by K. Z. Snow
The five of us Invisible Boys strode silently across the quad. It was too cold to talk. Other students were also on the move, either hurrying toward the dining hall or shuffling back to class. Condensing in the frigid air, our exhaled breaths plumed around our heads. The longer we walked, the more we huddled within our coats and jackets.
Everybody stomped their feet and blew out a “brrrr” sound upon entering Education Hall. Those of us with runny noses sniffled. The stream of kids pouring through the doors quickly split into three rivulets: one flowed to the right, one to the left, and another straight ahead and up the stairs to the second floor.
Rider and I headed for the north wing. American history was one of two classes we had together.
“We’re still on the Gilded Age, right?” I asked him as I pulled off my hat and opened my jacket.
“I think so.” Rider never wore a hat. His wavy hair cascaded over his shoulders. Not for the first time, he reminded me of an Indian warrior. I felt a little hitch within my ribcage. To make it go away, I tried to remember if we were due for a quiz today, but that only gave me a more nervous kind of hitch.
I wasn’t stupid, but I was kind of an airhead. When my mind was in absorption mode, I retained information very well. When it wasn’t… boing! Most input bounced off my brain cells as if they were microscopic trampolines.
We turned into the classroom. Our teacher, Nancee Anderson, was writing something on the whiteboard about major industrialists of the late 1800s. Her skirt was on the short side, as usual, and black leather boots encased her slender calves. Rider flicked her a glance before taking his place within the outer semicircle of desks.
I wasn’t all gaga over the petite Ms. Anderson like most of the male students, but I had to admit she possessed certain physical assets. And she didn’t try very hard to hide them. This sometimes made me wonder what kind of marriage she had. My parents knew a couple named the Weitzels, and the mister was supposedly all kinds of insecure because he had a “blonde bombshell” (my dad’s phrase) for a wife.
Ms. Anderson was younger than Mrs. Weitzel—Brody had once copped a look at Nancee’s driver’s license; she was thirty-four—but she was still old enough to be my mother. That alone squicked me out enough to keep any lewd thoughts at bay.
Then again, I wasn’t like most sixteen-year-old boys. I was a bona fide virgin crushing on my male roommate. What that made me, beyond atypical, I tried not to think about.
Class got underway. I liked history, for the most part, and tried to pay attention to the day’s lesson. From what I’d been able to gather that week, the Gilded Age was a study in opposites: wealth and poverty, greed and philanthropy, spacious mansions and crowded tenements. It was about steel and railroad magnates in fine clothes, and labor unionists in bloody clothes, and immigrants in whatever patched and fraying attire they could keep on their backs.
In many ways, I thought, the late nineteenth century was a lot like the early twenty-first century.
Today I had trouble following Ms. Anderson’s lecture. I hoped she wouldn’t call on me. My mind kept drifting toward Brody’s latest scheme. What if it actually worked? What if there was some kind of formula that could turn all our unappreciated quirks into this thing called “mystique”? I wouldn’t have a clue what to do with it. And what if some girl did ask me to the Valentine’s dance? The prospect terrified me.
Toward the end of the period, following our quiz, Ms. Anderson handed back the essays we’d turned in on Monday, the ones on the Reconstruction Era. The smell of her perfume lingered near my desk after she walked away. When it didn’t fade, I lifted my essay and sniffed the pages. Nope, it didn’t come from them. I stuffed the essay—B+, not bad—into my backpack. The scent still hadn’t faded.
Just before the bell rang, what I feared would happen, happened. I went into a sneezing fit.
“Something get up your nose?” Rider asked. He stood up and hoisted his leather messenger bag over his shoulder.
“That heavy-ass—” I sneezed again. “—perfume. Ugh.” I’d taken off my jacket and hung it on the back of my chair, so I had to dig around in the pockets for a tissue. I found a crumpled one and unfolded it enough to do a precision blow. “Let’s get out of here.”
Uh-oh. Mouth, meet foot. When I looked up, Fancee Nancee was giving me the evil eye, and Rider, eyes downturned, was blushing.
Rider rarely blushed.
At this rate, I had as much chance of cultivating mystique as I had of becoming a porn star.
“NAN!” CARLTON pretended to open his zipper and hold out his dick. “See?”
“Have some respect, man,” Tim said in disgust.
Brody smacked Carlton on the back of the head.
“Why did I say anything?” I moaned, cradling my face in my hands.
Rider squeezed my shoulder as he walked past my bed. “Good question, now applicable to two situations.”
I shook my head and groaned again. I shouldn’t have blabbed to the guys about Ms. Anderson’s overpowering perfume. Any mention of her inevitably drew a smarmy reaction from some male in the vicinity.
“We got our work cut out for us,” Brody said in dismay, obviously referring to Carlton and me. He pulled out my desk chair and sat straddling it, facing the room’s twin beds. I was on mine, Rider was on his, Tim took the second desk chair, and Carlton sat on the floor.
I was kind of surprised by Tim’s reaction to Carlton’s crudeness. They were roommates, and Tim was generally amused by Carlton in an indulgent way. I’d never seen either of them genuinely angry with the other.
“Now listen up,” Brody said.
I didn’t really feel like it, and I could tell Rider didn’t either. He was stretched out on his bed, hands linked behind his head and ankles crossed. His dark hair fanned out over the white pillow. A low but noticeable mound on one side of his zipper captured way too much of my interest.
Maybe being tired made me vulnerable—God, I hoped so—because the sight of him set off an alarming sensation in my crotch. Of course, I’d seen him lying on his bed hundreds of times, but he was usually curled up on his side or tucked under the blankets. I couldn’t remember ever seeing him like this, like he was inviting someone to crawl on top of him, and before I knew it, my mind took off in dangerous directions.
I wondered what it would be like to lie on him and kiss him and bury my face in his hair. Worse yet, to feel my hardness pressed against his. A damp flush spread from my chest to my face. When Rider turned his head in my direction and glanced at me from beneath his lowered eyelids—oh, those lashes!—it was the sexiest look I’d ever seen. Nancee Anderson couldn’t come close to being as alluring as Rider Hearn.
My heart beat faster. Had he read my mind? Had he read my body? I grabbed a three-ring binder and pen from my bed so I’d have something to put on my lap. I opened the binder to a blank sheet of paper and started writing, as if I were jotting down ideas or taking notes. Brody was talking away, which made my pretense believable, but the wood I’d sprouted kept spurring me to race to the bathroom. Sitting there was torture.
I had to redirect my focus.
“…our next unit in H and H,” Brody said.
Okay, he must’ve been referring to health and hygiene, one of our courses. I listened. I couldn’t let my attention wander in my roommate’s direction.
“Um, what is our next unit?” I asked casually.
Brody looked displeased. “I already said what it is. At least in my class. It should be the same in yours.”
“Human sexuality,” Tim told me. “Which region of La La Land were you just touring, Jake?”
Rider gave me a lazy smile. Did he know?
“Sorry,” I muttered, refusing to let my gaze linger on him. What was going on with me?
“Why don’t you give us an example of what you mean?” Rider suggested to Brody.
Whenever Rider felt lethargic, his pitch went lower and his words came slower. The change made his voice sound seductive—something I
hadn’t realized before now. Or maybe I had realized it but tried to ignore it.
“Okay, like….” Brody drummed his fingers on his forehead, an odd habit he had when he was thinking hard. Or trying to impress people with how hard he was thinking. “When Bitterman asks if there are any questions, raise your hand and say, ‘My friends and I are all virgins by choice. How common is that among young American men?’”
“Who aren’t Amish or Mormon,” Carlton added. “You gotta make it clear we’re normal guys. Otherwise people are gonna think we joined some cult or turned into bible bangers or something.”
Tim chuckled quietly and covered his eyes. “Why am I here?”
“No, seriously.” Brody leaned forward. “If one of us says ‘my friends and I,’ everybody in class is gonna know who he means. By the end of the day, the whole school will be buzzing about us being virgins. And then you”—he cocked a forefinger at Tim—“will write a little item for the Northern Light about this surprising new development on campus.”
The Light was our weekly campus newspaper. Tim was one of the editors.
He gave Brody an incredulous stare. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Why? Every week the paper’s full of notices and articles about clubs and shit. Don’t you think a male virgins’ society would make a more interesting feature than a carwash run by Alpha Gamma Ray?”
Carlton barked out, “Ha! I like that name better than the one they got.”
While Tim and Brody squabbled, Rider’s ringtone sounded—“Winter” from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.
He sat up. “Would you mind grabbing that, Jake? My bag’s at the foot of your bed.”
I turned to the left, flopped onto my belly, and reached over the footboard. As I fished around in Rider’s messenger bag for his phone, an all-too-familiar scent wafted out: Ms. Anderson’s perfume. Hm, I thought, it must’ve been Rider’s essay that got doused, not mine. I tossed him the phone. His face puckered for an instant when he answered it, as if he also detected the fragrance. Tim, brows drawn, glanced over at him, so I assumed Tim could smell it too.
Nancee really needed to be more careful about spritzing on eau-de-whatever near the papers she was grading.
Rider got off his bed. “I’m kind of busy right now,” he murmured, walking out into the hall. As he passed me, I heard a girl’s voice drift from the phone. “I don’t know,” he answered from deep in his throat. “Maybe you should shoot me a text or e-mail.” Whatever the girl said in response made him chuckle, but he didn’t sound genuinely amused. Actually, he didn’t seem comfortable talking to her at all.
For some reason, my heart plunged. Immediately I realized what a stupid reaction that was. Rider didn’t have a girlfriend. If he did, I would know about it. Some chick from one of his classes probably wanted to set up a study date, or maybe had been paired with him on a project.
Even if the call was more personal, what difference did it make?
Man, I needed a reality check. I was so used to the five of us hanging out together, it hadn’t occurred to me some of us were bound to start hanging out with members of the opposite sex. Rider in particular, now that Mother Nature was turning him into a hottie.
Hard as I tried to reason with myself, I still felt sick about this turn. I couldn’t stand the thought of some girl intruding on our friendship. I wanted Rider to myself.
Truth. Yes, truth. I wanted Rider.
Oh shit. I had to get over this.
He strolled back into the room and flopped on his bed. Tim angled him a strange glance, one that almost looked suspicious, but Rider didn’t notice. His phone chirped as a text message arrived.
He didn’t bother reading it.
Brody clapped and rubbed his hands together. “Okay, are we ready to rock and roll? ’Cause if we are, the Ben Raphael All-Star Virgin Order has officially been instituted.”
Suddenly, Brody’s plan seemed more threatening than lame. But maybe it was what I needed. Maybe it would be my salvation.
Chapter Three
THE NEXT day, Friday, I studied myself in our room’s full-length mirror. “My appearance hasn’t really improved,” I said, turning from side to side.
“Sure it has. Stand still.” Rider straightened my tie. He looked great and smelled great, just as Brody had instructed, and he’d put on a pair of butt-hugging trousers. His closeness made me squirm inside. The whole all-star virgins thing made me squirm inside. I was a jittery, squirmy mess.
If only Rider would hold me to calm me down….
Oh shit. I wasn’t prepared for any of this stuff. Not any of it.
I copped another glance at myself. Okay, maybe I did look more put-together. I wore a blue V-neck sweater over a button-down white shirt and a blue tie with widely spaced, diagonal white stripes. The combination looked much better than a dorky sweater vest pulled over a rumpled shirt and crooked tie.
Ben Raphael’s dress code gave students some latitude, and I normally followed the path of least resistance.
I felt the scattering of whiskers along my chin and jaw. “I don’t know why you told me to keep this. Looks like metal shavings.”
Rider smiled. “It’s called scruff. You’re not a fresh-faced boy anymore. Now you’re a roguish young man.”
“Or a vagrant,” I said dubiously. “Plus it’s kind of high-maintenance.”
“You can always shave it off.” Using his fingers and a pick comb, Rider lifted and arranged my curls, making sure they were artfully messy instead of randomly messy.
My scalp tingled. “Is that supposed to make me look like a roguish young man too?”
“You bet.” Rider’s breath skated across my hair, my cheeks. Goosebumps ran down my arms. After a final fluff, he stood behind my right shoulder, and we both looked into the mirror. He was several inches taller than me. “Brody was right, you know. You’re a lot cuter than you think.” His expression softened, and he lightly brushed his hands over both sides of my hair. “Actually, Jake, you’re kind of beautiful.”
My heart was beating a thousand times a minute. That ants-in-the-pants sensation began to build again. “Rider,” I said in a cracked near whisper, “we’re going to miss breakfast.”
He nodded and briefly laid a hand on my shoulder before turning away.
WE ALL looked different. Better. Brody had, in fact, slicked back his hair. He’d also put on a patterned bowtie and highlighted his puppy-brown eyes with guyliner. Tim, who wore a suit coat and pearl-gray vest, had worked his hair into a sideswept fringe. Even Carlton, who with Tim’s help had shaved his fuzzy brown hair into a triple Mohawk, had dug up some of the designer clothes his parents kept sending him and he kept shoving into his closet and ignoring.
Only Rider looked pretty much the same, although two thin, beaded braids framed his face, and one hung down the back of his loose hair. I loved the effect.
Our makeovers seemed to be working. At breakfast, people looked at us rather than through us. “Note the direction and duration,” Brody instructed, referring to the glances we got. Being subtle about this wasn’t easy for me. I usually tried not to meet people’s eyes when I sensed them looking at me. But if something caught my interest, I tended to gawk.
All morning, I was so distracted by this crap—who was looking at me and how they were looking at me and if I was being too obvious about noticing—I didn’t learn a damn thing except that Mr. Hansen, my calculus teacher, probably could no longer remove his wedding band because finger fat now secured it in place.
At lunch, we exchanged stories about how we’d been regarded in class—by girls in particular. Well, it was mostly Brody and Carlton who jawed. Tim seemed pleased but was quieter, as if he were reserving judgment. Rider listened while wearing one of his musing smiles. All I said was that I thought I’d been noticed, but I didn’t entirely trust my powers of observation.
The other part of my problem was way too personal to mention. I was so preoccupied with Rider’s earlier compliments, I didn’t give a rip how many g
irls had given me the eye. Maybe none had. All I could think about was my roommate and the feelings he stirred in me.
The big test of my new coolness would come in American history. Not only was the class packed with females, but Ms. Anderson herself was a barometer. Whether she was conscious of it or not, she favored nice-looking guys—called on them more, smiled at them more, and probably gave them slightly higher grades than they deserved. I couldn’t swear to the last of these—it wasn’t like I’d taken a survey—but some girls had been bitching about it one evening while a dozen of us were sledding on Half Tree Hill.
My radar clicked on as soon as I walked into the classroom. Interesting. Nancee’s gaze didn’t linger on me, but it hung around longer than normal. The same was true of a few girls. I acted oblivious, but I was getting better at taking advantage of my peripheral vision.
Rider, who hadn’t changed at all except for those thin braids and form-fitting clothes, still got more attention. I figured he’d score an invite to the Valentine’s dance before the weekend was out. The likelihood left me both tense and relieved, which didn’t make sense.
A lot of things didn’t seem to make sense this year.
After giving us our essay assignment for the week, and of course it had to do with the Gilded Age, Ms. Anderson informed us our next unit would cover World War I—not like we couldn’t figure that out. She took a strictly linear approach to history. As everybody hurried toward the door after the bell rang, I heard her say, “Mr. Hearn, may I speak to you for a moment?”
Now, that was weird. Not because she wanted to have a few words with a student after class—it happened maybe twice a week—but because she called Rider “Mr. Hearn.” Some of our teachers, usually the male ones, did address us formally, but Ms. Anderson called us by our first names unless she was pissed off and delivering a reprimand.
