“You don’t really believe that, do you?”
He shrugged. “Not really.” Even so, he reached over and picked up my spoon, then dipped it into my coffee, scooping up the bubbles. He held it out to me, and I drank them down obediently. “There,” he said. “Now you’ll have good luck.”
“What about you?”
He looked down at his cup. “No bubbles for me.” He looked up at me, his brown eyes sparking. “But that’s okay. I’m already lucky.”
I blushed and quickly took a sip of my drink so he wouldn’t notice the effect he was having on me. It was weird. There was so much I didn’t know about him, so much I wanted to ask. But right now, in this moment, we were having fun, and I didn’t want to ruin it. Something told me that the more I found out about Justin’s life, the more I would question what I was doing with him and how he was making me feel. And I didn’t want to face that.
We finished our coffee and walked around Boston, holding hands. We talked about the people going by, about celebrities, about die-hard Boston sports fans. We joked around. But we didn’t get into anything personal. I felt like maybe Justin sensed it too – that the more we talked about details, the more we’d risk finding out how different we were.
After a couple of hours, we got ice cream cones and sat down on a stonewall that looked out onto Newbury Street.
“I used to come here with my dad,” Justin said. It was the first time he’d mentioned anything about his family.
I took a lick of my chocolate peanut butter cup. Something told me I needed to tread carefully. “Are you guys close?” I asked.
He didn’t answer, just stared down at the pavement. When he looked up, he grinned and wiped a drip of ice cream off my chin with his napkin.
I blushed. “I’m a mess.”
“No, you’re not.” He was looking at me with that intense stare, the one that made me want to look away. But this time I didn’t. This time I kept my eyes on his. “You’re beautiful,” he said.
He reached up and brushed my hair out of my face. Then he leaned down. He was so close I could see the tiny scar on the top of his lip, the little flecks of gold in his pupils, the broad curve of his shoulders.
He leaned down, and I knew what was about to happen.
My body flamed.
I closed my eyes and waited for the kiss.
And then I heard the shout from nearby. “JB!” the voice cried. “Yo, JB!”
I opened my eyes, knowing the moment had already passed.
JUSTIN
Lindsay got up from the wall and backed away from me, startled by the shouting, and I turned to see three guys coming toward us. “Damn it,” I muttered. My chance to kiss Lindsay slipped away as they continued their approach, loudly whistling and making jokes.
It was three guys from my gym. Uriah, Begsy, and Quinn. They looked like pure juicehead gorillas, with their tight t-shirts and bulging muscles. The logos on their shirts said stuff like TapOut and Aggression. “Hey, look who cleaned himself up,” Uriah said, smiling broadly at my obvious discomfort.
I glanced at Lindsay. She looked nervous and uncertain.
“Can’t you see I’m on a date?” I said, as they drew closer.
“Oh, I thought you were coming from a funeral,” Begsy replied. He was a short, stocky kid with a crazy red Mohawk and tattoos all the way up his neck. “Look at those duds,” he laughed, pointing at my shirt.
“This can’t be,” Quinn said. “I’m not seeing this right now. Dude, my image of you is totally blown.”
I felt my face getting red with embarrassment, even though I knew there was no reason to care what these clowns thought about my outfit. “Get the fuck out of here. We were at a nice restaurant. They don’t allow Mohawks and fucking TapOut gear.”
“Oh, I see, old chap,” Uriah replied, in a fake British accent. “Dear JB was dining out at a very respected establishment. We should respect his privacy, don’t you think?”
They were all laughing now. I shook my head. “Fuck you guys.”
“Hey man, I don’t think they talk like that at nice restaurants. You should really be ashamed of yourself,” Quinn said.
“These guys are from my gym,” I explained to Lindsay.
“Yeah, we’re his friends he was trying to hide from you,” Begsy said.
“First of all, none of these clowns are my friends,” I said.
“She doesn’t believe you,” Quinn laughed. “She’s terrified right now.”
“And secondly, we left that fucking restaurant ‘cuz it sucked ass,” I continued.
“Oh, shit! The truth comes out!” Uriah screamed, and gave me a high five.
Everyone was shouting and yelling and laughing. Including me.
Well, everyone but Lindsay. She was just standing there, looking around uneasily.
I felt bad, but the truth was, I didn’t know what to do. Was I supposed to ignore my teammates, pretend they weren’t my buddies? I couldn’t do that.
“Hey, now that you’re done playing dress up,” Begsy said, “you guys should come with us. There’s a party at Big Timmy’s tonight. It’s going to be off the chain.”