First Time for Everything (37 page)

And two, the name fits me so well I could scream.

My real name is Jordan Miller, and I am a picky bitch. I say that now so later in the story, when I explain to you the things going through my head, you don’t silently hate me because I am shallow or conceited, because it is more than that. My problem with guys may start with the way they look, but it ends with something much, much deeper. I’ve known I was gay since forever. My mom has stories of me in preschool holding hands with other boys and telling people proudly they were my boyfriend. I envy that little kid, because I suppose he didn’t care whose grimy hand he was holding. He just saw five fingers and went with it. That was how I used to roll.

As I grew up and realized not everyone was gay, I found myself worried about flirting with a straight guy by accident. Growing up in Long Beach, which is, like, listed as one of the friendliest gay towns in America—seriously, it is, look it up—I was less concerned with getting beaten up and more worried that it would just come across as tacky or desperate. I mean, who hasn’t heard of the poor, pathetic gay kid with a crush on his straight friend who one night confesses his love? I mean, ugh, who does that?

I grew up with a group of friends who were pretty cool. We weren’t the most popular or the prettiest, but we were the loudest and the ones who really didn’t care what other people thought, so it was all good. I met Brandon on the beach when I was seven. Both of our parents had brought us to the great outdoors to get out under the sun and experience the real world and all that.

The real world is really bright, and it kind of stinks, so I am not sure who wants to live there, but whatever. No one asked me.

So Brandon and I met as prisoners of war and bonded quickly since we both liked gaming and both hated being forced to do things outside. Brandon’s little brother Tommy joined our group. Since they shared a room, and there is no legal way to divorce your brother, Tommy became our tag along, or as Brandon and I put it, our guinea pig. If we were unsure if the milk was bad, have Tag drink it first. Not sure if those socks were clean? Have Tag smell them. Hard to tell if the parental units were down for the night so we could sneak downstairs and see what there was to do? Have Tag go scout. If he got popped, we knew they were awake.

When Brandon and I started junior high, we met Ethan, who was the poster boy for California surfer dude, with stringy blond hair and a body that looked like it had been designed to be handsome but all the parts hadn’t shown up yet. I thought he was incredibly cute until talking with him for about ten minutes and realized he
really
liked surfing. I mean
really
liked it. I thought I loved WOW or Wild Cherry Pepsi, but that was nothing compared to Ethan and his surfing. So our trio became a quartet, and that winter we taught Ethan how to game, and the next summer he taught us how not to hate the beach.

Turns out the outside isn’t so bad when you aren’t being held at gunpoint by your parents.

We met our last member during freshman orientation when he raised his hand to ask a question and prefaced it with, “I don’t want to draw, like, mad aggro, but is it a closed campus for lunch or not?”

Anyone who used “aggro” in their everyday vocabulary was a hit in our book.

His name was Dominic, and he was a complete nerd. I don’t say that in a bad way, but he was the full-out, comic book reading, sci-fi loving nerd we all think of when we think of the word nerd. His saving grace was that even though he was a complete and utter nerd, he was a cute nerd, so it scored him major points all around. He rocked a pair of Harry Potter spectacles that really just accented his nerdiness, but he pulled it off, and since
The Avengers
, normal people realized that reading comic books isn’t a bad thing.

So there were the five of us. Not the most popular, not complete dweebs, but squarely in the middle and clannish enough that people left us alone. No one had a problem with me being gay as long as I didn’t have a problem with them being straight, and for a couple of years it seemed like it was going to be a nonissue.

That all changed the summer between sophomore and junior years.

Except for Tag, we were all sixteen and thought we were masters of our own destiny. Which is, of course, when we discovered sex.

Okay, not actual sex, but the concept of sex and wanting it. With like a real person. In the same room with you. You know, everything we hadn’t done yet. I had a few virtual boyfriends over Facebook but nothing serious, and I know a couple of girls had tried dating Ethan but couldn’t get past the fact he had more feelings for his surfboard than for them. That summer was like a door being unlocked inside us, one we were never going to be able to go back through again.

We stopped being five guys wandering around being bored and became a pack of animals looking for… well, I don’t want to say mates ’cause that’s just crude. I mean, let’s be honest here, we were five horny teenage boys looking for anything that could change that. Our main problem was Shelby’s Law of Male Groups.

You’ve never heard of it? Let me explain, then.

Say you have one guy. Just a normal guy like Brandon, just standing there. He’s not bad-looking, kind of gawky like everyone at sixteen, hair a little out of place and his clothes too baggy to tell if he’s actually in shape. A perfectly normal guy who most girls would find completely cute. Got it? Okay, so on a scale from 1 to 100, 100 being like Einstein and 1 being Jim Carrey in
Dumb and Dumber
, Brandon kicks back at like a 56, for teenagers. Not dumb, not brilliant, but above average. You with me?

So then take Ethan. Long blond hair, a face that would be hot if it filled out, no body fat whatsoever to the point of looking like a scarecrow. There are a ton of girls who at first glance would think he’s cute. He walks around at about a 50; it would be higher, but his obsession with surfing lowers the curve dramatically. Now, let’s put Brandon and Ethan together, in public, just hanging out.

The two of them are kind of aware of their surroundings, so they don’t get too crazy, but they do tend to talk to each other and goof around. So instead of what should be two guys with above-average intelligence scores, they start bringing themselves down because they’re together.

So now add Dominic.

Now you have three guys, and the goofiness multiplies. With three of them, it’s easier to get caught up in whatever they’re talking about, and the chances of someone goofing off skyrockets. Now instead of three intelligent guys there, you have three goofballs, and it gets worse with each guy you add. I know you know this to be true, because how many times have you seen a pack of guys walk by, way too loud, laughing way too much, and just making complete fools of themselves? Yeah, that’s a high number, ain’t it? Welcome to Shelby’s Law of Male Groups and how it affects intelligence.

The more guys there are, the dumber we get. The dumber we get, the harder it is for other people to approach us. So that summer we would go out with the intention of meeting someone—for me a guy, for them girls—and by the time we got there, we were acting so stupid that we forgot all about what our mission had been. And then, once we were heading home, wondered why it was so hard to find normal people.

It’s sad, but I have a feeling you get it.

So anyways, we wasted the first part of summer wandering around most of Long Beach trying to find companionship but mostly arguing about
Doctor Who
. That was when I had an idea.

The Great Escape.

It may not mean much to you but The Great Escape was like Oz and Wonderland all rolled up with music to me. It was an underage club where they served energy drinks and played music until midnight, which was all fine and good, but it had one more reputation that would serve us well.

It was mostly thought of as a gay or bisexual hangout.

“If we go there, won’t guys, like, hit on us?” Ethan asked when I brought it up.

Dominic, who usually had better sense, said, “I don’t know what I’d do if a guy grabbed my junk.”

I turned and glared at him. “Have I ever grabbed your junk?” His eyes got real big behind the glasses, and he shook his head. “So then why would you assume other gay people would?”

He thought about it for a few seconds before answering. “Because we’d be in their natural environment?”

Brandon didn’t even wait for my look and smacked him upside his head. “Dude, that was stupid even from you.”

Ethan refused to drop his point. “But won’t people think we’re gay if we go there?”

Tag spoke before I could. “We all hang around Jordan, so most likely people already assume that. Since when does that matter?”

Dominic looked over at Brandon. “Do you think the reason girls won’t talk to us is because they think we’re gay?”

Brandon paused a moment, which meant he was considering it. I felt my heart sink as I wondered if this was where I lost my friends.

“Girls won’t talk to us ’cause we haven’t cracked the code on what they want yet. If they did think we were gay, I bet we’d get more girls hanging around. I mean, have you seen how many girls say hi to Jordan at school?”

Though I didn’t want to tell him there wasn’t a code, I was happy he stood up for me.

Ethan nodded. “Fair enough. Okay, so what’s at Escape?”

“Gay guys,” I said, smiling.

Dominic rolled his eyes. “Um, duh.”

“And all of the gay guys’ friends,” I added.

No one got it.

“All of their straight friends.”

Nothing.

“All of their straight, female friends.”

Their eyes began to widen.

“All of their straight female friends who are probably pretty sick of just gay guys dancing around them.”

Brandon looked like he was going to fall out of his chair. “Dude, I never thought of that.”

Ethan’s head was a blur as he agreed. “A whole club of girls….”

Dominic finished for him. “…and we are the only straight guys.”

So for the rest of the summer, we hung out at the Great Escape, and this is where Goldilocks comes from.

See, at first it was awesome, because your first gay bar is like wandering into an all-you-can-eat buffet after fifteen years of a starvation diet. You kinda eat anything they put in front of you. Since we were all new there, we drew some attention from the guys who hung out there all the time, and that was very cool to my emerging gay ego. I was the belle of the ball, and my friends were easily the most popular straight guys ever.

Every girl who had been dragged there by her gay friend had someone to dance with who wasn’t dressed better than she was. The guys were in hog heaven, and I was learning how different dating guys could be. I assumed it was like dating girls, because dating girls was the only thing I had been exposed to. I mean, I hadn’t dated them, but I have seen other guys date them and my friends try to date them and the movies were filled with boy meets girl, boy does something stupid, boy chases girl, girl finally lets boy catch her, so that was how it was, right?

Wrong.

The first boy who talked to me was Zach, and I should have known better. He was cute in a Justin Bieber kind of way, which means he was very cute until you, like, got to know him. Then it didn’t matter if he was Zac Efron with Taylor Lautner on his back. He’d still be disgusting. Of course, that’s all after the fact. When I saw him, I really thought that I had gotten a Jirachi in Super Smash Brothers.

Hey, don’t give me that face. I told you I liked gaming.

“So you guys new here?” he asked once we had found a table to sip our Red Bulls.

Dominic looked at him in panic and pointed at me. “It was his idea.”

Brandon sighed and put his head down on the table in embarrassment.

“I’m Jordan,” I said, extending my hand. “I’m gay, and these are my friends.”

He flashed me a smile that looked like his teeth were glowing. “Let me guess, straight friends?” I nodded, and he shook my hand. “I’m Zach and that’s okay. I came over here to talk to you anyways.”

I felt my cheeks grow red as I received my first compliment from a boy in real life. “I’m Jordan,” I stammered.

Ethan nudged me. “You said that already, dude.”

I shot him a death glare as I tried to get my head back on straight. “So you come here often… and oh my God, that people actually say that in a club,” I rambled as I realized what I was saying. “I’m sorry—my first time talking to a cute guy.”

“You think I’m cute?” Zach asked again with that grin.

At this point I’m surprised my hair didn’t catch on fire from the heat coming off my face.

“You want a tour of the club?” he asked like he owned the place.

Ethan spoke before I did. “That would be cool.”

Even though the music was loud, I could still hear Brandon’s head banging against the table.

“I was kinda flirting with him,” Zach said, pointing at me.

“Oh,” Ethan said, suddenly understanding what was going on. “Um, do you have any girl friends here? Not girlfriends but friends that—”

Zach cut him off. “I got what you meant and no, not tonight. But if I see any girls in need of heterosexual guys, I’ll fire off a flare.” He extended his hand to me. “That tour?”

I took it, feeling like I was the most important person in the world.

Ten minutes later we were in a corner, kissing.

Hey, I don’t shake my head when you’re telling me embarrassing stories, do I? Okay, I probably would, but give me a break. I’m sixteen, and it was my first chance to kiss anything more substantial than my pillow. So of course this was cool and all, and there should have been, like, fifty alarms going off in my head, but he was cute, I was worked up, and I thought maybe this was just the way it happened with guys.

Turns out it is the way it happens with a lot of guys. A lot of guys with Zach, it turned out.

Of course, I didn’t know that at the time, so I was very, very happy to be macking on a hot guy when I felt his hand rest on my leg. No big deal; I mean, where else are you supposed to put your hands when you’re kissing? I never understood that whole grabbing someone’s head with both hands when you kiss. Are you, like, guiding me or making sure I don’t pull away? So the hand on the leg? Not a problem. Then it started to move up.