Page 29 (1/2)

I go to our front closet and pull out the hideous orange polyurethane beast I put it on and head back to ht"

I don’t even have ti to say I have to hope they’ll be there when I need them

Boy Loses Boy

I throw pebbles at Noah’sFinally the light goes on He opens theand looks out Then he starts throwing the pebbles back at me

"Go away," he whisper-shouts

"I need to talk to you," I whisper-shout back

"But I don’t need to talk to you"

"Please"

He closes theand puts out the light I linger for a ive up It was stupid to cohtfully deserve

As I hit the street, I hear a door open Noah comes out of the house in his bare feet, and I step back onto the curb The neighborhood is la for ravel, then at his paja that stupid vest?" he asks

"My parents in to pull it off

"I don’t re you could take off your clothes," Noah says dryly I keep the vest on

The tone feels almost faht

"I’ him in the eye "I don’t knohat you heard or how you heard it, but I want you to know that it was so that just happened He needed me in a really serious way, so I kissed hi about you, or even aboutabout him"

I pause, then continue "I know that doesn’t ht And I know I’ht now But the bottom line is that I still like you and want to be with you I don’t want to have to wait for Thursday or next week or next year I want to talk to you and be random with you and be ridiculous with you I don’t knohat I want fro What I do know, though, is that I don’t want you to hate me because of one spur-of-the-moment kiss"

I stop here for his reaction His face showsto simply walk away, or lash out at me

"So you did kiss hi" Ihis ’

"Yeah"

"Okay," he says "What I want to know is this All along, I assumed you and Tony were just friends So does this mean it’s more than that?"

I double-take

"What do you mean?" I ask

"I mean, is this the first tih

"Yeah, Tony"