When Everything Is Blue Read online

  In one way it’s pretty awesome. In another way, it seems lonely as hell.

  “Where are your parents?”

  “Charlotte. I was getting too hard to handle, so they sent me here.” He makes air quotes around the too hard to handle part.

  “That sucks.” I frown, feeling bad for him that he’s basically been banished to Florida, probably not the worst place to be sent, but still.

  He shrugs. “My aunt hasn’t started charging me rent yet. Could be a lot worse.”

  I glance around his bachelor pad. It’s kind of dark and dank, a slight funk in the air, though it does look like he tried to clean up before I arrived. The floor is a mishmash of old carpets laid over the concrete, still bare in some places. One window has the air conditioning unit balanced in it, and on the other, instead of a curtain, has a sheet tacked up rather sloppily. There’s also a beat-up leather couch situated in front of an old flat-screen TV and game controls.

  “You want to play FIFA?” he asks. It looks like he has a game on pause.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  We do that for a while, and it’s not too weird. Dave does most of the talking, telling me about his parents, who weren’t too keen on him dating guys and didn’t want his “deviant lifestyle” to influence his little brothers. He doesn’t say it outright, but they basically kicked him out for being gay, which is shitty.

  “So, what are you, like, bi?” I ask.

  “Eh, I’m pretty gay. I’ve only messed around with one girl, and it didn’t really do it for me.”

  That seems weird, considering all the smack talk around our lockers. “What about all those stories you tell?”

  “All true.” He tilts his head and scores a goal on me because I’m not really paying attention to the game. “Just, it was dudes, not chicks.”

  That kind of blows my mind as I recall some of his stories. He’s done all that with dudes?

  “You must have been really popular in Charlotte.”

  He chuckles at that. “With a certain crowd.”

  “Why don’t you just come out with it?” I ask, though I probably shouldn’t judge because I’m not exactly out with it myself.

  “New school. New people. Just trying to fit in, you know? Who wants to be the fat gay kid right out of the gates?”

  I glance over at him. “You’re not fat. A little husky, maybe.”

  He laughs with his head thrown back. He’s got a pretty decent laugh. Like his whole body gets into it. Makes me want to make him laugh again.

  “How about you?” Dave asks. “What’s up with you and Mitcham?”

  I turn my gaze back to the TV screen. At least I don’t have to lie about it. “We’re friends—best friends—since middle school.”

  “You think he’s straight?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  Except there was this one time….

  Dave cocks his head. “I think my gaydar needs a tune-up. All the guys around here look gay to me, but I think it’s just because it’s Florida and everyone’s naked all the time.”

  I smile at that. And the way he says Florida, like “Flaaarida.”

  “It’s pronounced Florida. Otherwise you sound like a tourist.”

  “Thanks for the tip. Seriously, though, why does no one around here wear a shirt or shoes?”

  I never really noticed it before, but people around here do dress pretty skimpy. It’s funny to think about how we might be viewed by outsiders. “Because it’s hot as hell and the beach is always right there?”

  “I saw this guy the other day, wearing a pink tank top—tight too—and I thought for sure he was gay. I was about to move on him, and then this chick comes up and they start making out. I was like, whaaat?”

  I chuckle at that, then wonder about Dave’s gaydar. I’m not sure I have one, because everyone seems straight to me, except a couple of guys at my school who make it known. That’s one of the disadvantages of being low-key about it. If no one knows, then it’s pretty impossible to find each other.

  “What about me?” I ask, straightening up a bit. “Do I look gay to you?”

  Dave pauses the game to glance over, tilts his head, and studies me. Even though I asked for it, his attention still makes me squirm.

  “Your smile,” he says at last.

  “My smile?” That seems completely irrelevant. And people always tell me Tabs has the same smile, so how does that even play out?

  “Your smile is too….” Dave seems to be choosing his words carefully. “Eager.”

  “What? My smile is too eager? I’m, like, the least friendly person I know.”

  “I don’t disagree. But there was something about the way you and Mitcham played off each other. I thought there might be something there. Then, when I found out there wasn’t, I was, like, game on.”

  “Game on, huh?” Maybe I’m not as covert with my feelings as I thought. Or Chris is the densest straight kid on the block. I also wonder what it means to “look” gay. The whole gay/straight thing is so confusing to me. A secret handshake would be so much easier.

  “So, do you just hit on whatever guy you think is hot and hope that you’re right?” I ask him. “Seems ballsy to me.”

  Dave seems to ponder the question. It’s kind of personal. I’m basically asking him to let me take a peek at his playbook. “There are a few factors that go into it.”

  “What are they?” This is truly fascinating stuff.

  “One, hotness. Two, likeliness to beat my ass. Three, level of attraction.”

  I suppose personality and intelligence don’t factor much into Dave’s equation. I’m also not sure that hotness and level of attraction are all that different.

  “Have you ever gotten your ass beat?”

  “Yeah, but not too bad. Even straight guys like a good blowjob.”

  Poof. Mind blown. Straight guys getting blowjobs from other dudes? That’s, like, a thing? Then I start wondering if what happened between Chris and me was just because he was horny and I happened to be there. That’s a truly depressing thought, but it would fit with what happened the morning after. Ugh, to think Chris would use me like that. Or we would use each other. It puts a whole different spin on it.

  Our game ends, and Dave tosses the controller on the floor, swivels toward me.

  “All this talk about blowjobs is making me thirsty. Want a drink?”

  I manage to choke out a garbled response as my cheeks flame up just in case my embarrassment somehow slipped by him. From the smirk on his face, I’m guessing it didn’t.

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Dave grabs me a Gatorade from his minifridge, my favorite flavor, and tosses it to me. I wonder if he stocked up on my account or if it’s just a coincidence. I don’t ask.

  “I could cut your hair if you want,” he says casually.

  I run a hand through my hair. I haven’t cut it all summer, and it’s gotten kind of long and shaggy. Chris usually buzzes it for me, but it’s been awhile.

  “I don’t know if I should trust you with my hair.”

  Dave pulls out his phone and scrolls through his pictures, shows me a few dudes with cool-looking hair. “I cut hair back home. It’s how I made extra money, but I’ll do yours for free. Make sure I’ve still got it.”

  I’m amazed Dave has this little-known talent. Men’s hair. I kind of want to test out his skills, and I can always buzz it off later if I don’t like it.

  “Yeah, sure. Why not?”

  He opens the back door and drags a chair outside to a concrete slab in the middle of a scraggly yard. The grass, or rather weeds, are all rangy and anemic-looking. I’ve become a bit of a yard snob since becoming a lawn maintenance technician. I can tell when a yard is neglected. Maybe I could return the favor by trimming up his weed patch.

  I sit down on the chair, and he brings out a silky black cape, drapes it around my shoulders, and fastens it under my chin with a hair clip. “Should have seen my setup back home,” Dave says. “I had the mirror and the swivel chair. Lights. My t
unes set up in the garage.”

  It sounds like he had a good thing going. It helps to have a skill you can make money from. Maybe because we’ve never had much, I spend a lot of time thinking about how to make money and hang on to it. Chris is the complete opposite. It slips through his fingers like water, to the point where I’m, like, Dude, do you really need that?

  “I’ll come by and mow your lawn for you sometime this week,” I tell Dave.

  He glances around as though just noticing he has a yard, and nods.

  “So, do you have a couple cuts to choose from, or are you all Edward Scissorhands with it?” I ask.

  He smiles. “I’m pretty avant-garde. We’re in the renaissance of men’s hair. Sky’s the limit.”

  I laugh. Dave says some weird shit, kind of like me. Except he doesn’t seem to second-guess everything he says. Just rolls with it.

  “But this being your first time, I’ll narrow down the playing field. You want the Ronaldo, the Neymar, or the Lamela?”

  “Why are you only naming Latin dudes?” I’m still not convinced he’s not a racist.

  “Ronaldo is Portuguese. And they’re all hot men with great hair, though I can do a pretty good Beckham too.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know, man. You’re the expert. Surprise me.”

  He grabs my chin, and I flinch. He pulls back his hand. “Jumpy fella, aren’t you?”

  I don’t know why, but I’m not used to a lot of touching. We’re not that affectionate with one another in my family. My mom’ll kiss my cheek every once in a while. My dad, when I see him, will give me a manly thump on the back to jumpstart my heart. Chris is the only person I’ve ever really been affectionate with.

  “Do you mind?” he asks, holding out his hand.

  “No, it’s fine.”

  He places his thumb at the bottom of my chin and turns my head from side to side, sizing me up. He fastens the hair on the top of my head, uses his clippers attached to an extension cord to shave the sides, then works his scissors over the top. I listen to the insects buzzing around the yard and the steady snip, snip of the scissors. Dave asks me some questions about my family so I give him our setup, how my parents met in Puerto Rico when my dad was in dental school, then they moved here to start his own practice. I skip over the part where he cheated on my mom but tell him they got divorced and my dad’s been pretty absent ever since.

  “You and your sister get along?” Dave asks.

  “Mostly. We used to be closer, but then she got popular and forgot about the rest of us.”

  “That happens sometimes.” Dave fists a clump of my hair and says, “You have great hair. So thick and shiny. You take supplements?”

  I laugh. What a weird question. “No.”

  “Lucky. I’m giving you the early years Lamela, back when he played for Roma. A little treat for myself.”

  I grin because he’s such a strange bird. “You play soccer?”

  “No, but I’m a soccer enthusiast, if you know what I mean,” he says, eyebrows wagging.

  I definitely do, though I never looked twice at the guys on my soccer teams. I played for school last year but decided not to do it again. Too much testosterone. Some of the guys are super competitive, which takes the fun out of it. And it was pretty much my whole life my freshman year, including last summer for conditioning. It’s a lot of time to spend with a group of people you don’t really fit in with.

  Dave uses a straight razor to cut my sideburns, then asks if I’ve started shaving. “Not yet,” I say, a little embarrassed because I don’t exactly know how. I mean, there are YouTube videos, I’m sure, but it’s a little intimidating your first time. I don’t want to, like, slice my lip off.

  “Come inside. I’ll show you how.” He pulls off the cape with a flourish and shakes it out. He even has a little brush he uses to dust the loose hairs off my shoulders. “Mind if I take a picture?”

  I shrug, and he pulls out his phone, snaps off a picture before I even realize he’s done it.

  “Damn, you’re a good-looking kid. I’m saving that one for later.” He winks and gives me a lecherous grin. My neck heats up because I’m not used to the attention to my looks or having dudes tell me I’m hot. Not that I mind. It’s just… different.

  I follow Dave inside to the bathroom, where he flicks on the light. I check myself out in the vanity mirror. My hair does look pretty tight.

  “You can part it this way too,” he says and combs it over the top. “I gave you a hard part, in case you want to use some product to slick it down for when you’re feeling a little more Dapper Dan.”

  “Thanks, man.” I inspect it from a few different angles, wondering what Chris will have to say about it. And my skater punk friends. They tend to rip on anything that looks the slightest bit manufactured.

  “You might want to take your shirt off for this,” Dave says and busies himself with switching out the razor on his blade, one of those old-school reusable ones made of metal. He lines up his instruments on the bathroom counter like a surgeon. I pull my shirt over my shoulders, and even though it’s a little weird having Dave right there in the tiny bathroom with me, it’s not so terribly uncomfortable.

  “I guess this is something I should be doing with my dad, huh?”

  Dave shrugs. “Us lost boys got to stick together.”

  I think about that for a minute, then about Dave, the philosopher-slash-barber with a strategy for deciding which guys he’s going to hit on. I could learn a lot from him.

  In order to show me proper technique, Dave lathers up his own face and I do mine. He uses a straight razor to shave himself, which is pretty badass. I get the old-timey razor. I mimic his strokes on my own face while he gives me pointers on how to angle the blade. Judging from my upper lip, I probably should have started doing this a few months ago.

  When we’re finished, he hands me a towel to wipe off the excess shaving cream. I’m not really that into myself, but I do look pretty damn spiffy.

  “Man-eater,” he says, and we both grin at that. My phone buzzes. It’s my mom asking where I am because dinner’s ready. I didn’t realize how late it’s gotten.

  “I feel like I owe you a tip,” I tell him.

  “Next time,” he says with a twinkle in his eyes. My neck heats up again because I have some idea of what he has in mind.

  I pull my shirt back on over my head and straighten it out. It feels a little unbalanced between us, like he’s done this really nice thing for me and I haven’t done anything for him.

  “Sorry about calling you Asshole Dave,” I say.

  “It’s okay,” he says. “Sometimes I am an asshole. You free tomorrow? You should come by again.”

  We make plans to meet up tomorrow after I get off work, and I skate home as quickly as I can. With the weekdays being so hectic for my mom and sister, weekends are when the three of us make a point to have dinner together. I get home and climb the stairs to find they’ve already started eating without me. Chris too. He eats over so often, he even has his own seat at the table. Chris glances up from his food, catches me in his piercing gaze, then drops his fork. It clatters to the ground, and I duck into the kitchen to get him a new one. As I hand it to him, he stares at me with the singular focus that only he has. I feel my cheeks getting warm.

  “Where have you been?” Mom asks.

  “At a friend’s house.”

  “You cut your hair,” Chris says, giving me the five-point inspection.

  “Yeah, Dave did it for me. He could cut yours too, if you want.”

  “Asshole Dave?” Chris asks, then apologizes to my mother for his language.

  “Why do you call him Asshole Dave?” Mom asks.

  “We don’t anymore,” I say and look pointedly at Chris. My mom doesn’t know much about my personal life, and I prefer it that way, especially with all the feelings I’ve been having lately. The expression in Chris’s eyes is stony. He obviously doesn’t like that Dave and I were hanging out, especially since I’ve been b
lowing him off.

  “It looks good, Theo,” Tabs says. “About time for a new look.”

  I sit down to join them. Arroz con pollo. I haven’t eaten much all day for all the work I’ve done. I devour two platefuls, and my mom congratulates me like I’m a toddler. She’s always trying to get me to eat more.

  After dinner Chris and I go into my room to play video games. Neither of us suggests it. It’s just something we always do. Most of the games are his anyway, and the system used to be his. I think he likes giving me his toys because he knows he can still come over and play with them when he wants. The only game I ever play without him is the Sims, and it’s more like a coping strategy. A while back we made avatars of ourselves, and I spent the summer making them do corny stuff like bake a cake together or go for a drive, give our dog Mike a bath. It’s pathetic, I know, but it did ease my loneliness a little.

  The funk I’ve been sensing from Chris all night continues, even though I try to ignore it. It comes out in his grunts and sighs, getting frustrated in the game when normally he’d laugh it off. I’m about to ask him what’s up when he blurts out, “So, you were hanging out with Asshole Dave all afternoon?”

  “Call him Dave.”

  Chris looks pained by that, like I’ve been disloyal to him. “See any decks you like?”

  I wonder what he’s talking about, then remember the excuse I told him for getting Dave’s number. “Nah, not really.”

  There’s a break in the game, and Chris’s eyes center on my face. He squints a little. “Did you start shaving?”

  My face flames up. Not that he’s trying, but he makes me feel so stupid and childish sometimes.

  “Yeah,” I say like it’s nothing.

  “Did Dave do it for you?” he asks in a low rumble.

  “He showed me how.”

  Chris gets quiet then, brooding. I can feel his irritation reaching out to me like tentacles, lifting the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck. It puts me on edge.

  “I could have showed you,” he says sullenly.

  I glance over and see that he’s really hurt by it. His lower lip juts out in an adorable pout, perfect for sucking on, I think, then scold myself for the mental slip. I don’t know why I didn’t think to ask him. Just, we’re so close—too close, it seems—and our relationship is so confusing already. I’m trying to simplify things. Strictly bros.