Boyfriends with Girlfriends (17 page)

“Um, if you promise to give him back,” Lance said, half-grinning and half-serious.

Watching them dance together, he was totally impressed. They moved a lot better than Sergio and he did, almost like an ace dance team.

When the set changed to a fast rock song, some curly-haired guy began to dance with both Sergio and Serena in a threesome.

“Who is he?” Lance asked Kimiko.

“A guy Sergio went out with.”

“Um, yeah?” Lance’s stomach clenched with a twinge of jealousy and his anxiety returned. Was Sergio going out with the guy
now
?

When Sergio returned, Lance handed him a cup of ice water to help him cool down and asked, “So, um, is he your ex too?”

“Hector? Not exactly,” Sergio said, guzzling the water down. “We only made out a couple of times. He was too possessive.”

Lance cringed, recalling Darrell once telling him he was too clingy. He knew he should stop this conversation. But he couldn’t.

“Um, can I ask you something? Like, are you going out with anyone else now?”

Sergio thought about the question and tossed his empty cup aside. “Why do you want to know that?”

Lance gave a shrug. “I guess I’d like to know who my competition is.”

Sergio glanced across the dance floor, debating how to
respond. Even though he wasn’t dating anybody besides Lance, the conversation was making him uneasy.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to talk about this,” he told Lance. “It feels like you’re trying to pin me down again. I told you I’m not ready to be a couple.”

“So then why did you invite me to homecoming?”

“Because I wanted you to come with me. I thought it would be fun.”

Lance gritted his teeth, remembering Allie telling him to “just go with the flow and have fun.” If only it were that easy. He watched the dancers and brooded.

“You want to dance some more?” Sergio asked.

“Sure,” Lance said, hoping to burn off his frustration. It helped when the DJ played “Electricity” from
Billy Elliot the Musical
, one of Lance’s favorites. The song seemed to express how scared, mixed-up, and mad he felt. As he danced and sang along, he gradually found himself also uncontrollably happy to be with Sergio . . . and once again eager to take things to the next level.

“You want to go to that place you took me to last time?” he asked Sergio after they’d said good night to Kimiko and Serena and were leaving the dance.

“You bet,” Sergio answered, knowing Lance meant the little lane where they’d made out. He was glad that Lance had gotten over his funk about dating and gave him directions back to where they’d parked beneath the poplar trees.

Sergio cracked the window a little, still feeling warm from dancing. Across the car, Lance smelled faintly of
sweat and FIERCE cologne—a good smell. . . . Masculine . . . Sexy . . . Sergio leaned over, kissed him, and within seconds they were all over each other: arms circling, tongues in each other’s mouths, hearts pounding.

Lance’s heartbeat throbbed with anticipation for Sergio to move his hand back to his zipper like last time.

But Sergio didn’t. He was determined to let Lance set the pace, like Kimiko had suggested. He was sort of enjoying the thrill of wanting but waiting—at least for now.

This time it was Lance who felt impatient, even though he couldn’t blame Sergio for not making the move. After getting shot down last time, why would Sergio set himself up again? Lance could, of course, make the move himself, but that felt so bold. Instead, he began to nudge Sergio’s hand down toward his pants, hoping Sergio would get the hint.

At first, Sergio wasn’t sure what was going on, except that his hand was being bumped inch by inch down Lance’s torso . . . until it landed on his zipper.

I guess we’re moving on,
Sergio thought, and the excitement of that possibility overcame the thrill of waiting. Figuring he wouldn’t get slammed again, he placed Lance’s hand on his zipper too. And sure enough, Lance kept it there this time; he didn’t pull away.

As they made out ever more feverishly, their hands moved and rubbed across the front of each other’s jeans. Fingers tested zippers. Pants were fumbled open.

Lance felt about to explode as Sergio slid his hand inside, grabbed hold of him, and—

“Ahhh!” Lance gasped in climax, as alternating waves of ecstasy and embarrassment surged through him. How had it happened so fast?

“Sorry, sorry,” he whispered. But before he could utter another word, Sergio was prompting his hand and—

“Whoa!” Suddenly it was Sergio who was gasping, almost as quick, giving Lance some consolation.

“That was awesome,” Sergio whispered, catching his breath, overjoyed that he hadn’t had to wait two months.

“It wasn’t too fast?” Lance asked.

“I guess I was excited,” Sergio said and leaned his head back on the headrest.

“Yeah, me too,” Lance said. Without realizing it, he began to hum. He felt so glad they’d moved to the next level. More than just glad—exuberant. In spite of his concerns about Sergio, he felt more connected to him than he ever had to Darrell. And unlike his sex attempts with Darrell, this time he felt like singing.

As soon as Lance got home, he called Allie. “We had hand sex!” he whispered into the phone even though his bedroom door was closed.

“Woo-hoo!” She giggled, picturing the scene in her mind.

“Mega-woo-hoo!” Lance replied. He’d never understood why Allie got so excited hearing about guy-on-guy action, but he didn’t mind.

“I’m not washing my hand for a year,” he continued, as he pulled his shoes off and told her about the homecoming dance and seeing Zelda. “It felt a little weird to
see a girl he’d actually had full-on sex with. But I think I’m mostly over the bi thing. There was also a guy he’d gone out with. So, like, do you think I’m possessive?”

“Not with me,” Allie said, half-jokingly. “Do you mean with Sergio? Hmm. I wouldn’t say
possessive
—more like
unsure . . . cautious
. . .”

“Well, wouldn’t you be?” Lance asked. “We had hand sex. To me that means we’re a couple. Don’t you think so? And he gave me this really cute plush puppy. . . . Hey, by the way, Kimiko said to say hi. She looked really cute wearing a guy’s suit and tie and a hat.”

“She’s so adorable with her whole boyish thing,” Allie said and began to brush her hair.

“So, how was your evening?” Lance asked, stroking the plush Irish setter.

Allie told him she’d hung out with Jenny, Jack, and Leo, another friend from their group. “He asked if I’m still going out with Chip. Jenny told me afterward that Leo said he wants to go out with me if I’m not seeing Chip anymore.”

“So, do you want to go out with Leo?” Lance asked.

“No. I like him as a friend, but not more than that. Besides, I’ve been thinking: Remember I told you about the last time I saw Kimiko and how I wondered what it would feel like to kiss her?”

“Are you going to try it?” Lance asked, sitting up in bed.

“I don’t know,” Allie said, continuing to brush her hair. “What if I’m
not
bi? I don’t want to ruin my friendship with her. I really, really like her.”

“Well . . .” Lance wiggled his toes, sore from dancing. “Maybe you should talk with her about it.”

“But what would I say?” Allie asked.

“Tell her what you just told me,” Lance suggested. “That you like her but you’re scared to mess up your friendship.”

After thinking about that a moment, Allie set her brush aside. “I wonder if Kimiko has ever gone out with anyone. She’s never mentioned it. Wait, that’s not true. Once she said she had zero experience with relationships. I should ask her. She probably thinks I’m a mess always asking her questions about stuff.”

“You’re not a mess,” Lance consoled her. “At least no more than me.”

They talked for a while longer before hanging up. Then Allie climbed into bed and read Book Three of
Girl Panic.
There was a lot more girl/girl kissing than in the first two, but none of the full-on sex action that so many boy/boy mangas had. She kind of wished there was.

O
ne evening the week after homecoming, Kimiko planted herself on her bedroom carpet to write a poem she’d been putting off, due the next day for her creative writing class. When she opened her poetry notebook, the daisy from Allie’s car dashboard fell out onto her lap.

Kimiko had forgotten she’d saved the flower there, pressed between the pages. She brought it to her face and inhaled the faint scent, picturing Allie in her VW bug, singing to sixties songs, her blond curls whipping in the open-window breeze.

Alegría
, Kimiko wrote,
the Spanish word for “joy.”

She stared at the words, chewed on her pen, and wondered: What was Allie doing now? Homework? Having dinner with her family? Playing with her little brother?

She thought about the first time she’d met Allie and jotted down:
How can you resist joy when it bounds toward you, stumbling over its outsize front paws?

Kimiko read over the words and wanted to crumple the page up, start over. Then she recalled Allie telling her, “You write beautifully.”

She made herself continue to write another line, then another. During the rest of the evening, she pieced together words and images, inserting lines and crossing them out, shifting stanzas back and forth.

A little before midnight, her mom tapped on the door. “It’s late, Miko,” she said softly. After several days of sulking, her mom had gradually gotten over her anger about the eyebrow ring.

“Okay, I’ll go to sleep in a minute,” Kimiko said, honestly intending to. But then she started to fuss with the words again, and the next time she looked at the clock, it was past one. Feeling spent and ready to throw the poem out, she put her pen down and crawled into bed. It seemed as if she’d barely fallen asleep when she awoke to the sound of her mom’s voice again.

“Wake up, Miko.” She gently shook her shoulder. Sunshine was splashing in the window. “You’re going to be late for school. What time did you go to sleep?”

“I don’t remember.” Kimiko yawned, stumbling out of bed, and got ready.

During homeroom, she copied her last night’s poem onto a clean sheet of paper, tinkering with a few more words, still unsatisfied with it.

“I think you should read it at the poetry open mike,” Ms. Swann said, handing it back the next day.

The open mike was held for all the county high schools once each semester—for anybody who wanted to recite or read an original poem in front of a live audience of students, teachers, friends, and family.

“Really?” Kimiko asked. “Do I have to?”

Getting in front of the mike could sometimes be fun but was already nerve-racking.

“You don’t
have
to,” Ms. Swann told Kimiko, “but I encourage you to.”

To Kimiko, that sounded pretty much like she had to; she didn’t want to disappoint Ms. Swann.

“All right.” Kimiko said, and made herself smile.

“Can I come?” Allie asked when Kimiko called and told her about the open mike. “I’d love to hear more of your poetry.”

Kimiko turned silent, realizing her mistake. She shouldn’t have mentioned the event. If Allie came, would she figure out the poem was about her?

“The poem’s not very good,” she told Allie.

“I bet it’s great—otherwise why would your teacher want you to read it?”

Kimiko tried to think of a way out of it. “She asked other people too, not just me. It can be a pretty boring event. I doubt you’d enjoy it.”

“I’d like to try it,” Allie said. “Unless you don’t want me to come.”

“Well . . .” Seeing no escape, Kimiko forced the words out. “. . . If you really want to come . . .”

The instant they’d finished talking, she speed-dialed Sergio.

“Dude! I think I really-really stuck my foot in it this time. She’s sure to realize the poem is about her.”

“Can’t you just read a different poem?” Sergio suggested.