The Gift of the Bassist

I had only known Jared because of my brother, who was a mere two years older than me. Jared and Danny, two of the most inseparable guys I knew. They met, if I recall correctly, on a youth hockey team made from members from two of the local elementary schools. They’d practice and play one-on-one in front of our garage all summer on skates until they reached around middle school, one where they both ended up attending. This situation only fast-forwarded their friendship, especially when they ended up in the same Reading and Writing block class for two hours a day one year. Danny kept at sports and landed himself in high school hockey and soccer while Jared just kept with the more singular activities, like skateboarding and catch. Jared, for a while when it was cool, taught Danny some stuff on the guitar. Though Dan never did excel at power chords, or pick up his guitar after that, he still hung out with Jared. My relationship then with Jared was still something between acquaintance and friend, as I had never bothered to know Jared on a more personal level than the odd greeting or questioning of drink choice during hot summers.

When Danny was a junior, to save money for other Christmas presents (most especially for his high-maintenance girlfriend of the time), he cleaned up his old, crappy Squire knockoff and gifted it and his pawn shop amp to me, a near-lonely freshman with a serious acne problem. When he saw my bemused expression that morning, he also promised (on the spot, I later learned) to have Jared teach me some stuff so it wasn’t a completely pointless present.

So for the next two years, Jared would come over to our house almost every Tuesday afternoon and give me a guitar lesson. Sometimes they weren’t lessons, more like goofing off or showing off (turning up the amp and showing off with Jared soon became one of my favorite things to do just to annoy Danny). Our relationship soon surpassed friend for good friend, and Jared and I would not just play the guitar together, but go to horrible local bands’ concerts and to see almost-to-DVD movies at the local Dollar Theatre. Obviously, Danny and Jared were still great friends, still going out to parties and to movies themselves, but I was a back-burner friend, one that was for rainy days.

Honestly, I never had a crush on Jared. Okay, maybe I’m lying, but I said the details were foggy. I swear it was more of a “cute” alarm going off in my head when Danny first brought him over when I was just starting the first grade. Other than that, Jared was just Jared. As I said, details...

The thing about our friendship wasn’t that Dan didn’t “approve” of it, or was suspicious, or any of that stuff. It was just that Jared was sort of like my first good friend (if you didn’t count Gilda in the third grade before she moved to Oklahoma). I didn’t have good friends of my own because my idea of a Saturday was to wake up, do homework, read, play my guitar, and go to bed; my idea of a friend, if it were possible, was much more of a requirement. It wasn’t like I was ugly (my acne went away as my junior year smoothly rolled along and I lost the baby fat that I had always had), but if I were a beauty, then Peter Parker was stupid. I was a recluse, I knew it, and quite frankly, I didn’t care.

Jared knew I was a recluse as well, but the thing was he cared if I went out or not. On multiple occasions, he’d drag me to a concert and try to get me to meet people. I didn’t like to meet people, let alone a large group of boys with the odd girl here and there that only had one thing in common with me – the ability to play an instrument. It was nerve-racking, and I always found these groups of people very intimidating. I would tell Jared this, but he’d just apologize and introduce me to another few musical friends of his a month later.

It was near the end of January when Jared brought me to see a band that had just formed. His good friend John (whom I had met on multiple occasions, though never quite held a conversation with) was singing in his first band, and it was their first-ever show. He said something about knowing their drummer and bassist from school or something, a detail that only slipped my mind. I only recalled it later that night.

Their entire set, John kept his focus on the drummer’s kit. He barely ever turned around in his tacky vest and tie ensemble that the rest of the band shared, only to announce the next song they were going to play. Compared to the John I’d seen before, jumpy and sociable, this guy was entirely different. I felt so bad for him the entire time, and I definitely could empathize with him. He kept running his fingers through his hair, and when he faced the audience, he only looked to the ground or to the spotlights shining in his eyes.

After they finished their twenty-or-so minute set, I was already sweating in the back of the crowded building next to Jared because of the venue’s obsession with a working heating system. It was another hour until Jared finally caught up with them outside. They were packing up the drummer’s kit – the kid who I recognized as their drummer lugging the bass drum all by himself was the scrawniest guy I had ever seen. The second we stepped out of the venue, I was shivering in my skin, only one of my mom’s old sweaters to guard me from the odd chill that had replaced the usual humid air in the night. Jared didn’t have a jacket to offer me either, so he was also getting goose bumps on his exposed arms, his hands tucked deeply into his pockets.

“Hey, John!” He braved sticking a hand into the air, waving over John, who was standing against the van and running his hands through his hair in an obviously stressful manner. He had lost the tie and his vest was unbuttoned over his shirt.

John looked up and momentarily smiled before waving us over. One of the guitarists got his attention and tossed him some keys, which he fumbled and let fall to the ground. His cheeks, I observed as we came closer, turned to an even redder tint as he bent towards the ground to pick them up. He gave Jared another feeble smile as he straightened up and gave me an acknowledging nod.

“Hey,” Jared greeted again, smiling a bit. “You going to start the van? It’s freezing out here.”

John smiled back, twirling the keys around his index finger. “Yeah, but the heat won’t work for a few minutes until the engine’s warmed up.” He gave an involuntary shudder and unlocked the van, thrusting open the side door. He was quick to start it up and grab a jacket before coming back out to lean against the van’s frame, a hand tucked into his jeans and a light track jacket over his shoulders. He waved us in, a smile on his face.

As I climbed in before Jared to the middle row, shivering against a strong breeze that blew right into the van, another boy with auburn hair came up to John and tapped his shoulder. I recognized him as their short bassist, a boy about my age and height that didn’t let his size control his energy. The entire set, he bounced around the tiny makeshift stage, and even attempted to jump off the drummer’s bass drum a couple of times.

“Hey, Garrett. Say hello.”

Garrett loosened his striped, brown tie and brought up his hand to rub the back of his neck as he looked up and into the van to see Jared huddled into himself as the engine churned to heat up. He spotted me huddling in the corner behind Jared and leaned into the van to get a better look.

“Need a jacket?” His voice was quiet and meek, but steady. I just looked at him, surprised that he’d even initiate conversation with me, as Jared chuckled next to me.

“Her name’s Scott.”

“Odd name for a girl,” he simply stated, his lips curving into a small smirk. He kept looking at me, but was soon to look back to the ground when I squinted my eyes at him. I knew I’d probably seen him before.

“Funny story, she was named af—”

“Shut up,” I grumbled, scooting closer into the corner of the van, the arm rest nudging into the curve of my back. By then it had hit me: this kid went to my school. And if I weren’t mistaken, I could’ve sworn I’d seen him in the lunch line a couple of times last semester.

Jared just chuckled and nodded to John. “Need any help packing up?”

John smiled wide and nodded his head. He folded his arms and nodded towards the venue. “You can help me get the toms. But, y'know, we could always let Pat get squashed by his kit.” I could see a few small clouds of air escape from his lips as he chuckled.

Jared laughed. “Sure, bro.”

He climbed out of the van and followed behind John. Garrett started following them as well when John stopped him, pointing to the van. “Stay behind, dude. Guard the van. We’re not in suburbia anymore.” His smile still remained as he patted his friend's shoulder and nudged him back towards the van.

He started walking backwards, a loose smile spelling douche across his lips, and shouted, “Ryan will be out soon.” He snapped his fingers into two pistol hands and ran ahead to catch up with Jared.

I uttered a groan under my breath as Garrett hopped into the van and slammed the door shut. The second he closed it, he took Jared’s spot and peeled off his own hoodie. He handed it to me with another smirk.

“Need a jacket?”

I was in no position to refuse, as the back door of the van was wide open, waiting for more instruments to be forced in and stacked together in odd positions. I nodded once and took it from his outstretched hand, mumbling a singular thanks. As I tossed it over my shoulders, I couldn’t help but smell the fabric. It wasn’t sweet and it wasn’t strong, it was more of a clean scent, which compared to Jared’s jackets was unheard of. It sounds stupid, like I had been dying to stash away and sniff Tide sheets all night, but it was pleasing to my nose as I snuggled up in the back of the van, this seemingly snarky boy humming a vague tune under his breath.

|||

A summer filled with more concerts (many of them The Maine’s) came, and soon after that, Jared joined the band after they lost their guitarists and picked up a new one. Elated from the news, he dragged me to practice at the end of summer when school was about to let in. He said that they were getting ready to do a few shows Labor Day weekend and he and the rest of the band wanted some non-parental and unbiased feedback. I obliged to come, as long as there was hearing protection provided for the ears I was about to sacrifice.

When I trotted down the basement steps behind Jared, I heard more footsteps behind me. I turned around near the last few steps and saw Pat trailing behind Garrett, cradling a few bottles of store brand water in his arms. When I spotted Garrett, he cracked a small side-smile, one that caught me off guard. I almost tripped over my own feet past the last step, but I was able to catch myself. I felt a warmth grow over my cheeks and I meekly followed Jared’s heels to a small plaid couch that looked like it had been picked up from the highway. A pair of shooting ear muffs waited in John's hands.

“Scott, was it?”

John simpered as I snatched the headphones from his finger and moodily plopped myself onto the couch, giving him an acerbic smile. I crossed my legs underneath my knees and wrapped the muffs behind my neck, quickly observing the small practice space. Guitar amps and a drum kit were squeezed between boxes labeled “Christmas” and “Halloween,” a blow-up Santa hanging over some boxes and onto the off-white shag carpet. It was a tight fit, even with the couch backed into a corner in front of Jared and Garrett.

“Don’t bother her, John,” Jared muttered with a smile, prying the pick from between the strings of his guitar.

“I still can’t believe it. Scott? Really?” Garrett obnoxiously observed over Jared’s shoulder, sending me a smirk.

“Really,” John added. “Oh, and, uh... Scott?”

“Hmm?” I grunted, glancing over him with lazy eyes and resting my chin in my palm.

“Headphones.”

And they played.

It was about a half hour later that the boys scampered up the steps, simultaneously breaking off into rampant conversations and downing the bottled water Pat had brought down. I quickly ditched the embarrassing, extremely oversized earmuffs and followed behind them. Their conversations escalated to the kitchen where Pat raided the fridge, John talking his large ears off about a CD he had just bought. Kennedy – a name I swore didn’t go with the face – and Jared were talking pedal effects, a conversation I so desperately wanted to add to, when I was tapped on the shoulder as I slid onto a stool near the end of the counter next to Jared. I jumped from the chair, toppling over the tall stool, as the person that scared me shitless to begin with caught my elbows in calloused hands, silently laughing behind my haphazardly tied bun of bland, mousy brown hair.

Garrett grunted as he pushed me back upright next to the stool, a quiet apology muttered behind my ear as John and Jared started profusely laughing. I blushed as I climbed securely back into my seat. Garrett joined next to me in the last unoccupied stool and Pat went back to raiding the fridge for some mayonnaise.

“So, what do you think?” Jared mused as I snatched the cold, sweaty bottle of water Pat had just tossed him from his hands. “Hey!”

I shrugged. “About the music?”

“No, I was actually wondering if this shirt made me look fat. Of course the music, Scott.”

“Reminds me a bit of a band that so desperately doesn’t want to suck ass,” I mumbled. I waterfalled some of Jared’s drink and slid it back to him across the counter.

“Funny,” John muttered through a mouthful of lettuce and turkey, mayo dribbling from the corner of his mouth.

“Oh, c'mon, Scott. That's just cruel.” He set a hand on his chest, feigning hurt. "Now tell us, what really sucks?"

I turned to Garrett and shot mental dagger-yielding ninjas at his face, pretending not to notice the nose ring I had neglected to register between the stairway and while he was giving himself whiplash with a bass in his hands.

“Stop using predictable chord progressions, then we’ll talk.”

I could’ve sworn John gave me the stink eye the second I spoke. Jared snorted and shook his head, and Pat shrugged, indifferently taking another bite of his own sandwich. Garrett just gave me a small sneer and shook his head.

“I’m sure a twelve year-old girl could figure out your bass line in that last song, Garrett.”

“Wow. Spiteful, self-degrading, and sexist. Where did you say you picked her up, Jared?” he bit back, unscrewing the cap on his water.

I could hear Jared silently laughing as I quirked an eyebrow at Garrett, trying my hardest to appear as if his comment didn’t faze me. “She’s right, you know. ‘Daisy’ is... Well, yeah.”

“Not my fault,” John chimed in from behind another sandwich grasped between his hands.

“And if that song ultimately makes you world-famous, will it still not be your fault?” I shot back, crossing my arms on top of the counter and leaning forward.

“No.”

“Whatever,” I scoffed, and leaned back.

“Nice comeback. But your mousy voice needs some polishing to match your bite.” Garrett mused, reaching over to John’s plate for the other half of his sandwich.

“Hey!”

“Thanks,” he nonchalantly mumbled before inhaling it.

A few moments of silence passed before the quiet, baby-faced Kennedy piped up from the other side of Jared in the corner of the kitchen. “So, uh, what bands do you like?”

“Stuff,” I said, solacing in the slightest control of the things they knew of me. As I said before, I don’t like people.

“Let me guess,” Garrett prodded, setting down the last bit of sandwich he forgot to breathe in and brushing crumbs off his Death Cab shirt. “Motion City, some techno dude that sucks whom I’ve probably never heard of, and... Blink?”

Jared imitated a buzzer sound and shoved a thumbs-down under my nose. “Wrong-o there, budster.”

“You drunk?” John mumbled behind a mouthful of popcorn (wherever it came from). He just ignored him.

“I can tell you first-hand she doesn’t like Blink-182.”

Garrett scoffed. “You’re absolutely idiotic.”

“Just because you stick to your Death Cab and Ryan Adams...”

“Who’s Ryan Adams?”

“...doesn’t mean—” And then Jared had the nerve to silence me with a hand over my mouth, spitting out three band names before I could rip his sweaty hand from my face.

“Fountains of Wayne, Armor For Sleep, Something Corporate.”

“Something Corporate? Got a soft spot for piano rock, Scott?” He snickered as I back-handed his shoulder.

“You know, she was completely devastated when they broke up.”

“Jared!”

“No, no.” He put hand on my shoulder and kept it there, even after I shrugged it off. “I had just got her into them; in fact, she corrected me on one of their songs I tried – keyword being tried – teaching her. I had bought her Leaving Through the Window for her birthday present, and then a week later, poof! No more Something Corporate. I remember how bummed she was. I mean, she ended up learning all of the CD’s tracks a month later, and by ear, might I add. She freaking showed me up, man! I was both impressed and slightly distur—”

“She learned the whole album?” Kennedy was practically gawking over Jared’s shoulder, his jaw reaching the ground in record time.

“In a month, dude.” He nodded like a proud parent and took another gulp of water. “Except that one piano song.”

“Dude, what else can she do?” John fawned, his mouth this time surprisingly absent of food.

“Nothing,” I snapped. John looked a bit taken aback, but brushed it off for another handful of popcorn.

It turns out that after my criticism, they worked up a few more rough songs before their shows Labor Day weekend. Jared raved about them, trying to convince me to come along to another noisy practice, but I refused. When he asked why, I told him that I had school, colleges to look at. But we both know it wasn’t that, it was how Garrett rubbed off on me.

We talked about it when he picked me up to go to another show at the end of September, one that he wasn’t playing at. He had introduced me to a band Kennedy used to be in, and even though they had a female drummer, I probably scared her off with my silence and the glares I shot Jared. The short conversation we had before the show was not my finest hour either.

Of course, he had to one, invite Garrett along; two, give him a drive there; and three, force me to go there with them. And when he dropped by with Garrett in shotgun, I dragged him by the oversized t-shirt from my front porch into the foyer, shooing away Danny before he could even get to say hello. I made sure my dad was upstairs before...

“I hate you. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, but it’s whatever.” He was still smiling behind some dark brown Aviators, his freckles faded from the longevity of the sun this time of year.

“‘It’s whatever’? Jared, you saw the way we were arguing back at Pat’s house this summer. I don’t like him, and he doesn’t like me,” I whispered, wary of the echo that could reach Danny’s ears in the kitchen if I wasn’t careful.

“Tell me why you don’t, because I have a feeling he thinks differently.”

I let go of his shirt and put a hand to my forehead. Even though he thought he knew why I didn’t like Garrett, I was ready to let out an earful.

“The short story, Scott.”

“He’s just... He's a total douche bag.”

Jared suddenly doubled over in a choked-back laugh and straightened back up with a smirk. “He’s not a douche, trust me.” I gave him a look. “Okay, maybe he can be a bit of a tool when he wants to be, but it’s just an act.”

“He must be a pretty good actor, then.”

“No, it’s not that, Scott. He’s just really... Well, he’s really, really shy. He’s easily intimidated. He just acts like a jerk, and people leave him alone. Just like you.”

I scoffed and crossed my arms. “Yeah, sure, Dr. Phil. So you’re gutsy enough to bring him along when all three of us know this isn’t exactly going to turn out peachy keen?”

“How do you know that?” He turned around to open the door, but I stopped him before he could even touch the door knob.

“Anything goes wrong – anything, Jared – and I’ll have your head.” He just laughed as he opened the door for me.

When we got into his car, Garrett said a quiet hello to me. I admit, it was out of place from what I previously encountered.

“What, not going to ask me what took so long, Garrett?”

He ignored my question, just like he ignored me the entire night.

|||

Since the beginning of November, word had gotten out about The Maine’s apparent success. To keep from people he didn’t necessarily know, Pat started to eat lunch with me, hidden by one of the environmental science rooms on the second floor of the school. We’d talk about music mostly, but I also helped him with homework. He needed the most help in English and I wholeheartedly obliged as it was my forte and it was his weakness. A couple of weeks after just the two of us sitting in a corner and eating lunch together, Garrett started to tag along with Pat, keeping his unusual silence as I helped Pat with a weekly list of vocabulary terms his teacher liked to quiz his class on.

It was the one day Pat wasn’t there with questions that changed everything. I got to the corner by Mr. Kite’s class first as I usually did, but instead of seeing Pat walk down the hallway five minutes later with school lunch, a meek Garrett trailing behind him, it was just Garrett fifteen minutes later with a scowl on his face.

He sauntered up in a newly cropped haircut and tight jeans and swung the backpack over his arm and onto the floor with a muffled thump. The door to Mr. Willard’s physics class ten feet away was soon loudly shut, as per usual daily routine.

“Where’s Pat?”

“Pat... he, uhm... Pat had a dentist appointment.” He rubbed the back of his neck and sent me a quick glance before looking back out the window over my head.

“And you’re here because...?”

“I... ugh.” He quickly collapsed into a sitting position, crossing his legs under his knees. I didn’t know how he accomplished it with those tight jeans of his. “I came against my better judgment.”

“Is my accompaniment so distasteful, Garrett?”

“No, that’s-that’s not what I meant.”

“Really.”

“I just didn’t want to seem like some dumbass if I came to you for help,” he muttered, grabbing his backpack and pulling out a sandwich.

“Help with what? As far as I know, you don’t need help with being a taciturn imbecile.”

“Well, that’s exactly why I came here,” he told his sandwich, pulling the saran wrap off.

“Being an imbecile?” I laughed.

“No, my English. Specifically, my-my vocabulary. And the... the...” He snapped his fingers, looking me in the eye for what seemed the first time since summer. “You know, it starts with an ‘r.’”

“Rhetoric?”

“Yeah. I have an essay due-”

“Pat already came to me for help on it. It’s part of your final exam grade, I know.”

“And I need to pass so I can graduate early. So I can tour.”

“Glad to see education is such a priority for you, Garrett,” I said, pulling out an apple from my brown bag.

“I just need some help. I didn’t actually pick out a short story yet, either, so... I just need a bit of guidance, Scott.” He kept staring at his sandwich like it was the most interesting thing in the world. “You seem like you could help, is all.” And he took a bite of the chicken salad inside.

I ended up agreeing to help him. He seemed like he had calmed down from summer, like the heat was just something that gave him a backbone and riled up his verbal comebacks. It was right before Thanksgiving, so I told him I’d come over the Saturday after, as I was sure my mother would drag me to Black Friday.

The time came, and I had Jared take me to Garrett's house seeing as I had still chosen working on homework over working for a license. The entire time there, he teased me for actually, finally getting along with Garrett. It got on my nerves, but I couldn’t exactly say that getting along with him – finally – seemed like such a bad idea. Jared was my friend, my best friend, and the other guys had become friends with me as well (most especially Pat), so it seemed hypocritical of me to not be friends with Garrett. And it didn’t really hurt that he was kind of cute, too. In the constantly-breaking-out-stupid-like-a-puppy-stick-skinny-and-really-short kind of way.

When Garrett brought me up to his surprisingly clean room (after his mom told him to keep the door open, a boy who looked like his brother silently laughing over a bowl of Ramen), he closed the door and had me sit on his computer chair. He went over to a turntable and removed the needle, stopping La Cienega Just Smiled.

“You didn’t know who Ryan Adams was the last time I checked,” I said, unzipping my backpack on his desk and rummaging for the book I brought.

“Thanks to you...” He walked to what looked like a kitchen chair next to mine and plopped down. “Now I do.”

When he smiled at me, I let the book of O. Henry short stories slip through my fingers, and the thick volume fell on his foot.

“Ow!” He hissed and bent down to pick up the book, fanning the pages of the hard copy. “Who’s O. Henry?”

“Only one of the best short story writers of the early 20th century,” I mumbled, plucking the book from his grasp. “He wrote a Christmas story that I think will help your English teacher enjoy grading it over Winter break.”

“And how’s that rhetorical?” He set his elbow on the desk and rested his cheek in his palm.

“Do you even know what rhetoric means, Garrett?”

I looked over to him when he didn’t answer and the freak was smiling like he’d just met Matt Rubano.

“What?”

“Nothing. And no.”

I groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

From there, I had him first look up what rhetoric meant, and I even had him read the Wikipedia article on it (though I’m sure at the most he just skimmed through it). Then I had him read “The Gift of the Magi,” O. Henry’s short story about two couples and their useless, ironic sacrifices for a perfect Christmas. Then I had him read it again. Then once more. Then this is the last time, I swear. And then okay, seriously, just once more.

It took him about an hour to type out a draft, one that had enough mistakes and flaws to keep me happily busy for fifteen minutes. I had him explain to me his take on the story, and half-way through writing his essay, he ripped his list of rhetorical strategies from flipping the pages so many times the last two hours.

But when I found yet another homonym in his work over his shoulder, he couldn’t spot it. I had to reach over his shoulder to click on the word, setting a hand on the back of his chair.

“Where you wrote, ‘He wanted to aide her by giving up his precious pocket watch just so he could make his wife happy for one Christmas.’ This one, right... here,” I said when I clicked on it. “Aid with an ‘e’ is a noun. Aid without an ‘e’ is a verb, okay? I swear, you have so many homonyms-”

“You look really cute tonight.”

I just looked at him with a raised eyebrow, confused as to why he would think that when my hair was in a bird’s nest of a bun and my jeans were old and baggy. But before I could even question him or his motives, he kissed me.

I have many excuses. I was freshly seventeen just a couple of weeks before. I was caught up in the moment. I forgot how much of a jerk Garrett was just a few months ago. They were all relevant, but they weren’t very good excuses.

But I didn’t flinch when he pulled back with a smirk on his face like the one he wore after he finished playing a song on stage, and I didn’t move my hand on the mouse when he set his hand on mine. And I surely didn’t think when I put my hand behind his neck and kissed him back.

But I did think five minutes later when our kissing turned into making out, and our make-out session on the chairs in front of his desk turned into a make-out session on his bed.

“Garrett.” I pushed on his shoulder when his hand found its way under my Rush t-shirt. He stopped and moved his fingers from my skin, most likely aware of the thick blush dying my cheeks a most permanent red and the goose bumps on the skin that his fingers grazed.

“This... uh. I... I need to leave.”

He raised his eyebrows as if he did something wrong, as if I were a teacher after he put glue in another girl’s hair.

“It’s not... It’s not...” I couldn’t talk with him staring me down like an innocent puppy. A dumb, idiotic, innocent, shaggy-haired, bass-playing, blue-eyed puppy.

And then he said the last thing I thought would come out of his mouth. “I’ll drive you home.”

When he stalled his dad’s car in front of my house, he stopped me before I left.

“What?” I muttered, one foot out in the cool air and one back in the car.

“Why is your name Scott?” he asked, his features quite dim in the dark. He looked like he did when I first met him: emotionless with a lot of acne.

I took a deep breath and mumbled the reason as quiet as I could, but loud enough he could hear. “My parents were so excited with the idea of moving back where they grew up together that they named me after the city.”

“They named you after Scottsdale?”

“Yeah. It’s stupid, really.”

“I don't think so, actually.” He cleared his throat and reached up to adjust his rear-view mirror. "You underestimate yourself sometimes, Scott."

And I left the car, the edgy atmosphere a bit too much for my taste.

|||

When I got back to school the following Monday, the door to Mr. Kite’s environmental systems class that Pat and I ate lunch by had red butcher paper all over it with cut-outs of trees, candy canes, and other Christmas clichés. It was just enough to make me gag.

My relief came in the form of Pat, who soon joined me sans Garrett. I was a little perturbed by his absence, wondering if the incident on Saturday was enough to deprive him of lunch with just one of his only friends in the school.

“Is Garrett here today?” I tried to seem nonchalant, wary if Pat had heard anything from Garrett about how much fun he had on his bed Saturday night.

Not that I didn’t have fun either.

“Why do you ask?” he muttered behind a pepperoni pizza.

“What?”

“You’ve never asked me before is all.”

“No reason. But is he sick or something?” I crossed my fingers for the worst: whooping cough, mono, maybe even a very late, severe case of the chicken pox.

“He texted me that he’d be in the library working on his rhetorical essay.”

I practically choked on the cracker I had in my mouth.

“Whoa, you okay?” He chuckled and patted my back.

“Yeah,” I croaked out, reaching for my water.

“I know. It surprised me too.” He just laughed and inhaled the rest of his pizza.

The next day, Garrett met up with me before Pat came, carrying a couple of printer pages stapled together. He plopped down in Pat’s spot right next to me, his shoulder brushing against mine, and handed me the paper.

“What’s this?” I wearily asked, scanning over it.

“My essay.”

“What about it?” I challenged, raising an eyebrow and tossing it back to him as he opened his regular chicken salad sandwich.

“I was... I was hoping that maybe you’d proof it,” he slowly said, handing it back to me.

“Proof?”

“Yeah,” he muttered to his sandwich.

“Fine. But that’s my Christmas present to you.”

He chuckled and nodded to his sandwich, took a bite, and asked me through his food, “What do you want for Christmas?”

“Nothing, really.”

Garrett tried for the next couple of days to get it out of me what I wanted for Christmas. I kept shooing him off, especially when he started regularly coming before Pat just to ask me, as if he were being surreptitious about it. After a whole week of covert pleadings on his behalf for me to divulge what I wanted, I finally blew up at Garrett, telling him that Christmas was a stupid holiday and that I hated it. He stopped coming early and waited with Pat in the lunch line instead.

Another day came around that Garrett wasn’t eating lunch with Pat and me. When I asked him where Garrett had gone off to again, Pat shrugged.

“I don’t know. He’s been kind of... atypical lately.”

“Nice use of atypical, Pat!” I gave him a high-five.

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

“But why?” I took a last bite out of my turkey sandwich.

“Garrett’s always been one for Christmas, but he’s been kind of... not in the spirit lately, y’know?”

“No, I don’t know. Care to expand?”

“Well, he’s a big shopper. Like, I don’t even think my mom shops as much as he does around this time of year. He didn’t even keep asking me what I wanted for Christmas after I told him to surprise me. Dude’s always so specific. He just loves the holiday a lot, I guess.”

The entire next week, Garrett was still iffy on whether or not he’d join us for lunch. When Pat asked him where he’d be, he always said he was either in tutorials or feeling sick. Of course, I knew it was entire bullshit, but I didn’t want to concern Pat with all of this.

So instead, I went to Jared.

“He’s been completely flakey, not joining us at lunch, you know? And it’s...” I groaned in frustration, violently flipping a page of the AP I was reading. “It’s like I totally turned him off for Christmas when I said I didn’t want anything and shut him up about it.”

Jared snickered over a sandwich I had begrudgingly made him for lunch. “That’s not the only thing you turned him off from, Scott.”

I regret to inform that I told Jared about the kiss. Of course, I didn’t bore him with the gory details of tongues and Star Wars sheets.

“Shut up, Jared. I’m just... not sure how I can fix this.”

“Well,” he said after taking a last bite of his sandwich and wiping his hands on his own band's shirt, “why don’t you apologize with a Christmas gift?”

“Like I could scrounger up something in a week. I barely know the guy.”

He just shrugged and raided my fridge for a soda.

A few days went by and I got a text from Jared in the afternoon. “Need help with babysitting: 921 Byron Ave.” I texted him back because I didn’t recognize the address, and he said that he was at his cousin’s house and that he needed help with her and her husband’s 18 month-old girl that they left him with.

But when Danny dropped me off and I knocked on the door, Garrett was behind it.

“I am so going to kill Jared,” were the first words out of his lips. He gave me a slight scowl (one I first thought was directed towards me and not mentally for Jared) and smiled before letting me in.

“Jared said he’d be coming over soon to help because his aunt just had a new kid. But I guess he was speaking for someone else.” He walked into the kitchen and I followed him.

“But Jared doesn’t have an aunt.”

He scoffed at this new information like he already knew about it. “But I have an 18 month baby in my hands that my cousin and her weirdo husband left for me to take care of. Like I know anything about kids! I’m the baby in my family for chrissake!” he yelled into the fridge. “Want a soda?” he asked, poking his head around the side.

“Uhm, sure.” I was a little bothered by his attitude like nothing had happened, like I hadn’t totally left him cockblocked on his Star Wars-themed bedspread and then proceeded to single-handedly ruin Christmas for him.

“Here.” He handed me a Sprite and leaned against the counter right next to me, staring me down. “So are you going to help? I can’t take care of Lucy. She’ll die, Scott.”

I opened my soda and nodded. “How hard could it be?”

It was hard, I’m not going to lie. Out of all the things in the world, babies seemed sweet and easy to take care of, but I had never seen such a needy personality out of a child that was only a year and a half old. Garrett and I had to take turns holding her, and at one point, I had to change her diaper before she went to sleep since Garrett refused to even be in the same room with a poopy diaper. And when we finally put her in her crib at 7:30, I felt like I needed to sleep, too.

Which I ended up doing on Garrett’s lap. At least, that’s how I woke up, my head in Garrett’s lap with him looking down at me while the evening news silently played in the background.

“You’re a very peaceful sleeper, Scott,” he murmured, his chin resting on his fist.

“Gee... thanks, I guess.”

“Yeah.”

I don’t know how I always fell into traps where something like this could happen when I least expected it. I sure as hell don’t know how we didn’t notice his cousin and her husband enter the house and come into the room and see us, well...

“Why are you macking some girl on my couch, Garrett?”

I don’t know where he got the reflex from, but he stood up ramrod straight off the couch, leaving me to sit up in place.

“Hey,” he stretched out, rubbing the back of his neck. “How was dinner, Ramona? Was your pasta sweet and nice?”

“Nice try, Garrett. You can leave now.” She chuckled at his flustered appearance, especially when he reached up to flatten his hair.

I might have let my fingers wander.

“Heh.” He grabbed his coat off the arm of the couch and turned around and grabbed my hand, helping me up. “Wait in the foyer, yeah?” He gave me a nervous smile and nodded towards the front door.

“Sure.”

As I walked into the foyer, I heard hushed conversation. I could’ve sworn I heard my name, and despite my better judgment, I was pulled back to the corner to better hear Ramona’s voice.

“Please don’t tell me that was her.”

“I, uh... maybe?”

“Garrett.”

“Yeah, that’s her,” he admitted after a few good silent seconds.

“For goodness’ sake. Garrett, if you like the girl, just tell her. Don’t go toying with her emotions, and most especially her lips.”

“I know, but it’s just... I’m not sure if she likes me back. I mean, what if she-”

“By the looks of it, she does.” I could hear a deep chuckle, most likely from Ramona’s husband. “And Max agrees. Now go home, Gary. Get some rest. I’m sure you’ll need it if you want to pluck up the courage to tell her.”

“But what about my pay?”

“Did I say you were going to get paid?”

“I, uh...”

“Exactly. Now go home.”

When I heard footsteps on wood paneling, I quickly shot back next to the door, seemingly eager to leave with my cardigan I had later put in the foyer in my grasp. “Can you give me a ride home?” I asked, crossing my arms.

“Sure,” he said, opening the door with a slight frown on his face.

“You know,” I said, closing the door behind us, “I had fun tonight. Taking care of Lucy and stuff.”

He turned around on the walkway ahead of me and gave me a small smile. “Yeah... Yeah. Me too.”

The ride home was not tense, but it was awkward. It was more of an uncomfortable silence, though I didn’t know how to remedy it. I tapped my knee and checked my phone for texts, random things to keep me busy and not staring at Garrett like I had caught myself doing the entire ride despite my best efforts. When he dropped me off at home, he didn’t say anything, but returned the small wave I gave him when I shut the passenger door.

And when I entered my room, still more emotionally tired than after any all-nighter I've had, I went on the computer and began my search for Garrett’s Christmas present.

|||

Christmas morning came a couple of days later. To be honest, it was a day pretty much like any other. Danny, the most rambunctious person I ever knew, woke me up at five in the morning to see what we had stuffed in our stockings. Most years he woke me up at six, and I’m sure in my haze of sleepiness I almost threw my phone at him.

Our family opened presents over thick, bitter coffee and waffles with Nutella, a tradition since forever. I refused coffee this morning because all I wanted to do after I ripped some paper off of boxes and posed for my mother’s many photos was to sleep off the emotional fatigue I hadn’t been able to shrug off since Garrett and I baby-sat together two days ago. I was, despite the beliefs of my family, quite happy to get new headphones, some CDs, and a few books, as well as some new guitar strings and picks from Santa, but I wandered into my room after Danny opened his last gift (a leather jacket Mom and Dad had bought him) and fell asleep.

I was woken up at about two in the afternoon, my hair a mess, my teeth unbrushed, and my PJs still clinging to my exhausted body by Danny. I wasn’t very happy to see him and might have flung a few obscenities before he said something about “a guy named Garrett.”

“What about Garrett?” I groaned, my sheets taken from me now in his hands.

“He has something wrapped and with a bow, and he asked for you. Do you want me to tell him you’re unavailable or something...?”

I don’t think I’ve ever been faster at getting out of bed than when Danny said that. I slipped my feet into some slippers and wrapped my hair into a bun before shooting down the steps, Danny calling behind me, “He’s in the family room!”

And he was. He was sitting there with a charcoal, gray, and red argyle sweater and khakis, his acne quite apparent over his flushed cheeks and his hair sticking up in every direction. My mother was spying on him from the kitchen, sipping a mug of steaming coffee as my father rummaged in the fridge. But before she could interrogate me on why an older boy was in our family room wearing such nice clothes and carrying a large box wrapped in Christmas-themed Charlie Brown wrapping paper, I grabbed him by the hand and dragged him upstairs, pretending unaware to the eye my mother gave me and the “Keep your door open!” that soon followed us up the stairs.

“What are you doing here, Nickelsen?” I smoothly said as I closed the door behind me. “It’s Christmas day. You’re supposed to be with family. And by the looks of it, you have.” I crossed my arms and nodded at his posh getup.

“Oh, so we’re on last name basis right now. Must’ve skipped the memo,” he muttered, messing with the gift in his hands.

“Never mind that. I told you not to buy anything,” I said, walking right up to him.

“I-I know, and I just... I didn’t buy it. It’s my old one. Well, it’s practically new. But I got some cash, so I thought I’d give this to you and get myself a new one...”

“Garrett...”

“Just open it, Scott. Please.” He pushed the gift out to me, his eyes quite pleading.

“Doesn’t mean I’ll keep it,” I muttered, grabbing it and setting it on my desk.

I tossed the card it came with on my desk and tore through the paper, revealing a nondescript brown box.

“Gee, I love cardboard boxes. Did Jared tell you?” I mumbled, my hands on my hips.

I heard his footsteps and felt him behind me. He laid a hand on my shoulder and whispered, “Just open it, Scott.”

I quickly grabbed the scissors by my laptop and sliced open the tape, revealing a box full of packing peanuts. I rummaged through and pulled out a box-like product, a plastic cover on top.

“A record player. But...” I lightly laughed. “This is yours, Garrett. And I don't even have any records to use with it.”

“Yeah, but I’ll get a new one soon. I just need to mow the lawn a couple of times-”

I laughed again, set the record player back in the box, and turned around, nearly brushing my nose with his. I cleared my throat, tucking a few stray hairs behind my ear as Garrett took a small step back. I walked to my printer and pulled out the piece of paper I had left there two nights ago.

“This... is yours.”

I handed him the paper, and as he read it, his face changed. A smile grew on his lips and his eyebrows flattened out from being scrunched together. He laughed like I did, but it was a nervous little breath that came from his throat.

“I can’t accept this,” he murmured. “These records are almost a hundred dollars. I can’t, I just can’t,” he said, pulling the Amazon print-out from in front of his face.

“It’s the Love Is Hell vinyls. So what. I’ve had that money laying around for years from babysitting, so I thought I’d spend it wisely on someone that I actually... really care about.” My voice wavered as I continued, and I became the one who rubbed the back of their neck out of nervousness.

“Yeah, but... But I don’t have a turntable. At least not until summer,” he said, creasing the paper in half.

“Then you can just come over and use mine.”

He let out a singular laugh again. “You’re accepting my gift?”

“Well... I couldn’t pass it up.”

“And I could.” He chuckled and nodded his head, taking a short look-over of my room. Then he laughed again, a louder more confident laugh. His cheeks turned red and he smiled.

“What?” I asked, a small smile playing on my lips.

“I just noticed two things.”

“What?” I asked again, hopping up and sitting myself on the back of my wooden computer chair.

“Well, you said you care about me.”

“Yes.” I nodded once, a small smile growing on my lips as his cheeks flushed.

“How much?”

It was my turn again to be stupidly nervous, turning my head to look out my window into the back yard. “Enough to want to kiss you right now. And maybe even some more the next day. And so on,” I mumbled, blushing heavily.

It took him a few seconds to take two large steps across my room, to stand in front of me, toss the paper in his hands onto my desk, to smile at me, to put a warm hand to my cheek, to say, “Me, too,” and to kiss me in a shy, innocent way unlike the two times before.

“You know the second thing?” he said after pulling away, licking his lips, and setting both of his hands onto the chair on either side of my hips.

“What?” I smiled myself and wrapped my fingers together behind his neck.

“Do you not notice it? I gave you my record player, you gave me records that I currently don’t have any use for. We’re the stupid couple of kids. We’re the children that learned on Christmas about sacrifices.” He chuckled again and leaned in to give me another small kiss. “Scott, this is a real-life ‘Gift of the Magi.’”

And we laughed together.