Pretty Boy

2 of 7

Sitting in my bedroom, back propped against the headboard and pillow propped on my lap, I looked through Tumblr on my tablet. Not my dash, of course, but rather Avery’s. I was smart enough not to reblog though.

I’d seen him in passing before, briefly. He was generally picked on, being the only openly gay boy in the school. We had the odd girl or two. I’d never acted out with the teasing, of course, as that’s not really my thing despite being the quarterback for our play-off winning football team. My friends and I just never saw the fun in it; at least, never physical bullying. I’d say a teasing word to anyone here and there, and when Avery had stepped in front of me in the hallway the words “pretty boy” tumbled from my mouth without me thinking on them. And when he turned and looked up at me with those dark eyes and porcelain cheeks I regretted my words a bit because they were pretty much fact. How can you tease someone of a fact about them?

I’d texted him to discuss the comic I finished tonight, but I hadn’t heard back from him yet. Granted, it was eleven at night and maybe he slept early. I mean, most teenagers get up early in the mornings so going to bed early seemed plausible. I was never influenced in that manner; Tumblr affected me too much. But if he does go to sleep early, he is even more precious than I originally thought.

I can feel my cheeks turn red as I come across a gif of two men kissing, definitely naked, in their own bed. I wish I wasn’t so fair skinned, and that my emotions didn’t show on my sleeve and my cheeks. It would be so much easier to be cool around boys you like, such as Avery. It was hard to keep my cool around him.

I wasn’t exactly out yet. I mean, I’d never had a reason to come out. I knew I liked boys when I was twelve and my friend Charles wanted to watch lesbian porn, but when I searched it myself it only freaked me out. A woman’s body can be a beautiful thing, but it is not for my taste. The next day I looked up gay porn and I’ve pretty much been homosexual ever since (I’m kidding- I was obviously born this way). But, I wasn’t stereotypical in the way Avery was and I never had a reason to tell people as I’d never had a boyfriend. Never found someone I wanted to be my boyfriend but… Maybe that’s changed.

Even in the dark in my bedroom alone I am blushing.

There’s a spurt of reblogs that are nothing but different pastries. I can’t help biting my lip and smiling to myself as I see Avery’s commented on how much he craves chocolate. I wonder if he went through a pastry phase. I have those sometimes. Not pastries, I mean, just stuff I got through phases with. Last month, I drank milk with every meal. Even chocolate milk (I refuse to grow up).

Sighing to myself, I rub my eyes slightly and flip my tablet off. I set it on my bedside table and slip under the covers, my head resting on the pillow as I stare into the darkness thinking about Avery, and his dark eyes, and how despite being labeled as a dweeb in school he was the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen, and how he likes pastries, and how I like chocolate milk. And that kind of seems like a match, to me.
~

For once, I’m not thinking about Avery. It’s Friday, and that means game night. No one does Friday Night Lights the way this town does. Everyone comes out for home games, even the fire station brings their trucks to honk their horns during touchdowns. Small Town USA is the place to be, especially when you’re a star quarterback college scouts are in the stands for. That’s me, by the way.

Charles is talking to me in the huddle, and I’m intensely focused on his words. My eyes stare at his mouth as he speaks, and I try to focus on what he’s saying but sometimes it’s hard through the football lights and screaming fans. He’s telling me a play he thinks we need to do, which is actually the opposite of what my coach has yelled, and we all know that’s the biggest problem in this realm. The possibility of doing the wrong thing is too great and if I mess up that’s on me. Not on Charles, not on the person who the play was wrong for. Me. And I’m not sure if I’m willing to take that.

But… he’s right. The second play is the best thing that I can do. The seconds are ticking away and we need another touchdown to secure our win and move on to the next round of playoffs and I’ll be damned if I am the reason we don’t do that.

“Okay,” I say, nodding my head. “We go with Charles’s plan.” Everyone seems hesitant, and I know they don’t want to do it. I feel bad, for a moment, that I’m calling a different play than my coach said. But I’ve got a gut feeling and I need to follow through with it.

I slip my mouth piece back into my mouth, biting down on it to wedge it into place. We break, clapping our hands together and moving to take our positions. I glance unsurely at the sideline, before deciding I can live with the consequences of what will come. Moving forward, I push my hands between Charles’s legs, just barely touching him. God, what would they say if they knew I was gay? I found the thought kind of amusing.

My heart pounds for a few seconds before I call the play, and the ball is snapped back into my hands. I run backwards, head searching wildly for my open man. And there he is, right where he’s supposed to be. There’s only two minutes left on the clock and we’re only a point ahead of the other team. I can’t even hear the screaming fans at this point, just my heart in my ears.

My eyes trail, watching where the runner is supposed to escape to, when movement from the corner of my eye distracts me. You aren’t supposed to get distracted during games. Especially at this moment, but it happens and my eyes stray from my open running back to the crowd, where just to the side at the gates stand a small figure, clad in a too large sweater, with dark hair and washed out skin in the Friday night lights. It’s Avery.

Two seconds pass before I look back to my player whose hands are raising into the air. My arm rears back and swings forward, sending a spiraling football over the heads of opponents before it lands neatly in his arms. Someone slams into me from the side, tackling me down, knocking the wind from my chest by surprise. My head lifts from the green grass to see Avery still standing alone, hands resting in the gate, one hip pushed forward in a feminine manner.

A firetruck horn blows. The fans scream. We just made a touchdown.
~

I pace nervously back and forth in front of the cafeteria doors. My friends had already passed me up asking what the hell I was act like this for, but I’d been unable to tell them. Maybe a touch unwilling but I’m not ready to think about that.

Summoning up my balls, I push through the heavy doors and look around at all the students, chatting with their friends and gossiping to their hearts content. And in the midst of it all, sits a short boy at a table alone, shoulders hunched forward as he reads what might be a book or what might be a comic book. I’ve found either way, Avery is kind of a nerd. And I am kind of really attracted to that.

I swallow the thick lump in my throat, reaching behind me into my backpack and pulling out the white bag I got from the bakery this morning. It has a cheese Danish, chocolate croissant, bear claw, macaroon, and a streusel. Honestly, I just picked out the things that looked good because I wasn’t sure what Avery would like and I didn’t want to embarrass myself by buying one thing and the one thing be the wrong thing but at the same time I didn’t want to buy anything because what if Avery thought it was weird and he thought I was lame and yeah. You can seem my dilemma.

“Hey, pretty boy,” I blurt out when I get to the table, the honest to god first thing I’ve said to him since we exchanged numbers and he gave me the comic. I am an embarrassment to the human race.

“Huh?” Avery makes some sort of noise, before he lifts his nose from his book and looks up at me. Oh god. He is smiling. His teeth are really white. His eyes are really dark. His lashes are really long. He has a button nose. I get a big whiff of- is that floral perfume?

Oh. Oh god.

“I- I got you some pastries because-” I blurt out, way too loud. People from the tables surrounding us look over and start to whisper, but I’m too busy forcing myself to look Avery in the eyes as my cheeks burn red and my throat gets sticky. I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t. Avery is just staring and he isn’t smiling and clearly this was a bad idea. I have to explain myself. “I read that they were your favorite on your blog so-“ Oh, oh fuck. Now he’s going to know I searched for him on Tumblr. He is going to know I’m a stalker. Oh god. I fucked up.

“Sit with me,” his voice suddenly says, and I look down to see he’s actually smiling and he isn’t disgusted.

“Y-Yeah,” I blurt out, sitting down hard on the chair across from him. The table even shakes, oh goddamn I hate myself so much. “Okay,” I say, placing the pastries on the table so hard that the streusel breaks in half. “Shit,” I say, staring at the bag and I can literally feel the heat coming off my cheeks. I’m sure Avery can feel them from over there. But he just giggles, and it sounds like wind chimes. How fitting.
♠ ♠ ♠
:D I love Jacob