Page 43 of Sweat

While I wait for Rowan to pull up, I fold the laundry Ma left on the living room sofa. She’s in the bathroom, scrubbing Mav’s fingers with nail polish remover. When I picked him up from day camp, his short nails were painted sparkle-purple. He said his friends, Brenleigh and Aurelia, were painting their nails and they offered to paint his too. When he asked me what I thought, I wasn’t sure what to say, so I told him what I figured Mav would tell me if I painted my nails. “It looks awesome.”

Ma didn’t agree. She balked when she saw him, like he came home with a fresh neck tattoo. Had me start on dinner while she wrote an email to the day camp that it was irresponsible of them to allow two girls to paint her grandson’s nails.

“He’s six!” I shouted through the walls while Mav sat teary-eyed on my bed, thinking he was in trouble. “It doesn’t matter! He was just playing with his friends!”

Because I know how much Ma hates shouting, I wasn’t surprised that she stormed into my room and gave me a piece of her mind. Some bullshit about how boys need to be friends with boys, not girls.

“He can start hanging out with girls when he’s old enough,” she said. As if the only reason a boy should ever spend time with a girl is to date.

I comforted Mav as best I could while tending to supper, and as soon as the food was on the table, the subject wasdropped. Straight after, Ma took Mav into the bathroom to clean his fingers.

I hear him sniffling through the open door now, and it breaks my heart a little. Makes me wonder what Ma would think if I told her I like men, and that I’m probably gay. I don’t think I’ll ever have a desire to walk around with sparkly nails, but I have an overwhelming desire to roll around naked with the men’s soccer captain. What’s gayer than that?

Two quick honks from the curb interrupt my thoughts and my folding. I shout to Ma that I’ll be home late. Before she can come out and scold me for it, I grab my keys and dip.

The Legacy is full of starters: Rowan behind the wheel, Levi in the passenger seat, Raisel and Connor in the back. Connor shoves over into the middle seat, and I squeeze in to the right of him.

“‘Sup, Tyson!” Levi greets me with his typical bluster. He grips the safety handle above the passenger side window like it’s an ejector lever. Above his head is a small stain from when I came so hard I shot a glob onto the ceiling.

“You good?” Rowan twists his body to look at me between the front seats, one hand on the steering wheel.

“Yeah, I’m good.” I click my seatbelt under Connor’s ass, and Rowan shifts into drive.

Rowan’s wearing a Nipsy shirt, of all things, and black jeans that hug every inch of his lean, muscular legs. I keep two paces back from him as the five of us walk into this house party as a unit, and I lose myself a little in the scent of his cologne. He’s got his smart watch on, black like his Adidas, and his face is clean shaven.

It’s the first time I’ve been around Rowan when he’s this put together and my cock is swelling because of it. When we’re both filthy with sweat and grass stains, the fact we’re hookingup doesn’t seem super shocking, but right now, I’m dumbstruck to think someone as cool as Rowan has literally sucked my dick.

I’m forced to quit staring at him when we walk through the front door and end up in the thick of a rager. What I consider a rager, at least. Music so loud the walls rattle. Clearly inebriated twenty-somethings laughing at the top of their lungs and tossing themselves on top of each other. Beer bottles rolling across the floor and red Solo cups in everyone’s hands. People dancing, grinding, taking turns off each other’s vapes. Just the sort of shit Lese used to beg me to come to. The sort of shit I wouldn’t be caught dead at. Even when I was willing to get high and grind on Lese, I wouldn’t do it in front of a hundred half-strangers.

When I look back to Rowan for guidance, he’s slipping away with Levi and Raisel, deep into the current. He’s a flash of black clothes, then gone.

“C’mon, man!” Connor plants his hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “Let’s get some drinks!”

With Rowan gone, I stick by Connor like a scared puppy, but while he’s whipping up a Connor-Deluxe party cocktail into a cup for me, he spots his girlfriend through the kitchen window. I think to follow him out onto the back deck, but the last thing I want to be is the third wheel to a couple making out and whatever else.

I stay in the kitchen and sip on my drink, wondering where Rowan went. Leaned against the counter, I take out my phone and text him.

Me

Thx for ditching me bitch

He’ll laugh at that and tease me about it later. Hopefully soon.

In the meantime, I end up scrolling Reddit until I remember how many gay porn subs I started following, and I close the app in a flurry.

“Tommy?” a slightly familiar voice chimes in my ear like the high chirp of a morning dove.

I look up from my phone, and a curvy blonde is smiling back at me, a hard seltzer in her hand and the outline of a heart drawn onto her cheek in permanent marker. Eve, it dawns on me. I never got back to her about meeting up, but I still follow her on Insta and tap on her stories now and again.

“Hey.” I tip my chin, but she comes in for a hug.

I give up one of those one-armer hugs like Rowan gave to Connor’s girlfriend the evening I met Eve. When I take my arm back, though, Eve stays glued to me, arms cinched around my middle and swaying like she’s trying to slow dance with me.

“You been drinking?” I ask, chuckling through the awkwardness.

“Just this.” She uncurls one arm to lift her can to her lips and sip. “I ate a brownie, though.”

“Ah.”

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