“Can I jump in, guys?”

“No way you’ll catch up,” Brendan says.

“Is that a challenge?”

“Sure. Maybe you’ll beat Skinny-Dave, at least.”

Thomas lines his cap to the left of the starting line, flicks, and lands right in Box #13.

Brendan kicks his cap. “That’s motherfucking bullshit.”

“We don’t have to count it,” Thomas offers.

“New game,” Brendan calls out as he retrieves his cap. He makes Thomas go first and I feel like Thomas might’ve missed Box #13 on purpose this time around.

I go next and get as far as Box #4 before missing.

Thomas asks, “How’d Genevieve take the news yesterday?”

Brendan is about to flick his cap when he looks up. “What news?”

“I sort of broke up with Genevieve.”

Brendan stands. “You’re shitting me.”

“What? No. Things are still crazy at home and—”

Brendan picks up his cap and hurls it. “Why the fuck does this kid know before us? What makes him so fucking special?”

“Stop playing like you’ve been around to help me figure my shit out.”

Before I can do anything to stop it, before I can actually register that this is happening, my sort of best friend, Brendan, charges toward my best friend, Thomas. Brendan snuffs him in the chin and lays into him. “Get—out—of—my friend’s head!” Before Brendan can land a sixth punch, I tackle him to the ground and pin him down, my arm against his throat.

“Leave him alone!” I’m breathing hard. I press down on his throat harder when he tries flipping me back with his legs, an old wrestling trick he used to be great at. I bet he’s regretting teaching me how to fight. I get off and check on Thomas while Brendan catches his breath. Thomas isn’t bleeding, but I can tell he’s doing his best not to cry.

“You’re okay, you’re good,” I tell him.

I help him up and he wraps his arm around my shoulders. Baby Freddy and Skinny-Dave kneel by Brendan and they all watch us walk off.

“I’m sorry,” Thomas tells me. “I didn’t know you hadn’t said anything—”

“Stop. It’s not your fault. He’s a fucking asshole.”

He rubs his face and his eyes squint; a tear escapes. “You didn’t have to take my side, Stretch.”

I kind of, sort of, definitely always will.

6

SIDE B

   Defending Thomas yesterday was instinctive, but not easy. If someone were to write my biography, there would be many stories about Brendan and Baby Freddy and Me-Crazy and the rest of the crew. They’re my history. But I slept okay last night knowing I chose the person who agrees with the happy ending I’m building toward, not the ones who would punch in a face to demolish it.

I brought beer over to Thomas’s house earlier today. Perk of being a cashier at Good Food’s is how I get away with checking people’s IDs but no one has to check mine when I cash out. I sit up against his bedroom wall, chugging back the rest of my third Corona as Thomas twists his fourth PBR open. I get another too, not just to catch up, but because I need a drink when I catch Thomas icing his bruised eye with the freezing can.

“I’m sorry for the thousandth time. I don’t know what got into him.”

“He thinks I’m stealing you away from them,” Thomas says, like it’s okay he got snuffed because my friends are jealous of all the Aaron Time he gets. “Do you ever think you’ll tell them? Side A?”

“Maybe one day I’ll move away and send a postcard saying, ‘Hey, I like guys. Don’t worry, I never liked any of you because you all suck.’”

Thomas looks left and right, then over his shoulder, and peeks out his window. “Sorry, just making sure Brendan’s not hiding around here to punch me before I ask this next question.” We both laugh. “You think you’ll ever tell Genevieve?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t even heard from her the past couple of days. I have words I can say, I guess, but I’m scared she’ll take it as a blow, like she turned me this way or something.”

“I’d pay to be there for that conversation.”

“It won’t be for another few eons, so hang tight.”

“Who’s your celebrity crush?”

“What?”

“I’m trying to help you get more comfortable with everything.”

“Okay, then. Emma Watson,” I answer. He raises a large, skeptical eyebrow. “Look, she was awesome as Lexa the Enchantress in the Scorpius Hawthorne movies, and if she wanted to marry me, I would magically be straight again. But on the dude side of things, I’m going to have to go with Andrew Garfield. Slinging around with Spider-Man would be badass. How about you?”

“Natalie Portman really won me over in Garden State. I even loved her in Star Wars: Episode One . . . She was the only good thing about that trilogy,” Thomas says.

Not exactly what I was hoping to hear, but I’ve got three and a half drinks in me on an empty stomach, so I’m feeling ballsy. “Who would your guy crush be?”

“Like if I had to go gay for someone?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm.” Thomas lays back and rests his head on his pillow, kicking his knees up. He chugs his PBR like a funnel, until it’s empty. “I gotta go with my dude Ryan Gosling. He has swag and I couldn’t help but want to be him after watching Drive.”

“I would ride shotgun with him,” I agree.

“PBR me.”

I toss a can to him like an overhead basketball pass and we cheer when he catches it. He opens it and beer sprays all over him. I’m drunk-laughing on the floor, which is the same as regular laughing, except it’s obnoxiously louder and only happens when you’re drunk. Thomas is drunk-laughing too while he changes into a new shirt. He’s got to know always watching him change is killer on me, a turn-on with no payoff. He puts on a yellow sleeveless shirt.

“Get up. I’m going to teach you how to fight.”

“No thanks, Stretch.”

“Unless you’re bench-pressing girls all the time, you’re wasting your muscles.”

“I’ve seen wrestling.”

“Wrestling’s fake. Come on, get up.” He puts down his PBR and joins me in the middle of the room. “Awesome. Next time Brendan or anyone comes at you, you’re going to lay them out.”