He came stumbling out, dressed in a pair of old jeans and a white vest, moving pretty quickly for someone who’d been in a dead sleep mere minutes before. We walked down to the flat, grassy banks near the creek, and I pulled a football out of my backpack. I’d taken out a small loan from Mrs. O’Malley to be able to afford it.
“What the hell?” His face broke out into a big, open-mouthed smirk. “I thought you were above football. I thought you didn’t stoop to playing ‘glorified fetch.’” It was true. Up until then, I had considered myself above chasing and retrieving a ball in the name of organized sport.
I shrugged. “You want to play, or not?”
“Fuck, yeah, I want to play.”
“Then go long.”
He jogged backward briskly until he was far enough for me to make a decent pass.
“And Jules,” I called to him, “don’t hold back.”
I brought the ball up to my chest and tapped it twice. I had no idea why football players did that, but it looked important, purposeful even, so I thought it best not to deviate from the script. I passed the ball to Jules as hard as I could. It flew out of my hand, spinning like a torpedo, whistling softly as it sliced through the air. Jules caught it easily and threw it back just as hard. As we played, the sound of his laughter was broken only by the sound of him panting when he had to run to get under the ball.
Now and again, he ran over and tackled me. I let him. I didn’t mind. Once or twice, he gave my ass a sportsmanlike slap. I let him. I didn’t mind that either. I really didn’t. I knew it was part and parcel of playing glorified fetch. We played until our T-shirts were soaked through with sweat and we were hungry and thirsty, and Jules’s face had arranged itself back into a lopsided grin.
“Hey, Sully,” he said on our way home, “I’m glad it’s you.”
“You’re glad it’s me what?” I asked, even though I knew exactly what he was going to say.
He’d said the same thing when we were kids and he knocked over a vase in the pack house. He was so terrified that Dalton was going to whup his ass, I took the blame for him. He’d said it again, years later, when the first girl he really liked broke up with him and I didn’t let him out of my sight for a week.
“I’m glad you’re the one I go through all this shit with.”
6
WewerewatchingTVat my place, a week or so after Jules turned eighteen. All the adults had been called to the pack house, so we had the place to ourselves.
“Guess what happened last night?” he asked.
“Do I get a clue? ’Cause that’s a pretty broad question.”
He slapped my shoulder playfully and his eyes glistened darkly. “I lost it.”
“Lost what?” It wasn’t that Jules was careless exactly; it was just that he lived supremely in the moment and as a result couldn’t always recall where he’d put things the moment before.
“I lost my virginity, you dork. What’d you think I lost?”
“Uh, I was thinking maybe you lost your mom’s car keys again, or that you left your backpack at school like you did last week.”
I was scrambling. Talking nonsense as I tried to circle back to a feeling that made a little more sense. On the one hand, I was surprised that he hadn’t lost his virginity much sooner. Very surprised. It was strange. I spent so much time thinking of ways to get myself into a position where having sex could be a possible outcome, that I hadn’t really spent any time thinking about Jules having sex. I just kind of assumed that he had been. But that was strange too, because nothing big ever happened in either of our lives that we didn’t immediately tell the other about. It wasn’t that I was unhappy about the news. It was just that I felt a bit weird about it. That was all.
“You jealous?” He laughed.
“No! Why would I be?”
“You can have sex, too, you know. As soon as you’re eighteen. Dalton doesn’t mind if we sleep with humans, as long as everyone is of age and no one gets pregnant. He called me in and told me so after my birthday.”
Just like that, it made total sense why Jules had waited. Dalton and his rules, and Jules and the way he liked to follow the rules.
“Is that why you waited?”
“Yeah, ’course. Isn’t that why you’re waiting?”
“No,” I said, though I did lower my voice considerably when I said it. Dalton and the whole pack had ears like a hawk. “I’m not waiting. You know why I’m not having sex.”
Jules looked confused. “Why not?”
