Gimme Pride
Page 3
Chip watches him openly. This close, the boy is gorgeous. That hair, those eyes… “Fake what?”
But Bobby shakes his head and laughs a little, amused at himself. “I should’ve known you’d be here.”
“Why?” Chip feels bitterness creeping into his voice and tries to tamp it down without success. “Because I’m a flaming fairy? Isn’t that what you called me?”
Now Bobby looks at him, and there’s a sadness in his eyes that silences Chip. “I didn’t mean it. God, Chip, I’m so sorry. I just…I was on the defense, okay? I saw you and thought what if you weren’t the only guy from school here? What if one of the other players saw me? My guards went up.”
“What do you mean about not having to fake it here?” Chip asks. He knows, he knows he knows, but he doesn’t dare hope Bobby’s talking about what he thinks Bobby’s talking about. He needs to hear it in Bobby’s voice. He wants to hear it out loud.
The look Bobby gives him is all the answer he needs. “You know.”
Chip’s heart stutters in his chest. Yes, yes, yes, his mind chants, like a cheerleader whose team just scored the winning field goal. Keeping his voice low in an effort to steady it, Chip says, “I thought I was the only one.”
A wry grin twists Bobby’s mouth. “You’re just the only one who’s so damn loud about it. I don’t mean that in a bad way, but—”
“I am wearing a boa and little else.” Chip smiles and tosses one end of the boa over his shoulder with a flamboyant gesture.
“It looks good on you,” Bobby says, glancing over.
Chip’s surprised Bobby’s gaze trails down his bare arms and chest, his stomach, his legs, to settle on the red outline straining the front of his swimsuit. A thin color rises to heat Chip’s cheeks, turning them a similar shade.
Quietly, Bobby says, “You don’t know how much I wish I could be like you.”
Chip frowns. Before today, he didn’t even think Bobby knew his name. “Are you serious? Why?”
“So…open,” Bobby explains. “So sure of yourself. So, I don’t know…”
“Gay?” Chip grins.
Bobby nudges him playfully with an elbow. “No, man. I mean, just so proud of who you are. So…so unafraid. If any of the guys from the soccer team even knew I was here, they’d bust my balls. I’d never hear the end of it. You just don’t know how hard it is to have to keep my eyes down in the locker room with all those half-naked jocks running around showering and changing after a game.”
“I have P.E. third period,” Chip reminds him. “I know exactly how hard it is not to look sometimes. Most times.”
Bobby shrugs. “Yeah, but everyone knows you’re out. It’s no big deal. Me…”
“No big deal?” Chip laughs bitterly. “Let me tell you something, Bobby. The only thing keeping me from getting my balls busted in the boys’ locker room is Jen, and that’s a fact. If I didn’t have her at my back, I’d be just waiting to get slaughtered.”
Bobby looks at him and, for the first time since they’ve sat down, he really seems to see Chip—not just the quirky queer kid from school but the boy he is inside, beneath the boa and false bravado. The real Chip. The one no one sees but Jen.
“I don’t know how you think I’m immune from it when you’re not,” Chip tells him, “but straight guys are jerks. Every morning I wake up and have to tuck away all the fear and insecurity within me to be who you see me being at school. That’s not me, not the real me. It’s a mask, I guess, or padding, really, something to buffer me from the taunts and whatnot. I’m not deaf, Bobby. I hear the names they call me behind my back. The only thing keeping them from tearing me apart is Jen. They like her, they want her approval. Because she likes me, they have to, too.”
“So who are you, then?” Bobby asks. He scoots closer, his hand brushing over Chip’s bare knee. “Who are you really?”
Suddenly coy, Chip ducks his head a little to hide behind the boa’s feathers. “Are you just asking to be nice or do you really want to find out?”
Bobby leans toward him and Chip’s breath catches in his throat. He watches Bobby’s face loom nearer, those eyes impossibly dark, those lips pink and promising. Please, he thinks as Bobby leans into him, closer, closer. Please, God, please, please…
Then Bobby’s eyes slip shut. Chip presses his lips together in anticipation, his heart hammering in his chest. He closes his own eyes a moment before Bobby’s mouth covers his in a tentative first kiss that’s everything Chip has always hoped it would be.
* * * *
Some time later, Chip remembers he’s supposed to be helping Shawna work her booth. His lips buzz pleasantly from Bobby’s insistent kisses, and his whole body hums with pleasure. It takes all the strength he has to push away the boy of his dreams.
Hand in hand, they cross the park. This time when someone steps in Chip’s way and he has to move in front of Bobby, there’s no ghostly hand hovering behind his back—Bobby touches Chip’s waist, holding Chip in place directly in front of him. The touch is maddening. Chip loves it—the attention, the smile Bobby gives him when he looks back over his shoulder, the airy kisses he feels on his shoulders and neck. Raising the boa high over his head, Chip leans back against Bobby and plays the feathers out a little so he can flip them behind Bobby’s neck. Chip holds the boa to his chest like reins, keeping Bobby close behind.
In this fashion, Chip leads Bobby to Shawna’s booth. As they approach, Jen’s getting chatted up another lesbian—two this time, both enamored with Jen. Shawna sees Chip and shakes her head. “Someone’s earning her keep. I’ve sold more women’s clothes today than I thought I would. No thanks to you.”
“Hey!” Chip cries as he stops at the edge of his sister’s booth. Bobby’s hands slide around his hips to settle on the waistband of his swimsuit. They feel so comfortable there, so right, Chip leans back against Bobby’s chest, his head on Bobby’s shoulder. “I’ve helped.”
“I should pay her your share,” Shawna threatens.
Jen extracts herself from the customers and drifts over to them. “You’re paying me more? What?”
“She is not.” Chip grins at his best friend and has to tamp down the urge to squeal. Does she see Bobby behind him? Does she? “Guess who’s got a hot new boyfriend?”
Her gaze flicks past Chip to Bobby. “Ooh, Bobby!” she crows. “You’re dating someone? Who is he?”
Chip kicks at her foot to turn her attention where it belongs—on him. “Hello? Me?”
“Please.” Jen flips her hair over one shoulder and rolls her eyes. “Tell us something we don’t know. We could see you two sucking face from here. Either you were getting it on or one of you was giving the other CPR.”
Chip looks back the way they came and, sure enough, he can easily see the spot where they sat beneath the tree. His face reddens as Jen and his sister laugh. “We were just talking…”
“Uh-huh.” Jen gives him a playful nudge. “Hard to do that with your lips locked, isn’t it?”
Chip’s blush deepens. His cheeks feel like they’re on fire. He covers his face with the boa and wonders why he and Bobby ever bothered coming back in the first place. “God.”
The only thing holding him up at the moment is his boyfriend’s arms—his boyfriend! The word makes him swoon. Bobby kisses his neck and Chip wants to melt into the touch.
Jen pokes Chip’s chest with one manicured fingertip. “I’m just teasing,” she says. Chip hears her grin in her voice. “I guess this means someone else is out now, huh?”
But Bobby shakes his head. “We’re going to keep it between us. No one else in school can know.”
“Good luck getting Chip to play it straight,” Jen jokes.
“Hey!” Chip tugs at her boa, eliciting a childish shriek from her as she clutches the feathers. “No one said anything about me being straight. Bobby and I are on the down low, that’s all. It’s no one else’s business who I’m dating, is it?”
Wrapping her arms around the two guys, Jen gives them a tight
bear hug. Before she releases them, she whispers into Chip’s ear, “Now do you see what I was talking about?”
Honestly? No, not really—Chip wants to tell the whole world about Bobby. But he knows he can’t. Bobby wants to keep their budding relationship between them, and Chip thinks maybe that’s exactly where it belongs.
THE END
ABOUT J. TOMAS
J. Tomas is an author of gay YA romance who lives in Richmond, Virginia, with two very spoiled cats. She publishes adult gay fiction under a pseudonym. Her first novel, Without Sin, is now available in print and e-book formats. More information can be found online at j-tomas.net.
ABOUT QUEERTEEN PRESS
Queerteen Press is the young adult imprint of JMS Books LLC, a small press specializing in queer fiction, non-fiction, and poetry owned and operated by author J.M. Snyder. Visit us at queerteen-press.com for our latest releases and submission guidelines!