strong urge to decorate the walls with his entrails. I can handle him trying to expose me, but does he

have to do this to Casey?

Casey looks at me, and it makes my heart ache. It means so much to him to be liked by someone as

popular as Rizzo, which leaves him with little choice in this awkward situation. Unless I just get up and

leave. Everybody thinks that I’m the killjoy of killjoys anyhow, and I couldn’t care less. But before I get

a chance, Casey makes up his mind and regains his sense of humor.

“Um.. okay. Sorry, James.”

Our audience laughs. I get nauseous. Then everything happens very quickly. Casey swallows and

moves closer to me on the armchair, bends down. His breath is warm on my face, then his lips brush

against mine uncertainly. Very softly, tender like a feather. We both shiver at the touch. Everything goes

quiet around us. And then he starts to really kiss me. I hold my breath, and carefully kiss him back. I’m

dimly aware of hearing cheering, but I shut it out. My head is spinning, and I lose my ability to think

coherently. My mind ends in a loop, wrapped around the sensation of how very soft his lips are. He

tastes a little like my beer, and indescribably good.

Suddenly he breaks the kiss and pulls back, and I realize that Rizzo must have told him to stop.

There’s applause, and shouting, and more cheering, and the girl sitting in front of us whispers to her

girlfriend, “Why don’t I ever get kissed like that?”

***

I catch him outside later, when the game is long over and the players have scattered. Stepping out of the

house, I shiver in the chilly night air and rub my bare arms. Rizzo is alone in the darkness, propped

against a wall, half-hidden in the shadow of a tall tree. I watch him for a moment as he stands there

unaware of me with his head leaned back in his neck, gazing at the stars. It’s quiet here, except for the

muffled noise of the party coming from a half-open window. Thundering bass guitar, the song distorted,

unrecognizable. Waves of laughter are tumbling outside through the crack. Rizzo turns his head my way

as I approach him, his eyes black in the darkness. The air is rich and fragrant with the smell of earth and

dried grass, the scent of summer nights.

“You owe me, Foley. I got you want you wanted, didn’t I?” The soft tone of his voice doesn’t quite

match the cheeky words. He clears his throat.

I look at him coldly for a moment, then I shake my head. “You know nothing about what I want,

Rizzo.”

His eyes are fathomless. Cool, black jade. “Maybe. But I’m pretty sure I know what you need.

Probably better than you do.”

We stare at each other, another silent power play. But something is off about this. Something in his

eyes that suddenly soften. Just like that. For once, he lets me win our little staring contest. And allows

me a brief glimpse behind his superficial facade. Just enough to make me wonder why.

Abruptly, he pushes himself away from the wall, looks at me for one last time and grins to himself.

Then he walks away, leaving me puzzled.

***

“James?” Casey calls me softly from the door. He has his shoulders pulled up and his arms crossed

in front of his chest, shivering. “Damn, I can’t find my jacket. You wanna go home?”

I walk over to him, my hands buried in my pockets. “Sure.”

We don’t look at each other as we step onto the pavement and slowly head towards the dorm.

Thankful for it being so dark. My skin tingles, just knowing that he is walking along beside me. Close,

and still completely out of reach. The streets are deserted. It smells like dawn. Silently we walk along,

in step with each other, like we always do. We don’t even notice it anymore, it just happens. Always

has. I know that we’ll never talk about the kiss, or even mention it. But still, it will always be there.

Chapter 5

Skin-Deep

CASEY: I had a dream last night that was so vivid that I still remembered most of it when I woke up. It

was my birthday and we were celebrating with family and friends. I got very strange presents; a stuffed

weasel and a box full of snakes. I was very uncomfortable with that. Then I was standing under the

mistletoe with James and he said he couldn’t kiss me now because he had an important meeting. I think

he was a professor, he was wearing glasses, and his dark hair was longer than he wears it. It made him

look oddly rebellious and stern at the same time. But I just grabbed him and kissed him, and it was the

most incredible feeling. But when I broke the kiss, I realized that I had been kissing Danny, and that

James had already left, and I didn’t care at all. It made me feel horrible and awkward when I woke up

and sat up in bed. Like I had betrayed James somehow. But what was even more unsettling was the

realization that I’d been dreaming about kissing men, and so loving it that I could still feel it dancing in

my stomach, hot and exciting.

***

“Can I ask you a personal question?” I glance at James who is scribbling in his notebook, his hand

moving swiftly across the paper. We’re sitting in the second to last row of the empty auditorium,

watching the dress rehearsal of a new German drama group initiated by the language students. James is

here to write a critique for the school paper, and I don’t understand a word they’re saying.

“Sure.” He finishes writing down his sentence before he looks back up to the stage and then at me.

I smile a little, suddenly insecure. It seems silly to ask this. “I know this is completely out of the blue

and totally random.”

“I’m sure I won’t die of shock.”

“Okay then, here goes: How did your mom react when you told her you were gay?

He arches an eyebrow and grins. “You’re right. That was pretty random.”

“You didn’t die though.”

“I’m a bastard to kill.”

I have to smile, and he shifts in his seat, getting serious. “I never had to tell her, actually. She just

knew. She says she could tell even when I was a little boy.”

“And she doesn’t mind?”

“Why would she? There’s nothing she can do about it anyway. She just wants me to be happy, that’s

what she says.”

I nod. “You were lucky. I mean, compared to other guys.”

James’ expression changes immediately and a painful frown appears on his handsome forehead, like

a shadow falling over his soul. It makes him seem very different from the person he was just a second

ago.

“Lucky, no.” He voice is cold when he speaks, very quietly. He stares down at his notebook. “I was

never lucky.”

I feel bad immediately, and sympathize more with him than I’m letting on, because James hates

sympathy. I know he doesn’t like to talk about his past, and very rarely does. His real father died in a car

crash before he was born. And then tragedy struck again when James was sixteen, when his stepfather

lost his life. All I know about Simon Foley is that he was a firefighter, and that he died in an accident. I

can only imagine how hard that must have been.

“Did Simon know, too?” I ask softly, carefully.

James stares at me for a long moment. His gray eyes get strangely blank of emotion, and a look so

jaded appears on his face that it spooks me. “Oh yes, he knew.”

I swallow, something in his voice giving me the creeps. I know that this is the end of this

conversation, and he won’t give away another word. I’m not sure I’d even want to know more, and that

makes me feel bad again. There is a kind of darkness inside of James that I’ve sensed from the

beginning of our friendship. It only ever flares up momentarily. But after all this time I still don’t know