Page 33 of College Town

“That bad, huh?” Dana asked.

He whipped to face her. “What? No, why?”

She frowned, concern etched in the groove between her brows. “Because you look like someone punched you in the stomach.”

“Well.” He hesitated, bouncing his knees, unsure of how to explain it to her. He loved to write; filled scores of composition notebooks with sci-fi stories that Tommy gobbled up and asked for more of, as if they were actually good. He could have sketched observant paragraphs about the practice field, its crushed grass flagged with dropped towels, the glistening sunburn of the boys running drills across it. But he didn’t ever write about himself; had no idea how to express what that afternoon with Tommy had meant to him in a meaningful way that would help Dana understand that he wasn’t just some moony teenager. That it was more.

God, he was pathetic.

“It wasn’tnotlike getting punched in the stomach. But in a good way,” he added, hastily, when her frown deepened.

“So, like getting punched in the dick.”

“No!” He laughed, and rolled his eyes, and was able to shrug a little of the tension off his shoulders. This wasDanaafter all. Things with Tommy had gotten so deep for him that he was starting to doubt his connection to other people, but that was stupid, because Dana would listen, and Dana wouldget it. She always had.

“No,” he repeated. “It was…” His face heated, and he checked over his shoulder for listeners, lowered his voice. “He sucked me off. Hewantedto. He asked if he could.”

Dana’s brows quirked. “Wow. Yeah, that tracks. He’s pushy.”

“He’s notpushy.”

She grinned. “With you he is. And you’re easy as anything.”

“I’m not – he’s not–” he protested.

“Dude. Chill. I’m not saying it like it’s a bad thing.” She put the cigarette to her lips and glanced out across the field; flicked her hair out of her eyes with an absent gesture. “You’re so gone on him, I’m actually glad he initiates stuff. That’s it not, you know.”

A prickle of uneasiness walked up the back of his neck, half-wary, half-defensive on Tommy’s behalf. “No, I don’t know.”

Her gaze cut over, quick and knowing. “I’m glad he likes you as much as you like him.”

I love him, he thought, but didn’t say. She could probably read it in his face regardless.

He glanced away from her, and searched for Noah in the teeming mass of jerseys. His shoulders were broader than most of the other boys, all save the linemen. “It felt really good.”

“Mmhm.”

It was an encouraging noise, so he said, “I, um. I cried. After.”

He heard her take a sharp breath in through her nose, and he wanted to take the words back. But a moment later she leaned sideways, and rested her head on his shoulder. Looped her arm through his, pressing his knee still with her hand where it jiggled. “Law,” she said, softly.

“I don’t know why I did. I didn’t want to. It was just…I dunno. Really intense. And then I started, and I couldn’t stop. But he was…he stayed with me.” He closed his eyes, and felt the phantom scrape of Tommy’s blunt nails along his scalp as he’d petted his hair, and shushed him like a child, and told him that he looked beautiful. Nothandsome, nothot, butbeautiful, and the word had cracked his heart open somehow wider. “I think maybe…maybe he cried a little bit, too.”

Dana squeezed his knee. “Is he sweet to you?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. You deserve that.”

“What about you? Is Noah sweet to you?” When she hesitated, he said, “He is, right?”

“He is,” she agreed, but her tone had gone careful. She sighed. “He is. He’s a good guy. A good person.”

“But?”

“Sex is…well, it’s kinda messy. And sometimes it hurts a little – no, not like that, come on.” She tugged at his sleeve when he started to sit up, already ramping up to outraged on her behalf. “He doesn’t hurt me. He would never.” Her voice and face were sure enough that he subsided.

She shrugged. “I dunno. It’s just not that big of a deal. Not like songs and books and stuff make it out to be, you know?”

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