“I am helping you, babe.”And without missing a beat: “It’s going to be super awkward if his real booty call shows up, though.Better get ready to explain yourself, or you’re going to have one horny daddy trying to rip your glasses off.”
Tean was still trying to figure out what to say to that when Kazen came back.He’d pulled on a hoodie, and although he still wore the shorts, they were higher on his hips now.With more time to study the young man now, Tean could see the traces of baby fat that still softened his face, the smooth skin, the lack of facial hair—he might have been twenty, but he could have passed for even younger.
“Sorry about that,” he said as he sat in the recliner.He drew his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them and cast a glance at the hall before asking, “So, are you, like, police?”
“Tell us about Brennon.”
“What about him?I haven’t talked to him in a long time.”
“How long?”
“Like, a year?”
“Why don’t we start at the beginning?”Jem said.
Kazen frowned.“I met him when I was fourteen.Is that what you mean?”He laughed at whatever he saw on Tean’s face.“It’s okay.I was the one who went after him.”
“That doesn’t make it okay,” Tean said.
“I know.A lot of people tell me that.But I think people just don’t understand.”
“What don’t they understand?”Jem asked.
“Pretty much everything.What it’s like to be gay and fourteen.”
“You know, we’ve both been there and done that,” Jem said.
“Yeah?”Kazen perked up and seemed to consider them more carefully.“How old were you when you came out?”
“Around your age,” Tean said.
“I didn’t ever really have to come out,” Jem said.“I just kind of did my thing.”
“I knew I was gay, like, forever,” Kazen said.He grabbed one of the hoodie’s strings and began to chew on it between sentences.“I mean, I was totally in the closet at first because of church and stuff, but I watchedsomuch porn.And I basically lived on Reddit.GayBroTeens was the shit.I used to do these posts, one for every day until I got a boyfriend, how much longer until I turned eighteen.That kind of thing.God, we posted the stupidest shit, but it was such a vibe.”He laughed suddenly, the string falling from his mouth.“I got banned so many times from TeenDick.I don’t know how they knew I wasn’t eighteen, but I had to create, like, a million different accounts.”
“Did you meet guys on Reddit?”
“Oh yeah, there are always guys on there.They have all these rules on GayBroTeens, so I’d just go to GayBrosGoneWild or TeenDick, and—oh shit, you mean Bren.”He laughed again.“No, I met him at a church dance.”
Tean couldn’t help himself, but he was proud the words came out evenly.“When you were fourteen.”
Nodding, Kazen continued, “The first one I ever went to.Can you believe that?He was one of the chaperones.”
“You said you went after him.”
“I had to.I mean, he was hot.Have you seen him?”
Tean shook his head.
“Oh shit, hold on.You’ve got to see him.”Kazen produced a phone from the hoodie, tapped it a few times, and held it out.“I deleted all our pictures after we broke up—I was super immature back then—but here’s his Insta.”
The picture showed a man on the early side of middle age.He was White, with dark blond hair in a conservative cut and blue eyes.Regular features that Tean might have calledgood-lookingorhandsome, but nothot.A hint of stubble showed at his jaw, and he wore a gray suit.He could have been any Mormon dad in any congregation in Utah.
“God,” Kazen said, chewing on the string again.“Like, I had to.You see what I mean?”
“How’d you approach him?”Tean asked.
“I’ve always been able to tell when a guy likes me.”Kazen shrugged.“He was watching me all night.He kept pretending he wasn’t, but he was.So, I started watching him.At first, he’d look away, like nothing had happened.But then he started staring back.I got so hard.Finally, when I knew he was looking at me, I left the gym.I found one of the classrooms.”Eyes distant, Kazen smiled.“I could hear him checking the rooms, going door to door.And then he found me.I started unzipping his pants, and he let me, and then I jerked him and sucked him—well, kind of just licked him, because I had no idea what I was doing.”Pride brightened Kazen’s voice as he added, “He came so fast.I had no idea what was happening, so it got all over me.He was really sweet about it, though, and he let me borrow a T-shirt from his gym bag.It was way too big for me.When my mom picked me up, I had to tell her someone spilled a drink on me, and I was supposed to give Brother Lee his shirt back after we washed it.”
