I take the napkin and shove it into my pocket, feeling awkward now.
“I’ll text you,” I say to him.
“Cool,” he tells me, already on his way out.
I get back to the house late that night. The lights are all off, and everyone already seems to be in bed. Which is great for me, because I’m exhausted and pretty drunk, my social battery running dangerously low after talking to people all day and night. Some old high school friends came to meet me at the bar, and we ended up staying way too late and drinking way too much. I cannot talk to anyone else for the rest of the night, and I’m not in the mood for a “how was your day today” from my or Elias’s parents.
I open the freezer.Please, I beg the universe,let Elias have left me some ice cream. I spot a carton of mint chocolate chip, a permanent fixture in Elias’s and my apartment, and I’m ecstatic when I find out that he’s left mehalf. Thank you, universe. I grab it, pull out a spoon from the drawer, and head upstairs to where all our bedrooms are. All I want to do is put the sexy regency series on my laptop and pass out. And maybe stalk Hot Adam and see if I can find any of his social media profiles. But pee first.
The ‘kid’ bedrooms, the ones we’ve all had since… well, since we were kids, are all in a row on one side of the hallway. I throw the ice cream on the dresser in my room while I move towards the bathroom next door, the one sandwiched between Elias’s and my bedrooms.
I sense something is off a split second before I open the door. Like the still, eerie calm, the slight tug at the eardrums that comes with the change in air pressure right before a big storm.
Why is the light on?my drunk, slow brain is thinking, thenwhat is that noise?These are the last two things I should really be thinking.
Time slows as the door swings open to reveal my oldest friend in the world.
Naked.
His carved body, deeply tanned from a week at the beach. Feet spread slightly. Shoulders hunched. The shadows cast from the overhead light carving out and exaggerating the strong lines and planes of his thighs, abs, chest.
His well-muscled arm, tendons shifting over muscle over bone as it moves back and forth, wrist twisting.
His dick.
Hisenormousdick.
Standing there naked, jerking off under the unnatural florescence of the bathroom lights, Elias, my oldest friend in the world, is X-rated Accidental Renaissance art.
Before I can stop it, a noise escapes my mouth.
Our eyes connect for the billionth time in our lifetimes, my blue meeting his green.
He doesn’t stop.
In fact, with a noise I’ve never heard him make before, somewhere between a grunt and a growl, he comes all over the sink.
Inexplicably, I turn the lights off.
I sprint back to my room.
Where I lock the door, throw myself under the covers, tear off my jeans and my underwear, and furiously touch myself, not to Hot Stranger Adam, but to the image of my brother’s best friend.
ONE
Elias
September
Our new principal is an idiot.
Now, I’m no master teacher or anything, like I’m definitely not qualified to be making these sorts of calls, but I’m ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure our new principal is an idiot and that every single person in this room thinks so as well.
And you know what, I feel kinda bad for her, in a “wow, you are a sad, sad woman” kind of way.
Courtney Thomas started in the middle of last year, after Oliver left here to go be the principal at PS 333, and she came onstrong. For some reason, she decided to make all these crazy changes to our curriculum. She even made Lina, our assistant principal, change the way everyonetaughtin their classrooms. Which seems pretty idiotic to me, because if I remember anything from any of the Professional Developments last year, it’s that PS 2’s test scores were on the up and up, and that’s why the school gym has air conditioning.
And did you notice I said Lina did the changing? That’s because Lina doeseverythingnow. That’s right, Principal Thomas is the type of principal who makes everyone else do her dirty work, while she either hides in her office or stands on her soapbox preaching about one thing or another like she’s doing right now. To my knowledge, she’s never stepped foot in a classroom the entire time she’s been here.
