Page 19 of Winter Break

“Now we are men,” I teased, and Austin repeated the line before continuing.

“I mean, I think it’s time. Don’t you?”

“Time?”

“You know I hooked up with that tourist over the summer, but all we did is kiss and touch a bit. Over our clothes.” Austin sounded disappointed about it.

“Yeah.”

“You know, you could have hooked up too. Probably for real. Dude, lifeguards are like fucking gods in this town.”

“Come on, Aus. Not really.” He paused the game and looked at me. “Well, okay. Like, maybe to the tourists or whatever, but …”

“But what?”

“Is that what you want? Some fling with a guy who’s only here for the week?”

“I don’t know? Maybe?”

“Well, I don’t think that’s what I want. I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t make sense. I mean, yeah, some hot guys maybe hit on me last summer. But I guess I just wasn’t into it. Or into them?” I flopped back on the bed. “I don’t know!’

“Oh. Well, that’s cool.”

“I mean. Do you think you could just, like, do stuff with some guy you just met?”

“I guess, maybe? Like, people go to clubs all the time and hook up with strangers, right? Or they use apps. It’s like, no big deal. I think maybe I could do that. But it’s super cool if you don’t want to. Maybe you’re like, demi or whatever.”

“Demi?”

“Yeah, like demisexual. I remember reading about it when I was younger, researching about being queer online. You should look it up. It’s like, totally cool that you don’t want to just hook up with some rando.”

I sat back up.

“You’ve said cool like seventeen times.”

“That’s because I’m a cool and supportive friend.”

He was. “You are.”

He un-paused the game, and we played in silence for a few minutes.

“I know you’re right. People do, like, use apps and go to clubs and stuff to meet ... randos. Do you think Turner is doing that?”

Austin flopped back on the bed with an, “Ugh! We are not talking about Turner. No! More than that. We are never talking about Turner ever, ever again. Cool?”

I kept my mouth shut but thought a lot about Turner going to gay clubs, dancing with hot men, and taking them back to his apartment above the toy store—while we went back to shooting bad guys.

Eventually, my mom called us for dinner. “In a minute,” I yelled down. Mom was used to us finishing the round before we shut off whatever game we were playing.

“Just summing up our little convo here, Dalt,” Austin said as we scurried down the stairs. Mom knew we liked finishing our game without pausing it, but she wasn’t always happy about it.

“Dates for the prom and no more talk about …”

“Turner.”

We landed in the hall, and who should be standing in the foyer, taking off his coat as we descended, but Turner fucking Misher?

“Oh, hey, Dalt. Just the man I wanted to see,” he said, looking straight at me. Stupidly, I turned and looked at Austin.