String Boys Page 7

  “Yeah,” Matty said stiffly. “That’s hilarious. You should tell that to the guys on the team and see how they like it.”

  Seth ducked his head. “Sorry. It’s been a while since I played.” And the hell of it is, he was sincere. Here they were, bantering for their life, and the guy was genuinely sorry he didn’t know a basket from a goal.

  “Yeah, well, you do plenty good in track,” Matty said, his voice softening like it often did when they talked to Seth. “You gonna join again in the sp—”

  Then… oh no!

  Castor Durant had stopped, one hand on the pole just inside the door of the bus, one hand on Matty’s arm. “Matty,” he said, his voice a flinty smack to the nads. “Good to see you around. You don’t go to Oak River?”

  “Nope,” Matty said, like this guy wasn’t the whole reason he was taking the bus to a school half the city away. “Got my grades up. Going somewhere else. Gonna go to college.”

  “Didn’t know you turned into an asshole while I was gone.” Castor let go of Matty’s arm so fast, Matty stumbled forward. “See you fags later.”

  Matty whirled, his fists balled up and ready to fly, but Castor was already on the bus and the doors were closing behind him.

  “Asshole,” he muttered. “I’ll shut his filthy mouth and break his filthy teeth—”

  “Matty!” Kelly said harshly, stomach cold. Oh God. Look at his brother, all mad. Because nothing pissed him off more than that fucking f-word. “You’re gonna be late. C’mon!”

  Together they all hustled the two blocks to their fourplex, moving fast enough to leave them breathless. Seth was fumbling with his key as Matty pounded up the stairs, and Kelly paused long enough to put a hand on his wrist.

  “Calm down,” he said softly. “Don’t worry about that guy. He doesn’t even go to school, okay?”

  Seth nodded, then took a deep breath and smiled shakily. “I don’t like that word,” he said, and the expression on his face told Kelly that it had just occurred to him that that word actually applied to both him and Kelly.

  Well, welcome to Kelly’s big gay world. He’d been living with this knowledge for a year.

  “Not my favorite either,” he admitted. “But….” He bit his lip and winked. “It might have its perks.”

  Seth smiled shyly, and Kelly pulled away. “Start practicing your music,” he instructed, backing toward the stairs. “I’ll be down after I do the family thing.”

  Kelly ran upstairs, crashing in through the front door like always, only to practically run over a guy wearing a pastor’s coat in their front room.

  The guy—Mexican like Kelly’s grandma, but leaner, like a basketball coach, and with white mixed in his hair—was standing next to his daughter, a pretty, sloe-eyed girl with a coal black ponytail that had a big curl in the back and a face like a porcelain oval, with an impish twist to her lips.

  Matty was standing next to her, a stiff smile on his face, and Kelly groaned inwardly.

  “You must be Kelly,” Isela’s father said, smiling with too many white teeth. “So nice to meet you. I’m sorry—your father tells me that your family was about to leave. I won’t take much of your time.”

  “Yes,” Mom said, her eyes squashed flat and her mouth pursed. “We are busy—Matty and the girls have games, and Kelly and the neighbor boy do their homework. What can we do for you?”

  Kelly kept his face bland, but he wanted to raise his eyebrows. Do their homework? His mother knew very well that it was his drawing time, but she wasn’t telling this asshole nothing!

  “I was just coming to extend an invitation,” he said congenially. “You called because you seemed to have concerns with the church and—”

  “Our son has learned some very peculiar things from your church,” Dad said, his eyes as narrow as Mom’s.

  “Well, yes, if you don’t understand our beliefs—”

  “I believe people who hate other people need to go,” Mom said distinctly, and Matty let out a whine.

  “Mom!”

  She took a deep breath. “Your stand on the gay population is crystal clear,” she said, pulling back her teeth.

  “We don’t even know any gay people—”

  But Kelly’s mom wasn’t having any of that. “How do you know? You don’t know that. I know people are all worked up about not liking gay people or not liking brown people—how much fun is not liking brown people, Matty? Are you excited about going to a church that says brown people aren’t welcome?”

  They’d all watched the news in horror over the last couple of years, waiting for the men in the big uniforms to come and drag them out of school because they looked like someone who shouldn’t be there.

  “No,” Matty said, his defiance melting. “That sucks.”

  “Yeah, well, this is the same thing—”

  “Except Leviticus said—” Matty protested.

  “Yeah, well, Leviticus said it was okay to sell your daughter into slavery. You try to touch my daughters, and I will cut your balls off.”

  The family stared at Linda Cruz, mouths open.

  “Mom?” Kelly squeaked.

  “I’m sorry,” Isela’s father said, drawing himself up like he’d have magic powers if he was taller. “I thought you were people of good character—”

  “My sons are of the best character,” Dad interjected. “And Matty is free to go to your church with your daughter because that’s his decision. But I’d rather my kids not be exposed to that sort of hate, frankly.”

  Isela’s dad cast a not-too-subtle look at Kelly, and Kelly wondered if he had twink written on his ass or if the guy was just guessing. He didn’t care. Good for Mom and Dad for not putting up with this asshole.

  “Are you sure your other son wouldn’t benefit—”

  “No.” Both parents yelled, in stereo, staring at the guy like he was ICE.

  And then the guy turned to Kelly, and Kelly cocked his head, waiting for it. “Son, are you sure you wouldn’t—”

  “St. Mary’s, downtown, three times a year,” Kelly responded promptly. “Got a picture from my first communion and everything. And no. I don’t think it’s good to shit on LGBTQ people either. Or bite the heads off snakes. Or whip people in secret ceremonies or whatever you people do. Did you know tattoos get you sent to hell too? I swear. It’s in Leviticus and everything.”

  Isela’s dad was still staring, mouth open, so Kelly did what he did. “So, you know, my Dad’s got our names on his arm. If you want to get picky about it, you can send him to hell, but I don’t want him to go to hell ’cause he’s a good dad. And I’m with Mom. Stay away from my little sisters. We don’t want them sold into slavery. And I like my cotton polyester shirts too. Wasn’t that in there? I forget, but you know, there’s a club on campus, and they tell us all sorts of things that are way worse than being gay. And they’re nice and they bring cookies. Anyway. No. I’ll be Catholic until I find something that has better cookies after church. Do you guys do music? Because the music is pretty in the Catholic church—”

  “I’ll just take my leave, then,” Isela’s father said, sounding dazed. “Isela—”

  “Daddy, you said I could go to Matty’s game! You were going to pick me up afterward! When was that, Mrs. Cruz?”

  Oh, that would be a treat, having that girl inside their family, pretending to be all friendly but really looking for a way to send the lot of them to hell. Maybe he was being unfair, but Kelly didn’t really give a shit. He had Seth—finally had Seth—down here, on this planet, actually looking at Kelly’s lips and Kelly was upstairs dealing with this bullshit?

  As though conjured by thought, the strains of Seth’s practice scales floated up through the heating vents like it did sometimes when the neighbors were home and had their heaters on too.

  Everyone in the living room stopped, including Isela’s father.

  “That’s… that’s lovely,” he said, surprised.

  “That’s my friend’s homework,” Kelly said sharply. “And I’m missing
it.” He kept his backpack on, although normally he’d take the art supplies out and leave the backpack there by the door. But his mother had told a lie for him and he’d be damned if he exposed her now.

  “Your friend plays the violin?”

  Well, duh! “He’s transferring to a special school next year,” Kelly said boldly, because he was going to work on Seth about that. He didn’t want Seth to go any more than Seth wanted to leave, but the things that teacher had said—those things were important. So important. That sound wafting up from out of Seth’s apartment was magic. This bozo in his living room could talk about what God wanted all he wanted, but the only thing Kelly knew for sure was that God wanted Seth’s music to be bigger than this little fourplex in Sacramento.

  “That’s….” For a moment, it almost worked. For a moment, Isela Cortez’s father looked like he was about to fall under the same magic spell that everybody fell under when they heard Seth play.

  But apparently his God didn’t like music. And right there was a reason for Kelly to ignore this idiot who wanted to make sure the Cruz family was good enough for his little girl.

  Mr. Cortez shook himself, like he was waking up from a particularly good dream.

  “Is he like you?” he asked. “Of ‘good character’?”

  Kelly looked him in the eyes like an adult. “He’s the best,” he said passionately. Then, without looking away, he said, “Mom. I’m going now.”

  “Fine, honey,” his mother said calmly. “We’ll wave as we leave.”

  And Kelly heard that loud and clear.

  “Okay, text me when you stop for dinner.” Because this was his mother’s night not to cook.

  “We’ll bring you something,” she said, and still, Kelly kept his eyes locked with Isela’s father, as if he was hypnotizing a snake.

  Kelly whirled around and headed back toward the door, but not before he caught his brother’s glare.

  Well, let him glare all he frickin’ wanted. Kelly was done.

  He clattered down the stairs and through Seth’s front door like he always did, pausing to pull the curtains back so anybody who felt like it could look into the front room.

  Seth blinked at the winter afternoon light making its way feebly into his apartment, and frowned. “Why—”

  Kelly shook his head and unzipped his backpack with grim purpose. “My family is going to come downstairs and get into the car and wave, and we gotta wave back. And we gotta make sure Matty’s girlfriend’s useless fucking father sees us, being all chill and making music and doing homework and shit, so he doesn’t tell his little girl that she can’t date Matty because we’re gay. And as soon as all that’s over and done with, you gotta hold me for a little bit with no kissing because I’m so mad—so fucking angry—I need to fucking scream.”

  “Oh,” Seth murmured, and he was so quiet that Kelly turned to see what he was doing. Scowling, Seth put the violin under his chin and, quicker than thought, started playing “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”

  Kelly heard it then, Seth’s anger and frustration, all in the scream of the violin.

  Kelly nodded his head, caught the tempo, and started singing the words, ’cause he’d learned them when Seth had first played this song. When his mother knocked on the window and waved, Kelly was standing next to Seth singing cacophonously because he had no talent, and Seth was just about to start the super hard and fast part that beat the devil hands down.

  Kelly’s mom laughed and nodded, and his sisters waved happily before they all turned toward the car—Isela included, dammit.

  Seth kept playing—because if he knew a song and didn’t make mistakes, he always played through—and had just wrapped up the lightning quick ending when Isela’s father strode by, looking furious.

  “Round two,” Kelly said under his breath. Seth nodded, and they started all over again, Seth playing so hard, the strings were fraying under his bow. Mr. Cortez stopped his stride across the parking lot as they stared at him, and Kelly strode over to the curtains. He’d been watching Seth for years; he understood drama. As the violin hit its final crashing chords, Kelly started to pull.

  The curtains snapped almost shut just as the final chord hit and the third string on the instrument broke with a burst of sound. A two-inch space stayed open in the middle, and Kelly yanked on that, because it was a little bit broken and never shut by itself.

  Seth and Kelly stood for a moment, panting, staring at each other in exultation, and then the quiet cool of the room sank into them. Seth set down his instrument just as Kelly started walking and they met at the couch, hesitating for a breathless moment before Seth cupped Kelly’s cheeks and kissed him hard.

  Kelly moaned. Oh, yes. This is what kissing was supposed to be. Seth’s mouth moved over his repeatedly, tasting, licking, sucking on his lower lip, stroking Kelly’s tongue with his own. Kelly slid his hands around Seth’s waist, slipping behind his back and under his shirt, feeling the thrill of bare skin.

  Seth whimpered and sank down onto the couch, Kelly joining him, mouths fused. Seth pulled away just enough to kiss the corner of Kelly’s mouth, and then his jaw and ear. He paused for a moment, his breath a magical torment.

  “Nibble,” Kelly urged. Feeling Seth’s lips on his earlobe made him sweat.

  Seth tugged, then sucked the lobe into his mouth and nipped, and the thing in Kelly’s pants gave a giant throb.

  Seth did it again and it exploded.

  “Nunghah!” Kelly gasped, pulling away and burying his face in Seth’s neck. “Oh God. Oh God. That’s no fair. No fair, no fair, no fair.”

  “What’s no fair?” Seth breathed, moving to Kelly’s neck.

  “I came, dammit!” The wetness in the front of his pants was spreading, and Kelly wanted to cry. “I wanted to kiss you some—mmmff….”

  Seth took his mouth again, and Kelly’s groin began to swell again. Oh! Dang! Those things were magic, weren’t they? Seth’s whole body was shaking, though, and Kelly needed to help him out. He managed to pull away, and like Seth had, he moved his lips to Seth’s earlobe. He sucked gently, then again, and to his surprise, Seth shook his head no. Instead, he issued a little whine and moved Kelly’s hand to his chest. Kelly pulled away and shoved it under Seth’s hoodie, rubbing his bare skin, cupping to feel the slight mounds of pectorals, developed nicely from holding the violin. Seth made a sound in his mouth, and Kelly found flat nipples and began to gently pinch, making them not so flat, making them hard and sensitive and—

  Oh! Seth groaned loudly and arched his hips and Kelly gave a long, firm pinch—

  Seth groaned again and bucked up against Kelly’s thigh, shaking hard, like a violin string about to snap.

  And then he broke.

  The two of them collapsed onto the couch, Seth prone, Kelly on top, trembling in the coolness of the shaded living room.

  Kelly didn’t want to get up, but the wetness in his shorts was getting cold and clammy and urgent.

  “Seth,” he mumbled. “Seth, I’ve got come in my pants.”

  “Yeah,” Seth said, sounding shocked. “So do I. I didn’t know I could do that.”

  Kelly pulled back and squinted. “You never had a wet dream? A fantasy? Rubbed one out after dark?”

  Seth’s face, which had gone blotchy under the faded clay-brown of his skin, was suddenly suffused with a rosy undertone.

  “No,” he said, sounding lost. “I… I didn’t know I liked boys.”

  “Then what did you dream about?” He was such a mystery, this boy Kelly had loved forever.

  “Music,” Seth said simply. “And sometimes your eyes.”

  Kelly giggled, burying his face against Seth’s throat. “You’re such a faraway boy,” he said, rubbing his cheek against Seth’s. “But you dreamed about me.”

  “Your eyes make me happy,” Seth said, kissing his hair.

  “You make me happy,” Kelly told him, closing his eyes. His heart was so big, it hurt.

  THEY WASHED.

  Kelly went upst
airs and started a load of laundry and put on clean sweats and new underwear. When he got back downstairs, Seth was in clean clothes, and his hair had droplets of water in it.

  Seth was standing in his practice corner, tuning his newly strung violin, and he startled self-consciously when Kelly opened the door. Kelly laughed. “This is gonna be complicated,” he said, because it had finally dawned on him. “We’re gonna be jumping like rabbits at every sound in the building! How we gonna live? I mean—”

  Seth scrubbed his face with his hand and set his violin down. “Calm down,” he said, walking over to shut the door behind Kelly. “Look at the clock.”

  Kelly looked over his shoulder at the microwave. “Six o’clock.”

  “Dad gets home at seven thirty. So we’ve got time. Here.” He pulled out his phone and set it for seven fifteen. “Let’s do it this way. You and me, we’ll be boyfriends until seven fifteen.”

  Kelly kissed him quick. “That’s not long enough. I want to be boyfriends forever.”

  Seth’s cheeks washed pink some more. “I mean, we can act like boyfriends,” he mumbled. Then he frowned. “Why can’t we tell people?”

  Kelly put his hands over his eyes. “Because my brother’s girlfriend’s father’s an asshole, and my brother’s starting to smell like the same kind of asshole. And because we don’t know what your dad will do. And because if we go walking down this street holding hands, we’ll get the crap beat out of us. And….” This one was really selfish and personal, and he was almost embarrassed. “And because my parents don’t let Matty and Isela stay in his room with the door shut. If they find out we do what we just did, they’re going to make me go watch everybody play soccer and keep the curtains open forever. I might not ever find out what made that big wet spot on your jeans.”

  Seth smirked, looking like a normal sixteen-year-old boy. He would be seventeen in February, and for this tiny bit of time, after Kelly’s birthday in late November, they were only one year apart.