Bastards of Young

“Sullivan to Cherry… Cherry takes the shot! Oh! Off the rim! He really should have weighed his options there,” I grimaced as the announcer’s voice crackled through the radio sitting on top of Dan’s work bench. He was working on a car he had recently bought to fix up and I was joining him in listening to the UNC/ Georgia Tech game until Billie got off work. We both were both rooting for UNC due to generations of breeding. For my family Dean Smith was comparable to God and for Dan’s mentioning Georgia Tech in any positive light could earn you a bar of soap in the mouth.

“I swear to God,” he said from under the car, “If those Heels don’t knock Tech out I’m painting a Duke Blue Devil in your room.”

I scrunched my nose in disgust. “It won’t be my fault.”

“Well, something’s gotta make me feel better, dang it!”

I laughed heartily as the announcer celebrated Georgia Tech shooting a last second three pointer at the halftime bell; this brought the score to 33-33. Dan rolled out from under the car and stood, stretching. “I’m getting too old for this shit,” he said as he crossed the garage to exchange one wrench for another.

“You’re 28,” I took a sip of the lemonade Rosa had brought out earlier.

“That’s easy to say when you’re 21,” he looked past me. “Here comes your boy.” I looked away from Dan’s smirking face to see Billie coming up the drive way. Something looked wrong as he took short, quick steps with his hands shoved in his pockets and his eyes glued to the pavement in front of him.

Sliding off the bench, I jogged over to him. “Hey,” he paused in front of me and looked up with clouded eyes.

“Hey,” he replied flatly. He leaned in and kissed me automatically, before continuing his walk to the apartment. Dan called a greeting to him as he passed, but Billie ignored it. I followed closely behind him, shrugging at Dan’s questioning look.

“What’s up,” I asked, shutting the door and continuing to follow Billie into the living room.

“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” he sounded seriously pissed as he jerked his Jimmy’s Pizza shirt over his head and chucked it on the floor while still walking towards my room. I felt a little annoyed that he’d come to my apartment if he just wanted to pout the whole time.

Folding my arms, I leaned against the doorframe and surveyed him lying on my bed still in his pants and shoes, his face buried in the pillow. “No, seriously, what’s wrong?”

“Fuck, Jean,” he rolled over to face me angrily; “I said I don’t want to fucking talk about it. Just leave me alone for a second…please,” he added the “please” as an after thought, like he knew what his temper was about to get him.

“Fine,” I said holding back my anger, reasoning that he really didn’t mean to take anything out on me. “I’m going back down with Dan.”

“Enjoy yourself,” he said in mockingly flat tone as he stared at the ceiling.

“Fuck off,” I said losing control. “I don’t really fucking appreciate you coming over to my place pissed, getting your shitty shoes all in my bed and then treating me like shit when I just want to help,” I picked up his shirt from the floor and threw it at him. “Fucking leave and come back when you can act like a fucking adult!”

I turned ready to storm out when he called for me to wait. Looking back into the room I saw him removing his shoes. He looked up at me sadly, “I’m sorry.”

“You should be,” I said stiffly.

“This might sound a bit crazy and out there,” he had raised his hands slightly as if surrendering, “But, sometimes I get angry and do shit that I don’t mean.”

I cracked a tiny shadow of a grin even though I still thought that he was the world’s biggest ass at that moment. “That’s still no excuse.”

“I know. I just lost my head… fuck, I think I’m still losing it,” he rubbed his hands over his face as he spoke. “Come here,” he patted the spot next to him.

I begrudgingly climbed up next to him and pulled my knees to my chest. Billie laid back down on his stomach, looking up at me. “I’d really like it if you scratched my back,” he said in a small voice.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve, Armstrong,” I still scooted closer to him and began to run my nails across the skin on his back. “So, are you going to talk?”

“I got fired,” he said it with a resigned sigh.

“Why?”

“They said I stole from the cash register,” he bit at one of his finger nails while looking off into space next to me. “I bet it was fucking Stanton. He looks like the kind of little shit that would do something like that.” His voice got harsher and louder as he continued, “They’ve just been waiting for a fucking reason to get me out of there, especially with the tour and shit coming up.”

I laid down sideways on the bed so that my head was resting on the small of his back as I continued to scratch. “I’m so sorry,” I said quietly.

“I just really needed that job… Mom’s been needing help with some stuff,” I felt him tense under me. “Fuck, I hate this.”

“What were you going to do on tour?”

“She said she’d be okay by then. Her job’s been giving her less hours because she hurt her back, but she keeps saying she’ll be good to go by the time we leave,” he lifted a hand to cover his face.

I thought for a second before opening my mouth, “I’ll help out.”

He removed his hand and looked at me, shocked. “No, its not –.”

“I don’t mind.”

“She’ll never go for that… it took me forever to convince her to let me help. My brothers and sisters don’t even know.”

I shrugged from where I was laying, “Then don’t tell her. How much do you need?”

“No, Jean.”

“Billie. How much?”

He sighed in defeat, “Seventy-five, but if you don’t have it, then don’t --.”

“Its cool, I have a little bit of money saved up,” I said sitting up and leaning in to give him a kiss.

He wouldn’t let me pull away as he guided me onto my back. After a few minutes of making out he pulled back, looking at me without a word.

“What,” I asked stroking his cheek with my thumb.

“Nothing,” he said with a smile as he kept staring.

“Seriously,” I laughed nervously.

“You’re beautiful.”

I felt myself blush. He continued to stare at me. It was like he was afraid that if he looked away I might disappear. “Can I just say something, but you promise not to freak out?”

“No.”

“I love you.”

It felt like cement had just been injected into my blood stream and my brain went all to shit. It had been a week since the talk with Tracy and I still was frightened of everything I was feeling. Billie must have seen the internal melt down written on my face and soon the story of his own turmoil started to write itself. “I know it’s soon… but, it just felt right. Don’t freak out! I’ll never say it again, I promise.”

“Don’t say that,” I said weakly. Clearing my throat I continued with a bit more clarity. “It’s just that I can’t say that to you right now – it doesn’t feel right yet.”

“And that’s fine,” he said quickly. “Completely fine!”

“But, I think I’ll get there.”

Billie grinned contentedly and sighed slightly as he spoke. “I can live with that.” He laid his head on my chest as I started playing with his hair.

“Do you ever feel scared as shit,” I felt like a child asking.

“You mean over all of this?”

“Yeah.”

“Sometimes,” he lifted his head so that we were looking at each other. “Do you?”

“Feeling pretty terrified right now.”

“But, it’s just me,” he said simply. “That’s like what I tell myself when I start feeling scared: ‘It’s just Jean, the girl that likes to dance in her underwear to “Girls On Film” before she goes to sleep. Why be afraid?’”

I grinned, “And you’re just Billie, the boy that can’t eat anything without getting it all over his face.”

He started to laugh, “Exactly. Not scary at all. Just me.” Billie hugged me tightly and laid his head back down. “It’s like what you said to me the first night we got together. We’ve got to have faith in each other.”

It was a heavy silence that enveloped us after that – you could almost hear our gears spinning. Thought after thought popped into my head about how this wasn’t what I had planned to happen at all and what if we ended up married and what if we had a kid and then hated each other down the road. The world didn’t need one more broken home. Was I even ready to settle down? Jesus Christ, 21 is still a child. I still had places to go and people to meet. Billie started to feel like something different as he laid on my chest, something bad and dangerous. I could feel the panic creep in again. It was all too heavy, too intense. Too –

“Jean?”

Billie’s voice snapped me back into reality. “What, sorry?”

“I asked if you wanted to go play Street Fighter with me. I’ve gotta beat Mike’s ass next time.”

I suddenly felt completely at ease as I looked at Billie’s shining eyes and goofy lopsided grin. His purple hair was fading and it stuck out comically at every angle from where I had been playing with it. It was just Billie.

What was I afraid of? No one was setting any dates or time lines. We were just having fun and enjoying each other.

“Um, sure,” I replied after awhile.

“Cool,” he said as he stood and pulled my hands so that I did the same. He had a mischievous look on his face suddenly, “Oops!” He fell forward knocking us both back down on the bed. The mall didn’t close for another four hours.

We had plenty of time.