It Looks Like This (10 page)

He has his back to me again and he’s trying to creep around left then right, but I switch my focus each time I see him move.

My arms are outstretched. He’s inches away, his shoulder blades right in front of my face.

He backs up more and now we’re touching, my forearm grazing his rib cage.

Then he bolts right.

But I’m ready, just barely. I move with him and his right side goes into my chest, not expecting me. The ball is outstretched and I make a swing for it, but I’m clumsy and I miss.

He moves it easily but we’re pressing against each other more.

Then he breaks left again and he’s gone.

I watch him dribble the ball after the shot, both of us catching our breath. I can feel his sweat on my chest, on my face. My heart is pounding in that same weird nervous way, but I’m smiling just a little, smiling because I can’t help it.

Sean passes the ball to me and I go half-court.

And then we do it again.

We hang out at Sean’s house after. I was worried about bringing Charlie over, but he said it would be fine.

His dad gave Charlie a weird look when we walked in, but all he said was,

Hi, Mike.

I said hi back.

We head into Sean’s room. He closes the door after me, walks over to his bed, and slumps backward into it.

He’s still shirtless. He stretches while half lying in his bed, his muscles elongating. The bottom of his rib cage presses against his skin. Then he relaxes, hands behind his head, and looks at me, smiling in a kind of sleepy way.

He says, I’m beat.

I’m still soaked. I think about this, about the cool air sweeping over my face, my arms, my legs. I let it wash over me, feel my skin break out in goose bumps, the hairs on my arms standing up. It feels cold, but so nice.

I say, I am too,

and I slide into his desk chair. Charlie jumps up on my lap right away, but I push him back down, wanting to cool off.

But Sean says, Dude, lie on the bed, it’s a lot more comfortable. There’s room.

I look over at the sliver of bed next to him.

I say, I’m all sweaty.

He chuckles and his stomach clenches, the lines between the muscles growing deeper, abs moving quickly up and down with his laugh.

He says, So am I. Kinda too late to worry about that now.

I look at the beads of sweat on his forehead and temples, the few remaining drops on the light brown skin of his chest. Then I get up slowly, walk over to the bed, and ease myself down next to him. I keep my arms at my side. There’s really not that much room. I have to scoot next to him so my left arm doesn’t fall off the edge of the bed, which means my right arm is pressing against his side a bit. His skin there is still a little damp but drying. His elbow is touching my head.

I settle in but realize I’m not really relaxing; I’m staying very still and tense and trying not to move. My heart’s beating fast now, and I wonder if he can hear it. I can feel his ribs move against my right arm as he breathes, his leg against my leg, the warmth of his skin. There’s a bit of a sweaty smell coming from him, but I don’t mind.

I try to breathe slowly.

By accident, I just barely move my finger. It grazes the middle of his thigh. I freeze even more, holding my breath. I think I sense him tense too, but then the moment passes.

Then he groans. It startles me.

He says, We gotta find a lot of pictures for this magazine.

I relax a bit. He’s talking about the project.

I say, That’ll be easy. We can find stuff online.

He says, Yeah, but the cover photo has to be something better than just some random thing from Flickr or whatever. Girard said the cover’s fifteen percent of the grade.

I think about this for a little, and then about some of the magazines we looked at. Then it comes to me.

I say, I could draw it.

Sean doesn’t say anything for a second. Then he turns his head toward me.

He says, You can draw?

I say, Yeah.

He pauses again.

He says, Draw me.

Now I turn to look at him.

I say, Draw you?

He moves his body suddenly, turning so that he’s lying on his side facing me, head propped up on his hand, elbow on the bed. His other hand traces a line on his leg.

He says, Draw me like one of your French girls.

I blink.

I say, French girls?

None of the girls in our French class are actually French, I think.

Sean laughs and pushes me lightly on the shoulder. I grab the mattress with my left hand to keep from falling off.

He says, It’s from a movie. You’ve never seen
Titanic
?

I say, Oh. No. That came out before I was born.

He laughs again, but not in a mean way.

He says, So did
Star Wars.
So did
Pulp Fiction.
So did, um . . .

I say,
Duck Soup.

Sean blinks.

He says,
Duck Soup
?

I say, Yeah, it’s one of the Marx Brothers’ movies.

Sean looks at me for a long time.

Then he reaches behind him, grabs a pillow, and swings it into my face. It surprises me and I almost fall off the bed, but for just a tiny moment I catch his smell on the pillow.

He laughs and says, You’ve seen Marx Brothers movies but not
Titanic
?

I’m grinning now. I say, Yeah, because they don’t spend three hours on some dumb love story.

Sean laughs again, harder now. I try not to watch his abs clench again.

His laugh turns into a chuckle, and his chuckle turns into a smile.

Then he says,

Seriously, though. You should draw me.

Sean’s sitting in the desk chair now, but in a relaxed kind of way, reclining just a bit. I’m on the bed.

He says, How much longer do I have to sit here?

I look at the paper, then at him, measuring in my mind how much there is left to do. It’s dark outside the window behind me.

I say, You wanted me to do this.

He smiles again. I think about how easy his smiles come.

I look over my drawing again. It’s just pencil on paper. I’m mostly adding shading now. A little on his jawline, his neck, some under his collarbone. Some around his biceps, in the crook of his elbow. The muscles on his chest, his left side, his belly button. He has just a little bit of hair on the lower part of his stomach, right above the waistband. I move down, adding shading around his legs, between them. My mouth feels dry.

He says, What part are you drawing now?

My ears get hot.

I say, Um.

He giggles a bit and says, What, my crotch?

My ears get hotter.

Sean throws his head back and laughs, and says, I should’ve had you draw me naked.

My ears are burning.

He laughs again, then stands and walks over.

He says, Lemme see it,

and snatches it from my hands.

His smile fades away as he looks it over. He slowly sinks down onto the bed next to me, then puts the paper down in front of us.

He says, Damn.

I stare at the paper, mentally comparing it to the real-life Sean sitting next to me.

He says, This is great,

and puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes a bit. The spot where he touches gets warm so quick.

He keeps the hand there for a little while, then brings his other hand up, and massages my shoulders. My neck gets so warm. It feels like stepping into a hot shower on a cold morning. My eyes are fixed on the drawing. I watch a shadow version of Sean massage a shadow version of me on top of the paper.

He says, Jesus, you have some knots up here. You’re gonna be real sore tomorrow, bud.

Then he stops massaging and gives my shoulders a little pat.

He says, Can I keep the drawing?

I look up at him and say,

Yeah.

I’m smelly when I get home. But dry now.

There’s some World War II special on the History Channel, one of Dad’s favorite things to watch. He’s looking over his shoulder at me.

He says, Have fun?

I bend down to take Charlie’s leash off. The collar jingles. Before it’s even fully off, Charlie runs off to his water bowl. A second later I hear his great big noisy slurps as he laps it up, drinking as fast as he can. I know it’s spilling on the floor.

Dad’s looking at me in this sort of scrutinizing way he does sometimes, like he’s trying to read something in my face. Like he’s trying to see if I’m hiding something. It reminds me suddenly of Sean’s dad, of the way he looked at me when I met him.

I say, Yeah. Lots of fun.

Dad smiles after a bit and turns back to the History Channel.

He says, Great.

Dad zips up a bag.

It’s Mom’s, old and frayed. It used to be bright royal blue, but it’s faded a bunch over the years.

Dad hates this bag. He tries to tell Mom to throw it out every time she uses it, but she always refuses. She’s had it for years, since college.

He says, Look, it’s got holes in it. Just get rid of it.

They’re in their bedroom. Clothes are everywhere: hanging out of the dresser, lined up on the bed, folded in piles on the floor.

Dad’s lips are thin and tight, and he has lines on his forehead like Mr. Kilgore does sometimes. He’s holding a toothbrush and looking at Mom.

Mom reaches into the closet, takes out one sweater, holds it in front of her, puts it back and takes out another.

She shakes her head.

She says, That’s my Wellesley bag.

Dad gives up after a while. He hands me the bag but doesn’t say anything. It’s lumpy and irregular and kind of heavy.

I take it outside.

Toby is sitting on top of the car, legs dangling over one side. All the doors are wide open, stretching out across the driveway.

I go around back to find room in the trunk. I shove other bags aside to make a spot and I say,

You’re supposed to be packing.

Toby shrugs.

She says, I’m mostly done. It’ll take like three seconds.

My bags are already in the car. I have two: a big one in the back and a smaller one that I’ll keep at my seat. It has my books and iPod and my old 3DS and some other games I can play with Toby.

Toby says, I don’t get why they need to bring like the whole house.

I find just enough room for Mom’s bag and cram it in. I take a step back and look at my work. I don’t know how we’re going to fit the rest of our stuff.

I say, Yeah.

Mostly to myself.

Dad told us Thursday night that we were going to go to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving.

We get the whole week off school and he tells us the day before vacation starts.

I mean I guess it’s okay since I didn’t have a lot of plans anyway. I kind of thought Jared and Ronald and I could hang out a lot at Ronald’s house ’cause his mom is so cool and plus she likes to cook, but I hadn’t talked to them about it or anything.

Mostly I just kind of wish we weren’t going to Grandma’s. She’s okay but she’s old and can be crabby sometimes. And she has a lot of rules.

But really it’s because Dad gets weird around her and pretty tense, and gets upset if we do the tiniest thing wrong. Like once Toby sneezed at dinner without covering her mouth, and Dad went ballistic and yelled.

It was gross but not like a huge crime or anything.

Mom said once Dad just doesn’t want Grandma to feel too stressed because of her age.

I guess.

Grandma is Dad’s mom.

She lives in the western tip of Virginia, a really, really rural place near a tiny town. It’s right next to Kentucky.

We’ve gone there before but always from Wisconsin, which is a super-long drive.

This is the first time we’ll be coming from inside the state, but Dad says it’ll still take nine hours.

Virginia is a long state.

I stare out the window most of the way. It’s the first time I’ve been on these roads and it’s nicer than I expected. We drive through low mountains covered in orange and red and yellow leaves, all of them dropping and fluttering around our car with the slightest breeze.

Dad says, Lots of kids drive drunk on these highways, Mike.

I look at him, blinking.

He says, When you get your permit next year, I want you to be especially careful on the highways. They may look deserted, especially out in rural areas, but they can be just as dangerous as city roads. Okay?

I say, Yessir.

I look back out the window and watch the mountains roll by. I try to take a picture with my old camera, but I know it won’t turn out very good even if it’s not blurry.

Pictures never look as good as the real thing.

I glance over at Toby and she’s staring out her window, both of us quiet and absorbed in the surroundings. Charlie’s sleeping, snout on her thigh.

I end up not even opening my bag.

We pull into a rest stop.

We’re only an hour from Grandma’s, but Toby really had to go and couldn’t hold it in any longer. She opens the door before Dad turns the car off and bolts toward the run-down building that stinks even from here.

Mom gets out and follows her. Dad just stands beside his open door, frowning at the sky. He’s annoyed.

It’s not twilight yet but shadows are getting longer. This is my favorite time of day.