Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

Mr. Wise comes in and starts reading aloud from The Awakening, and we’re supposed to follow along in our own copies. But I keep losing my place. I’ve never been so distracted. So, I lean in to look on with Bram, and his body shifts toward me. I’m perfectly attuned to every point of contact between us. It’s like our nerve endings have found a way to slip through fabric.

And then Bram stretches his legs forward and pushes his knee into mine. Which means the rest of the period is pretty much devoted to staring at Bram’s knee. There’s a place where his jeans are fraying, and a tiny patch of brown skin is barely visible between the fibers of the denim. And all I want to do is touch it. At one point, Bram and Garrett both turn to look at me, and I realize I’ve just sighed out loud.

After class, Abby hooks an arm around my shoulders and says, “I didn’t realize you and Bram were such good friends.”

“Hush,” I say, and my cheeks burn. Freaking Abby never misses a freaking thing.

I’m not expecting to see him again until lunch, but he materializes at my locker right before. “I think we should go somewhere,” he says.

“Off campus?”

Technically, only the seniors are allowed, but it’s not like the security guards know we’re not seniors. So I imagine.

“Have you done this before?”

“Nope,” he says. And he presses his fingertips softly against mine, just for a moment.

“Me neither,” I say. “Okay.”

So, we walk out the side door and briskly through the parking lot with as much confidence as we can muster. The air is sharply cold from an hour or two of early morning rain.

Bram’s Honda Civic is old and comfy and meticulously neat, and he cranks up the heat as soon as we get inside. An auxiliary cable strings out from the cigarette lighter, attached to an iPod. He tells me to pick the music. I’m not sure if Bram knows that handing me his iPod is like handing me the window to his soul.

And of course his music selection is perfect. A lot of classic soul and newer hip-hop. A surprising amount of bluegrass. A single guilty pleasure song by Justin Bieber. And, without exception, every album or musician I’ve ever mentioned in my emails.

I think I’m in love.

“So, where are we going?” I ask.

He glances at me and smiles. “I have an idea.”

So I lean back against the headrest, spinning through Bram’s music list as the heater revives my fingers. It’s beginning to rain again. I watch the droplets slide in tapering diagonals across the window.

I make a decision and press play, and Otis Redding’s voice comes quietly through the speakers. “Try a Little Tenderness.” I turn up the volume.

And then I touch Bram’s elbow. “You’re so quiet,” I say.

“Now or in general?”

“Well, both.”

“I’m quiet around you,” he says, smiling.

I smile back. “I’m one of the cute guys who gets you tongue-tied?”

He squeezes the steering wheel.

“You’re the cute guy.”

He pulls into a shopping center not far from school, and parks in front of Publix.

“We’re going grocery shopping?” I ask.

“It looks like it,” he says, with a spark of a smile. Mysterious Bram. We cover our heads with our hands as we run through the rain.

As we step into the brightly lit entryway, my phone buzzes through my jeans. I’ve missed three text messages, all from Abby.

R u coming to lunch?

Um, where r u?

Bram’s gone too. How strange. ;) But there’s Bram, carrying a grocery basket, and his curls are damp and his eyes are luminous. “Twenty-seven minutes until the end of lunch,” he says. “Maybe we should divide and conquer.”

“You got it. Where to, boss?”

He directs me to the dairy aisle for a pint of milk.

“So what did you get?” I ask, when we reconvene at the checkout.

“Lunch,” he says, tilting his basket toward me. Inside, there are two plastic cup containers of miniature Oreos and a box of plastic spoons.

I almost kiss him right there in front of the U-Scan.

He insists on paying for everything. The rain has picked up, but we make a break for it, falling breathlessly into the seats and letting the doors slam shut. I rub my glasses against my shirt to dry them. Then Bram twists the ignition, and the heat kicks back on, and the only sound is the tap of raindrops against the window. He looks down at his hands, and I can see he’s grinning.

“Abraham,” I say, trying it out, and there’s this soft ache below my stomach.

His eyes flick toward me.

And the rain makes a kind of curtain, which is probably for the best. Because all of a sudden, I’m leaning over the gear stick, and my hands are on his shoulders, and I’m trying to keep breathing. All I can see are Bram’s lips. Which fall gently open the moment I lean in to kiss him.

And I can’t even describe it. It’s stillness and pressure and rhythm and breathing. We can’t figure out our noses at first, but then we do, and then I realize my eyes are still open. So I shut them. And his fingertips graze the nape of my neck, in constant quiet motion.