The Book of David (16 page)

So.

That's what happened last night.

This morning, when I woke up, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, showered and dressed. The light was pouring in the window. It was after eleven a.m. His T-shirt said
FLYING BURRITO
BROTHERS,
and when my eyes opened, he smirked and said he had to leave, but that I should just pull the front door closed behind me.

When he tried to stand up again, I grabbed his hand and pulled him back toward me. He came down on his knees next to the bed, laughing.

“Dang. You're strong.”

I pulled his head close to mine and kissed him really long and hard. He leaned in to me, and I could taste his toothpaste and smell his deodorant, and I wanted to pull him back onto the bed. After we kissed for a minute, he put both hands on my shoulders and gently pushed me away.

He stood up over the bed and ran a hand through his hair with a big sigh. Then he fixed me with that amazing smirk and those incredible eyes and shook his head. “Trouble,” he said.

Then he was gone.

I lay in his bed for a long time, thinking about what happened last night and just then. Finally I got up, got dressed, and drove home.

Dad was on the couch watching the U of A game when I walked through the door. I sat there staring at the screen with him for a long time. We've always hunted and watched football together. Something about sitting there next to him felt right, but now it also felt horribly wrong, too. There was something unseen between us—this huge thing that I don't even understand.

I mean, I understand it intellectually. Hell, I've been flipping through books about “changes to your body” since I was in sixth
grade, looking up the chapters on what it means to experience “same-sex attraction.” Even before I knew, I guess I
knew
.

But now I
know
. I
really
know. I know from
experience
.

And there's no way I can go back to
not
knowing. I'll always know this about myself, and I'll never be able to tell my dad. How will I always be able to hide this from him?

I sat there on the couch until halftime, and then I came up here to my room to write this all down. All I can think about is how my dad can
never
know and at the same time, about how much I want to kiss Jon again.

My lips are still chapped, and every time I touch them, I feel excited and scared. I want to laugh and cry at the same time.

I have to go for a run.

In church.

Bored as hell.

Tried to send Jon twenty different texts yesterday, but none of them sounded right, so I deleted them all. I thought maybe he'd text me after rehearsal, but he didn't. I went for my run, and as I got out of the shower, Monica pulled up with Amy and said we were meeting Jon for food. I guess I got really excited, because Monica said, “There it is.”

“There
what
is?” I asked her.

“Your smile,” she said. Then she leaned in to kiss me, and I sort of pulled my head back as if I were saying,
What are you doing?
But then I caught what I had done right as she gave me this funny look. I turned my head quickly to the side and coughed. I played the whole thing off as though I had been about to cough in her face. Then I leaned in and kissed her.

I tried to really kiss her the way I had kissed her before—the way I had kissed Jon yesterday morning before he left for rehearsal. It felt like putting on sunscreen after you're already fried: too little, too late.

But I think it just felt that way to me. Monica seemed to really be into it. Amy was not.

“Jeez, you guys. Get a room.”

Amy isn't really known for her originality, but I was glad to have an excuse to get into the car.

Jon was waiting for us on the deck outside at the restaurant, and he smiled as I slid into the chair next to his, but during dinner he barely talked to me. He mainly talked to Monica about the musical and Amy about meeting her family down at the River Market for lunch today. When I finally got up the nerve, I scooted my leg over under the table so my knee touched his, but just then he got up and said he had to use the restroom.

When he came back, the girls decided to go to the restroom together, and I had the chance to ask him if he was okay.

“Totally,” he said.

“Cool. I guess—I thought maybe you'd call or something after rehearsal.”

He just said, “Slowly,” but he winked and smiled at me when he said it. Then he squeezed my knee under the table.

At that very moment the waiter showed up with our food (of course), and then the girls came back. I tried for the rest of the meal to figure out a way to arrange it so that Jon would take me home and Monica would take Amy home, but there was really no way to make that happen without it being weird. Jon took Amy home and gave me a fist bump as I got into Monica's car.

“Catch ya Monday” was all he said. I felt my stomach turn.
Monday?

“You okay?” Monica asked before she started the car. I didn't know how to answer. So I just leaned across the seat and kissed her until she giggled and pushed me off.

I kissed her some more when we got back to my place, but when I tried to slide my hand up her shirt, she batted me away and told me that she had to get home.

“To do what?” I asked, secretly relieved.

I honestly don't remember what she said now. All I could think about was texting Jon. I was doing that as I passed my dad in the hallway.

“Always glued to that damn phone, boy. Gotta get you out in the woods. Get you away from all that pansy-ass technology. Give you a good ol'-fashioned rifle.”

Pansy ass?

Every time I pass my dad in the hall now, I get scared that he can tell. It's stupid, I know. Like what? He's the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk? He can somehow
smell
the gay on me?

Jon didn't text me back last night. And nothing this morning.

Jesus. I'm losing my fucking mind.

In church.

Tyler is back. He had surgery last Monday, and he's already been to physical therapy twice. He says they're being really aggressive with it so that he can get back in shape by spring. He's still on crutches and wearing a big brace, but he actually smiled at me this morning and said he was going to come to practice and watch this afternoon for a little bit before he has to go to physical therapy.

Jon came in late this morning, so I didn't get a chance to talk to him yet. I texted him yesterday to see how things went with Amy on Saturday night, but he just texted:

It was fine. =P

Then . . . nothing.

I am trying not to let it bother me. I am trying not to text him every ten minutes. I mean, I'm the one who made it clear that I didn't want him to get all clingy and start thinking of me as his boyfriend or something.

What is happening?

What if I'm the clingy one?

Jesus. What a couple of days.

So, yesterday afternoon, when Tyler came to practice to hang out for a few minutes before physical therapy, we were running tackles and doing burpees when I saw these guys sitting near him in the bleachers. I just assumed they were the PT team his dad has him set up with trying to get him back in shape.

Then, after a while, I glanced over and Tyler was gone but these guys were still there. They were watching us run line drills and had stop watches out. One of them was talking to Coach on the sideline.

After I got out of the shower and was headed out of the locker room, I passed Coach's office and he stuck his head out the door after me.

“You going to talk to 'em?”

“Who?” I asked.

“Those scouts.”

“What scouts?” I asked.

Coach smiled for what might be the second time in his entire life—at least that I've ever seen. “You'll see,” he said. “Talk to 'em.”

When I walked out the door, I saw both of the guys who were in the bleachers. Both of them were really tan, and the tall, blond one stepped forward and introduced himself. They were scouts.

“Dave Joseph, USC.”

I shook his hand. “Hey.” These guys were from California?

“You got a second?”

I nodded. “You came here from California; guess I have a second.”

“We were in Memphis visiting a couple guys.”

“And you just happened over to Little Rock?” I asked.

“We were here in May,” he said. “Spring eval looking at Tyler.”

I remembered seeing Tyler talking to the guys in the bleachers at the start of practice. “Did you make him an offer?” I asked.

“He was pretty dead set on sticking around here,” Dave said. “Besides, I read about his injury online. Then I saw some footage
of you. You haven't given anybody a verbal yet, have you?”

I shook my head. “OU offered, but when she came back last week, I sort of didn't get a chance to talk to her.”

Dave frowned. “Alicia Stevenson? She's been to see you twice?”

“Three times. I talked to their coach last spring. I just figured . . .”

Dave held up his hand. “Don't tell me anything else. I don't wanna know. This is technically ‘Quiet Period.' She's supposed to see you only once in person until November.”

I nodded. I'd heard about this, but I didn't think it counted unless it was the coach of the team.

“Don't be fooled by the long legs and the high heels, man. OU is great and all, but we're talking PAC-12. State school versus private.”

“Are we talking that?” I asked.

He smiled. “This is my one chance face-to-face. You see me?” He waited until I looked him in the eye. “We want you. We need a QB with a passing game. You're our guy. You do what you want, but have you been to Oklahoma City?”

I nodded. “Once. As a kid. Drove through on the way to my mom's cousin's wedding.”

He laughed. “It hasn't gotten any better, trust me. Los Angeles is where you want to be.”

He held out his hand again. I shook it. There was a business card pressed into my palm.

“Don't get stuck in the Midwest, man. Come to LA. We'll make you a star. It's what we do there.”

As I watched them stride away across the field toward the parking lot, I felt my phone buzz in my bag. When I pulled it out, I had a text from Tyler:

USC, huh? Nice!

I called him and could hear the genuine excitement in his voice. I knew it was mainly because he knew I wouldn't take his Arkansas deal any longer. And he was right. I laughed with Tyler for the first time in a long time. I asked him how his knee was, and he said it hurt like a bitch, but that he was in it to win it.

Alicia Stevenson must've gotten tipped off. She called my cell three times today and left voice mails at home, too. When I got home from school today, Dad was all over it.

“You don't wanna move to the Left Coast with all those fairies, do you?”

Literally, that's what he said. Not “good work” or “amazing job” or “it's incredible that you've got three schools fighting over you now.” It all came down to California and fairies.

I knew the minute I heard they were from USC that this was my chance—not just to play college ball, but my chance to get out of here. Out of the South in general. I don't need my
dad's permission to take a scholarship. I'm eighteen years old. This is where I start to decide what I want for my own life. This is my decision, not his.

This is how it happens.

I texted Jon about it. He's calling me right now.

Just got off the phone with Jon. He may be more amped up about the USC offer than I am. It made me feel so good to get really excited about it with him. Suddenly I wasn't worried about what had been going on between us. I was just happy to be sharing good news with my friend. And he had news for me, too.

“You know, I've been looking at UCLA.”

“Get the hell out!” I was almost shouting.

“True story,” he said.

“For swimming?” I asked.

“Are you kidding? You're the world-class athlete. They've got a decent English program and a decent music program. I'm not really sure what I want to major in, but I know I want do it in LA.”

In a flash I saw the whole thing: We could escape to LA together. I felt silly right away.
Are you planning happily ever after? He'll hardly look at you since last weekend.

I took a deep breath. “Dude, since I . . . crashed at your
place the other night, has everything been . . . okay?”

He hemmed and hawed for a little while: homework, writing assignments, rehearsals . . .

Finally I said, “Spill it. What's going on?”

“I've just been . . . busy.”

“Okay.” The way I said it, he knew I wasn't buying whatever it was he was selling.

He sighed. “Look, I just . . . I didn't want you to feel like I was pressuring you.”

This made me smile. Somewhere deep inside of me, it made me like Jon even more. “Pressuring me?” I said. “You're hardly talking to me.”

“I just don't want you to think I'm making this something that it isn't.” He said this slowly, like he was trying to choose exactly the right words.

“What
is
this?” I blurted out.

“I don't know.” His voice was soft—like he wasn't sure what to say next.

“I don't know either,” I said. “But I don't want it to stop.”

I waited for him to say something for what seemed like an eternity. The air across the line was like a freight train.

Finally I heard him take a deep breath. “Me neither,” he said.

“So . . . maybe you should talk to me in the halls or something?” I suggested. Jon laughed, and I felt relief splash
over me like jumping into the pool on a hot day. “Whatever else you are, you're my friend first,” I said. “Don't forget that part.”