Dirty Little Secret

I pulled into the driveway of the address Zack had written out for me, narrowly missing the mailbox. I turned off the car and sat there for a minute, not wanting to get out. I was still angry with Zack and didn’t even want to be here right now. Why did I have to get stuck with an asshole for a partner?

I sighed and got out of the car, bringing my backpack with me as I walked up the steps and rang the doorbell. I heard footsteps and a woman opened the door, smiling at me. “Oh, hello! You must be Jack!” she said, ushering me inside. “Come in, dear. I’ll take your jacket for you.”

“Thanks. You must be Zack’s mom,” I said, slipping my jacket off and handing it to her.

She nodded, hanging it on a hook near the door, “Yes, I’m Zack’s mom. Would you like something to drink? We’ve got a lot of soda and some water and juice.”

“No, I-” I started, but she pulled me into the kitchen with her. Huh. So my mom isn’t the only overly sweet one.

“Do you like Pepsi?” Mrs. Merrick asked, holding a can out for me.

“Yeah, I guess, but-”

“Take it then. You’re such a skinny little thing!” she said, looking me over.

I blushed, “Where’s Zack at?”

As if on cue, Zack came walking into the kitchen. He looked alarmed when he saw his mom talking to me, “Mom! Why didn’t you tell me he was here?”

“I called for you when I heard the doorbell ring, honey. You must not have heard me,” his mom said with a shrug.

“Come on, Jack. Let’s go upstairs and start working,” Zack mumbled, motioning for me to follow him.

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Merrick,” I said as I walked out the door, following Zack. How could his mom be such a sweet lady when he’s such an asshole?

Zack led me up to his room and opened the door, and I was surprised to see that it looked similar to mine. He had a full sized bed in his room with the same Ravens blanket I had, and he had band posters and football posters all over his walls. He had a bunch of trophies and stuff on a shelf too.

“Sorry my mom is so talkative,” he apologized, shutting his door.

“It’s okay,” I said shortly, shifting my backpack on my shoulder.

“My room isn’t messy as yours was,” he added with a smirk, noticing me looking around his room. I just frowned at him and didn’t reply. He cleared his throat awkwardly and pointed at a spot on his floor with a bunch of supplies, “I got the stuff for our DNA model. We can start on that.”

I nodded, sitting down on the floor. Zack sat down across from me, silent now. His smirk had faded once he realized I wasn’t going to encourage his jokes. We worked on the project for a while, trying to avoid talking to each other, but it didn’t work out because we were trying to build the model together.

“Hand me the glue,” I said, holding my hand out.

“Glue? Wouldn’t tape work better?” Zack asked,

I frowned, “I asked for the glue.”

Zack shrugged and handed it to me before continuing to work on his end of the model. I used the glue on the part I was working on, then continued doing so. As soon as we turned it, the pieces I had glued together fell apart because they weren’t dry yet. Zack laughed, “I told you the tape would work better.”

“Fuck you.”

“Come on, we can fix it,” he said, still chuckling.

I shook my head, “It’s no use; it’s all messed up. It looked bad to begin with. We need to use different material. What else could we make it out of?”

“Candy,” Zack said, eyes lighting up.

“This isn’t the time to be stupid, Merrick.”

“No, seriously! Stay here. I know what we can use. I’ll be right back.” Zack jumped up and ran out of the room, leaving me confused. How the hell did he expect to make a DNA model out of candy?

I put all of the other supplies into a pile before leaning against Zack’s bed, crossing my arms and waiting for him to come back. He walked back into the room a few minutes later and dropped bags of licorice, candy gumdrops, and toothpicks on the ground in front of me. “I still don’t get it,” I said, shaking my head.

“We can use the different colored licorice for the sides and different colored gumdrops for the nitrogen bases. The toothpicks are to hold everything together,” Zack said, sitting down across from me with a triumphant look on his face.

I looked at him, dumbfounded, “How did you even think of that?”

“I looked up ways to make a DNA model online the other day when I got the supplies, and candy was a suggestion,” he said with a shrug.

“Well, sounds good to me. Let’s do it.”

We spent the next hour or so putting the model together, and it was a lot easier than the other stuff we had been using. Sure, it was kind of sticky and we probably ate more candy than we used, but the model turned out good.

“This looks so cool!” Zack said, holding our finished model up with two hands.

“Don’t break it,” I warned.

“I won’t break it. If anything, I’ll eat it,” he scoffed, setting it down in a shoebox.

“I should be heading home for dinner. It’s already six-thirty,” I said, standing up and grabbing my backpack.

“Okay,” he said, glancing up at me as he set the shoebox on his desk. I started to walk out of his room, but he said, “Hey, Jack?”

“What?” I questioned, turning around to face him. His face turned red and he rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably.

“I, uh, I’m sorry I was such an asshole at lunch yesterday. I really shouldn’t have made fun of you. I was just... I...” he said gruffly, trailing off.

“You wanted to make me look stupid in front of everyone.”

“No,” he said quickly, shaking his head. “I felt bad about making fun of you, honestly. I felt even worse when Alex yelled at me. I just didn’t want to act like I’m favoring you or something, you know? If it had been anyone else, I would have made fun of them too.”

“It’s reassuring to know that I’m not the only person you’re an asshole to,” I said dryly.

He sighed, “You understand what I’m saying, don’t you? If I didn’t say anything, the other guys on my team wouldn’t have let me live it down. I kind of have a reputation to keep up.”

I rolled my eyes, “A reputation for being a complete asshole.”

“Yeah, I know. But I’m sorry. I realize making fun of you for being, uh, gay, was pretty horrible. It really just slipped out; I wasn’t thinking. I promise I’ll never do it again,” Zack promised, looking sincere enough that I believed him.

“Thanks. I’ll um, see you later,” I said, smiling slightly as I left his room. Okay, so maybe he’s not a complete asshole.