Crashing Into You (17 page)

“Well, why not? You've spent
a lot of time with him this week.”

“I know, but...” I started. “I
didn’t even think to ask him. No, tonight’s just about you and me. I’m gonna
show you I can have fun.”

“Yeah? You gonna dance?”

“Well... no.”

“Flirt with other girls?”

“Absolutely not.”

He hesitated. “You will have
a drink, right?”

I pursed my lips, thought
about it for a second. “I might have
one
drink.”

Lukas gave me an exaggerated
smile. “Man, you’re gonna be the coolest one there.”

I slugged him in the shoulder,
playfully, and pulled him toward the front door. “Let’s go, smart-ass.”

It was 10 PM on Saturday
night and I had kept my promise: I got off work an hour early and came home to
take Lukas to the gay bars in West Hollywood. One of the objectives that night
was to get him out of the apartment, break him out of his shell a little.
Nothing was more killer to a gay man in Los Angeles than staying behind closed
doors all day and night, chatting up guys online. It grated on me, the more and
more time I spent with Evan, that Lukas didn’t have anybody. I wanted him to
find someone. The main objective that night was to ensure he
would
find that someone.

When Lukas insisted there
would be no street parking this late on a Saturday, we paid the ten bucks and
parked on the third floor of a high-rise parking garage.

I stepped out of the car,
grabbed my purse. I made sure I had enough cash to pay for a drink or two. I
had four ten-dollar bills, way more than I needed.

“So… where to first?” I
asked.

Lukas emerged from the other
side looking like he was entering the main gate at Disneyland. His eyes grew so
large I dared not look at his crotch area. “Let’s start with Rage,” he said. “And
work our way south.”

I nodded, took out my phone,
and sent a quick text—when Lukas wasn't looking.

I had no idea what any of
these bars were called, or what they were like, so I let him lead the way. As
soon as we exited the parking garage, guys young and old started giving him
double takes as they walked by. One guy even asked for his number—and we
weren’t even to the main street yet.

Lukas tapped his hands
against his hips, and gave me a knowing look.

“All right, all right,” I
said. “What do I know? I guess pink tank tops really do get the job done around
here.”

“You better believe it.”

“But Lukas, please…” I didn’t
want to drain the promised fun away, but I had to say it. “I want you to find
someone to go on a date with. Not someone to… you know…”

“What? To hook up with?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Don’t worry, Sydney.” He
patted his right pocket. “I’ve come prepared.”

I looked at his pocket,
didn't see anything unusual. “What do you mean?”

He glanced to his left and
right to make sure no one was looking. Then he pulled the wrapper out of his
pocket and tapped it against his leg.

“Oh God,” I said. “Is that
what I think it is?”

He nodded, and put it back.

“Do you want to talk about
it?”

Lukas pointed at the solid
WALK symbol across the street and started marching with great haste. “Come on,
hurry! I’m getting cold!”

I followed him, albeit not as
fast as he might have liked. “You’re cold because you’re practically
naked
!”

“You think I don’t know
that?”

“I don't like this, Lukas.
This is a mistake.”

“What is?”

When he reached the other side
of the street, he stopped and turned toward me, slowly, giving me just enough
time to snatch the condom out of his pocket.

“Hey!” he said. “Give it
back!”

“No!”

He reached for it, and
missed, barely. He reached again. After he missed a second time, he tapped his
foot against the ground, angrily. “You said you were going to be fun
tonight.”

“Lukas, you told me you’ve
never even
kissed
a boy before. Ever
heard of the concept known as baby steps?”

His eyes widened, and he
darted his eyes to his left. A group of young men passed him by, and, again,
looked him up and down. Lukas smiled at them, then grimaced at me.

“Sydney, not every guy here
needs to know I’m a virgin, okay? I’m not saying I’m going to have sex tonight.
I brought protection just in case.”

“No. You’re not ready for
it.”

He stared at me—seemed
to stare right through me, really—then stormed down the sidewalk. “I
don’t know why I asked you to come if you’re gonna be like this.”

“This is for your own good,
Lukas—”

“For my own good?” He ran back
up to me, like he’d never left. “Listen to
you
!”

I crossed my arms. "What’s
that supposed to mean?”

He shoved his palms against
his cheeks, then rubbed his index fingers against his forehead. “Nothing. Look...
I don’t want to fight.”

I smiled, and gave him a
quick hug. “Me neither. I'm sorry.” I put my arm out, and Lukas locked his in
mine. “Let’s see all the cute boys this Rage place has to offer.”

The place was bustling with
activity, filled to the brim with hot guys, and a few sporadic girls, of all
ages. Five young men wearing gold thongs were go-go dancing in cages, and a
rough metal song was blasting overhead. Every direction you looked there was a
story. There were the two middle-aged bears with their arms wrapped around each
other. There was the six-foot-nine seventy-year-old bopping his head up and
down to the music. And then there were the small cliques of twink boys, all
huddled close together with mixed drinks, scoping out the best talent the crowded
club had to offer.

“So did you want to get a
drink?” I asked.

“What?” he screamed.

“I said, do you want to get a
drink?”

“I can’t hear you!” Almost
like the DJ could hear our discontent, the music transitioned to a more
tolerable and slightly quieter song, a dance remix of Katy Perry’s “Teenage
Dream.”

“Do you want a drink or not?”
I asked, again.

He finally heard me, and
smiled. “Yeah, that sounds great! You have a fake ID, right?”

I browsed through my purse,
annoyed. I was just weeks away from turning twenty-one. “Yeah, I think so. It's
somewhere here.” I hadn’t used it in a long time, so I wondered if I had stuck it
in a drawer somewhere. I dug all the way to the bottom, and found it beneath an
old pack of peppermint gum. “Here it is.” I stopped for a few seconds, looked
at the front and back of the ID. It appeared perfectly authentic, even though
the picture was me at age seventeen.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I just realized... you know
who got this for me freshman year?” I chuckled. “
Melanie
.”

“She did?”

“Yeah, I told her I didn’t
need one, that I had no interest in drinking. But she got one made for me,
anyway.” I smiled at Lukas. “Looks like she just saved my ass.”

He smiled back. Anytime
Melanie came up in conversation, we had to take a moment.

“Can you get me a Cape Cod?”
he finally said. “I’m gonna use the bathroom.”

“Yeah, sure thing.”

I squeezed past a few people,
but got blocked before I could reach the bar. The tall man with the
polka-dotted bell-bottoms was bent over, his gigantic butt on display for
everyone to see. I tried to get around him, but there were endless lines of
people to the left and right of me. I considered just sprinting forward, head
first, like an angered linebacker—but then I saw a familiar face. He
looked so out of place, so terrified of the half-naked guys and bright lights
bouncing against the floor.

“Hey!” I said. “Robert!”

The redhead turned to me.
“Sydney, hey!” He waved me over, and I plowed past a dozen giggling boys to get
to him. “I just ordered,” he said. “Did you want anything?”

“Yeah, that’d be great. Could
you get one Cape Cod, and one Shirley Temple?” I might have promised Lukas that
I would try to act my age and order something with alcohol, but a Shirley
Temple sounded perfect at that moment—sugary and sweet, like what was to
come. I pulled a ten-dollar bill out of my purse and handed it to Robert.

“Actually, Sydney, those two
drinks are probably twenty.”

“Twenty
dollars
?”

“Mmm hmm.”

“Jesus.” I gave him another
ten. A minute later, he handed me the two drinks, and for a brief moment, I was
double fisting.

“Where’s Lukas?” Robert
asked. He took a sip of his Jack and Coke.

“He went to the bathroom. Should
be out any second.” I grinned at him, nudged him against his side real quick.
“Thanks for doing this for me.”

“No, thank
you
. I’ve been trying so hard to have a
reason to bump into him. You gave me one.” He lowered his head toward me. “He
really told you he thought I was cute?”

“Of course he did,” I said. “He
even told me he texted you, but of course I found out that was a lie. I needed
to give him this extra push. I know he likes you, and I have this feeling you
two could be so
good
together.”

Robert shrugged, and gave me
a scared sigh. “I sure hope so. Cuz I think he's amazing.”

I clapped my hands, and looked
toward the bathroom again. Lukas stepped out, started walking toward us.

“Okay, here he comes,” I
said. “Now he can’t know I called you about tonight. You have to make him think
you just randomly showed up.”

“Trust me, I will,” he said,
and he slicked his hair back with his hands. When Lukas got within earshot, Robert
waved at him. “Hey Lukas!”
 

His jaw dropped for a second.
“Hey! Robert, right?”

“Yeah, hey.”

I handed Lukas his Cape Cod. “He
literally bumped right into me.” I gritted my teeth. If Lukas was to suspect my
manipulating the turn of events tonight, now would have been the time.

“How random is that?” Lukas
asked, bewildered. But he kept his focus on Robert, not me. “It's nice to meet
you.” And he hugged him, real tight.

“Same to you,” Robert said.
"Do you wanna dance?”

Lukas took a sip of his
cranberry-and-vodka, didn't say anything for a second. I thought he might take
the form of a wimp and tell him no, but instead, he flashed him a flirtatious
grin. “I would love to dance with you.” Lukas stepped with Robert toward the
twinkling disco lights, then turned around and waved me toward him. “Sydney, you
coming?”

“In a minute!” I said.

I watched as they found the
right side of the dance floor, and started getting down to the latest Adam
Lambert single. Robert snapped his fingers together, and Lukas pretty much bounced
up and down, with no rhythm whatsoever. They were so dorky up there, so
sickeningly adorable.

I took a sip of my Shirley
Temple. It was so sweet.

Just like Lukas and his new
ginger boy toy.
 

Chapter 20

Evan stopped at the top of
the hill and planted his hands against his hips. Why had I agreed to this? Was
I stupid? Or just insane?

“Syd, you’re missing out!” he
shouted. “Come see this! The view is incredible!”

“No, no, I’ll stay down here,
thanks.”

He put his hand out, like he
had the magical ability to stretch his arm not just past me, but all the way to
the Pacific Ocean. “Come on. What are you, scared?”

Yes. I was terrified. Not of
the climb, but what I had to do.

A month had passed. I finally
quit my job at Frederito’s and got a part-time job as a receptionist for a
graphic design company, a position that would last until school started in late
August. I had the weekends off—a plus—and I got to leave early on
Wednesdays, just like Evan. With our schedules lining up better, Evan and I started
spending more and more time together, to the point that I had been asked on
three separate occasions if he was my boyfriend. We went to the movies, sampled
various restaurants, even took a day trip to San Diego together. And we were
still
just friends
.

It had been over five weeks
since our date at the Coffee Bean, over five weeks since he first kissed me on
the cheek. If I had known that kiss was only going to be a special occasion,
not an invitation for more, I would have better appreciated it at the time.
Lately he hugged me a lot, every time he dropped me off at my apartment, every
time we parted for the night—but nothing more.

So of course every day we
spent together, I fell in love with him more and more. He had been this
unattainable dream before Melanie, and he was still the unattainable dream
afterward. Evan had become my everything—and he didn’t want me. So when
he asked me to go hiking with him on this hotter-than-normal Saturday
afternoon, I agreed, knowing I was going to have to make the hardest decision
of the entire summer. I didn’t want to be his buddy anymore, and I really
didn’t want to be his
hiking
buddy.