in

front of me. Adam jogged to catch up to me. “I, um,” he mumbled. I

watched his feet fidget. “I wanted to, uh….” Suddenly he grabbed my

head with both hands, lifted my face, and kissed me.

Several minutes later, Adam pulled away. “Do that,” he finished. He

started walking backward toward his car. “I’ll stop by tomorrow. I mean,

if that’s cool? I don’t want to—I mean, if you have plans or anything….”

He was clearly flustered. It was cute. His butt bumped into the car, and he

jumped in surprise, then laughed sheepishly. “Tomorrow. I’ll call.” With

that, he got in his car and drove away.

I was grinning like a fool. I had been since he kissed me, but I didn’t

care. I hadn’t realized it until that moment, but that kiss was what I had

been waiting for. It was the final proof I needed that Adam really had

forgiven me. That things were, maybe not back to normal exactly, but at

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least back on track. I couldn’t help the dopey grin. I watched until his car

disappeared around the corner before finally turning and heading inside.

Mom and Dad were still up. As I walked into the living room, Dad

looked up from where he was sprawled on the couch, one leg over the

armrest. The TV was on, but he was facing away from it.

“Oh,” he said. “Hey.”

Mom was leaning against the wall, paging through an encyclopedia I

had never even seen opened in my life. “How was your night?” she asked,

without looking up.

The whole scene reeked of staged nonchalance and forced

casualness. I was not fooled. “Let me guess. You were both watching

through the kitchen window.”

My dad said, “No,” at the same second my mom said, “Oh, totally.”

They exchanged a look and moved into normal human positions. Dad sat

up. Mom put the encyclopedia back with the other dust-covered volumes

and sat next to him.

“Are you going to tell us who this mystery man is yet?” Mom

continued.

“You couldn’t see?” I asked.

“No! It was too dark.”

“Bummer.” I said with a wicked grin. “The suspense must be killing

you.” With that, I went to my room, ignoring my parents’ complaints.

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After School Activities

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE NEXT morning, Friday, I woke up to a text from an unfamiliar

number.

Hey, it’s Adam
, it read.
Forgot I have practice after school. I’ll come
over after.

There was another one, from Mel.

I gave Adam your number. Assuming you two made up. Yay. Now

hurry up and talk to Malachi. I’m tired of his moping.

I smiled, trying to imagine Adam asking Mel for my number. He

probably would have tried to be supersecretive about it—avoiding his

friends and trying to catch Mel alone—and of course he wouldn’t say why

he wanted it. Not that Mel would have had any doubt in her mind why he

wanted it, but I could picture her giving him a hard time, just for fun. It’s exactly what I would have done. I wish I could have seen it.

But my good mood quickly evaporated as I thought about the other

thing Mel had said in her text. Up to that point, I had managed, with

varying degrees of success, to keep Kai out of my mind. But now things

were different. Adam and I were back… well, to whatever this thing we

had was, so that wasn’t a reason to keep putting off talking to Kai. All that was left was the confusing bundle of emotions that were my feelings

toward Kai. After that day I’d stopped talking to him, I just shoveled those

into some dark recess of my mind and tried my best to ignore them. I

realized I was afraid to examine them again.

But was that enough reason to keep pushing away my best friend

since, like, forever? And worse, if I was avoiding Kai because I was afraid

of falling in love with him, then what did that say about this relationship-

type thing I was starting with Adam?

Mel was right. I needed to talk to Kai, put that part of my life finally

behind me. I’d just neglect to mention that to Mel. I hated her smug, I’m-

always-right look. Just ’cause it was true didn’t mean you could gloat.

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Dirk Hunter

I pulled out my phone and stared at a blank text. At least half an hour

passed. I had typed nothing.

Breakfast, I decided, needed to precede a text of this magnitude. I

made pancakes. Cereal, while by far my favorite, would have been made

and eaten far too quickly, and since this was clearly a procrastination

meal, I needed to get the most bang for my buck. I even made sausages,

which, though I was way overfull, I ate all of. Then scrambled eggs, which

I ate none of. Then I did all the dishes. Then cleaned the counter. Then

took a shower. Then ate those scrambled eggs. Then waited while the

dishwasher ran. Put the clean dishes away. Showered again. Realized only

when I started shampooing my hair that I had done so already today. Felt

foolish. Spent twenty minutes in the shower anyway. Got dressed.

Changed my mind, put my pajamas back on. Changed my mind again, got

dressed, this time in a different outfit.

By the time I had finally exhausted every little thing I could think of

to do, short of deciding to finish a book, or Netflix-marathon a couple of

TV shows, over three hours had passed. It was well past noon. I went back

to my cell phone and found, to my dismay, that the text was still blank. I

had half hoped my phone would have grown impatient and written the text

for me. Isn’t that what Siri was supposed to be for? Maybe I should….

With a sigh, I made myself stop putting off the inevitable. Not letting

myself overthink it anymore, I whipped out a text to the guy I hoped could

still be my best friend.

Kai, we should talk. Come over after school?

Two seconds later, my phone buzzed with a reply.

Not until you spell my name right.

Okay, Chi
, I sent back.

Dammit
, came the response,
now you have ME saying it wrong.

I laughed despite myself. All the anticipatory tension I’d had

suddenly drained away. I texted back,
If there were two of you, we could

call you “the Cheese.”

You’re the worst. Friendship over.
Then, a second later,
See you
soon.
I flopped down on my bed with a relieved sigh. Now I just have to wait—I checked the time—a little over two hours. Shit. I wished I had

saved some of those procrastination tasks for now. I’d had enough

breakfast that I probably wouldn’t be hungry until, like, midnight. Oh

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After School Activities

well. At least this would give me an opportunity to come up with what I

wanted to say.

Maybe I could take a shower….

WHEN KAI eventually arrived, we spent the first ten minutes or so

standing on opposite sides of my room, silent, staring at each other. I

couldn’t help but imagine tumbleweeds rolling across the room between

us, like we were two cowboys who had shown up to the noon shootout,

each waiting for the other to make the first move. But I figured I would

have to start. That seemed fair.

So, finally, I broke the silence.

“Why?”

“Why what.” I didn’t answer. Instead I stared flatly at him.

Expectantly. He sighed. “I thought it would be fun. And it was. I thought

you would like it. You clearly did. I did too. I don’t really understand what happened.”

“Really?” He looked away, shrugged. “Do you have any idea how

careful I’ve always been around you? How careful I’ve always had to be?

I’ll take that confused look to mean ‘no.’ You get naked at the drop of a

hat, Kai. I wish that was only a figure of speech, but you literally dropped

a hat once and, for some reason, thought it would be funny to hang it on

your dick like a coatrack. On the one hand, it’s nice you feel that

comfortable around me. It’s refreshing to have someone not act like I’m

going to prey on them or something. But on the other hand, you’re very

hot, and I very much like dicks. I was always afraid that if I ever saw you

naked, I wouldn’t be able to think of you as my best friend anymore, but

as a really hot guy with a really hot dick that I wanted but could never

have. So I always kept my eyes firmly away. Which wasn’t always easy.

You wanted me to see your dick-hatrack, remember?”

“But you didn’t have to—”

“Yes, I did! You were not just some random hot guy. You’re my

best friend. I already loved you. The only thing that kept me from being

in
love with you was that your dick was happily off limits. That’s why casually fooling around was never going to work for me. I wanted more

than you could give me. And the worst part was we even stopped being

friends, really, while all that was going on.”

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Dirk Hunter

“What?” Kai looked shocked, angry even at the suggestion.

“You got all awkward around me at school.”

“You did too!”

“I was trying not to fall in love with you. What was your excuse?

You didn’t want Mel to find out?” Kai looked like he was about to argue,

but I didn’t let him start. “And that’s not even the worst part. Things were

happening, big things, that I needed my best friend for. Not his dick, but

my actual best friend. And you weren’t there for me.” I found myself

fighting back tears. “God, I’ve always been there for you. When you were

all heartbroken that Mel wouldn’t go out with you. When your dad died.

You were there for me when Adam was bullying me to tears every day,

but you couldn’t get your mind off sex long enough to be there when

he….” I trailed off.

“What? When he what? What did that asshole do now?” Kai looked

furious, his hands curled into fists.

“Nothing. Well, I mean, he did some things, but nothing bad.” Kai

looked completely confused. “You know that night we… the last time we

hung out?” Kai nodded. “Well, like two days before that, Adam showed

up at my house in the middle of the night and… well, it turns out he’s gay

too, and he only bullied me so no one would realize how he
actually
felt about me.”

“Oh.” He paused, clearly trying to come to grips with what he’d

heard. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I tried. You were a little preoccupied. With my dick.”

Kai laughed softly. “I guess I was. I’m sorry.” He paused. “You’re

right. I should have been there for you. It must have been hard, having that

creep come on to you.” Kai’s eyes suddenly lit up. “What did you say to

him? Did you call him all the names he ever called you? Did you vomit,

like, all over his entire body?”

“Actually, kind of the opposite happened.”

“He vomited all over you? How did
that
come about?”

“No, I mean we kind of….” I trailed off again. For some reason, I

couldn’t quite bring myself to tell Kai that Adam and I had slept together.

“You what? You….” He suddenly gasped in realization. “Oh. You

mean… you and he…?” I nodded. Kai’s eyes grew wide, like a hurt puppy

dog’s. “You left me for Adam?”

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After School Activities

I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it. Kai looked even more hurt.

“Really? You’re jealous? You are still straight, right?”

“Yeah, it’s just… you don’t like him better than me, do you?”

“No, of course not. Well, in that
like
-like way, yeah, but he actually
like
-likes me too.”

“I guess,” Kai said. I could almost swear he was pouting.

“Are you sulking?”

“No. Shut up. I’m just saying… I could too.”

I laughed. He was definitely sulking. “Listen, you had your chance.”

“But
Adam
?”

“He’s actually really nice. He really seems to care about me too.”

“Adam.”

“Yeah, I know. I was surprised too. Kind of one of the things I wish

I could have shared with you back when it was first happening.”

Kai gave a sheepish look. “I’m sorry. But you can tell me now!

Okay. Start from the beginning. Tell me the whole story.”

“Well….” I said, looking at the clock.

Kai sighed. “Let me guess. Adam’s coming over soon.”

“Well, I don’t know about soon, but eventually.”

“All right,” Kai grumbled. “I guess I can get out of your hair. Let

you get ready for Loverboy to show up.”

“Speaking of which, you can’t tell anyone about Adam. I don’t think

he’d even like it that I told you.”

“I mean, I figured. I’m not an idiot.”