The way his bright blue eyes are glued to what I’m doing has an unfortunate effect on me. That effect being: I can’t focus on my work. Because now I’m focusing on him. And his eyes. And his …
His hands. The way his arms are crossed, I have a glimpse of his fingers near my arm, so close to touching me. Why is it now that I’m suddenly so damned focused on his hands? I wish he might get the impulse to scoot a little closer to me, so maybe our arms could touch. I wouldn’t flinch away. Doesn’t he know that?
When the bell rings, all my distracting thoughts of touching Toby are gone. In PE, the thoughts return in full force—especially when we split into partners to do sets of pull-ups on a row of bars that line one end of the gymnasium. “If your partner’s strugglin’,” Coach Larry merrily instructs us, “then make sure you guide him to finish his set. You’re his spotter, his coach, his trainer. Don’t let your partner down! Get ‘em done, boys!”
So now the coach is encouraging us to touch each other. And of course Toby and I are partnered up. And when an exhausted Toby is on just his second set of pull-ups, his arms shake as he fights to finish his last three reps. C’mon. Don’t make me touch you. Don’t make me have thoughts again. But he continues to strain and grunt, and I can’t just stand here. With a resigned sigh, I grudgingly grab hold of his hips to give him support. “C’mon,” I grunt, my half-assed attempt at encouragement. “I’m tr-trying,” he grunts back. “Urgh! Mmph!” Of course he has to groan like that, all sexual and deep-throated.
But as I push him further, his biceps respond, and he starts to pull himself upward. And as he does, my face becomes gloriously close to his tight, gorgeous buns in those small gym shorts. There go my eyes, dropping right to them. With my hands on his hips, it would just take a little coaxing for my fingers to slide down them and cup his ass cheeks—his pert, firm butt I’ve been staring at for a solid week now, every time he walks ahead of me in the hallway, every day we change in the locker room, every time he walks off. He mentioned earlier in the locker room that he was “definitely going to check with Coach Larry about trading his clothes for a better size”, in his words. Please don’t ever do that, Toby. These tight shorts are showing off your fricking perfect butt in just the right way.
Wait. Fricking? Did I just use that word un-ironically?
“V-V-Vann??” he squeaks out in desperation.
Oops. I return my focus to gripping his hips, guiding him as he finishes out his set. Then he drops from the bars, exhausted, and turns to face me. With my hands still on his hips, we experience a very brief moment of standing exquisitely close to each other, my arms around his waist, our eyes connected.
Lasers and firecrackers and bombs go off between our faces. He catches his breath, sweat dripping down his forehead, a droplet dangling from his nose. His lips are parted, full, kissable, reddened and wet. The blues of his irises glisten and sparkle in the bright lights of the gym, and they’re bottomless with emotion.
Then with a blow of the whistle, we’re dismissed to the locker rooms to change, and the moment is over.
My heart still races when we sit down for lunch. “Why don’t you highlight your lines?” he asks me over trays of dry, crumby chicken-fried steaks and salty potato wedges.
I’m distracted for a second staring at his lips, still thinking of them so close to mine in gym class, holding his waist. “Huh?”
“In your script. I, uh, noticed. You don’t highlight your lines?”
I snap out of my daze by cutting off another bite. The meat is tough and it isn’t easy. “Nah. It’s a tired practice and a waste of time, highlighting lines.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s like saying, ‘Here’s my line … bullshit, bullshit, bullshit … ah, another precious line of mine … more bullshit, bullshit, bullshit … and another lovely line for me … crap, crap, waste of space, blah, blah … ah, more lines.” I shake my head. “When you don’t highlight them, the whole script is your responsibility. As it should be. People just highlight their lines because it’s what everyone else does. I don’t do what everyone else does.”
Toby frowns. “I don’t really see it like that. To me, it makes it easier to reference your lines in the script during rehearsal, when you’re trying to focus on the other actor, and—”
“If setting your lines on fluorescent fire does it for you,” I tell him, my mouth full of dry meat, “go to town. Besides, no amount of neon coloring is gonna save that fricking script.”