Alcohol simply wasn’t enough to make this bearable. He went to the dining table and loaded up a plate—chips, guac, heaps of Lizette’s homemade enchiladas. Not as much as he wanted, but there’d be plenty left over after everyone went home.
He glanced up, unconsciously checking whether anyone had clockedhim, and noted Aaron and Oscar’s absence. They seemed to have disappeared—together.
Emmett wouldn’t let himself get upset.I told you not to get your hopes up. I told you this would happen.Still the void inside him gaped, frayed and tender at the edges.
Skirting the throng of dancers, he carried his plate back to his bedroom.
The bathroom door opened as he passed. “Hey, your lock’s broke,” someone said. Emmett paused, disoriented. It was Oscar, alone.
“Sorry,” Emmett replied and shunted off, confused.
He pushed open the door at the end of the hall and stopped before the totally surreal sight of Aaron standing in his bedroom.
He turned, caught off guard himself but smiling. “Hey.”
Emmett thrust the plate of food onto the dresser, as if intending it only as decoration. “I thought you’d left.”
“Sorry. I went looking for you, but I… got distracted.” He rotated, taking in theDetective Pikachuposter on the wall, the stuffed Sobble cozied up on the bed.
“Yeah, sorry. It’s a bit juvenile.”
“No, it’s cool.Pokémon Yellowwas my jam back in the day.”
Emmett smiled. “Old-school.”
Aaron inched toward him as he studied the room. “So what’s your type?”
“Sorry?”
“Fire, grass? Hopefully not ghost. I don’t think my heart could take it.”
He doesn’t mean that.“Water. You?”
“Pika, pika. Gotta be electric.”
They were practically nose to nose now, close enough to touch. Aaron would have to be the one to do it. But he wouldn’t. Guys like Aaron didn’t go for guys like him.
Even after guys like you lose ninety-five pounds?
Hewasthinner, wasn’t he? Emmett had forgotten. And yet remembering didn’t make this feel realer. He just couldn’t wrap his head around being desired.
“Electric type, huh?” he said. “Guess that means you’re my weakness.”
“You know,” Aaron said, closing the gap between them, “I kinda like the sound of that.”
His snaggletooth bumped Emmett’s incisors with a little click as they kissed. It seemed to carry a trace of electricity, a pleasant shock running to the back of his mouth and down his spine into his stomach: a yellow ball of electric current, lighting him up from the inside out, bright and hot and throwing off sparks. His arm hairs stood up. His penis flushed. Every inch of him crackled.
Aaron used his Thunderbolt.
It was super-effective.
Appendix P—Health Journal
PARTICIPANT DETAILS
