You Could Be My Compass

It had seemed like a good idea at the time that Alex suggested it. But now, as he sat awkwardly on the couch next to Jack, looking at the four people sitting/laying on the floor, he thought that maybe they should’ve eased into it more. One person at a time, perhaps. Or maybe just another group of people. These weren’t the best sample of the average population. Too late now. “Erm,” he said, clearing his throat. “Jack, this is Rian,” he said, gesturing towards one of the boys sprawled out on his living room floor. “He kind of accidentally got stuck with me. Long story. I won’t bore you with the details and neither will he.” He spoke with just a hint of warning that left when he pointed to the girl next to Rian. “This is his girlfriend Cassadee. They’ve been together since they were fetuses.”

She rolled her eyes while he argued, “Freshmen, Alex. We were freshmen.” It appeared that it was an old joke, one that Jack wasn’t in on. Alex could tell he felt left out. He knew how it felt to be the odd one out in a group that had a lot of in-jokes. It was uncomfortable until they started to let you in on things. But would they accept Alex wanting to just plunge Jack right in, or would he and Jack end up splitting off from the group like Alex had always assumed they would when he returned?

The other girl quietly sang The Freshman by The Verve Pipe until Cassadee hit her arm. “This one’s Lisa,” Alex continued. “Rian spent an inordinate amount of time trying to set us up.”

“But then I realized that I’m not his type,” Lisa explained. Cassadee laughed. Another inside joke. Jack shrank back into the couch almost imperceptibly. Alex noticed and gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

“Lisa,” Rian sighed. “How many times do I have to tell you? Just because a guy’s not into you doesn’t mean he’s gay!”

She shrugged nonchalantly. “I’ve never met a gay guy that was into me or a straight one that wasn’t.”

“Association does not imply causation,” the second boy, who Alex hadn’t yet introduced, muttered under his breath.

“Zack,” Cassadee hissed, sounding exasperated but also amused. “No statistics talk around new people. We’ve been over this. We don’t want another War of the Roses incident!”

“And that’s Zack. Kind of a perpetually single quiet stoner gym-freak nerd type.” As Alex said it, he asked himself is that even a type? If it was, it was very specific, pertaining to only a few individuals. Such as Zack. “I mean, we all think he’s a stoner. He won’t say either way. He definitely acts like one.” Zack grinned lazily but gave no other response.

“To be fair, Lisa was partly to blame in the War of the Roses incident,” Rian said to Cassadee.

Without Jack having to ask, Alex gave him a look that clearly said, I’ll explain later. “Aaaand,” he concluded dramatically. “That’s everyone. Oh, yeah. Everyone, this is Jack. But you all knew that anyway.”

“So, Jack,” Lisa began. “Are you single?”

“No, Lisa,” Rian responded sarcastically before Jack even had the chance to answer. “He’s been gone since he was twelve and has been back for less than a week, but he already has a girlfriend.”

“It was just a question.”

“Lisa, you’re gonna scare him off,” Cassadee chastised. “We’ll never get to hang out with him again.”

Jack had to endure another hour and a half of this. Lisa persisted with her flirting, Cassadee and Rian tried to keep her under control while play-bickering with each other, and Zack stayed silent except for when he corrected their adjective/adverb usage. Jack said approximately ten words the entire time. Alex was torn between being amused and feeling bad about the situation.

When they were gone—after making them promise that they’d meet up again soon—Alex snickered. And then he couldn’t help it. It was slightly hilarious. “I…am…so…sorry,” he gasped between laughs.

Jack didn’t find it very funny. “Well, that might have been the most painful two hours of my life,” he observed, stretching out and laying so his head was in Alex’s lap. “Are they always like that?”

He got his laughter under control a couple minutes later and answered, playing with Jack’s hair absentmindedly. “I’d like to tell you no, they aren’t always like that and they just wanted to impress you; or that they were exaggerating what Zack would call their ‘idiosyncrasies’ but since I don’t speak like an SAT practice book, I’d just call them ‘weird habits;’ or that that was a test that you passed to make sure you aren’t, like, a judgmental douche. But—”

“So they are always like that?”

He nodded seriously. “’Fraid so. But you get used to it. Rian and Cass aren’t so bad, and Lisa is bearable once she’s not trying to get in your pants. Zack…well, I still don’t know what’s up with him, but he’s a great bro to have around.”

“And what the hell is the ‘War of the Roses incident?’ I’m dying to know.” Beneath the sarcasm, there was obvious curiosity. He got comfortable and then looked up at Alex expectantly.

“World history sophomore year. There were eighteen of us in the class and for our final grade, we had to split into three groups of six and do a project. We had to do a timeline about the War of the Roses. There were five of us—me, Rian, Cass, Lisa, and Zack—so this other guy, Matt, who I think was new that semester, he had to join our group. We all went to Cassadee’s house to work on it. Lisa wouldn’t stop hitting on him, kind of like what you just went through, but worse—yeah, believe it or not, that was toned down for her. Zack didn’t say a single word to him, but he kept silently correcting everything anybody tried to do and made a huge probability chart about various events and whether they really happened the way the books say they did. Rian and Cass were being all couple-y and fake-normal, you know, like the more normal they tried to pretend to be, the more out-there they seemed. I probably showed whatever personality flaws you can pick out in me. I guess we terrified the poor kid. The next day, we found out that he’d gone to the teacher and begged to switch groups.”

Jack was quiet for a moment before finally speaking, carefully saying every word, trying to make sure he really got his point across. “Alex, you know I love you to death and everything, but your friends are neurotic.”

Alex chuckled. “You’re one of my friends too,” he reminded him, fingers still combing through his black hair.

“Yeah, but they’re…I dunno.” He yawned and closed his eyes. “I’m sleepy, A—wait!” He sat straight up again. “Are you doing that on purpose?” he accused.

“What?” Alex asked, bewildered. Then it dawned on him. Jack always got really tired when people played with his hair. “Sorry. I forgot. I’ll stop,” he offered.

“Nah,” he decided, leaning against Alex slightly. “But it’s not my fault if I fall asleep on you.”

“I guess I can forgive you for that.”

“And how’d Rian get stuck with you?” Jack asked, yawning again.

“I told you. Long story. Really boring. Not worth telling, trust me.” He spoke too quickly, with an implied even if you beg, I’m not telling.

If Jack hadn’t been so tired, he would’ve persisted, but instead he just closed his eyes and shrugged. He’d ask again later, when Alex was least expecting it.

“I really am sorry for throwing all of them in your face at once. They can get pretty intense, but they’re not half-bad as far as—” He stopped when he realized that Jack had, indeed, fallen asleep on him.

A smile spread across his face as he looked at him. It reminded him of when they were younger and tried to pull all-nighters. Back then, staying up till two or three in the morning was a big deal. It would get to about that time and they’d have competitions to see who could stay up the latest. Alex usually fell asleep first, but there had been a few times when he’d looked over to find Jack fast asleep, or Jack had gone to sleep leaning on him, just like now.

It felt right. Like this was the way it was supposed to be. Alex had been through five years not knowing where Jack was and now he was back and everything had switched back to normal just like that.

But he also suddenly had the overwhelming urge to kiss him. Not on the head/cheek/forehead/nose like usual. No, Alex found himself really wanting to kiss his best friend on the lips. And yeah, that was weird. What was he supposed to do? Act on it? Assume it was just a fleeting thought? Ignore it and never think about it again? He was very glad that there was a knock on the door before he had the chance to start overanalyzing it.

In getting off the couch, he woke Jack up. “This’d better be important,” he mumbled.

Alex rolled his eyes at him, not that he could see from the living room, and opened the door. Yeah, he’d say this was important.

It was Jack’s dad.