Why did it make me feel so weird?
And wrong?
And excited?
“It’s this way,” Chip said, turning us onto a side street that led up another, smaller hill. It was shorter than The Big Hill, but way steeper. “We’re at the top, sorry.”
“It’s okay. I bet it sucks riding up this after practice.”
“It’s not so bad after practice. Way worse back when I was on the football team, and Coach Winfield made us do sled pushes.”
“Coach Winfield is the worst.”
“Dude, I know. Trent says he can always tell when Coach Winfield is in a bad mood, because that’s when he makes everyone do squats. Says it brings a sense of order to his universe.”
I didn’t say anything to that.
I really didn’t get how Chip could be friends with a Soulless Minion of Orthodoxy like Trent Bolger, or how he could just bring up Trent in conversation with me when he knew—he knew—how Trent treated me.
Chip cleared his throat. “Hey. Can I ask you something kind of personal?”
“Um. I guess?”
“I kind of saw you in the locker room.”
The back of my neck prickled.
I didn’t know where this conversation was headed, but I had the strong urge to throw myself back down the hill we were climbing.
I glanced sideways at Chip—his face was bright red—and then looked back at my feet.
“Are you... uncut?”
“I mean. Yeah?” I swallowed. “But I think intact is a better word.”
“Oh,” he said.
And then he said, “I wish my parents had left me intact.”
My whole body was on fire.
I swallowed again.
Chip stepped around a pothole and brushed shoulders with me.
“Sorry if I made it weird.”
It was super weird.
I would rather have gotten another knee to the balls than discuss my foreskin with Cyprian Cusumano.
“It’s fine,” I squeaked. “It’s not weird. I mean.”
I didn’t know what I meant.
I cleared my throat.
Chip just shrugged and led me up his driveway. He dug through his messenger bag for a moment and must have had a remote for the garage door, because the left one started opening.
