Ben turned to the right and walked up a slope toward a more civilized path, one paved and dotted with benches and trashcans as it wound its way around a small man-made lake. He scanned the horizon for his quarry. At first he saw no one except for a middle-aged couple walking hand in hand, but then the thump, thump, thump sound of running attracted his attention.

There he was. Mr. Blue Shoes. He could more aptly be named Mr. Neon Electric Blue Shoes. Oh, how Ben had searched for a pair of those shoes after seeing them for the first time. Not only did he think they looked awesome, but they would have been a potential conversation starter. Hey, you have the same crazy shoes that I do! Despite tagging along on all of his mother’s shopping trips, he never found them. Ben wasn’t even sure what brand they were. Some sort of exotic Italian brand that Mr. Blue Shoes had preferred before moving here to the States, he fantasized. Not that he was necessarily from Italy, of course, but it would explain the deeply tanned skin and jet black hair.

Ben snapped out of his reverie and realized that the object of his desire was jogging directly toward him, and all the while he had been standing there staring. Usually Ben made at least some attempt to act like he was out for some exercise. His muscles froze as he tried to decide what to do. He should probably turn to the right and walk away, so as not to appear obvious. He started to do this until he realized that he wouldn’t be able to get a look at Mr. Blue Shoes, and so Ben turned back to the front. Unfortunately his confused brain didn’t trigger the muscles needed to actually begin walking. Ben was left standing, just as he had been before, except now he was facing Mr. Blue Shoes and it was too late to do anything but stare.

Lust brushed away any remaining self-consciousness. Ben looked up from the oddly colored shoes, his eyes taking in the black hairs on the finely muscled legs before darting up to check out the package bouncing away behind maroon gym shorts. Not wishing to press his luck he continued upward to the considerable pecs. The evening wasn’t hot enough that he was running shirtless, but the grey tank top was minimal enough to reveal muscular arms with a sexy swirl of black hair under the armpits. Ben looked up at the handsome face, ignoring the sweaty strands of dark hair stuck to the broad forehead or the well-defined cheekbones, choosing instead to look into the silver-grey eyes that haunted his fantasies.

He noted, with a mix of relief and abhorrence, that those eyes were locked onto his T-shirt. His blatant gawking had probably gone unnoticed, but at the price of Mr. Blue Shoes noticing the worst thing about his appearance today. As he jogged past Ben, the silver eyes rose to meet his. Mr. Blue Shoes raised his eyebrows and nodded in a way that unmistakably said “Cool!” before flashing a smile.

And then he was gone, followed a second later by a blast of sweaty, musky air. Ben inhaled this scent and, after a dramatic moment of euphoria, found the strength to continue walking. He sauntered around the park before heading home, feeling as if he just gotten back from a dream date. He realized it was probably pathetic, but he didn’t care at this point. The hottest guy in the world had just acknowledged him and all because of some band Ben had never bothered listening too. He made a mental note to ask his sister to borrow one of their CDs that night, but not before locking himself in his room and beating off furiously while thinking about that smile.

* * * * *

Shopping with Allison! Was there anything better? Not only did she understand the glory of the shopping mall and share his reverence for it, but she knew all manner of back-street stores that carried things you wouldn’t find anywhere outside of the weird shops in downtown Houston. Ben didn’t know how she found these places. Sometimes he wondered if she hadn’t gone downtown and talked the owners into moving their stores north to the suburbs of The Woodlands, where Ben and Allison lived.

“Home?” Allison asked, peering into the visor’s small cracked mirror. Her expressive eyes tracked the glossy coat of plum-colored lipstick as she applied it to her lips, the shade a perfect compliment against her ebony skin. Then she pressed her lips together, flipped the visor up, and turned to Ben. “We can always hit more shops tomorrow. I think we did well for ourselves today.”

Ben nodded. They had managed to find not one but two pairs of pants that actually hugged his waist tight instead of having to be cinched to death with a belt. Shirts he wasn’t so lucky with, but there was still another couple weeks before school started and he hadn’t checked the secondhand shops yet. Ironically, they always seemed to have more stylish and hip clothes than the retail stores.

As the Ford Escort chugged away in an effort to get them home, Ben considered just how lost he’d be without Allison, how her broad smile and the mischievous glint in her eye always kept his spirits high. He loved too the jealous glances men gave him when they were out together, mistaking the tall, thin beauty on his arm as being his girl.

“Shit!” Allison shouted as the tape player sputtered and squealed.

Of course those jealous guys probably didn’t suspect that she could cuss like a sailor as well.

Allison jabbed repeatedly at the eject button with total disregard for the road until the player spit up her most recent mix tape. Spools of magnetic strip dangled from it as she held it up. “I stayed up all night listening to the radio to make this stupid thing!” she cried, braking just in time to avoid running a red light.

“You need a CD player,” Ben said.

“I need a new car,” she countered.

As if on cue, a sports car full of teenagers pulled up to the stop light, the music pounding from their car so loud that it shook the Escort’s rearview mirror. Even though the summer was almost over, the car still had “Class of ‘96” written all over it in white shoe polish.

“I hope we’re not that lame when we graduate,” Allison said when the light turned green and the car sped away, “but at least they can listen to music.”

“There’s still the radio,” Ben suggested.

Allison pointed through the windshield at a broken stub of metal where an antenna should have been. She raised her eyebrows and bobbed her head side to side in the way some black girls did when making a very good point.

“Ah, right,” Ben conceded.

Allison returned her hands to the wheel and her attention to the road before she raised her fine, arched eyebrows and smiled.

“Sing for me,” she said sweetly.

“What do you want to hear?”

“Uhhh… What’s that one called? ‘Take a Chance on Me.’”

“You mean by ABBA?” Ben asked, failing to hide the disapproval from his voice.

“Yeah, the one with the comic strip video and the hot singer.”

“That’s ‘Take on Me’ by A-ha,” Ben corrected, feeling relieved.

“Just make with the music, pretty boy.”

Ben smiled, cleared his throat and began to sing. His voice was his favorite thing about himself. When talking it sounded as average as could be, but when he sang his voice flowed like honey. Ben loved to sing. Ever since he was a little boy he crooned along with his mother’s country music while she cleaned and his father’s oldies while he drove. When he was singing, everything in the world felt right to him, as if it magically placed the world in a temporary state of grace.

From the gleam in Allison’s eyes, he could tell that she felt the same way. She listened to half the song, laughing when he interjected new lyrics for the ones he didn’t know, before joining in with him on the next chorus. Her voice was leagues ahead of any other girl at school, the sugar to his honey. Nobody could out-sing the pair of them, which they had proven more than once in choir class last year.