Two Cans and a String

On the weekend, the park bustles with parents and their kids and their dogs and their portable barbecues. It’s an unusually hot and dry day for April. I’m perched on the tailgate of Will’s truck, which he’s parked on the grass next to an open green space. There, I watch as he scrimmages with a group of friends. Their hoots and hollers carry through the entire area.

Lauren sits beside me. We were good friends in high school, but lost touch when she travelled six hours north to attend university. This is her first weekend back. I listen to her talk as I swing my legs of the edge of the vehicle.

We squint against the early afternoon sun and she catches me up on her life, even telling me about seemingly personal events like losing her virginity to a boy who lived on the same floor as her in the dormitory. The tales of her college shenanigans settle a weight in the pit of my stomach. I picture every one with myself in the background. They could’ve been my memories.

Letting her chipper voice drone in the background, I pinpoint Will in the cluster of boys running back and forth. He wears a baggy, black short sleeved shirt and it contrasts against his milky skin. The pale blue leather cleats he wears are tattered. He receives the ball and carries it a few metres before passing it off. The intricate foot movements come naturally. From the fluidness of his actions it’d be simple for any stranger to recognize his experience with the game. As I observe, I can’t help but take note of how lazy and comfortable and in his element he seems. This is probably a nice break from the intensity of the regular drills he tells me about.

I’m not sure what our relationship is anymore. Our nights now are filled with the same stories and offhanded comments as before, except our words are gentler and warmer and I had no idea that was even possible. Instead of remaining on our respective roofs, we congregate on one and sit with our shoulders pressed together or our limbs intertwined. I’m no longer satisfied with just the deep rumble of his voice, but need his warm breath fanning over my skin and his heartbeat thudding against my ear, too.

As if on queue, he looks at me and a show stopping grin spreads across his handsome face. Then he swaggers in our direction.

“Oi, William!” Lauren’s voice rings like a bell in greeting. At nearly the same time, a guy named Miller shouts, “Thorbes, we need you to win!”

Will turns to answer, continuing walking towards us except backwards and Lauren leans into me, whispering, “He’s got a nice ass.” I can only laugh because he does. “How’s that injured ankle?” Lauren asks when Will turns back around. She tucks a loose strand of blonde highlighted hair behind her ear, smirking.

The two of us attended the same school as Will but had differing social circles, so the two only know each other through me. They’re close enough to toss goodnatured jabs back and forth. So when Will replies that it’s not injured and Lauren tells him that she thought it was because he played like shit, I’m not surprised.

“Ouch,” Will feigns hurt.

“Your ankle or your pride?”

He ignores the second insult, instead focussing his gaze on me. A few tendrils of his dark hair stick to his forehead until he pushes them back. I wanted to push them back for him. “I gotta go,” he says, “D’you want a lift or are you staying?”

There are too many things that I can’t decide if I want. I don’t know if I want to reapply to the school of my dreams or if I want to play it safe at community college. I don’t know if I want to continue living in a house with a mother who’s constantly crying and a father who’s constantly sitting at the dining room table, shuffling papers and threatening to sell the damned place. I don’t know if I want to speak to Will about what’s happening between us or if I just want to see how it plays out. I don’t know what I want to do with my life and I don’t know what I want to do about that.

But I do know that I want a lift.

“I’ll come with you,” I answer. Lauren squeezes my hand in goodbye before hopping off the tailgate and meandering toward the shouting boys. Her narrow hips sway as she walks and she yells something at them, causing a laugh from the group.

Will watches me watch her then offers me his hand. It engulfs my own, somehow warming my entire body. “Mo,” He says, tugging me up, “How’s Lauren?”

“Good.” I say absently. I’m still examining the people in the distance. They’re the same people I saw in high school, but they’re somehow fuller now. More real and defined. Less compressed. Themselves but more. Lauren’s hips never used to sway when she walked. She never used to yell jokes at people. “Different.” And then I add, because it’s just me and Will and I trust him more than anyone with my words, “Harder to listen to.” They have gone and returned and have changed while I’m still the same.

“Yeah,” He smiles sadly to himself, crossing his arms over his chest. “That’s why I had to get out of there.” Will tilts his head in the direction of the scrimmage. The tendons in his neck pull and I can’t stop myself from staring at them. The sun glints off the silver, medical ID necklace peeking out from beneath his tee. “It’s hard to find things in common when you no longer spend eight hours a day together.”

This kind of conversation would normally be saved for our rooftops at one in the morning. I like the change in context and how I don’t have to squint to decipher the blue pigment in Will’s eyes. How the warmth in the air matches the warmth in my chest. “I wonder if they think the same thing about us.” I run my index along the side of the rusted patches of the pickup. I don’t believe anyone could ever find it difficult to listen to Will.

“Probably,” he shrugs in response, then guides me to the passenger door. It squeaks when he opens it and then leans with his hand cupped over the top of it, so I have to duck beneath his arm to drop onto the plush seat.

His gross, sweaty scent fills my nostrils when I pass beneath him. My face scrunches reflexively. As I adjust myself on the seat so my legs hang out the door, I bluntly state, “You stink.”

He’s braced against the car. One arm hanging off the door and the other gripping the roof. He barks a rough laugh, looking at the same place I had been earlier. Our high school friends and peers continue goading each other. As Will left, Miller had shouted at that they’d needed him to win, but at that moment he scores a goal himself, slides across the grass on his knees and pulls his shirt over his face.

“They seem to think so, too,” He smiles at them, turns to me and smiles bigger. And then he’s leaning toward me and gently resting one of his palms on my thigh and printing the the sweat from his forehead onto mine, like he's thinking about it. Like he's seriously considering planting his lips onto mine.

I want him to. Oh, boy, do I. But he must decide against it, because before either of us move even a millimetre more he is gone, looping around to find his place in the driver’s seat. .