Play Me, I'm Yours [Library Edition]

by Madison Parker

  Lucas: it was fine. mostly just people staring

  Alex: good. call me if u ever need to talk

  Lucas: thx

  Curiosity got the better of him. Lucas booted up his laptop and logged into Facebook. He was surprised to see that he had a dozen friend requests. Most of these people hated him. Why were they sending him friend requests? That old saying about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer came to mind. He accepted the requests from Alex and Trish and ignored the rest.

  The message from Alex was short but sweet, expressing his concern for Lucas. Lucas followed the link to Alex’s wall and spent some time looking at his pictures. He smiled at the sight of him. It’d been dark in that closet. He hadn’t been able to get a good look. He didn’t dare stare at him in school, at least not in close proximity. He liked being able to look at him now, like this. There were lots of pictures of Alex at parties, and it seemed he had a different girl hanging on him at each one. He was always smiling or laughing, always seemed to be the center of attention. Lucas didn’t fit into that world, but he hoped he and Alex could somehow be friends.

  Alex had swooped in like a knight in shining armor, rescuing Lucas from what could have been the most humiliating experience of his life. Instead, Alex had made it a memory Lucas would always treasure. Lucas went back through the pictures from the cast party, wanting to remember exactly what Alex had looked like that night. He saw a photo that must have been taken right after the closet incident. Alex was talking to Trish, who looked worried, and Donovan, who looked pissed. There were several comments posted underneath.

  Brian Kim: wtf happened in the closet, dude?

  Alex Goodman: sorry, my lips are sealed

  Andrew Brooke: yeah, around Fairy Tate’s cock

  Lucas closed his laptop and lay back on his bed. Why did they have to make it sound so dirty? When he closed his eyes and replayed those minutes with Alex, it didn’t feel dirty. It was warm and soft and sweet. He ached for that feeling again. He played it over in his mind.

  Then his thoughts began to wander. What if their time hadn’t ended there? What if Alex really had undone his fly and reached in to—

  A pleasant sensation had slowly built in his groin while he’d relived the memory of kissing Alex, but that—the thought of Alex’s hand around his dick, made him fully hard. He knew it was wrong, but the desire to touch himself was overpowering. Lucas opened his fly. He slid his jeans and briefs partway down, just far enough for easy access, and then took himself in hand.

  He closed his eyes and pictured Alex hovering over him, staring down at him with sultry green eyes. Lucas ran his tongue over his lips, trying to remember how it felt to be kissed. He tried to remember how it felt to be pressed against Alex’s body. When they’d been together in the closet, Lucas had smelled a hint of sweat and woody cologne through Alex’s clothing. He wished now that he had something of Alex’s to bury his nose into. He wondered what Alex looked like without a shirt. He pictured strong shoulders, lean muscles, dark nipples. A long, smooth torso. Zach. He was picturing Zach Teagan. And as he sped up his strokes, he wondered how Zach’s lips would taste. What would he smell like after a swim? Lucas came quickly, and felt overwhelmed with shame afterward.

  He cleaned himself up, and then lay in bed thinking about what he’d just done. Did it mean he had a crush on Alex? On Zach? He didn’t know how he felt. Sure, he’d jerked off before, but never thinking about someone he knew—someone he’d talked to, touched. There had been times when he slipped those armbands on his wrists and summoned up images of Mark while he attended to his needs. But he hadn’t thought about Mark in years. And besides, that was different. Mark was just a fantasy. He wasn’t in his life. He wasn’t a friend. Alex was.

  He was pretty sure what he’d just done was wrong. He wondered if it was normal, if other people did it too. He didn’t have anyone to ask. Even if he did feel comfortable talking to Trish, she was a girl. She wouldn’t understand. He knew girls masturbated too, thanks to Cyndi. He didn’t know exactly what they did, and he didn’t want to know. But did Trish ever think about Donovan when she did it? Did she ever think about Lucas? No, no one would think of him like that. It was probably different for girls anyway. They didn’t have to deal with hard-ons demanding attention.

  After visiting a dozen sites using search terms like “if you think about someone while you masturbate does it mean you’re in love” and “is it okay to think about your friends when jerking off,” Lucas was no closer to making sense of his feelings. He did, however, decide he shouldn’t be so hard on himself. Between watching Zach Teagan swim the fly, and then all that talk about puckers and peckers and lips and cocks, he didn’t stand a chance at resisting the urge when it hit. Even so, he probably wouldn’t be able to look Alex in the eye for a while. Or Zach for that matter.

  One thing he did know was that Alex was someone special. He lay in bed for nearly an hour, trying to write a poem for Alex. He’d written one for every other person who was special in his life. He was determined to write one for Alex too. He scanned the dictionary for words beginning with the letter X until inspiration hit.

  A knight in shining armor, like

  L ancelot du Lac

  E scort me to

  X anadu

  “WHAT’S that on your wrist, Mason?” his mom said the next night during dinner.

  Lucas glanced at his brother’s wrist and saw what appeared to be a hemp bracelet.

  “Oh, that. Becca gave it to me.”

  “Becca from the swim team?” his dad said.

  “Yeah.”

  “It looks handmade,” his mom said. “That’s so sweet. She must really like you.”

  He groaned. “Yeah, she’s like, totally in love with me.”

  His mom smiled. “You must like her if you’re wearing her bracelet.”

  “She’s okay, I guess.”

  “Mhmm. In Mason terms, that means you’re totally in love with her too,” she teased.

  Lucas had been quiet until then. He didn’t know what made him do it, but he blurted out, “How do you know when you’re in love?”

  His family turned to look at him.

  “Not you too?” his mom said with raised eyebrows.

  “Hypothetically speaking.”

  She smiled. “That’s a tough question.”

  “Duh. You just know,” said Mason.

  “Sometimes,” she agreed. “But it can be confusing your first time.”

  Mason cocked his head. “Okay, then how do you know?”

  “Well,” she said, looking back and forth between her boys. “When you first fall in love with someone, you usually feel like you want to be with that person all the time. You have a hard time thinking about anyone or anything else, and you think all the silly, quirky habits that person has are cute. You care more about that person than yourself. You feel happy when they’re happy, sad when they’re sad.”

  That was pretty much the same spiel he’d read on the Internet in his attempts to discover the difference between love and lust. If that was the criteria for being in love, he wasn’t in it. He liked Alex a lot, but it wasn’t that all-consuming feeling she was describing.

  “Is it different for boys than it is for girls?” Lucas said.

  His mom glanced at his dad, who shrugged. He clearly had no intention of chiming in.

  “When a boy falls in love with someone, yes, he can experience all of those feelings,” she said. “But it probably is a little different for boys than it is for girls.”

  Mason nodded. “Girls want romance. Boys want sex.”

  “That’s on oversimplification. Boys can want romance just as much as girls, sweetie.”

  Mason wiggled his eyebrows. “And girls can want sex just as much as boys?”

  His mom looked flustered. “We were talking about love, not sex. They’re two completely different things.”

  “They’re not completely different are they?” Lucas said.

  “It’s easy to conf
use the two, but they are very different.” There was a pause while she regrouped. “Now, honey, is there something you want to tell us?”

  Did she think he was having sex? Why hadn’t he kept his stupid mouth shut? And why were they talking about sex at the dinner table? In front of his dad, who looked extremely uncomfortable?

  Lucas tried to formulate an answer while his mom continued with her questioning.

  “You know, if you’re seeing someone, we’d love to meet—the person.”

  Lucas guessed what she was doing, why she was speaking so strangely. She was giving him an opening, but he hadn’t planned on having a coming out discussion tonight, and he didn’t know if he was ready for it.

  “Or is this person someone we already know?” she tried again.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Mason groaned, rolling his eyes. “Just tell us who he is.”

  “Mason!” his mother said. “Let your brother speak.”

  Lucas sat motionless, staring at his plate. He supposed by not saying anything, he was telling them what they wanted to know. It was a cowardly way out, he thought, remembering his big reveal to Alex. Alex had made him say the words, and he’d felt better once he had. He wanted to say them now, but the thought of disappointing his mom and dad hurt too much.

  His mom was the one person who thought he was special. She was so proud of him, bragging about how talented he was to anyone who would listen. What would she think if she knew? Would she be ashamed of him? And his dad—he was already distant. Lucas had already disappointed him in so many ways. Would this be the final straw? Would his dad hate him?

  Lucas looked up at his mom. She smiled patiently.

  He glanced at his dad, who also sat waiting for a response.

  “It’s okay, son,” he said to Lucas.

  As soon as Lucas heard those words, he felt the tears come. He hadn’t realized just how much he needed his dad to tell him it was okay.

  Lucas wiped his eyes and said, “It’s true. I’m gay.”

  His mom walked over and enveloped Lucas in a hug.

  “Big fucking shocker,” said Mason.

  His dad stood. “Mason, go to your room. Now.”

  Mason mumbled something under his breath as he exited the room.

  “We love you so much,” his mom said, holding him tightly.

  “Lucas,” his dad said, walking over and patting his back. “It’s gonna be okay. We just want you to be happy.”

  His mom released him, and Lucas reached for his dad, clasping his arms around him. His dad hugged him briefly, then let him go.

  “Honey, why don’t you have a seat,” his mom said. “Is there anything more you want to say? Are you involved with someone?”

  Lucas shook his head. “No, there’s no one.”

  Lucas knew Alex wasn’t the one. He needed to stop thinking of him that way, or he’d ruin their chance at friendship. As for Zach, Lucas supposed there was no harm in dreaming, so long as he kept his distance.

  Chapter Seven

  Dreaming of You

  “LISTEN up, everyone,” Mr. Rose said. “Today we’ll be working in our peer review groups. Please move into your assigned group and take out your homework. You’ll be sharing your acrostic poems.”

  Lucas was assigned to a group of four: Diana Charles, Lisa Scott, and Zach Teagan. As Lucas flipped through his notebook looking for his assignment, Donovan scooted a chair up next to him and squeezed his way into the group.

  What was he doing? Donovan hadn’t spoken to him since the cast party.

  Mr. Rose circled the room, handing out peer review sheets. “Okay, you know what to do. Go to it.”

  “Crashing the party, Donovan?” Lisa said.

  Donovan smirked. “There’s method to my madness. Let’s pass to the right.”

  Donovan was on Lucas’s right, which meant he was about to read the poem Lucas had written about Trish. Lucas hadn’t planned on that. At least he’d had the sense not to stick with the original poem—the one that made him sound like a friendless loser.

  Diana was on his left, so she passed her poem to Lucas. She’d written about her boyfriend.

  G orgeous

  R eally nice

  E yes

  G reat kisser

  For the review, they had to answer the following questions:

  1. How do you think the author feels about this person? She is proud to be with him.

  2. Based on the poem, what else can you infer about the person? He’s her boyfriend.

  3. What is your overall reaction to the poem? She’s pretty shallow.

  He knew he shouldn’t record that last remark—normally he tried to make comments that wouldn’t draw unnecessary attention, but he couldn’t resist. He’d spent so much time lately thinking about love, contemplating what it meant, wondering if he’d ever find it. Maybe he was being petty because she had someone and he didn’t, but he’d worked hard on his poems. Was this the best she could do?

  He couldn’t help but notice Lisa snickering. She was reading Donovan’s poem. Lucas guessed he’d written something raunchy or something really gay. Or both. He’d have to wait until it made its way around the circle to find out.

  He got Zach’s poem next. Zach hadn’t used a specific name. His poem spelled out “Dreaming of You.” Lucas wondered if that meant there was no one special in his life. No, that wasn’t possible. Surely Zach had a girlfriend.

  Lucas snuck a peek at Zach, trying to imagine how others saw him. He was wearing loose jeans and a T-shirt, like he always did. Most people would never know what his body looked like under those clothes. Lucas had seen Zach wear shorts on occasion, but guys teased him for having shaved legs. Maybe girls didn’t like that either.

  Or maybe it was his haircut. Zach wore his hair in a buzz cut. It looked dark blond, though it was hard to tell since it was so short. It suited him, but Lucas couldn’t think of many other guys in school who had a buzz cut. Maybe girls didn’t like that.

  Or was it because his brows were too heavy, or his nose too big? Surely they couldn’t complain about his lips. Lucas licked his own lips as he stared at Zach’s perfect mouth. Girls were crazy if they didn’t find Zach gorgeous.

  Zach glanced at him, and Lucas quickly looked down at his paper. Shit, he’d been caught staring again. He really needed to be more careful.

  Lucas turned his attention to Zach’s poem, Dreaming of You.

  D elicate fingers

  R each for me,

  E agerly

  A waiting

  M y embrace.

  I ’ll hold you

  N ight and day,

  G iving you and

  O nly you my

  F ragile heart.

  Y ou and I become

  O ne—our bodies

  U niting in love.

  His heart fluttered after reading the poem. He read it again. And again. It was beautiful. So romantic. So poetic. It perfectly described how Lucas imagined love would be, how he wanted it to be. Someone to hold him, to make him feel safe and warm and wanted. Someone who wanted his love in return. Did Zach really feel that way?

  He glanced at Zach, who met his eyes and then immediately looked away. Had Zach been staring? He was probably nervous about having other people read his poem. It did reveal a vulnerable side of him. Lucas read the poem again and wrote out his answers to the review questions.

  1. How do you think the author feels about this person? He is deeply in love with her. He wants her, but he hasn’t told her yet.

  2. Based on the poem, what else can you infer about the person? She doesn’t know how he feels. Or maybe she’s with someone else.

  3. What is your overall reaction to the poem? It is romantic.

  He couldn’t answer number three honestly. He couldn’t tell Zach how much his words had meant to him, how much he wanted to find a guy of his own who thought of him like that, who loved him that much.

  He knew Trish had a crush on Zach and wondered if the two of them would ever get toget
her. She’d be lucky to have a boyfriend like Zach. Gorgeous, sensitive, loving. Would Trish appreciate the poem as much as he did? What would Zach think of the poem he’d written about Trish? Trish was nothing like the girl in Zach’s poem. In Zach’s poem, the girl seemed tender and delicate. And needy. In Lucas’s poem, Trish came across more abrasive and boisterous. And independent. He hoped he hadn’t messed up Trish’s chances with Zach.

  He risked another glance at Zach only to catch him staring again. Zach looked unhappy. He was reading Donovan’s poem. Maybe Donovan did write something gay, and Zach was disgusted by it. Maybe Zach knew Lucas was gay and was disgusted by him too. Maybe Zach was mad because he’d caught Lucas staring at him. Lucas shifted in his seat.

  When Donovan’s poem finally came around to him, Lucas stared at it in shock.

  L et’s meet

  U p for

  C offee

  A round

  S ix? (I promise I won’t bite—unless you’re into that.)

  Was Donovan asking him on a date? Was this a joke? The poem had traveled all the way around the circle. Everyone had read it. He was sure they were all looking at him, trying to gauge his reaction. He didn’t dare lift his eyes from the paper.

  Lucas blushed and fidgeted with his pen. Did he have to give an answer right now? In front of everyone? Did he have to answer these review questions? Donovan wasn’t even in their group!

  Despite his embarrassment, Lucas did his best to answer the questions.

  1. How do you think the author feels about this person?

  Lisa: He wants to do the nasty.

  Zach: Impersonal.

  Diana: He likes him.

  Lucas: I didn’t think you liked me very much.

  2. Based on the poem, what else can you infer about the person?

  Lisa: He’s afraid of vampires.

  Zach: Nothing. It’s all about the author, not the subject.