Chapter Nineteen

 

 

THERE WAS a perfectly good book in my bag, just waiting to be reread. Apparently you weren’t allowed to read books on the “fun” side of the gap. Instead I was watching amateur-level football. It took me back a good eleven years to when I would freeze in the winter mornings when I watched Ambrose play.

Vinnie and Aaron chatted throughout the entire game. Liam kept leaning around me to talk to them, so in the end, we shuffled spots so Liam was next to Aaron and Hiram was on the other side. Then I was on the end of the line.

Hiram’s phone dinged, and he pulled it out to look at, so I took the opportunity to pull my phone out. Hawthorn was due to start in forty minutes, so I messaged Ambrose.

I just realized Hawthorn’s about to play. Are you going to be okay? I can come home if you need me to.

It took him five minutes to reply. I’m fine. Have fun with your friends. Do you have any brown rice?

No. Only the white rice in the bag on the third shelf. Call me if you want me to come home.

A gasp from the crowd made me look to see what was up. Two opposing players were posturing, revved-up about something. Their teammates ran to their side and got between them to defuse the situation.

“Holy Jesus and his apostles,” Hiram exclaimed quietly. “What I wouldn’t do to be able to spend some time alone in a bedroom with that number three.”

I automatically tracked to the team in front of us who sported black-and-white uniforms. When I found number three, my eyes widened.

“Heck, yeah.” He was beautiful to the point where you could almost call him pretty. His blondish hair was brushed attractively back from his face, and his body was prime in peak fitness and youth. He was gorgeous.

“You reckon he’d top or bottom?” Hiram asked.

“He’d make a gorgeous top,” I said.

Hiram shook his head. “No. A gorgeous bottom. I’m sure he needs someone like me to show him a good time, right?”

I got a really big heterosexual vibe from the guy as he ran back into his position up the field and play resumed, but why not let Hiram dream and fantasize?

“I reckon go for it,” I said with a grin.

Hiram was cute enough, but the thing he really had going for him was his caring personality. He sucked at the hookup, because how could a guy get to know him between “Top or bottom” and “Your place or mine”?

“I reckon you’re full of it,” he replied with a massive eye roll. “He definitely gives me boners, but he’s never going to come back and see my etchings. Instant attraction is never that kind to me.”

It reminded me of the conversation I’d had with Ambrose. He didn’t get wanting to jump someone’s bones as soon as you met them. I felt I was missing something.

“Hiram?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

I frowned and tried to work out how to word this. “Have you ever met someone, really liked them as a friend, got to know them, and then felt the sexual attraction?”

“What are you trying to say, Shane? I thought we agreed there were no sparks. Did you want to change that?”

I was confused, but then I remembered that Hiram and I had stopped dating after we concluded there were no sparks between us. I flushed. “Oh, God. No. Umm… shit. I mean—”

I discovered I’d been pranked when Hiram’s face changed from deadpan to amusement. “Relax. I’m kidding. Ha. The look on your face just then.” He continued to chuckle for a bit while I sulked at being taken in. Then he said, “Come on. No hard feelings. Have I ever met someone who I didn’t have a sexual attraction to until later? Sure. Doesn’t everyone?”

“Yeah, but I mean, only. I mean, we look at number three over there and think he’s handsome and feel attracted. What if someone didn’t?”

I was glad to see Hiram didn’t flick it off as a joke. He stopped and considered it. “You mean someone who’s ace? Asexuals apparently don’t feel attraction. Sexual attraction that is. They feel romantic attraction.”

“No, the person feels attraction. Just not to strangers.”

There was a pause. “So we’re talking about a specific someone here, not a random person?”

I felt the panic rise in me. “Umm… no. It was someone I read about in a book,” I improvised wildly.

Hiram’s raised eyebrow mocked me, but he didn’t call me out on it. “Okay, well, this imaginary person, does he—”

“Fictional, not imaginary.”

“Is there a difference?” I assured him there was, so he continued, “Well, this fictional person, does he seek out sexual partners? Or is he merely complacent in his sexual activity? Remember Josh, that guy I was seeing a couple of years ago? After he dumped me, I looked up asexuality. There was something about being ace and still enjoying sex. Just most aces only had sex to please their partner.”

I thought about how Ambrose had been the one to push our sexual relationship nearly every single step of the way.

“No. He has sex regularly. Definitely not merely doing it for his partner’s sake.”

Hiram looked thoughtful. The ball bounced our way, and the players thundered along the sideline directly in front of us, chasing after it. We stopped to watch. There was no barrier between spectators and the game, and there was a real risk you could end up being flattened in a tackle gone awry. Vinnie jumped to his feet and shouted encouragement to John’s team, and Kee had some encouragement for the umpire. Aaron was clapping loudly. I looked with longing over at the nonfooty-appreciation side of the gap, where Tate and Jamie had their heads together, talking up a storm.

John got the ball, and Aaron and Vinnie both surged to their feet and screamed for him to kick a goal. He snapped it toward the four white goal posts, and it soared over the heads of the opposition and scored his team six points. We all cheered loudly.

I noticed Hiram was on his phone again, which made me think he’d missed the entire play. He had, because he looked up at me with an expression of satisfaction.

“Demisexual. Can be gay, straight, or bi. But I bet you they’re demisexual.”

“Huh?”

“Look it up when you get home. You may find it illuminating. Demisexual.”

 

 

JOHN’S TEAM won, but Hawthorn lost. Technically the scoreboard said Hawthorn won, but they should’ve trounced the other team, and they didn’t. We had the TV tuned into the Hawthorn game at Aaron and Vinnie’s house. I winced at every goal they let slip.

Vinnie threw himself onto the lounge beside me in the dying minutes of the last quarter. “You were right. The turnovers on the forward line were atrocious.”

“They’ll get better at it,” I said, practicing my lines for consoling Ambrose too.

“So, did you sign up for Grindr?” Vinnie asked me.

Oh God. Was he going to start that again? “No. Not yet. There’s this guy at work I’m thinking about scoping out.”

It wasn’t a lie. He was cute and definitely batted for my team. He was also oblivious to Wallpaper Shane.

“Oh my gawd. Is this A? Handy Andy?”

To my dismay, Jamie had overheard my comment and thought I was referring to the fictitious guy he’d dubbed Handy Andy, the guy I said I wanted to forget.

“Who’s Handy Andy?” Vinnie asked.

“The guy at work Shane’s crushing on. You were supposed to be forgetting about him, not scoping him out.”

Vinnie looked skeptical. “And his name’s Handy Andy?”

“No,” Jamie said with obvious exasperation. “His name is Andy, and I just call him Handy Andy.”

“And Shane’s trying to forget him? I thought Shane needed some spice in his life. I was going to try and get him a sex life.”

Hiram walked past. “Shane already has a sex life.”

Oh God. I wanted to sink into the cushions.

Now six pairs of eyes swiveled in Hiram’s direction. “Shane has a sex life?”

“Our Shane?”

“Why didn’t he tell us?”

I put my hands over my face and wished I could actually be wallpaper. Apparently I was wallpaper to everyone other than my friends.

“Yeah,” Hiram said. “Shane told me he’s been getting it regularly.”

I did?

“From whom?” Kee demanded. “You?”

“Of course not. Shane and I haven’t been together for years. You know that.”

“It’s the guy at work,” Jamie said knowledgeably. “Handy Andy. I tell you.”

Tate, never one to be without a quick reply, then chimed in and said, “If Shane only has a Handy Andy, I feel sorry for him. He really needs a Sticky Dicky to make him smile.”

That made them howl with laughter. “What about if he meets Rimmy Timmy?” Kee wanted to know.

“Then he’d be a super happy boy,” Jamie cried in delight.

“Maybe he wants Dommy Tommy,” Hiram suggested.

“Yeah, I can see Shane with Beary Carey,” Vinnie said with a chuckle.

“I reckon Shane would settle for BJ TJ,” was Aaron’s suggestion.

Liam groaned. “That one’s poor, Aaron. What about Wanky Hanky?”

“What about Kinky Binky?” John put in.

“What?” several people cried. So John put his hands up in surrender.

“That’s like Twinky-Slinky on that Teletubbies show,” Kee said.

“I thought it was Twinky-Winky?” Jamie said.

Vinnie, who had much younger siblings, corrected them all. “It’s actually Tinky-Winky.”

Kee grumbled. “Well, he’s not as much fun as I originally thought.”

“I dunno,” Vinnie said doubtfully. “If you’re in a position where someone’s tinky is giving you the ol’ winky….”

“True.”

“What name rhymes with fist?” Tate asked quietly.

That set up a roar of laughter and a whole bunch of other questions until Kee said, “I wanna know about the guy who Shane is supposedly getting regular sex from.” I still hadn’t removed my hands from my face. I wasn’t used to being the center of attention, and I didn’t know how to handle it.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything,” Hiram said with an apologetic note in his voice. He thunk that, did he?

Jamie spoke up. “I want to know why this guy thinks Shane is good enough for sex, but why isn’t he good enough to date? Does he think there’s something wrong with our Shane?”

It was heartwarming for Jamie to defend me like that. All the other guys jumped in to list my great qualities and verbally bash poor fictitious Handy Andy. Surprisingly it was Liam who came to my rescue.

“Hey, come on, guys. If Shane has a guy, he doesn’t have to tell us. Isn’t it a little disrespectful to expect him to tell all?”

“But I want to know,” Jamie whined petulantly.

“You’re being indiscreet,” Liam said firmly.

“You guys got to know more than me,” Kee said jovially. “I didn’t know about any guy.”

“I just know he has a crush on this guy,” Jamie said, still sulking.

“I just know that he’s involved with a guy,” Hiram said.

“But is this the same guy?” Kee asked astutely.

“And I think Shane’s holding one really big secret,” Vinnie mused.

“And I think Hawthorn are missing Bro-Jak,” John said. I lowered my hands to find the TV replaying all the mistakes Hawthorn made during the game. I hoped Ambrose wasn’t watching. John, Vinnie, Aaron, and Liam were about to start up about football, so the others drifted away.

Thankfully.

Later Vinnie sat beside me at the large outdoor table as we tucked into our barbecued steaks and salad.

“What’s the name of that movie where the guy gets eaten by the alien?”

I huffed in exasperation. “Vin, you just described about six hundred movies that came out in the last twelve months.”

“No. It stars the guy who looks like Keanu Reeves and the little girl with the blonde hair. They have to run while the alien that’s like a giant octopus comes after them.”

I pulled out my phone and began to search for the movie Vinnie was talking about. After about ten suggestions, Vinnie yanked my phone away and began to look for himself.

Kee called my name and asked if I thought Hiram’s pants were too tight. Apparently he was committing a fashion faux pas by having them tight across his thighs as well as around his butt, according to Tate, who was the authority on those things.

By the time we had dissected the cut of Hiram’s pants and I turned back to Vinnie, he’d moved on from imdb.com and was in my messages function. And the first message to come up was the one from Ambrose.

With the photo of him in the shower. Naked. Oh, shit.

I snatched my phone from Vinnie.

“Who was that?” he asked.

“No one.”

“It was obviously someone, Shane.”

“No one you need know about.” I couldn’t remember whether Ambrose had his face pointing at the camera. I had been looking at it the night before. I hadn’t really been focusing on his face.

“Shane. Where did you get that picture from?” Vinnie kept his voice low. I was grateful for that. I’d had enough grilling for one night. “Because don’t think I didn’t recognize who that was, and don’t think I don’t know that he wouldn’t want that photo getting out in public.”

I turned to Vinnie, outraged. “Do you think I would give it out?”

“No. But I’m concerned about who sent it to you. How did they get it?”

“The photo was taken on their phone. So it hasn’t got out anywhere. It’s solely on his phone and on mine.”

Vinnie frowned. “Are you saying Bro-Jak knows the person who took that photo? And it’s a he? And that Bro-Jak knows it was sent to you?”

I wasn’t lying. Ambrose did know the person who took the photo—me. And since he’d sent it to me himself…. “Yes.”

It didn’t satisfy Vinnie, but I knew it wouldn’t. “You said you went to school with Bro-Jak?”

That one was easier. “Yes. So did Jamie.”

“You once told me you’d slept with a straight guy. That straight guy wouldn’t be Ambrose Jakoby, would it?”

The question came out of left field for me. How did Vinnie connect those dots so easily? I tried to wiggle off the hook. “Do you really think Ambrose Jakoby would go around sleeping with people like me?”

It was how we’d hidden for years. Why would anyone think the infamous Bro-Jak would notice Wallpaper Shane?

Vinnie gave me a few searching looks during the afternoon until I finally said I had to go.

Hiram followed me out to my car and apologized. “Sorry for saying anything earlier. I won’t do it again.”

I forgave him because none of them did it on purpose or with malice.

Hiram shut the door of my car and waved. As I reversed out, he ran to the street and said through the open window, “Demisexual. Remember to look it up.”