Page 51 of You Are Not Me

Windy rubbed his shoulder. “Don’t be a dick, Minty. He’s fine. Daniel vouches for him, so chill.”

I didn’t know how Minty knew I’d gone to Kingsley, but with Robert/Renée being a blabbermouth and with Daniel as their friend, I guessed there were plenty of ways he might have heard. “I went to Kingsley, but I’m not rich.”

“You’re not poor.”

“No, but we don’t have money to burn.”

Minty considered this before saying, “Sorry. I get bitchy sometimes.”

“Does he ever,” Windy agreed. “You’d think it was his time of the month the way he’s been acting today.”

Minty snorted and started flipping through a rack of shirts. “If you had my problems, you’d understand.”

Windy put his arm around my shoulder and plucked the shirt I’d been examining for stains out of my hands. “Whatcha looking at?”

“A polo? A striped polo?” The way Minty wrinkled up his nose, I might as well have been considering a shirt made from the curtains inThe Sound of Music.

Windy hung it back up. “Oh no, honey. No, no, no. Let us help you.”

Minty’s eyes lit up, and he yanked out a yellow striped tank top made of some sort of slippery, soft material. “If you insist on stripes,” he said, as if I’d protested the rejection of the polo, “this is more like it. Shows off your arms.”

“I’m not exactly muscular,” I said, rolling up the sleeve of my T-shirt to show them. “What’s to show off?”

“Honey,youare the most delicious thing: fresh meat.” Windy grinned and pinched my cheek. I jerked away. He went on, talking like he and Minty weren’t just a year or two older than me at most, and similar in build. “Young scrawny thing like you? You’ll be beating boys off with sticks in a shirt like this.”

I didn’t know if I wanted to have to beat boys off, especially after what had happened with Jeremy. But I didn’t want to continue to dress like someone who hoped to blend in with the wallpaper, either. I took the tank from Minty’s hands.

“Yes, excellent,” Minty said, high-fiving me.

“And this!” Windy exclaimed, holding up a mesh, see-through, long-sleeved shirt. “For the club!”

“Oh no,” Minty said, snatching it out of his hands. “That’s mine.”

“But Peter needs—”

I shook my head and pushed the mesh shirt firmly into Minty’s grasp. “Not interested in that one. He can have it.”

“Yes!” Minty exclaimed, pumping his arm like he’d just made the winning basket in a close game.

We went on like this, going through stacks of clothes, trying things on in the small dressing room, laughing at hideous items, and arguing a few times over who’d get to take home a coveted piece. Like the Michael Jackson “Beat It” shirt. Windy won that one since he’d found it, and Minty pouted like a brat for a full ten minutes.

“It says ‘Beat It’ right there on the front. And who gets turned over Renée’s lap every weekend for an ass-beating? Me. It should have been mine.”

“The song’s all about masturbation,” Windy countered. “And I do plenty of that. I found it, and it’s mine.”

They looked at me, and I shrugged. “Hey, I just liked the shirt.”

They laughed and hugged me. I felt included in something bigger than me, a community of sorts. Windy and Minty represented so much more than themselves: they were a way into a land of gay men. They knew how to behave, what to wear, and they were friendly, open to including me and showing me the ropes.

As the afternoon wore on and we each culled a small haul, I forgot about my sadness over Harry and anxiety about Adam. Salespeople shot us some curious glances, but no one seemed overly worried about us being too gay in the store.

In the end, I had a large bag of new-to-me clothes. I hadn’t taken any of Minty’s most outrageous suggestions, but I did have shorts, jeans, and pants with more fashionable cuts now, and an array of shirts to choose from. It turned out shopping with friendswasfun.

After we all paid, we stood by my Volvo in the parking lot talking about our purchases and making plans to do it again.

“Ever been to the Goodwill in Farragut?” Windy asked.

“Oh yeah, the richies out there donate brand-new stuff.” Minty’s eyes widened, the blue shining excitedly. “Some of it even has tags!”

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