“Yeah. I think learning to fight is a skill that would be useful to add to your resume,” Jules told him. “Along with roof climbing, improv, and telegram singing.” He heard papers rustling and the pack’s zipper zipping and then Hobbit pushed himself back so he was once again sitting in the passenger seat.
“I know you just met him a few minutes ago,” Hobbit said, fastening his seat belt, “but Kevin Clark doesn’t fight. He only gets the shit kicked out of him.”
“No, I’m pretty sure I just saw the rather magnificent Kevin Clark coming into the locker room with his warrior face on, ready to throw down and kick ass.”
“Warrior face,” the kid cracked up. “Right.” He pulled down the sun visor to look in its mirror as he bared his teeth. “Grrr. I look like a frightened cartoon dog.”
“That’s not how you looked to me,” Jules told him. “You looked... fearless.”
Hobbit laughed. “Okay, yes, all right already,” he said, “I’ll propose. If you insist.” He sighed heavily. “Will you marry me?”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Jules teased back—or shit, maybe he was actually flirting. “But I’m nursing a broken heart.”
“David,whatwere you thinking, you complete and utter fool.” But then Hobbit broke character. “No, seriously, Jules. I’m really sorry. That must’ve sucked so much, getting dumped like that, out of the blue.”
“Yeah. It was... bad. I mean, we were making plans for me to fly out there, to visit. I was psyched, I mean, I waspsyched to see him, obviously, but also... Los Angeles. I’ve never been. And he was like,You’re gonna love WeHo, and Mann’s Chinese Theatre,and he knew I’d be into seeing the tar pits. LaBrea. Santa Monica—the Pacific freaking Ocean. One minute we had all these plans, and the next he was allThis won’t work.Have a nice life.He actually said that.”
“Fuck you, David,” Hobbit said. “And I mean that very sincerely.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Jules laughed so he wouldn’t start to cry. It was easier to talk about this with his eyes firmly on the road in front of him. “I don’t know what to do with this... with these... massive feelings I have. Like, I still love him, but now I hate him, too.Have a nice life. Part of me still doesn’t believe it, that he could just... flip some kind of switch fromI love youto, you know,I’m done loving you.How does that even work?”
“I don’t know,” Hobbit whispered. “I can’t even imagine.”
“He’s just gone,” Jules said. “Just out of my life, completely. Instantly. It’s so surreal. And then, before I could figure out what the hell just happened, we moved here. I mean,thatwas planned—he was going to LA, I was moving here, and we were going to talk on the phone every night and, you know, share it, like it was happening to both of us, but suddenly I’m doing this alone. And God I’m just so hurt, and I feelso stupidand I just keep thinking about my dad—we lost him suddenly, except it wasn’t because he was an asshole, he didn’t want to leave, he loved us so much, but God, he’s gone forever, too. And it's just all so... goddamn sad.”
He’d reached the light at County Line Road, and stopped for the red. “Sorry,” he said, glancing at Hobbit. “That was a lot.”
“I’m in love with someone who doesn’t love me back, too,” Hobbit said, but then quickly backpedaled. “Oh, jeez, no, not you. Although yes, I could definitely fall hard out of love with Liam if you so much as kissed me, but wow, that would suck even worse, because being in love with someone who’s pining for someone with a stupid name likeDavidwould be a whole new level of hell, and I think I’ll stay here inHe Doesn’t Know I Exist-Land, because it’s the misery that I’m familiar with, thanks.”
Jules looked at over at Hobbit. “Liam as in Topher’s brother Liam?”
Hobbit nodded. “He was a senior when I was a freshman and... We both worked in the library after school on Tuesdays and... He was just always... really nice to me.”
Jules narrowed his eyes. “Define nice.”
Hobbit laughed in mock disgust as he looked back at him in fake horror. “Well, not blow-job nice, if that’s where your filthy mind has gone, Cassidy. Come on, look at me. I look twelve. Back then I looked eight, but a very gay eight which didn’t work well for me socially most of the time because I hadn’t met Belle and Shelly and Sadie yet. The school musical wasn’t until that spring, so I was kinda on my own back then. And Liam, well, he wasn’t out yet, but he was still just...reallykind. Like, he talked to me, you know, like I’m a person. Likeyoutalk to me. That’s still a relatively new experience for me since I’ve mostly been talkedatfor most of my life. So yeah, I did what any self-respecting gay freshman woulda done—I fell in love with him. Hard.”
“If he talked to you, he knows you exist,” Jules pointed out.
“Yeah...” Hobbit drew the word out. “Sadie’s Aunt Jen has a really obnoxious little dog that I absolutely know exists.Now, I know for a fact that I’m atleasttwenty-five percent less obnoxious, but?—”
“Friends don’t let friends compare themselves to obnoxious dogs,” Jules pointed out. The light turned green and he hit the gas.
“Yes!” Hobbit said. “Right? Thank you! Because I didn’t mean to highjack the conversation. I just wanted to say that you don’t need to be so careful around me. That I’m really happy we’re friends.”
Okay. Jules had been a boyfriendless underclassman himself a few years ago, and he didn’tquitebelieve that Hobbit wouldn’t’ve immediately tossed his feelings for Liam out the car window if Jules so much as leaned over and interlaced their fingers, the way David had done that very first time, but... “I’m happy about that, too,” he said.
“Well, good. And see? That means you’renotalone,” Hobbit said with almost as much ferocity as when he’d come charging into the locker room. “And I know that’s not what you meant because you’d made all those plans as Javid or Dules, God those are both really stupid ship names, that should’ve been a sign back when you first met him, but to hammer home my point, it’s not nothing to have friends like Sadie and Shelly and Belle and Tom. And God, now for me, I have you and Topher and Joey? Is this really my life? And maybe you just always had a million, billion friends, but?—”
“No,” Jules said. “You’re right. It’s not nothing. Having friends. It’s extremely something.”
“I’m not saying that makes everything all better because it doesn’t. You’re still sad and I’m still... whatever I am.”
“I’m gonna go withstill too young for a senior, and even more too young for someone who’s already in college.”
“He’s only going to community college,” Hobbit said as if that somehow mattered. “Anyway. Back on topic.” He rattledthe green sheet of paper. “This FU club. You really want me to join?”
“I think you have to,” Jules told him. “I need you to even out our little gay superhero squad. We could train together. Go running.”
