“What’s wrong, are you afraid someone will touch you in their sleep?” I felt like I was burning up. I had to get away from him.
“Let’s do this: I’ll sleep on the mattress, and you sleep here,” I declared as I got up.
James looked incredulous. His blue eyes stared at me suspiciously. “Really?”
Everyone knew I wasn’t exactly Mr. Nice Guy. I would’ve kicked Marvin’s ass before I let him sleep in my bed.
“Yeah. Now shut up and let me sleep.”
“I can’t wait to see that asshole Brian Hood cry like a baby tomorrow.”
“The coach hasn’t talked with you yet?” I asked, settling in on the most uncomfortable air mattress in history.
“Not yet. He thought he could be a dick to us, snitching on us. Dick.”
Brian had caught us smoking weed in the locker room, and the next day he told the coach, hoping that the coach would throw us off the team. Sure, the coach tore us a new one, but he didn’t have the luxury of cutting his best players over a pair of joints. He played dumb and lashed out at Brian for “turning his back on the team.”
“Is he gonna cut him?”
“No, but he won’t be captain anymore.”
I’d stretched out my arm to turn out the light when I jumped.
“Why the fuck did you take off your boxers, James?”
“I sleep naked. Didn’t you know that?” he remarked innocently. “What the fuck is your problem with that, Jax? We shower together three times a week after practice.”
But I turn around every time to not stare at how fucking perfect you are.
“Please, shut up and go to bed.”
He fell asleep. I hit my head on the pillow.
I couldn’t relax. I put on some pants and went outside to get some air.
I thought I was alone, but as soon as the smell of a cigar hit my nostrils, I realized that I was mistaken. My grandpa was smoking on the porch swing. He was an old vet with thick whiskers and permanently furrowed brows.
In Vietnam they shot at his ear, but he could hear perfectly out of his other one.
“There’s someone with you, I heard it.”
“He’s a friend. He’s crashing here.”
“You’ve never brought a pretty girl here,” he griped, swallowing the smoke.
“In that case you would’ve given me crap because I’d brought a girl here to spend the night,” I pushed, making him grimace with disappointment.
“In that case your old man would be bursting into cheers, Jax.”
I froze. “What?”
“I don’t like that you sleep with other men.” My jaw dropped. I was speechless for a little while.
“I told you. He’s a friend of mine. I—” I had to stop myself and swallow again. “It’s not the ’50s,” I finished weakly.
“What’s that gotta do with anything, son?”
Grandpa pushed on the arms of the chair and slowly got up. I was inundated with the persistent, nauseating smell of cigars.
