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Zero, I hope you find a home that makes you feel as safe as Powell’s Books. I’ll never stop fighting for a world where you can safely be who you are. Remember: breathe in for four, hold for seven, exhale for nine. You are not alone. —The lady in the orange corduroy jacket
“Death will someday take me Hope I live a life worth taking Bored with you makes me right I wish we could be bored all of thе time.” ST. PAUL & THE BROKEN BONES
“Shh, that was just a tap,” he soothes, rubbing the spot.
“Stay the fuck away from me.”
He spins to face me. The distance between us not enough to hide the hollows of his dimples. “I wish I could, Blue, but I can’t.”
They’re so certain about each other. In the bleak span of mortality, what does forever even mean? Will it all have been worth it sixty years from now when one sleeps coldly in death? Who will keep the other? Ghosts do not warm.
“I’m just saying, we love hard and we’re loyal hoes. How freaking lucky are the bastards who’ll love us back one day? They won’t ever let go.”
I remembered something my dad said about when one person chooses to evolve, however painfully, they inadvertently influence the people in their radius.
“You know, it’s interesting how you insult in public but apologize in private. Next time, man up in front of everyone or save it.”
They’re so committed to proving and performing their masculinity that they can’t see how it’s reduced their humanity.
I have no interest in belittling and dominating other people to prove I’m strong, and I sure as hell won’t be subjected to it from other people.
I clear my throat, ignore the tap dancing in my chest, and lean into the mic. “But on a more personal note, I’d like to know if Arnaz is single ’cause I’d really like the opportunity to shoot my shot.”
Oh, and I agree with your mother. You’re a handsome young man, and life is short. Stop pussyfooting around and go after Arnaz. I ain’t raise no punk.”
“Hey, Blue, wassup? I have two questions for you. One, are you single? And two, what’s your favorite dessert?” I ask in my smoothest voice.
Some fires you fuel instead of trying to put out.
“I’ve seen him simply look at you, and you go scorched earth.”
He said, ‘That’s just how Blue likes it.’”
I’d rather eat through my arm than get to know Salem fucking Jones.
If autumn was a face… Deep honey-brown eyes. Warm with an underhanded edge. Nothing like the unwanted inheritance of my murky, dark moss.
God, I hate dimples. And plump top lips that curl up. And extra-as-fuck sharp cheekbones.
A sheen of a winner’s glow spreads over his brown skin and its undertones of gold—the same color of his small nose hoop. Stubble outlines a tapered V-shaped jawline. Like his crew cut, it’s all so neat.
“This is Simba, my best friend,” he says, bending down to pet a large, brown, shaggy-haired dog with a foggy gray eye. “We rescued each other three years ago.”
Simba’s probably rented to capture the perfect thirst trap shot.
Arnazzzz lol
Okay, maybe they are best friends.
Don’t be afraid to follow your inspiration, even if it goes against the grain.”
“La nuit porte conseil.”
I know underneath that gorgeous package and I’ll-feast-on-your-corpse swag lies someone very few of us will be lucky to know.
Did you know rose helps with depression?
I want you in all the ways I can have you. You have walls, and that’s okay. Walls, too, are part of a home. I’ll stand outside on devotional guard, so you don’t have to work so hard to protect them.
P.P.S. Why are you so beautiful? You turn a sidelines chair into a throne. You do know you minding your business on a bench is how this started?
How does he know I struggle with depression?
Wow, Blue nickname?
Fearless experimentation, trusting in your own flavor, and starting from where you are.
“I need two slices to go, Coach,” Sid calls out. I shake my head. Ty is probably smothered in cake, getting thunderfucked right now.
And is!!!! Lol
I hate him. I hate him so hard. The pressure builds between my legs. Goosebumps pebble my arm as I stare at the cake and then my dick.
He blows out a breath. “Put it like this. If it were between winning a championship and eating your cake again, I might consider dying ring-less.”
“You think I like you 90 percent?” “More like ninety-eight.”
“And I don’t fuck with you,” I correct. “I attempt to talk to you, and you go ape.”
You’ll try your best to make a home for me. Go gently when you discover you need more.
Back when I was injured, Josiah stopped by with a bag of supplies and covered my floor in magazines, glue sticks, and poster boards. Next thing I knew, we were making vision boards. My brother came downstairs and grinned at the big fat “Marry Blue” text block glued to the center of mine.
How do you even sleep next to someone like that—someone who’s so clearly won the genetic lottery? How do you wake up and not feel immediately depressed that the most beautiful thing you’ll see that day is lying across from you, and everything will be downhill from there?
“Hey,” Sid says, gaze pinging between us. “Some of us need to take the long way home to get clear in here.” He pats his chest. “He’s one of ’em.”
My eyebrows lift, but before I can respond that I’m a patient man, he’s circled by a camera crew.
“Almonds. You know the scent?” I tilt my head in a half nod. “Hurt him”—he steps closer—“and it’ll be the last thing you smell.” “What does that mean?” “Fuck around and find out,” he throws over his shoulder as he starts to walk away. I shake my head. “There’s nothing happening.” “Yeah, okay,” he replies.
Why am I here? I should open the door and make a run—or roll—for it. Just keep on rolling right into the ocean like two-ply toilet paper.
“W-what”—I clear my throat—“did the trainers say?” Removing his sock, I inspect his ankle. “They said I’m good,” he answers. I put gentle pressure on the side of his foot, curling it right and left while searching his face for any sign of discomfort.
When my tongue reaches his head, it encounters something hard, and I trace over one, two, three…fuck…four metal heads. He winks.
He reaches for me, and I intertwine our fingers and kiss each letter of “Disquiet” inked across his knuckles, then lean down and get the one on his upper arm of the boy leashed to a cloaked figure that’s captioned with “What’s death to the damned?” And the one on his lower arm that reads “Got?” with an image of a molecule I only recognize as serotonin because I looked it up years back.
They abandon themselves to be like people who hate themselves.
I need too much space for someone else to feel at home with me.
I groan. “You can’t look like that, bake me a Wolf cake, annihilate men on the court, be packing a big, pierced dick, and kiss me like that.”
