Page 18 of College Town

“No.”

Lawson shrugged and swapped to one-player mode. Picked out Luigi and started a solo race.

Beside him, Tommy was silent.Toosilent. He’d brought a stack of the newestVenomcomics, but Lawson hadn’t heard the rustle of pages yet. Hadn’t heard anything.

On the next straightaway, he slid a glance over, and then promptly crashed on screen.

Tommy wasstaringat him. Lying back reclined on the beanbag, his head rolled toward Lawson, face impassive save the groove between his pinched brows that might be concern, or concentration, or contempt. Lawson didn’t know. But the staring had become athinglately.

When Lawson glanced over in Lit class to ask about homework, there was Tommy, gaze already trained on him, lower lip caught between his teeth.

In Algebra, Lawson needed to borrow a pencil, and he had to ask twice before Tommy heard him, brown eyes big and glazed over, fixed somewhere along the side of Lawson’s throat.

At the movies, after Mystique flipped and kicked and choked a guy out with her pebbled blue thighs, Lawson turned to Tommy: “Did you see…” And the question died in his throat when he saw that Tommy was staring at him instead of the screen, his expression downright morose.

In Lawson’s room after school, paging through his massive new hardback Captain America collection, their notes pushed to the side on the rug. “What do you think…” And Lawson knew that time, before he lifted his head, before he trailed off, that he would find Tommy’s eyes on him again; had felt the prickle of awareness up the back of his neck, the skin-shudder of being watched.

It kept happening, and kept happening, andkepthappening, and Lawson desperately wanted to understand what it meant, but was too chickenshit to ask Tommy outright.

He asked Dana about it, finally, and she laughed in his face. “You dumbass!”

“Shh,” he hissed. They were at Stardust, strictly for the arcade, which had expanded in the last few years, and because they were too old to skate anymore. Noah and Tommy had gone to the snack bar, and despite the distance and the shrieks of the kids bashing the Whack-a-Mole table, Lawson was afraid they might be overhead. He shot a furtive glance toward the snack bar, and saw two dark heads, one tall, one short, gleaming green under the neon lights. Backs to them, no staring, for once.

“Law,” she said, more seriously, smile fading when he turned back to her. “Do you really not know why he stares at you? Like, youreallydon’t?”

“I wouldn’t have asked you if I did, would I?”

She sighed, but patiently. “Okay, let’s look at it this way. You’ve gotten a lot better about it since eighth grade, but what does it mean when you stare at him?”

His face flushed hot, and he darted another glance toward the snack bar – polished mahogany hair slicked green, backs still safely turned – and said, “I dunno.”

She stared at him. If she’d had a cigarette, she would have blown smoke in his face.

“Idon’t know,” he repeated, more than a little desperate. His face was on fire.

Dana did the narrow-eyed head tilt that saidcome on.

“I…”

“I alreadyknow, so there’s no sense pretending.”

“Okay! But that’s different!”

“Why?”

He threw up his hands. “Because I’m…andhe’s…! He’snot…!”

“Oh my God.” She pitched forward at the waist, elbows braced on the table, hands clasped together prayerlike before him – praying for him to stop being so blushy and stupid, no doubt. “You stare at Tommy because you’ve got the biggest, fattest crush on him, right?”

“Dana…”

“Because you want to hold his hand and skate out there” – she gestured to the rink – “and put your arm around him at the movies, and kiss him, and–”

“Dana,please.”

She stopped at the throttled sound of his voice, but her stare remained insistent. And then she said, “Did it never occur to you that he’s staring for the exact same reason?”

“He – but – no – he–” Lawson’s thoughts panicked, fluttered, skittered, and then halted with a sound like rusty gears grinding. Because there was no way, absolutely no way that Tommy thought he was…what?Cute? Impossible. That he wanted to hold his hand? Kiss him?No way.

---