JEREMY
Dad’s been acting weird. Yesterday his black mohawk-ish thing sent me into fucking hysterics. I actually had tears in my eyes.
I thought it was a joke, or that the dye would wash out. But then I found the permanent-dye box in the bathroom trash and the honey-scented hair gel he’d spent ten whole dollars on. That was stretching it for a joke.
But, okay, the black hair I can write off as Dad trying something new. Whatever. Sweet—it doesn’t hurt me any.
Today though . . . today things are actually starting to worry me.
I blink at Dad, who’s making something with chocolate in the kitchen. “Dinner will be ready soon,” he says.
But it’s not the chocolate thing that gets me—though eating dessert for dinner is a first for me. No, it’s the metal ring in his right ear, glinting under the kitchen light.
“What the freak?” I say, dropping my shit on the floor and moving to the opposite side of the kitchen bench. “Tell me that’s not real. It’s a clip-on, right?”
Dad winks at me. “Nope. Got it pierced this afternoon. Just felt like trying something different.”
I want to tell him it looks bloody ridiculous, but then I have a thought. What if this is him trying to tell me in his own way that he’s cool with me being gay? He doesn’t know that I’m not. Yeah, maybe Mum has spoken to him about it, and this is his way of showing acceptance or some shit like that. I mean, the earring? How gay is that?
And I have to say, weird though he looks, it’s kinda fucking awesome that he does this to make me feel accepted.
I shake my head. “You look like a punk gone wrong,” I say, and then I grin. “But somehow, you’re still cool.”
Dad stops stirring the chocolaty batter in the bright yellow mixing bowl. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I think getting pierced damaged my ears. I thought I heard you say I’m cool.”
I blush and shrug. “Maybe you should have thought about permanent damage before you went and stuck a needle through your ear.” I reach over and dunk a finger into the mixture and lick it off. It’s gooey and chocolaty with a hint of caramel. “Mum’s gonna freak though,” I say, trying to scoop some more mixture, but Dad slaps my hand away. “She’ll think you’re being a bad influence. What if I decide I want a few holes in my ears as well.”
Dad pours the mixture into a baking tin, murmuring something under his breath about not thinking that far.
“What’s that?” I say.
He looks up at me. “Your mum doesn’t have to know everything. And you don’t get to put holes in your ears until you’re sixteen. At least.”
“I wouldn’t do my ear anyway. Eyebrow maybe. Or nipple.”
Dad sucks in his breath, laughing. “Trust me, don’t do the nipple. It hurts like a—” He stops, but I’m pretty sure he was going to say a bad, bad word.
I grin. “How would you know, anyway?” And suddenly I don’t want to hear it, because Dad touches his chest and I know. “No fucking way. You got pierced there?”
That’s the moment Luke strolls into the room.
A couple of things happen at once. Dad goes beet red and stammers, telling me to watch my mouth, and Luke comes to a comical halt and says “There?” all confused, like. And then he sees my dad’s ear, because he blinks hard a couple of times. “Okay. This one sure takes me by surprise.” Then his voice drops as he looks from me to my dad to me again. “There?” he says again, like now it’s starting to dawn on him there’s more.
I flick my nipple through my T-shirt. “He’s gone nuts, Luke.” Dad beams like I’ve given him a freaking compliment. “Like, seriously. Nuts.”
“Anyway,” Dad says, smiling at Luke as he moves into the kitchen, “what I want to know”—he turns back to me—“is how your last day of school was? And how did you do in that math assignment?”
“B+. And it was okay, I guess.”
Actually, it was pretty damn fantastic. The good grade was only a bonus. The real treat was Suzy parting her legs under the desk when I ducked under to pick up a pencil I dropped.
She wore these white undies with tiny sunflowers on them, and the way her hand traveled up her leg had me close to panting. When I picked up my pencil, I brushed the eraser end on the inside of her thigh just part of the way up . . . She made out with me good at lunchtime after that, which sorta makes me want to know what would happen if I went all the way up.
Maybe I’ll find out tonight at Simon’s end-of-year party.
“What are you grinning at?” Luke asks as he moves to my side and rests his elbows on the bench like I have mine.
“Um. Nothing.”
He raises a brow at my Dad like he doesn’t believe me one bit.
I thump him on the back. “Nothing you want to know,” I amend, and then I start on my plan to get me to that party. “Dad, Steven is coming over in a bit. Can he stay for dinner?”
My dad blushes and is flustered as he puts the chocolate dessert into the oven, almost dropping the tin and then burning his hand. He shoves it under cold water. “Sure. Yeah. Steven. Dinner . . . Awesome.”
Luke is shaking his head next to me, and I wonder if the news of my supposed gayness has spread. For a second, I have a bad feeling in my gut, like what I’m doing is really wrong. And, yeah, it sort of is. But I never outright told a lie—and I won’t. It’s all their assumptions making fools of them in the end.
Still, that queasy feeling isn’t going away.
It’s tempered just enough by the thought of seeing Suzy’s undies once more, though. So I don’t blurt out I’m not actually gay.
I can feel Luke’s gaze on me. I turn to find him watching me carefully. “How is Steven?” he says.
“Good? But you can ask him at dinner yourself.” I glance over at the oven. “Or should I say dessert?”
“Assuming I’m invited,” Luke says, staring once again at my punk dad.
“Like, when are you not invited? And, like, when was the last time we didn’t eat together?” I move to answer the door when I hear Steven knock and shyly call out if anyone’s home.
“Come in,” I say and grab his arm to haul him inside. “Just, don’t freak when you see my dad, ’kay?” I lower my voice. “He’s got a strange way of showing me he’s cool with the gay thing.”
“Dude,” he says, toeing off his shoes—something I hadn’t bothered to do myself— “both your parents are good with it? Damn, you’re not even gay. This is so unfair.”
“Yeah, wait until you see my dad before you decide you want him as yours.”
Steven waggles his brows, looking hopeful as he asks, “So, can I shove my tongue down your throat this time?”
“Shove off. There’ll be none of that.” Then I hook an arm around his neck and drag him to where Dad and Luke are.
“Hey Mr. Sam. Mr. Luke.” That’s something I like about Steven—he’s real good with parents. Dad and Luke have been telling him for years to call them by their first names, but Steven says he feels rude every time he does it. After a year of this, they compromised on Mr. Sam and Mr. Luke. Sometimes I call them that too for shits and giggles.
“Mr. Steven,” Luke says, like always.
Steven nods, but he’s focused on my dad’s semi-mohawk and earring. “New look, Mr. Sam.” I can tell he’s thinking something else, but I don’t learn what it is until we escape to my room.
And then I wish I’d never learned it.
“Now he’s a DILF.”
I throw a pillow at him where he’s lounging at the end of my bed. “Gross. Never, ever, ever say that again! That’s just disturbing.”
Steven laughs. “But seriously,” he says. “It’s sorta cool that I can shoot the shit with you like this. No one else knows. But I think I might say something to my parents soon. Hey . . . you wanna help me by making out in front of them?”
I use my last pillow on him. “My tiny dick shrivels up inside of me just thinking about it.”
“Awww, harsh. You still trying to get into Suzy Livingston’s pants?”
“As much as she’s trying to get into mine.” I catch the pillows he throws back at me. “But about that—so, over dinner, you know what to say right?”
He rolls his eyes. “I remember. You’re a bad boy, Jeremy.”