“How long do you think this is going to take?” Elliot asked Damon as they went into their dressing rooms. “I hate malls.”
The fluorescent lights. The pushy salespeople. The stupid smiling people in the giant marketing photos hanging on the walls.
“I don’t know,” Damon said. “Like twenty minutes?”
Elliot took off his shirt and slipped on the collared button-up. Twenty minutes. It was just twenty minutes. Then they would go back to Damon’s house and play games together, and that uncomfortable itch of wrongness he felt when he was overstimulated would dissipate.
“Wait. You’re gay,” Damon said. “You’re supposed to like shopping and trying on clothes.”
Elliot snorted. “Ha. Ha. Very funny,” he deadpanned as he pulled on the dress pants.
“Sorry.” Damon’s voice lost its humor. “I shouldn’t joke like that.”
Elliot rolled his eyes. He left his dressing room and knocked on Damon’s door. “Let me in.”
“What?”
“Let me in your dressing room.”
The handle unlatched, and Elliot slid inside. “Knock it off.”
“I’m sorry,” Damon said. “That joke was so inappropriate, and I don’t want you to think I have a problem with you or that I’m stereotyping. I was just ragging on you like we usually do, but I need to be more careful and less—”
“Damon!” Elliot grabbed his shoulders, shaking him. “Stop. Stop freaking out all the time. You can make gay jokes with me. You can be a dick like you usually are. Stop fucking apologizing for it. I don’t want your apologies or for you to keep tiptoeing around like you’re afraid if you touch me, I’m going to take that as an invitation to jump you.”
“I don’t think that!”
“No?”
“No!”
“Okay, then why did you quit cheating in our games?”
Damon licked his lips. Elliot forced himself not to lower his gaze to watch.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never cheat,” Damon said.
Elliot raised an eyebrow. “You’d shove me or mess up my hair when I was winning, and I’d kick you back, and if all else failed, your sadism would come out, and you’d tickle me and wrestle me to the ground.”
Damon winced.
“We’ve done that once since I told you I was gay. And you freaked out.” Elliot ran a hand through his hair to push it out of his eyes. “And I get it. You’re uncomfortable, but I’m not going to try anything, and I know you’re straight, okay? If you don’t ever tickle me again, I will praise the lord, but I just want you to act normal. Alright?”
Damon rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. Sorry, man. I’ve been a shitty friend.”
“Stop apologizing.” Elliot flicked his ear.
Damon huffed a laugh and smacked his hand down. “Yeah, okay.”
His smile didn’t meet his eyes. His gaze was cast down, watching as Elliot tucked the tails of his collared shirt into his dress pants. Elliot buttoned them up and stared in the mirror, knocking his shoulder into Damon’s.
Damon swallowed and met his gaze in the mirror. His eyes traveled down Elliot’s body and up again. “You look nice.”
Elliot smiled and fixed the collar. “You do too,” he said with as neutral a tone as he could muster.
The button-up shirt fit Damon so well. The fabric pulled taut over his muscled chest and arms, making a sexy silhouette of his tapered waist. Elliot didn’t see Damon dressed up often. The last dance they went to together was probably in the ninth grade. They’d both been gangly and awkward. Now, Elliot was still gangly and awkward, but Damon was the quintessential embodiment of the perfect prom date.
The perfect prom date for Chelsea, Elliot reminded himself.
