I’m fine now. I can walk.But I let him hold on to me anyway as we slid through the crowd and ascended the stairs to the second floor. He guided me to the right, and we entered what looked like a spare bedroom with a sliding door that led to a small balcony.
“Want to listen to that album you showed me the other day? What’s the DJ’s name, ABT?”
“ATB. Yeah. We almost finished it. There was only like one song left,” I replied, hoping he would set me down somewhere.
“Why not start from the beginning?” he suggested as he slid open the balcony door, still holding on to me.
Two beanbags filled up almost the entirety of the balcony. Thad sat on the green one and I sank into the blue, my favorite color. My body felt too heavy to scooch over, and I didn’t think the headphone wire would reach him. Which he eventually noticed. He saw me struggling to untangle the wire again and decided to reposition himself so that he was lying down, head rested on my beanbag close to my left ear. He reached out and grabbed the headphones from me, then handed me one of the ears after untangling them.
“Thanks,” I looked up toward him, my left eye nearly touching his right brow.
“You’re a pretty cool guy, Étienne,” he said before I was about to click play, my stomach fluttering more than it ever had.
I rested my thumb on the iPod to let the silence of the outdoors consume us for a minute.I’m a cool guy?Thinking again of what he declared sent another round of butterflies through my stomach. Not anxious butterflies. Real ones. TheI like youtingling feeling.
“I think you’re cooler,” I whispered, then restarted the album.
We lay there staring up at the moon’s remaining half, continuing our quest to listen to and finish the album together. We were both immobile, the night sky absorbing us, lying silently in intoxication—not just intoxicated from the amount of alcohol running through our veins, but also, at least for me, drunkenly happy to have created a friendship in such short time. He thought I was cool, which I’d never heard anyone say before about me. And I felt the same about him. Well, maybe more.
I’ve realized how much I like you. I wonder if you feel the same?I thought, my gaze still fixated on the moon.If not, it’s all right. As long as we’re friends.
The ringing of my phone woke me. We had fallen asleep. It was morning, and the sky was bright.Damn. It’s Mom.I pulled the phone out of my pocket and rubbed my dry eyes to let my vision and contact lenses focus. Sleeping with contact lenses on is not a good idea. I rejected the call.
“Shit, gotta think of where I was last night,” I whispered.
A text from my mom came through.I thought you were home when I came in last night? Étienne, where are you? Answer your phone.
Someone was touching me, I realized. I turned my head and there he was. Thad. He must have repositioned his body during the night. He lay parallel to me, his arm around my stomach. How did this happen? Were we really that drunk? We were fully clothed, which meant nothing had happened, not that anything would have. I was amazed that he didn’t wake up and push himself off me. This was innocent. We were drunk and listening to music, then fell asleep. That was it.
My iPod had settled on the beanbag, nearly hidden under the lower part of his shirt.What the…I looked a little further down and there it was, plain as day. He was sleeping with his arm around me—and he was hard. It was outlined through his jeans against his inner thigh. I looked around to make sure nobody was watching us, then looked back down at him.
He stirred, starting to wake. I looked away and pretended I was still asleep.
“Argh. What?” He promptly pulled his arm from my side, rolling to get up. “Shit. Shit. What time is it?” he whispered, the fear revealing itself through his cracking voice.
He was panicking. He didn’t expect to be here. I’m sure as hell he didn’t expect to find his arm around me either. He was probably mortified feeling himself nearly pressed up against me.
Thad stood there behind me quietly for a moment. I wasn’t sure what he was doing. Maybe he was admiring me. Or maybe not. He was probably frozen, horrified that he fell asleep so close to another guy. A guy he had been classmates with, but hadn’t really known until not even a week prior. He stood there for a few minutes, then softly slid the glass door open and stepped inside. He left the door open, probably not to wake me.
I was content with how the night went, even if that meant being grounded when I got home.Yeah. Like Mom’s gonna ground me.
I lay there for a few more minutes and understood he was most likely not coming back. He was probably brimming with fear and anxiety. I decided to push myself out of the squishy beanbag.
“Hey,” I heard as I bent over to grab my iPod from between the two massive beanbags. He stood awkwardly in the doorway, his cheeks reddening, his hands submerged deep into his front pockets.
“Hey. I didn’t mean to fall asleep. Did I keep you from going home?” I asked, trying to pretend that I didn’t know he lay next to me the whole night.
“No. It’s all right. My parents knew I was here.” He shrugged, then pulled out his hand and scratched the back of his head. He looked flustered.
My head started to throb as I entered the spare bedroom. “Argh. Wow, that’s insane.” I grabbed the side of my head. The pulsating pain forced me to close my right eye. I tried to look toward him, and he loosened up and headed toward me.
“Let’s go get you something to eat.” His hand rested on my lower back to guide me through the house.
Thankfully, we left his cousin’s house undetected. I’m sure most of those who stayed were probably still sleeping long after we left. They stayed up drinking much later than we had.
We stopped at a small diner on the way home.
“So. That was something,” I joked, stuffing maple syrup-soaked pancakes into my mouth.