His house wants to throw a party, and he agrees, knowing that he won’t be there for much of it. People arrive, he says hi, he leaves. He arrives at senior night at Firkin’s Tavern, his friends rush up to him. They get drinks together. He purchases a bottle of beer, walks to the back by the pool tables. He sees more friends, says hello to all of them. He stops at one friend, a guy, who is with another guy. The guy he knows is nice. The guy he does not know says, “Whoa, why do you have a bottle? How much was that?” 
He replies, “I don’t know; three dollars?”
The guy he doesn’t know tries to call him out. Tries to play big. “You think you’re cool? This right here,” he says, furnishing a plastic cup, “was a dollar fifty.”
He’s usually nice. He tries to make good first impressions. And there is no reason to hate this guy that he doesn’t know. 
The guy he doesn’t know continues. “Why would you buy a bottle when Miller is on draught for a dollar fifty? You must think you’re cool.”
At first he wants to say, What’s wrong with buying what you like? Why does it matter?
But he sees an opportunity. This fool that he doesn’t know is making this situation cutthroat. This guy without manners asks for it. Practically begs.
The words repeat in his head: “You think you’re cool?”
“Oh, so by cool you mean ‘has more money.’” He looks up and down at the guy that he doesn’t know, and looks at himself. “You’re fuckin’ right.” He turns around, walks away, is approached by all of his girlfriends. More girls than the other guy will ever touch in his life. 
He overhears what the guy says: that he’s a dick, that he’s conceited, that that wasn’t necessary. 

Oh, but it fucking was.

Camping

We went camping three hours away in PA. The troop went for the week. I was only able to make it up at 130 am Wednesday. 
I arrived. I found the site. I slept in Jack’s tent. 

We woke up at the same time to the sound of Mrs. Black’s voice. It’s 5:56 and we dressed ourselves before surprising everyone with my presence. We ate breakfast, and the boys went to do their morning activities. Brian and Greg were more than ecstatic to see me, especially since I had been misleading them to think that I would not be able to go camping.

Lunch time. When the troop was about to clean up, Brian and Greg took me to their tent. Jack followed. He was then asked to help clean, or at least to supervise since he was the Senior Patrol Leader. He refused. 

The Scoutmaster was furious. He brought up points about Jack: irresponsible, doesn’t have leadership qualities, stubborn, disrespectful. The Scoutmaster even threatened to withhold Eagle rank from Him.
Eventually, the adults approached me. Every adult that I have ever respected in that troop came to me.

“You’ve gotta talk to him Kev,” the old Scoutmaster said to me. She was Scoutmaster when I was still in Scouts. “You’re the only one that can get through to him. You always were. He respects you more than he respects me, which shouldn’t happen, but he does.”
She called me his keeper. I spent the rest of the day with Jack, Greg, Brian, Nicole, and Alex. In Jack’s tent. When I was not listening or talking to them, I thought of how to stop him from upsetting the Scoutmaster. 

A storm passed through. Our shirts clung to our bodies, but Jack and I knew better: we weren’t wearing shirts. 
We napped, cuddling, until dinner time. The Scoutmaster yelled at him again. I do not remember what for. He refused to apologize. 

The troop went to the other side of camp again. I told the guys that I needed to talk to him now, that I would meet them later at camp. I started by bringing up things that had nothing to do with anything. Then I get in to it.
“You know how you’re always trying to be like me? Or act how you think I would?”
Before answering, he gave me a weary and defeated look.
“Yea.”
“Then why are you and Frank (the Scoutmaster) still fighting? Just do what I would do.”
“I don’t know what that is Kev. I’m not you.” 
I explained to him that manipulation is probably the easiest thing on the planet to master. That if he apologized to Frank, he shouldn’t feel like he lost. In fact, the apology is part of a bigger a picture. A game. One that could be his to win and manipulate if he just Played. Get Frank to respect and like him and he should do the same to Frank. To his face, at least. I explained the solution in My terms. The way I would understand it best. And so did he.
By now we had walked to three different locations. The totem poles by the Central dining hall. The tables by the Trading Post. The woods by the fishing spot at Wilkinson’s cabin. An hour ago it was time for me to leave. He hugged me. I hugged him back out of courtesy. I saw out of the corner of my eye a group of scouts. One turned to look at us, and then the whole group did.
“WHAT, you’ve never seen guys hug before!?”Jack yelled.
He held me tighter than I felt was appropriate. I broke away, leaned against a tree. He came closer, his legs stationed between mine. We talked about nothing and everything like that. He hugged me again and I tried to get away, but he already had his arms wrapped around me. He rocked me slowly from side to side and pulled me close to him, my back to his chest, and hugged me from behind. He rested his head on the back of my neck and breathed a few times. I realized that I was not stopping him, that I was in fact letting him hug me in my favorite position. That we were holding my waist together.
“You know I’m happy that you came up here, right?” he asked.
“I do now.”
“I missed you so much, you have no idea.”
“I think I have an idea.”
“You know I don’t do this with anyone else? And that I love you, right?”
I laughed at him.
“FINE!” he screamed at me.
“What?”
“I hate when you do that.”
When I make him feel like an idiot for sharing his feelings. Which is often.
We spoke the next day and I told him that his hug was nice. He said nothing. I took the leap and asked him why he does that. Why he will be close but not close enough. Why, if I said something borderline nice, he doesn’t know what to say.
“I have no idea. Because I don’t want you or me to get attached. We’ve already went through this and I don’t want it to happen again.”
“So,” I reply, “when you say you don’t want you or me to get attached, you’re saying that You could get attached? Again?”

“Of course I could, 

you have no idea.”

An IM from an ex.

MxVirtuoso489: Just so you know. That one-act you missed for the class you got locked out of. My debut… It was for you. It was about you. You always ask why I haven’t written anything for you. Well, that was for you. It was about you. I wrote it when we were dating. The Friend in the Fourth Wall. I didn’t want to tell you it was for/about you. But, whatever. It was.

Yoga

It’s a Thursday night turned into a Friday morning. I had just come back home, and I receive an IM from Will. Small talk, “so what’s going on with you,” the usual. He’s with Justin, who says hi, to come over. I pretend for a moment that I don’t want to, “it’s too late,” but I give in. 

They’re watching The Colbert Report, and Justin’s topless. Something I don’t acknowledge but aptly assume is done on purpose, because it certainly is not warm in their living room. We chill, and Will goes to sleep. Justin bears down on me like the inquisition and as I answer, he too reveals more of himself with every word.

Not using words, of course. But I catch the undercurrent of every gesture and statement and feeling, and I ride it for a while until I’m wading in the epicenter of his personality. I want to dive in it and swim to the bottom and take his treasures for myself, but I don’t. It’s too soon, and I know enough to realize that I’d drown if I went too deep. That it would be stupid, the opposite of strategic. So I let our friendship grow organically as his personality saturates me and a part of me roots itself into his life. 

We watch Family Guy, discuss ourselves, learn more about each other. More than we could while just drinking at Whitney’s or dancing at the club. And this whole time I keep thinking how lovely it would be to lie next to him, with my head on his chest, rising and falling with his breath. As easily as the thought comes, I put it out of my mind, but it is relentless. Instead, he makes me tea, orders us some spinach and garlic pizza. And he doesn’t stop smiling. I invite him to yoga, and he almost jumps off of the couch in excitement. He goes to bed, and I doze off with his dog in my lap and the television on, the flickering bright light of the screen failing to disturb my sleep. 

I’m napping at home when I receive a one-worded text: “yoga?” I tell him that I’m asleep, lazy, dead to the world. He doesn’t push me, says that it’s cool, but if I want to come over then I should. I often think he’s clever, never one to miss an opportunity, still trying to get that time with me. Even though I had seen him hours prior. So I reward him, much like I would a puppy. Tell him that I’ll pick him up, that we’ll be doing yoga. Together.

He takes his treat in stride and I allow it to go unchallenged. We arrive late, but it is a nonissue. We lay down our mats, his behind mine, and do not speak for an entire hour. It was odd not speaking; I usually do yoga with my housemates, and we laugh and smile at each other or give exasperated sighs when something is too difficult. I find myself trying too hard and looking back at him. Not necessarily to see if he is okay, but to receive the acknowledgment that I am so accustomed to during yoga. I am not disappointed, but further intrigued. Our arms bulge and flex and we sweat until the end. 

He says that he’s never experienced anything quite like it, that he’s only done yoga for twenty minutes at a time at most. He tells me that he doesn’t have anything going on. Obviously a cue for me to invite him to do something other than drop him off at his house. So we get dinner, and we talk. He prods, as usual: “So did you know Will was gay when you first met him?” I reply that “it didn’t matter,” that “Will doesn’t need to tell anyone,” but Justin took it as “Will doesn’t need to tell anyone that he’s gay because everyone can tell just by listening to him.” I explain that no, I meant that it doesn’t matter, that he doesn’t have to tell anybody he’s gay, because who cares? 

I realize that I did not answer the question, so I tell him that “yes, I did know.” He persists, asks me how that works, if I always know if someone is gay, if gaydar is real. But now he’s just fishing, trying to figure things out for himself. I tell him that I’m an expert, always spot on, but I make it clear that it doesn’t matter. I tell him that the most I can do is be comfortable with myself while around others so that they know what being gay is actually like, as opposed to metropolitan stereotypes on Project Runway. I say that I make it a point to show others that I’m comfortable in my own skin so that if someone is questioning themselves, they can come up to me and ask me anything.

I die a little when I can’t bring myself to look at him while explaining this. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m nervous to reveal myself or because I know that he’s asking the same questions that I’m talking about. But I don’t want to needlessly apply pressure, so I look everywhere else besides his eyes. 

We walk to my car and he asks me what we should do next. I mention that sweating in yoga necessitates a shower, but I don’t tell him that I’d prefer to shower with him. He asks me over after my shower, but I apologize, tell him that I have plans. But he doesn’t give up: “Tomorrow, then? Or Sunday?” I say yes, completely unsure if I can commit, but completely loving the smile that I receive.  

As he leaves my car he tells me that he wants to do this every Friday. And I think to myself:

I can live with that.

Justin

I’m off the ground in a bear hug and his arms feel warmer than the Caribbean.  He’s rubbing the small of my back and I melt.  All I can do is look up at the neon blur of green and red and accept it. He puts me down and I stagger, not because of the way he puts me down but because I’m drunk and overwhelmed. 

I saw him before, but I ignored him. I danced with my friends half a dance floor away from him on purpose.  Not too far to miss seeing me, just close enough to catch me in a peripheral. I let it happen. I feel it when he spots me and he comes to me like static cling. The hair that I thought was matted to my skin from sweat is standing tall now, but I go on like he is not walking towards me. I laugh with my friends at nothing funny, I dance like nobody is around. I let him know I’m having fun without him.

He’s wearing under armour because he likes to break dance. I’m positive it’s soaked with sweat but I welcome the hug.  He releases me, steps back, and smiles.  His teeth are clogged with sunlight and genuine happiness, but I can’t seem to move away from his ice blue eyes.  We dance, him more of a fool than I, but I don’t make anything of it.  He asks me why I haven’t been with them to club Love in New York, and I say that rolling isn’t my thing. That ecstasy kind of freaks me out.  

“That’s straight man,” he says like he’s black. “What’re you doin’ tonight? Do you want to come hang out?”

I tell him that I’m busy, that I’m actually going over my friend’s house. But in two minutes it turns into an interrogation.

“So this guy you’re seeing tonight, is he your uhh…”

I tell him the truth: that he’s not, that he’s just my friend. The other part of the truth is that he’s just my friend that I use and lead on and use some more, but that’s not something he needs to know.  

He says that it’s cool, that I should hang out with him some time. That we should spend more time together. 

A week later he texts me. I find it odd, especially because I didn’t give him my number; Robbie gave it to him. He’s teasing me, flirting really, but I do not relent. I know he claims to be straight, and I know he came out to me. Another loose end to tidy away. So, naturally, he tells me that he’s completely into me. 

As if I couldn’t tell.

As if I minded.

A Late Night Surprise

He smiled and it struck me hard, like a sunrise, and it warmed me just as much. He gently pulled my blanket down to reveal my topless torso and got on top of me in a straddle.
“I can’t tell you,” Jack said while he tenderly massaged my shoulders and my chest. 
I let slip a small moan of approval as I rubbed Jack’s inner thigh, but he stopped me. 
He leaned next to my ear and whispered, “That’s why it’s called a surprise.” He kissed my forehead and slid back, balancing his weight on my lower stomach. 
I reached for him again, but he caught my wrists and pinned my arms to my sides. 
“No no,” he said through a grin, “this is all you.”
Jack bent forward and took my ear into his mouth, nibbled and grazed his teeth against the outskirts of my lobe. His mouth was so warm that, when he took a reprieve from my ear to vigorously explore my neck, I shuddered as his saliva cooled around my ear. He supported himself with his beautiful arms and slid his body down mine as he kissed a trail from my chest to my belly button. As he moved down, his stomach and neck rubbed the growing speed bump in my shorts. 
When his chin hit my erection, he asked, surprised, “You’re hard already? That was nothing.” 

The Conclave

“Do you want me to tell you what I really think, or do you want me to tell you what you want to hear?” Brian asked me.
“Supposing that you even know what I want to hear,” I replied with a sharp look, “entertain me with both.”
“Well it’s obvious: it won’t end well for anyone. Except, maybe, you. You have EJ and Matty under your thumb, but they still have their own problems: Grant and, you know, the inability to be your friend because he likes you too much. As for what you want to hear… sure, Matty will be your friend forever and will be around whenever you want him to be (even though the reality is that he might be there when you don’t want him to be, too). And you will date EJ for X amount of days, weeks, maybe even months, and then throw him away,” Brian said, snatching up a piece of paper and then crumpling it before tossing it in a nearby trash can, ”just because you will get bored with him. And you will be okay with that.”
“I love you, you know that?” I told him with a smile. “While I don’t know if any of that will come true, here’s what I want: I want to be friends with the boy because I think it can work out eventually. But if we’re not friends, then obviously it can never work. And EJ, I just want him to be over Grant. I want Grant removed from existence. I want him to be less than a memory. So maybe I AM still seeing EJ because I don’t have his full attention yet. But I won’t know if I will get bored with him if I never get into a relationship with him.”
Greg nodded in agreement before he said, “Understandable. Both of you make really good points.” He coughed into the palm of one hand and smoothed his hair with the other before continuing. “Tell me about Sean.”
“He’s nothing,” I assured him. ”He’s a play thing. He’s like your Adam.”
Greg feigned a look of displeasure before responding. ”You know, he’s really hot. Why didn’t you date Him?”
Brian answered for me. “You would have your best friend date someone that peaks only his sexual interest? And barely, at that?”
I laughed before putting both hands on the table. ”Guys, guys. Let’s talk about Greg’s Bryan and Zach.”
With that, we glared at Greg.

And all we got was a devilish grin.

Neil

Neil splashed water at me, laughed, and bet me that I couldn’t splash more than he could.
“Are you kidding? I’ll splash all up in your face,” I told him as I made a masturbation gesture.
We laughed and he looked around, shameful of what I had said. We were in the biggest public pool I had ever been in; he shot me a look that said “Dude, be more cautious,” but the children and families that inundated the pool hadn’t heard. He was always one of those shy types.
I thrust my palm in his direction, throwing water at his head. His eyes closed, and his sand colored hair darkened when the water smothered it.
He made his way over to me. He pulled me up to his lips and we kissed in the middle of the pool. I was so surprised that I was unable to tell if anyone was staring. Our fingers found hips, our tongues explored necks, our stomachs sparked friction that could have electrocuted everyone in the pool. 
In an instant we were sprinting shirtless through the halls of the hotel. We playfully pulled at each others shorts. At one point he was walking backwards, smiling wider than the universe, eventually hitting his head on one of the light fixtures that protruded from the wall. He looked embarrassed, but his smile never dissolved. He brought his hand up to rub his head, and as a result his biceps inflated like a balloon. He looked at the light, the culprit, and his eyes became a fiery green- a Zippo to evergreen magnesium. 
We got to his door and we kissed before looking around, but there was no one there. We entered and heard the shower running, saw the vanity mirror was fogged, and disappointment pulled with gravity at our expressions. 
“Dude, I thought you weren’t gonna be here…” Neil told his friend in the shower.
“Oh, I’ll be gone in a second. Did I hear someone else come in?“
Instead of answering, Neil took me to his connected room and locked the door.

Brian

He was gnawing on beef jerky when I first met him. Like a canine, he tore at the jerky before he extended his other hand to ‘pound’ mine. “I’m Brian.”

I thought that maybe it was merely a momentary lapse in his usual casual behavior. 
While attending a private party at Gravity, Robbie was particularly trashed that night. And I was getting it all on film. 
After a few pictures, I felt a tug at my jeans.
A scantily-clad 20 something woman was trying to get my attention. Her hair was in pig-tails and the makeup on the left side of her face was smeared. When she looked up at me she looked like a whore coked out of her face.
“Pardon, but is this girl bothering you?” I heard someone ask from behind me. 
It was Brian. When he gestured to the girl pulling at my leg, I noticed that he was clean-shaven, wearing a black polo and dark jeans, and his chestnut hair was done up in a sophisticated mess. The bartender lit the bar on fire and his jade eyes reflected the dancing flames like a pane of glass. He touched the girl on the shoulder and tried to move her away. She waved him off and eventually started biting instead of pulling. She gripped at my ankle and calf as if my lower leg was the juiciest, most appetizing leg of lamb and sank her teeth into my jeans. Brian rolled his eyes and jerked her hair back, asking her, respectfully, to stop. 
A sarcastic badass. I liked that.
She gasped, but ignoring her was not going to work. I glanced from Brian to the girl.
“Do you need something?” I asked in a bitchy tone, more for Brian to hear than for the girl.
“You have my camruhhh!” she claimed, pointing at the gunmetal Canon in my hand.
I smiled, musing at the lack of moderation the girl had taken in the process of her self-inebriation. 
“No-no, this is my camera.” 

She looked at me in disbelief. So we pointed at her wrist, and from it dangled her camera. We said “Your camera,” but then I stopped when I realized we were saying the same thing. 
Brian, however, went on: “Your camera is right here, see?” he said, gently fingering the lanyard fastening the black camera to the girl’s thin wrist. 

“A friend of yours?” he asked. A smile played on his lips. He eyed both glasses playfully and cocked his head as if reaching a point-breaking decision; he eventually handed me the one in his right hand.
“Obviously my best. Don’t you have friends that bite your legs?”
When Robbie vomited for the third time, we decided to leave. Brian understood, of course, and told me that one day, in lieu of seeing each other by accident, we should do it on purpose. 
I went in for a hug, but he wouldn’t allow it, and stopped me with his hands on my chest. 
“What?” I asked him, furrowing my brow.
“You’re too cute to not kiss.” 
The following evening, he called me.

“Hey. How’s your leg?“

Jack

“Burton,” he said as he paused to look up at me from the snowboard rack, “they make the best snowboards.” A statement, not a question. 

I adjusted my jaw; it was tired from making out with him in the car ten minutes ago.
“Why do you think that?” I asked. I looked at him to make him even more nervous. 
“Because…” he looked down.

I love it when I can make them second guess themselves. 

Worried, he stuttered, “b-b-because… you wear Burton, and I have only known you to wear the best.“     

Good answer.

But I did not falter at his compliment; I did not smile, I did not pause, I did not care. 
“But they’re Not the best at everything,” I corrected him. I pretended to check out other things: clothes, wallets, anything to release the pressure I put on him five seconds ago. I know he felt foolish, and I wasn’t going to salt it by giving him a knowing stare. This wasn’t about King of the Hill, though it was relative to control. 
He walked up behind me and his hands grazed my hips. He spoke softly, but it wasn’t a whisper.
“What do you mean? What aren’t they good at?” 
“They have great quality boards, don’t get me wrong,” I leaned back into him and inhaled. 

I turned my head to move my ear and cheek dangerously close to his lips, a move I executed flawlessly, “but they don’t own Speed.” He exhaled into my ear and I felt his ninety-eight point six degrees of life electrocute my senses. 

I walked away and felt his hands fall from my hips, a taut thread being torn from a needle. I stayed on track. “You know, like, racing.” I smiled for him, more for his well being than a mere expression of genuine happiness. A smile to let him know that everything was still all right and that, despite his lack of knowledge in my favorite sport, I was still there with him. Spending my time on a Saturday night with this kid that doesn’t have his own identity yet. Choosing to play a game that I will never get bored with on “expert” difficulty.
Wallowing in just another excuse to be conceited.