String Boys, page 11
That’s all. Kissed. Cuddled. Held hands.
Quietly acknowledged that they were there as a couple.
It was the first time Kelly wondered if it might be worth it to call a halt to Soccer Wednesdays. It would almost be worth it to work harder to find time for sex if they could kiss everywhere—or even just touch hands, or hips, or shoulders.
If only Kelly could rub his thumb over Seth’s lips and make them pink again.
“Kelly!”
They both jerked, and Kelly wondered how long his dad had been calling his name. He was out of the water already, and Seth’s lips were pink again, and they’d apparently been staring into each other’s eyes like his totally disgusting brother and his bitchy girlfriend.
How gross.
But it was totally unavoidable, and he’d stare into Seth’s eyes again and again if he could.
“What, Dad?” he asked, seeing Seth looking away at the lake with his secret Kelly-smile on his lips.
“If you two are dry, go put on some sweatshirts and help your mother like she asked. Geez, you guys, you were totally….”
Kelly’s dad turned his head sideways and stared. His lips moved, and he looked hard at Seth and then back at Kelly, and Kelly kept his eyes big and round and innocent, like he had when he’d been little and had taken the last cookie, because the girls always got the last cookie, and sometimes Kelly just liked more than one, that was all.
Kelly stood up and tagged Seth on the shoulder. “C’mon, let’s get dressed. The skeeters’ll come out and eat us both if we don’t.”
Seth nodded and gave Kelly’s dad an absent smile. “I hate mosquito bites,” he said serenely, with so much space cowboy in his voice that even Kelly doubted he’d been mooncalfing at Kelly the way Kelly had been mooncalfing at him.
It worked, because Kelly’s dad shook his head like he was shaking off a particularly new and scary idea, and Seth and Kelly ventured through the woods, using the path that cut from the campground to the lake.
“That was close,” Kelly muttered.
“That wasn’t close,” Seth said, surprising him. “That actually happened. Kelly, I’m betting Soccer Wednesdays aren’t gonna continue after this week.”
As. If.
“What? They’re gonna make me go with them? With all the other kids playing? I don’t think so. What are they gonna say? ‘Erm, Kelly, you have to do homework up in your room because, even though you’re getting As and Bs, we think you need to be alone to get more As and Bs?’”
Seth let out a sigh. “They could just say it’s inappropriate for two young people who are dating to have so much time alone together.”
Kelly scowled and kicked a rock. “Like my brother?”
“Those were actually your mom’s exact words to your brother last night when they went for a nature walk.”
Kelly guffawed, worry forgotten. “Nature walk. Seriously. They probably mean walk au naturale!”
He heard Seth choke on a snort, and the topic was dropped as they negotiated the divots in the path and the logs lying on top of it. Suddenly Seth hissed, “Shh!” He put his hand on Kelly’s shoulder and moved close enough that Kelly could still feel the chill of the lake water radiating from his skin. He leaned forward and whispered, “Look!” into Kelly’s ear.
And besides the insta-boner, because Kelly’s ears had not gotten any less sensitive, Kelly was also alerted to… “Ooooh….” Both of them took the moment to look at the mama deer and her half-grown fawn, moving through the woods at a leisurely pace, picking delicately at the grass growing between the trees and the rocks on the ground.
They stood, frozen, watching the tableaux, enchanted, when Seth’s body behind Kelly’s became an unbearable temptation.
He turned and captured Seth’s mouth, shuddering at the taste, when a harsh gasp broke into their moment.
They both turned their heads toward the sound, and Kelly let out a bark of shocked laughter.
Off the path, about twenty yards away, hidden by the shadows and some trees, Isela was bent over a log, her hair hanging in her face, her palm jammed into her mouth. Matty was pumping behind her, both of them naked from the waist down.
At Kelly’s sound, Matty and Isela both looked up, while Kelly was still in Seth’s arms.
Kelly swallowed. “I think we need to go help Mom,” he said loudly, then turned without looking at Seth and led the way down the path.
They were within sight of the campground before Seth spoke. “What now?”
Kelly shrugged. “Checkmate,” he said. “You and I were kissing. He was banging his girlfriend. He squeals on me, I squeal on him.”
Seth’s hand, tugging on his, was hot now, like the exertion and the embarrassment had flooded under his skin. “But… but Matty won’t like us anymore.”
Kelly turned, feeling suddenly older than he was. “Yeah, Seth, but did he really like us anyway? I mean, we have to live in the same place because we’re brothers, but his whole life is about Isela, and the two of them, they don’t like anything we are.”
Seth swallowed hard, and his eyes did that thing where it seemed like he was two hundred years away without even blinking.
“Okay,” Seth said, his voice as remote as his eyes.
And Kelly got it then, so hard and so quickly his chest ached like he’d just caught a soccer ball with it. “Seth?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re really hurt right now.”
Seth blinked, and his eyes grew a little shiny. “I’m fine.”
Oh God.
Kelly had always known Seth was his dreamy boy, that he seemed to float in from far away to visit planet Earth to make sure it was all doing okay.
Until this moment he’d never realized that Seth did that because being here on planet Earth hurt.
Oh Seth. All those times you were so dreamy—except when you were playing music. Or with me. Did the world hurt so very much?
He stood up on his tiptoes and kissed Seth, hard, like he didn’t care who saw him, like he was proud Seth was his.
Seth responded eagerly, only pulling back when Kelly did.
“I’ll be enough, right?” Kelly asked, surprised at his own hurt.
“All I need.” He was right there, in the here and now, and Kelly’s chest eased up a little.
Kelly caught enough breath to walk back to the campsite and find his mom. Chili that night, which probably meant Matty would fart up the tent right before he bailed to bang Isela again, but that was okay. As long as he left.
That night, Matty managed to completely avoid Seth and Kelly through dinner, through campfire songs, through marshmallows. Kelly pretended he didn’t notice, and Seth was light-years away. For a brief moment, Kelly wished Seth could be there with Kelly, and then he caught Matty shoving up against Seth on their way to the tent. Seth hit a tree with a muffled grunt, and Kelly whirled to confront Matty.
Well, in a stage whisper. “What the fuck’s your problem,” he hissed. “You got something to say to us?”
“Do I got something to say to two little faggots who can’t—”
“Can’t what?” Kelly snarled. “Can’t keep it in our pants? ’Cause our things were exactly where they were supposed to be, Matty. Where the fuck was yours?”
“You shut your filthy mouth!” Matty pulled back his arm, cocking to release a punch, and to Kelly’s horror, Seth wandered in between them like this wasn’t about to go WWF on them.
“Congratulations on you and Isela,” Seth said, as though he meant it. “You must really care about her.”
“Don’t even say her name, faggot!”
And Seth just ignored him. “I mean, if we fight right now, we’re gonna have to say why. And we’re pretty sure your folks’ll still love Kelly, you know, but what’s Isela’s dad gonna say when they tell him?”
“About what? You guys necking in the woods or what we were doing?”
And then Seth smiled, just a twist of the lips in the light from the still glowing campfire. “Either one, Matty. Either one.”
Matty let out a furious breath, but his fist lowered. “You two, don’t even bother to speak to me. I don’t fucking know you. Not at school. Not on the bus. Not with Castor Durant. You hear me? You’re both fucking abortions—you never should have been born.”
He turned around and took off, not even bothering to get in the tent. Seth and Kelly took their shoes off at the entrance and then slid into their sleeping bags, wearing the sweats they’d put on before dinner.
“That was awful,” Kelly said, breaking the silence first.
“I’m sorry he said that to you,” Seth murmured, and Kelly saw his outstretched hand near the sleeping bag. Kelly took it, and then, because his brother could either tell their parents or not, he scooted his sleeping bag a little closer to Seth’s on the foam pad they were sleeping on, and pulled his pillow closer too.
“He said that to you too,” he reminded Seth gently.
“Mm. I hope he’s not awful to you when you get home.”
Kelly sighed and squeezed Seth’s hand, glad when he squeezed back. He couldn’t see his boy’s eyes, but he bet they were a thousand miles away.
TRUE TO his word, Matty stayed his awful, pestilential self when they got home.
He tried to put an end to Kelly staying with Seth during Soccer Wednesdays, but his mom reminded him that if Kelly came, he’d have to sit in the same seat with Matty and Isela, since she was coming too. Matty’s look of horror might have been a little funny, but the way he kept slamming Kelly into the wall as they walked down the hallway at home was getting damned old.
Kelly and Seth started taking more risks at school. There were other kids, girls and boys, who held hands with their same-sex crushes. Not all the time, but in a certain part of the quad, where they felt safe. Kelly and Seth—and Amara, because they loved her and didn’t want to leave her behind—started eating there so they could sit together, at least, and not worry about Matty dumping Seth’s tray.
Which he did twice before they wised up and left their table in the cafeteria.
And Kelly had to admit, the whole thing would have been easier to bear if Seth had been there for him in his head. But Seth and his dad were starting to talk about Bridgford every day, and Castor Durant had realized that Matty wasn’t protecting them anymore. In fact, the fucking traitor had started sprinting to take the earlier bus, leaving them behind. Every day Kelly and Seth got off and had to fight their way through foul, smoky bodies, sharp elbows, hard shoulders, dirty teeth, and laughing demons, just to get home.
Dr. Boyle, whom Seth would do about anything for, had dumped so much extra practicing on Seth that Kelly was surprised he could even surface enough to know Kelly was there on Soccer Wednesdays.
But he was.
Kelly would fly through the door, and they’d close the drapes, and before Kelly could even walk across the room, Seth had set down the violin—Amara, he’d named it Amara, because he said it was a girl, and he’d never want to “play” Kelly—and walked across the room and was holding Kelly, holding him so tight that Kelly would wonder if he hadn’t just saved all of his “being on Earth Seth” for Kelly and this moment right here, when Kelly was in his arms.
Kelly always thought it was sort of an honor when he did that.
And their moments together were painfully sweet, slow, almost like they were drawing out every touch because they knew things were changing.
Kelly hated himself for how much he wished that wouldn’t happen.
ONE FRIDAY in late May, the family was huddling in the air-conditioning, hiding from the unseasonable heat that had hit Sacramento like a fucking hammer.
Kelly was listening to music on the iPhone his father had passed down to him for his birthday, since Matty had gotten a new one for Christmas.
That was it. Just music. Seth’s music—modern pop hits adapted to violin, which was Seth’s favorite. Seth had asked him to pick out some songs he liked best, because Seth had to learn something to audition with again, and he wanted to play a song for Kelly.
He was on his back, in bed, when Matty strode in, out of nowhere, and slugged him on the shoulder, then slapped his head.
“Get the fuck out of my room, faggot. I’m so fucking tired of looking at your face!”
And maybe because the attack came out of nowhere, Kelly’s temper flared. He was tired of this shit.
He propelled himself up off the bed and threw his brother across the room.
“Say it again!” he snarled, as Matty was picking himself up. “Call me a fag again! Tell me why it’s bad! Tell me why you can assfuck Isela in the fucking woods but I can’t kiss my boyfriend? Say it!”
Matty stared at him, his eyes wide and darting to the door behind Kelly, but Kelly didn’t care. He was done caring who heard him. He was going to lose Seth anyway. Seth and his father were downstairs talking about Bridgford—again—and this time, this time, Seth was right here on planet Earth, because Kelly could hear him yelling too.
“You said you wouldn’t tell,” Matty hissed.
“Well, you shouldn’t have been an asshole,” Kelly shouted, and that did it. He heard the door crash open behind him just as Matty launched himself at him. Xavier caught Kelly before he wrapped his hands around his brother’s throat and beat his head against the floor.
“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Oh my God! Boys! What in the hell?”
“He started it!” Kelly struggled furiously against his father’s grip. “I was lying here, listening to music, not touching nothing, and he comes in and starts beating on me. Him and his good Christian values—he can keep them!”
Kelly twisted away then, and hurtled through the house toward the door. His little sisters were in the kitchen, begging piteously for some soda or something, but of course it was all gone because of the ungodly heat.
“Kelly, where are you going?” his mother called.
“To get some ice!” Kelly snapped, slamming the door behind him. He clattered down the stairs in a huff, fully intent on running to the gas station two blocks away to get some ice and some sodas for his little sisters. Yeah, sure it was by Castor Durant’s little crack house, but Castor and his buddies were usually off the streets by now, either in their homes or in the vacant stores, getting high.
He slowed, though, as he came to the bottom of the steps, and thought yearningly of Seth’s company.
They were both having a sucky night at home. Maybe some time together would make up for it.
He knocked on the door to Seth’s apartment tentatively, and then peered inside through the gap in the curtains, hoping for the best.
Not so much.
Seth was standing, arms crossed over his chest, near his practice corner, glaring at his father, who was standing by the kitchen table.
Shit. He stuck his head in anyway.
“Uh… Seth?”
They both startled, shaken out of their death-match stare, and Seth’s dad struggled to remember words.
“I’m sorry, Kelly. Can I help you?”
Kelly tried to wipe his own glare away. He liked Seth’s dad. He brought them dessert on Soccer Wednesdays, and always knocked on the door to his own house before he came in. Kelly wasn’t sure why he did that, but it sure did predispose him to love the guy.
“Uh, yeah. I was going to the Ampm to get some sodas. You guys want something? Ice cream? Anything? It’s hotter than ass out here!”
Seth’s dad’s mouth twisted on the sides. “That’s, uh, a very attractive offer, Kelly. Seth, did you want anything?”
Seth shook his head and sent a “Please help me” look at Kelly. “Can I go with him?” he asked hopefully.
“No.” Mr. Arnold sighed. “But Kelly, if you want to stop by afterward with some root beer and ice cream, we can watch movies or something. Seth and I need to finish our conversation.”
Oh, thank God for Seth’s dad.
“Thanks, Mr. Arnold. That sounds like the best. Like the greatest. I’ll bring—”
“Here.” Seth’s dad dug in his pocket and came back with a ten. “My treat. Just ten more minutes, okay?”
Kelly was just so grateful. Sure, Seth’s company would be nice, but God. To spend some time here with Seth, even on opposite ends of the couch, where it was cool, without his brother’s toxic presence—it sounded like heaven.
“I’ll be back in twenty,” he said happily, taking the ten and winking at Seth. “After I bring my sisters some soda and some ice.”
It would be a bitch to carry home, but hey, it would be worth it, right?
He closed the door behind him and went whistling into the humid darkness. For a moment, he contemplated cutting across the vacant field, but decided against it. There were no streetlights over that field, and even though the moon was big and yellow tonight, high overhead, there were lots of nasty things there—broken bottles, needles, pipes—and Kelly just wanted some goddamned ice. He ignored the shadows of weeds and abandoned shopping carts under the moon and strode quickly down the sidewalk, making it to the relative safety of the gas station with a sigh of relief.
He gathered his purchases, including the ice cream and the root beer and the ice, and then asked the bored sales clerk for a bag.
The sales clerk—a redneck guy with thinning gray hair, a wide ruddy face, and more tats than teeth—rolled his eyes, like this was a big deal, and found a big plastic bag for the food and soda.
“Gonna have to carry that bag of ice yerself,” he cautioned, and Kelly shrugged.
“It’s hot. Won’t be too bad,” he said with a smile.
There was a raucous burst of laughter from outside the gas station, and his smile died. The redneck guy glanced outside and grimaced.
“Shit. Them fuckers. Kid, I’m calling the cops. You want to stay here?”
Kelly looked outside and groaned. Castor Durant. Seriously? “I hate that guy,” he muttered. He was here by himself, the ice cream melting, the ice dripping, and God….
