Part 14 (1/2)
The following week, I was alone in the apartment working on my revisions to A Cup of Joe. I was desperately trying to find more obstacles for Joe and Milo's relations.h.i.+p, but everything I'd thought of so far felt trite or overdone.
There was knock on the door. It was the second knock we'd had since moving into that apartment.
I knew even before I answered it that it was Daniel again.
”What,” I said, not really a question. After the last time he'd been here, he really thought I was going to let him inside again?
He held up his backpack as if that explained everything, then pushed his way past me. I could have stopped him, but it would have meant blocking him with my body, and he was a s.e.xy teenage porcupine: the last thing I wanted to do was touch him.
”Really?” I said.
He ignored me. ”Where's your bro?”
”Kevin? He's got an interview. But he should be back any minute.”
Daniel flopped down onto the couch again, his legs spread so far apart I thought he was going to rip the crotch of his pants. Those stupid pockets were pulled up again.
”So is he, like, the guy?”
Was Daniel really asking what I thought he was asking?
”Uh, we're both guys,” I said.
”Yeah, but you know what I mean.”
”I'm not talking about this with you. You're seventeen years old.”
”Eighteen.”
”What?”
”I turn eighteen. This Sunday.”
”Um, that's not really the point. What you're asking is none of your business.” And on a related note, why the h.e.l.l was he a.s.suming Kevin was the top in our relations.h.i.+p? (He was wrong, by the way. Well, it sort of depended on what week you asked: it kind of went in waves. But he was mostly wrong. Still, I wasn't about to tell Daniel any of this.) ”Daniel, what the h.e.l.l do you want?”
He pulled a textbook from his backpack - Modern World Studies, it said - and tossed it onto the couch next to him.
”Yeah,” I said. ”So?”
”So you said you'd help with my homework. I gotta do the questions at the end of chapter six.” He reached for one of the remotes on the table and turned on our television.
I'm not an idiot: I knew he was setting me up. I'd do what he asked, try to help him with his homework, and he'd somehow make fun of me, make me look like a fool. He was six years younger than I was, but he reminded me of the bullies back in my high school. Everyone says that you just need to stand up to bullies and they'll back down, but it's not true. They always win in the end, because winning is more important to them than your looking like an idiot for a few minutes is to you. Being a bully is all they've got, almost by definition. On the other hand, Daniel was smaller than my high school bullies - so small I could probably pick him up like a sack of potatoes and toss him out of the apartment. Still, that would mean actually touching him, and I already explained how I didn't want to do that.
With a sigh, I picked up the textbook and took a seat across from him. I paged through it. The print was bigger than I expected, and I wondered just how much they dumbed things down at Hollywood High these days.
I looked up at Daniel, who had somehow already found a Saw movie rip-off in the middle of a particularly gory dismemberment scene. (A pit-trap with chainsaws rather than spikes? Seriously, who comes up with this stuff? On the other hand, maybe a chainsaw pit-trap was exactly what A Cup of Joe needed. That was an obstacle that would definitely keep Joe and Milo apart!) ”Daniel,” I said, ”if you really want my help, you have to turn the TV off.”
”Guess what?” he said, not turning the TV off.
”What?”
”This guy says I can be a model.”
”What? What guy?”
”This guy I met.”
”Daniel...” I said.
”What?”
”Those guys aren't legit.” On the other hand, what the h.e.l.l did I know? Daniel was a good-looking guy. Maybe he really had been stopped by some kind of modeling agent.
On TV, the victim screamed. Daniel watched the limbs fly off in silence.
”Come on,” I said. ”Turn the TV off.”
Incredibly, he turned the TV off, and then came and stood next to my chair, so close I could feel the heat of his body. His crotch, of course, was right at my head level.
Is this the plan? I thought. Flaunt himself at me again?
”Let's work at the table,” I said, standing.
I started for the kitchen, but Daniel went in the other direction - toward Kevin's and my bedroom. I wasn't exactly sure what embarra.s.sing things he might find in there. Our underwear on the bed? Lube on the nightstand? I just knew I didn't want him in there.
”Daniel!” I said, but he completely ignored me and disappeared inside.
I hurried across the apartment.
”Daniel!”
As I reached the doorway, he stepped back into the frame, facing me.
We collided. The last thing I'd expected was for him to listen to me again and do what I'd said, so I stepped right into him like I was walking into a hug. This wasn't just any hug either. It was a full-on, torso-to-torso embrace, almost like he was wrapped around me.
It wasn't erotic exactly.
Okay, I'm lying - it was exactly erotic. Beneath his grimy, rumpled clothing, I could feel him, smaller than me, but just as lean and hard as he'd looked in the pool. And yes, I also felt his crotch, pressing against my thigh. The most surprising thing may have been how he smelled. It was like I'd knocked the pheromones right out of him. Kevin smelled like a man, and Daniel did too, but somehow even fresher. This sounds pervier than I intend, but it was like he'd been plucked off the tree at the exact moment of ripeness.
That, of course, was also the moment when Kevin arrived home.
”I leave for two hours,” he said, standing by the door, ”and this is what I come home to?”
”Kevin!” I said, trying to untangle myself from Daniel's body - easier said than done. Finally, I pulled away. Somehow my clothes looked rumpled now, like Daniel's always did. I immediately tucked and straightened, even though that probably made me look more guilty.
”Daniel went into our bedroom!” I said to Kevin. ”He didn't listen when I told him to stop!”
Kevin just smirked.