Wynn's parents were at a dinner party. Wynn's sister was at a movie. Wynn was at home.

And Alfie was with him.

Throughout Wynn's life, Alfie had been a near-permanent fixture in his home—tossing his bike on the lawn as he scurried up the walkway to the front door, or sitting at the kitchen table, both up to their eyes in homework, or bouncing on the balls of his feet at the ping pong table in the garage as he prepared his serve. But since that tense dinner at the beginning of the school year, Alfie hadn't been back.

It felt right, Wynn thought, having Alfie at his side—or, in this case, near his side, because Alfie was currently sprawled out on the couch in the rec room, watching with glazed eyes, one leg kicked over the back.

He hated that seeing Alfie, being with him, had become a luxury.

"Can we do it again?"

The words popped out of Wynn's mouth before he could even stopped to think about what a bad idea it was.

Alfie flicked an inscrutable look his way.

"Do what?" he said.

Wynn swallowed. He'd been desperately hoping Alfie would know exactly what he was talking about, but Wynn was being too vague.

Or maybe Alfie had forgotten entirely.

Wynn's stomach twisted.

He swallowed hard. He felt Alfie's eyes on him like the blade of a scalpel tracing across his cheek, but he couldn't bring himself to meet Alfie's gaze.

"The other day," Wynn said slowly. "At your house. When we…"

Canyons had been carved in less time than the moment that seemed to stretch on between them.

"Oh," Alfie said at last. "That."

Wynn was frozen, his limbs heavy and stiff. He waited for Alfie to laugh. He waited for Alfie to flinch. He waited for Alfie to leap up in disgust and stomp out of the room.

Alfie muted the TV and pulled himself into a sitting position.

Oh god, oh god, oh god—

"Sure," Alfie said, sitting up as casually as if Wynn had asked for help on his math homework. "What do you want to do?"

"I dunno," Wynn said, blushing furiously.

"Well, is there something you want to learn?"

"Everything," Wynn blurted out. Alfie laughed softly. He was still watching the silent TV, and Wynn shored up the courage to look at him. He found Alfie, same as always—the little ski jump nose, his shaggy nothing-colored hair, the way he picked at his chapped lips when he was focused on something. Wynn could still remember how Alfie's lips had tasted, like artificial strawberry and Alfie himself. His heart sped up.

Alfie didn't look disgusted or concerned. In fact, he looked like he barely cared whether they spent the next hour watching TV or kissing.

"Might need to give me a bit more to go on than that," Alfie said dryly.

Wynn swallowed again. He felt as though a wad of someone else's chewing gum were stuck in his throat.

"What if… what if she wants to… do something?" Wynn asked. "What if she wants to… go further, or something, and I don't—I don't know what to do? Or… I think she wants to go further but she doesn't, or I do something but she wants something else, or she does something and then I—"

"Jeez, you really are all torn up about this, aren't you?" Alfie asked. He had the sardonic expression he normally wore when he was listening to his classmates speak up during English class, but his voice was gentle.

He turned to face Wynn on the couch, curling his legs up underneath him.

Wynn looked down at his lap and nodded, his face heating up.

"Yeah," he admitted. It felt good to finally tell someone, though, that Wynn was looking forward to the homecoming dance like it was a root canal or a history exam. It wasn't even the dance itself that he dreaded—it was afterwards, when he would end up parked behind the Walmart, which was as close as Niobrara had to a lover's lane, in the backseat of the car, and Rebecca Benson would expect him to…

Wynn didn't even know what she would be expecting.

Kissing Alfie had been good. It had been fun, and most surprisingly, it had been easy.

But when he thought about kissing Rebecca, or worse, going further, his chest tightened and his skin prickled unpleasantly.

"How am I gonna know what she wants to do?" Wynn asked, his voice tight with desperation. The house was silent except for the faint hum of the refrigerator. "What if… what if she wants something that I… don't know how to do?"

Alfie nodded thoughtfully.

Wynn made a frustrated, pathetic little noise, looking at Alfie pleadingly, and Alfie laughed.

"It's okay," he said, though things felt very far from okay to Wynn at the moment. "Well, she's probably gonna expect you to take the lead, because, y'know, that's the guy's job. Do you think she's gonna want to have sex?"

Wynn scrunched up his face.

"I hope not," he said. He moaned and scrubbed a hand over his face. "Fuck—am I going to have to—oh no—"

The homecoming dance was a time-honored Niobrara High tradition, and Wynn could think of dozens of established couples over the years who'd gotten their start fumbling at one another in the sweat-soaked backseat of some car after the dance.

Wynn wondered if this had something to do with the fact that Wynn's dad had offered to let Wynn borrow the family car for the evening, so he could drive Rebecca. Wynn had never been allowed to take the car before, but his dad had been in a particularly good mood since Wynn had told him he'd be attending the dance with Rebecca.

"Wynn," Alfie said, reaching over and resting his hand on Wynn's forearm, squeezing lightly. His hand was warm and light and grounding against Wynn's bare skin. "Calm down. Take a deep breath."

Wynn drew in a long, shaky breath.

"Do you want to have sex with her?" Alfie asked.

Wynn shook his head furiously.

"God, no," he said, without hesitation.

Alfie's eyes narrowed slightly, like Wynn had a complex equation scribbled across his forehead that Alfie was trying to solve.

"Okay," he said after a moment, removing his hand. "Well, then… don't. And, I mean, Rebecca Benson is head of the knitting club. I doubt she's gonna put out on a first date, anyway. Which is good, because it looks like you're not going to, either."

He could tell Alfie was trying not to smirk, and Wynn couldn't help laughing, just a little bit. This was why he needed Alfie. Alfie was the only person whose voice seemed to slip through the fissures of the roaring wall of panic in Wynn's mind, like water finding even the smallest crack and forcing its way through the most improbable places.

Wynn nodded. Alfie was right. Rebecca Benson wasn't exactly one of those girls—if she had been, Wynn probably wouldn’t have gotten to use the family car to take her out.

"But we're not going to just sit there and… kiss, right?" Wynn asked, his stress creeping into his voice. "That's not what people do, right? They do more, right?"

"Yeah, they do more," Alfie said, nodding knowledgably. "But the more is pretty variable. What do you want to do? Play cards? Get blown? Fuck her in the ass?"

"Don't be gross," Wynn said, frowning deeply at Alfie.

"I'm just joking," Alfie said, waving his hand airily. "Seriously though. What do you want to do?"

Wynn chewed his lip as he considered this.

He didn't want to do much of anything Rebecca.

Actually, he amended, he did want to do things with Rebecca. He wanted to recreate that rainy afternoon when they'd sat around working through page after page of their AP bio labs. He wanted to ask her if she was nervous for graduation, too, if the "real world" felt like deep and murky waters, if she felt like she was also felt like she was being made to walk the plank. He wanted to run his hands through her long, silky hair and find out if it was really as soft as it looked.

But he didn't want to do anything further. Not yet.

"I dunno," Wynn said. "I guess… I wanna do what she wants, you know? Make her… I dunno. Feel good. Or… something."

Wynn trailed off, so embarrassed he was no longer able to meet Alfie's eyes.

He didn't even know what making someone feel good entailed. He knew what it meant for himself, of course—his hand on his cock, late at night, eyes squeezed shut, trying to get through it as fast as possible, to find that release so he could move on with his night and fall asleep—

But with a girl? He had no idea where to start. The best he could imagine was some vague image of a faceless woman, head tossed back, and some high, breathy moan, curves and softness and his hand between her legs.

Wynn shuddered. If his frown deepened any further, his face was going to get stuck like that.

Alfie seemed to be waiting for Wynn to continue, and Wynn wished he wouldn't.

"So, yeah…" Wynn finished lamely. "And what if I think she wants something, but then she doesn't really, and then she feels uncomfortable, and then—like, what, I’m just gonna ask her? Like, hey, can I touch your boobs? Really smooth."

Alfie laughed and rolled his eyes.

"No," he said, his grin loose and easy. "Here. I'll show you."

He lay back on the couch, Wynn's mother's throw pillow tucked behind his head, and beckoned for Wynn to come nearer.

"Pretend I'm Rebecca," Alfie said. "We're in the back of your car. We're behind the Walmart, and it's just so sexy. You've just swept me off my feet at the homecoming dance. And now… action."

Wynn stared at Alfie, who was looking at him expectantly, sprawled on the couch like it was a lounge chair on a cruise ship. Alfie made all of this look so easy, just as he had last time. Wynn felt much the way he did before a final exam—his heart was pounding in his chest, and his breath seemed to never quite make it to the bottom of his lungs.

It's just practice. Just like before.

Wynn took a deep breath and licked his lips.

"What do I…" he said, looking to Alfie for guidance.

Alfie smiled and laughed, a fond kind of exasperation that didn't hurt at all.

"Come here," he said, waving his hand again, and Wynn shifted so he was on his hands and knees above Alfie, looking down at his friend.

Alfie didn't have his mom's strawberry lip balm this time, but Wynn wasn't sure it would have helped. There was no way he could look down at Alfie and picture Rebecca's dark, shiny waves instead of Alfie's sandy, shaggy mess. No way he could see her plain brown eyes instead of the striking gold that threaded Alfie's. No way he could feel her curves beneath him instead of Alfie's angular planes.

Wynn wrinkled his brow.

"Oh my god, you're kind of hopeless, you know that?" Alfie said fondly, and he reached up, snaking his hand around the back of Wynn's neck and pulling him down for a kiss.

And as soon as their lips touched, Wynn felt himself relax. Wynn was still on his hands and knees, keeping space between their bodies—this was just practice, after all—but when he closed his eyes, the lips against his felt right. The last time they'd kissed, he'd started to get hard, and he didn't want to end up accidentally rubbing his cock up against his friend.

He exhaled against Alfie's mouth, and suddenly, his bottom lip was caught between Alfie's teeth—not hard enough to bite, but just enough for Wynn to feel the sharpness of hard against soft. He shivered, his body lighting up at the contrast.

Alfie's tongue flicked along Wynn's lower lip again, sending a little flame zipping through Wynn's core, and Wynn met Alfie's tongue with his own. He had no idea what to do with his tongue, but that seemed to be okay. They kissed deeper this time, finding an awkward sort of rhythm, teeth clacking and tongues nudging against one another, but at least Wynn was getting the learning curve out of the way before his date with Rebecca.

They hadn't gone this far last time, but once Wynn started, it was hard for him to not shove his tongue down Alfie's throat.

It's not so hard, he thought. Once I stop overthinking it so much.

Alfie was the one to break the kiss, turning his head to the side so suddenly Wynn was kissing his jaw instead of his lips. Wynn pulled back, still on all fours above Alfie, looking down at his friend.

Alfie's chest heaved, and his eyes were wide, lashes pale in the dim light. His lips were shiny, and Wynn realized it was both their saliva—it was strangely appealing. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and realized the TV was still on, muted, flashing proudly in front of a completely unaware audience.

"Was that okay?" Wynn asked nervously.

Alfie swallowed, dragging the back of his hand across his mouth.

"Yeah," he said after a moment. "That was pretty good."

Wynn grinned, shifting his weight so he could smack Alfie in the shoulder.

"Pretty good?" he said.

Alfie grinned up at him shamelessly.

"Shut up, I'm plenty expert," Wynn said, narrowing his eyes. "And besides, how many girls have you kissed? You're not exactly a player."

Alfie rolled his eyes.

"I've kissed exactly as many girls as you have, asshole," Alfie said.

"So—then—what next?" Wynn asked, his brow furrowed once more. He knew, as usual, he'd have to be the one to keep them on task.

"Okay, so—" Alfie said, with enough authority that it never occurred to Wynn to question his advice. "So, you wanna start slow. Give her time to react, and then you can figure out where to go next. Start by putting your hand on her waist."

Wynn nodded solemnly, filing this information away in his brain, crammed between U.S. History and AP Bio.

Alfie raised an eyebrow like he was waiting for Wynn to say something.

"What?" Wynn asked.

"So… practice," Alfie said, laughing. He grabbed Wynn's wrist and yanked it to his waist.

"Oh," Wynn said stupidly. "Okay."

Alfie's skin blazed hot against Wynn's hand, only a thin layer of cotton between them.

This part wasn't too difficult. It was just Alfie, after all, and it was just a hand against a trim, narrow waist. Nothing like Rebecca, of course, but it was his hand on another human. On Alfie.

This is fine, he thought. I can handle this.

"So then I…"

"Well," Alfie said, smiling slyly, "you can either just stare at her, or you can keep kissing her."

Wynn laughed and dipped his head to kiss Alfie again. It felt a little better this time—maybe Wynn was relaxing into it, or maybe it just felt more natural to have his hand on the body beneath him, to feel Alfie's sides rise and fall beneath Wynn's hands as he breathed.

When they parted, Wynn was smiling, and Alfie looked a little out of sorts, which Wynn appreciated. Alfie was a little too good at pretending he knew everything, and it was nice for Wynn to remember that Alfie wasn't exactly experienced, either.

"Good start," Alfie said. "So—uh—then—um—" He paused, shaking his head to collect his thoughts. "Okay. So. Next step. Onto second base. The boobs."

Wynn made a face.

"That doesn't sound very sexy when you put it like that," he said.

"So you definitely don't want to freak her out or cross a line," Alfie continued, like a college professor mid-lecture. "But, y'know, if you don't do anything she's gonna think you don't like her."

"This is so complicated," Wynn complained, dropping his head for a moment so his forehead was pressed against Alfie's. Alfie smiled up at him, his eyes flashing. "Why can't she just make a list of what she wants, then I make one, too, then we compare notes?"

Alfie snorted.

"What would your list be, hold hands without puking?" Alfie said, and Wynn blanched, self-conscious once more. It was too close to the truth to be funny.

It wasn't even too close. It simply was the truth.

Alfie cleared his throat.

"That's not the way it works," Alfie said, trying again.

"How do you even know?" Wynn said, picking his head up. "Whose boobs have you touched?"

"Yours," Alfie said, reaching up to flick Wynn's nipple, and the tension broke. Wynn pulled back and laughed, rubbing his chest.

"Ow, you ass," he said, resuming his position hovering above Alfie.

"My mama taught me how to treat a lady right," Alfie said solemnly. When Wynn gave him his most skeptical look, Alfie continued. "No, seriously. She sat me down right at the start of high school and gave me this huge talk about how to treat women with respect."

Wynn started cracking up at the vivid mental image that popped into his head—Alfie's mom, seated with him at the kitchen table, taking elegant draws from a cigarette as she instructed Alfie on how to woo teenage girls, Alfie's face growing redder and redder as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"Fuck you," Alfie said. "It was good info. That I am now giving to you free of charge, so show a little gratitude."

"If it's so good, then why haven't you gotten laid yet?" Wynn challenged with a smile.

A strange look flitted across Alfie's face.

"I guess back then my mom didn't know I wouldn't need that advice," Alfie said, and it was Wynn's turn to give Alfie a look.

"Huh?" Wynn said.

"Next step," Alfie said quickly. "So your goal is boobs, right?" He tapped his chest. "So you'll go lower before you get higher. You wanna get under the shirt, y'know? So you gotta move your hands a little lower, so you're right at the hem of her shirt. Not really fast, though. You have to go really slow, so she knows what you're doing."

"Your mom taught you this?" Wynn said, raising an eyebrow.

"Gross," Alfie said, rolling his eyes. "No. Of course not. But she told me that you gotta be real slow and steady so you don’t freak her out. I'm extrapolating."

"Fine," Wynn said. He shut his eyes and leaned down to kiss Alfie again, mainly because Alfie was getting that know-it-all voice again that he sometimes had, and Wynn didn't feel like dealing with it. This time, he felt a little more confident, deepening the kiss immediately, appreciating Alfie's sharp intake of breath.

He let his hand drift lower, across the soft cotton of Alfie's well-worn t-shirt, until he felt a warm strip of bare skin against his hand, the smallest sliver of Alfie's stomach revealed just above the waistband of his pants.

"Now what?" Wynn whispered, breaking the kiss, their faces so close their noses brushed against each other.

Alfie cleared his throat.

"N-now you… kinda just… move your hand up. Under the shirt, I mean. But—but go slow, y'know. If she… if she moves into your touch you're probably good to go. If she freezes or moves away, then get out of there."

Wynn frowned.

"That doesn't seem like a very good system," he said.

"You got a better one?" Alfie said, raising an eyebrow, and Wynn snorted.

"Good point," Wynn said. "Like this?"

He slid his hand under Alfie's shirt, and Alfie hissed in surprise, his eyes going wide.

"Sorry," Wynn mumbled. "Are my hands cold?"

Alfie shook his head quickly.

"N-no," he said. "You're fine."

"So I just… keep going like that?" Wynn asked. "Until I get to… y'know… up there?"

"Yeah," Alfie said, nodding. "Yeah, just like—"

Wynn broke him off, kissing him again. He was starting to get the hang of this whole thing. It wasn't easy exactly—he had so much to keep track of, his lips, his tongue, his breath, his hands—but he was starting to have fun with it. He could see why everyone was so obsessed with sex.

Not that this was sex, of course, he thought. He and his friend were kissing, yeah, but didn't mean anything, just two mouths moving against one another, trying to perfect some kind of technique. And it made sense, he knew, that his body would be responding, that it felt as though his blood was singing being this close to another person.

He could only imagine how much more intense it would feel when he had the real thing, had Rebecca soft and smiling beneath him in the backseat of the car.

He was… looking forward to it.

Kind of.

After a moment, he slid his hand up a little further, to where Alfie's waist nipped in. Alfie was so thin Wynn could practically wrap his hand around Alfie's waist, and Wynn stroked his thumb over the shockingly soft skin of Alfie's stomach, feeling the way Alfie's muscles twitched beneath his touch.

"Like that?" he whispered, pulling back just enough to get the words out.

"Yeah," Alfie said, more a sigh than a word. When Wynn opened his eyes, he felt some kind of electric zap run through his bones. Alfie's eyes were shut, moving rapidly beneath his closed lids, and his mouth was slightly parted, his lips swollen from kissing, his expression almost desperate.

Wynn couldn't help grinning. He'd done that. He'd brought that look to someone's face. He'd made someone feel dreamy and floaty and wonderful. And he wanted to keep doing it.

This was kissing practice, he told himself. Now was the time to try things out.

He brought his lips to Alfie's jaw, planting a line of kisses along the sharp ridge of bone there. Alfie hissed as Wynn pressed his lips against the sensitive skin beneath his ear.

"That's, um—yeah, that's good," Alfie said, his voice muddled, like he were dredging the words up from a deep well, and it only encouraged Wynn.

Maybe I'm kind of good at this, Wynn thought. He liked the idea that, perhaps, under all his mediocrity, he'd been some kind of sex god, just waiting for his chance to shine.

It was different to kiss Alfie's neck than to kiss his mouth, Wynn found. He'd liked falling into a rhythm with someone else's lips and tongue, but he liked this, too—the way Alfie's breath caught the first time Wynn caught skin between his teeth and sucked. The way Wynn could hear Alfie's exhales go strange and short. The way Alfie's hands clung to Wynn's biceps, as though, if he didn't hold on, he'd be flung far into the stars.

"So—then you—keep moving your hand up," Alfie said, and it took Wynn a moment to remember they were kissing for a very specific reason. Wynn slid his hand a little further up Alfie's stomach, and this hiked Alfie's shirt up a little, revealing the pale stretch of his stomach, his skin so white there it was almost tinged blue. Alfie's skin was prickling with goosebumps, despite the warmth of the rec room.

"Yeah," Alfie nodded. "Like that."

Wynn let his hand venture a little higher, and Alfie's eyes fluttered shut for a moment, his lips slightly parted. Beneath his fingers, Wynn could feel the deep crater of a scar on Alfie's side from when he'd had chicken pox when he was seven. He'd seen the scar—there was another on his back, too—plenty of times when they'd gone swimming. Wynn couldn’t ever recall feeling it, though, and he traced his finger lightly over the marred skin.

Alfie laughed softly, his eyes flying open.

"Okay?" Wynn whispered, his brow furrowing once more.

"Yeah," Alfie said, nodding. "Just a little ticklish."

"Sorry," Wynn said.

"Keep going," Alfie instructed. "You're doing great."

Wynn didn't bother to resist the urge to kiss Alfie's crooked smile. He was gaining confidence—it was fun, he thought, to give and take at once, like some slow, fluid dance, as they discovered how they moved together. Though they were just kissing, Wynn could feel his whole body lighting up, as if every one of his synapses were glowing gold.

Hell, maybe this date wouldn't be so bad after all.

Wynn flinched, the thought hitting him like a bucket of ice water.

"What?" Alfie whispered, breaking the kiss, and it was only when Alfie ran his hand up Wynn's arm to his shoulder that Wynn realized his whole body had tensed up.

"Nothing," Wynn said, shaking his head. "I was—it's nothing."

Why was he so nervous about his date with Rebecca? She was sweet and funny and they'd always gotten along well. And while Wynn wasn't exactly a sexual dynamo, she probably wasn't either. What was he so afraid of?

"So, um… boobs," Alfie said, and Wynn tried to bring his focus back to the lesson.

"Right," Wynn said. "Those."

"I, uh—I think you just kinda… y'know," Alfie said, suddenly hesitant, making a vague hand gesture that looked like he could have been doing anything from peeling an orange to pushing a gearshift into drive.

Wynn snorted.

"I'm supposed to… grab her boob and twist?" Wynn said, raising an eyebrow.

Alfie laughed.

"No, you asshole," Alfie said. "If she seems like she's into it, then you can… slide your hand up on it. The boob, I mean."

Wynn made a face—Alfie's instructions sounded about as appealing as picking up tapioca pudding with his bare hands.

"Like… this?" Wynn said, sliding his hand up a little further. Alfie laughed and squirmed, shifting beneath Wynn.

"Not into her armpit," Alfie said.

Wynn couldn’t help it—he shoved his fingers into Alfie's armpit, tickling him, and Alfie yelped, flailing wildly beneath Wynn as he tried to escape. Wynn collapsed down on top of Alfie, using his bulk to pin Alfie down on the couch to keep him from getting away. Alfie laughed and yelled and Wynn only relented when Alfie bit him squarely in the shoulder.

"Ouch," Wynn said, rubbing his shoulder, though it hadn't really hurt. "You're an animal."

"I was provoked," Alfie gasped, still catching his breath. "You fucker."

"I'd say I'm sorry but—"

"Yeah, but you hate lying," Alfie cut in, rolling his eyes.

He smiled up at Wynn.

Wynn smiled down at him.

Alfie shifted slightly, and Wynn felt the jut of Alfie's hip bone was pressed against Wynn's crotch. The sudden pressure sent pleasure sparking up his spine, and Wynn realized that his body had begun to respond, warmth pooling in his groin as they kissed. His hips desperately wanted to roll up into the friction.

Wynn quickly pulled himself back onto his hands and knees. Sometime in the last few minutes, Alfie's shirt had gotten shoved all the way up, revealing his narrow chest. Alfie was so slight his chest was practically concave, his nipples small and pink against his pale skin, a little birthmark on his left ribs.

Wynn found himself tracing a line down Alfie's sternum, just bone beneath skin, all the way down to the birthmark. Alfie's eyes were large, and his chest still heaved unevenly with his breath.

"Alfie," Wynn said.

Alfie's eyes went larger still, apprehensive now.

"Wynn…" Alfie said cautiously.

"You wanna know something?" Wynn asked.

"Yeah," Alfie said. He caught his lower lip between his teeth, worrying at it.

Wynn flicked Alfie hard in the nipple.

"You have no boobs," Wynn said, laughing. "You might actually even have negative boobs."

Alfie rolled his eyes and swatted Wynn in the shoulder.

"You suck," Alfie said. "I'm doing you a huge favor, and this is how you repay me—"

There was something in Alfie's expression, though, some kind of self-consciousness lurking in the wings though he was smiling.

"You're good, Alfie. You have the perfect amount of boobs."

"You mean… none?" Alfie asked, raising an eyebrow, and then Wynn kissed Alfie, mainly just to shut him up.

Alfie gasped against his mouth, and then he was kissing back, his hands clinging tightly to Wynn's arms once more like ivy vining up a tree. Alfie kissed back rougher now, his teeth dragging along Wynn's lips, and Wynn shivered involuntarily.

A strange feeling was curling in Wynn's stomach, and it reminded him a little of the time he'd made the regrettable decision to drink an entire pot of coffee before a final exam that he'd stayed up all night studying for. He'd still been exhausted, but he'd felt like a spring wound up far too tight. He'd felt a dreadful, pressing need, but he hadn't been able to tell if he needed to sprint a mile or sleep for five days.

He felt like that now, as though his whole being was on fire for something he couldn't quite name, as though his head were only barely tethered to his body.

Would it feel like this with Rebecca? Was kissing always like this, so overwhelming, too much and not enough all at once? Or would it feel a little less perilous once he was finally in the backseat of a car with a pretty girl, the whole night spread out in front of them?

Wynn's stomach knotted.

He shoved the anxiety down his throat, away from his mind, and brought his hand to Alfie's waist, roving up his torso before coming to rest with his hand on the bare skin Alfie's nearly nonexistent pectoral.

"Like this, yeah?" Wynn asked, pulling back.

Alfie blinked up at him, looking oddly distraught for a moment as Wynn broke the kiss. Then he shook his head to clear it, obviously remembering that he was supposed to be coaching Wynn.

"Just like that," Alfie nodded. He seemed to be looking at the space between Wynn's eyebrows, not quite meeting Wynn's gaze. He drew a deep, shuddering breath. "Girls like it when you… y'know."

Wynn laughed softly. He was beginning to doubt that Alfie really knew all that much about what girls like.

"I don't know," Wynn whispered. "That's why you're supposed to be teaching me."

"Right," Alfie said, shaking his head. He licked his kiss-swollen lips, hesitating. "They like it when you… touch their… y'know. Play with…"

Wynn smiled at Alfie's inability to say the word, because, if their roles had been reversed, he would have been stumbling, too.

So, instead of bothering with words, he ran his thumb across Alfie's nipple, and Alfie hissed, his eyes going wide. Wynn tried and failed to bite back a smile when he did it again and Alfie arched up into Wynn's touch, letting out a soft little sound.

It was clear from Alfie's expression he was even more surprised by that than Wynn was.

Alfie squeezed his eyes shut, turning his head and burying his face against the back of the couch. As they'd been kissing, twin splotches of color had appeared high on his cheeks, and Wynn thought Alfie looked like a classical painting of himself. His neck was exposed like this, and he looked elegant, graceful, in a way Wynn had never quite seen before.

He brushed his lips against the lines of Alfie's neck, and Alfie made a noise so soft and low and muffled by the couch that Wynn almost didn't hear it.

Wynn circled his fingers over Alfie's nipple, playing with it as it hardened beneath his touch. There was no way he could pretend this was Rebecca Benson, who had showed up to the first day of fifth grades with a chest that had appeared overnight and required what appeared to be an industrial-grade support system to keep it corralled.

But still. Nipples were nipples, Wynn rationalized, and what worked on Alfie would probably work on Rebecca, too.

And it seemed like it was working on Alfie, because Alfie was squirming and panting beneath him, his breath ragged, as Wynn stroked his chest in slow, easy circles, his movements more confident now. He wondered if it was strange for Alfie like this, to be in the girl's role, if, when he shut his eyes, he was imagining himself in Wynn's place, some faceless girl from their class writhing beneath him.

Wynn had a sudden, sharp desire to lean down and skate his lips across Alfie's body. He wondered what Alfie would taste like if Wynn flicked his tongue across the hard peak of Alfie's nipple, wondered if Alfie would arch up to meet him with a soft sigh.

Wynn shook himself.

There was too much to focus on, and so Wynn didn't bother with trying to coordinate his hands and his lips. His left shoulder ached from holding his weight up for this long, and so he sat back on Alfie's thighs and brought both hands to Alfie's chest now, watching the little sliver of Alfie's face that wasn’t buried in the couch cushion.

Alfie made a garbled, choking noise as Wynn began to play with both nipples, but after a second, he grabbed Wynn's wrists, yanking them away from his chest and sitting up abruptly, banging his forehead into Wynn's nose.

"Ow," Wynn said, sitting back and rubbing his nose. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Alfie said, his voice hoarse. "Yeah. Great. Just fine. Good."

In the dim light, Alfie's pupils were so dilated the black threatened to swallow up the hazel. His hair stuck up in every direction, and his jaw hung slack—he almost looked drugged.

"Do you… wanna stop?" Wynn said.

"I should—I should probably get home," Alfie said, a little shakily. "But—you did a great job. A plus. One hundred percent. Rebecca's not gonna know what hit her."

"Oh—okay," Wynn said. He realized that Alfie was still gripping Wynn's wrists like a lifeline, tightly enough that his fingers were beginning to tingle. He looked down at their hands, then back up at Alfie. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah," Alfie said quickly, releasing Wynn's wrists. "I promise. I just—I remembered that—I remembered that my mom gets off work early today, so she wanted to have family dinner, so, uh—"

"Oh, shit," Wynn said, scooting back off of Alfie's thighs to let him up. "Yeah—are you late? Do you need to call her?"

"Nah—" Alfie said quickly. "I think—what time is—okay, yeah, I'll be fine—"

Alfie's hair was still a mess as he shoved his books back into his battered backpack. Wynn couldn't help laughing when he remembered that they'd planned to get their homework done.

Well—it had still been a very productive afternoon.

"Thanks, Alfie," Wynn said. He meant it, too. He realized his hands were shaking, and he felt a little the way he did after the football team had a victory—keyed up, alight, full of want and possibility and electricity.

Alfie glanced over his shoulder, his face still flushed. He licked his lips, opened his mouth to say something, then stopped.

"Yeah," he said finally. "No worries. Anytime. I'll, uh—I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay," Wynn said. "Be safe. Don't get squished by a car or something."

Alfie snorted.

"I'll try. No guarantees."

And with that, Alfie left the room. A moment later, Wynn heard the front door shut, and then Alfie was gone.

Wynn looked around the rec room. It was the same as it had been a few hours ago—the same dark blue couch cushions Wynn had made forts from as a kid. The same painting hanging on the wall, a tremendously ugly watercolor of a lake, the landscape bleached and blurred. The same dark paneling behind it. The same dumb TV show he had Alfie had been watching all afternoon.

Wynn touched his lips and drew a deep breath. No, the room was the same. But something in him had shifted. Something wordless, nameless, was stirring in him, and it unnerved him.

He shifted, and it was only then he realized he was completely hard.

It didn't concern him, of course—he'd been picturing kissing Rebecca, after all. Need hummed through his chest—and his whole body—like a revved engine, and he was sure this feeling would pale in comparison to what he would feel when he was doing all of this for real.

He pressed two fingers to his neck, feeling the wild twitch of his pulse.

If this was how worked up he was now, he wasn't sure he'd survive his date.

He remembered, vividly then, when he was eight. His father had a glass paperweight with a perfectly preserved cricket that he kept on the highest shelf of the bookcase in the computer room, and Wynn had always been fascinated with it. One rainy afternoon, he'd dragged the rolling chair across the room and clambered on top of it, standing on his tiptoes to reach the cricket.

He'd just snagged it when his weight shifted, sending the chair spinning wildly, and both Wynn and the paperweight had gone flying. His stomach had dropped hideously as he realized, in slow motion, there was no hope of catching his balance. He was going down, and there was nothing he could do about it.

The paperweight had cracked, and so had Wynn's wrist as it smashed into the desk when he fell. It wasn't until he got his cast off, two months later, that his father had finally begun to let the whole incident go.

This felt a little like that day, Wynn thought. He was caught in some kind of freefall, and all he could do was brace himself to fall or to fly.

He wasn't sure which felt scarier.