Chapter Six
Harper
“I know what you mean, Banks.”
Harper offered an embarrassed little smile, absently rubbing the hand Banks had so thoughtfully covered in the wake of his stupid, embarrassing, awkward confession.
He gazed around the café, empty now, the windows bathed in late afternoon light, the kind that flattered a pretty boy like Banks, highlighting his chiseled features and All-American bone structure.
He gave a little snort, shaking his head even as he rolled his eyes.
“I can’t even believe I told you all that, just . .. shoot me now, please?”
“I asked you, Harper. I wanted to know, and now I do. I wish... I wish I would have known sooner.”
Harper gave him a searing “who are you kidding?” smirk. “Yeah, like that was gonna happen back then, Banks.”
Banks met his eyes, once again staring back unblinking, as if daring Harper to challenge his authenticity. “I guess I meant, I wish I’d known you sooner, Harp.”
Harper wanted to believe him. So badly. He ached to believe Banks, and yet the scars of high school lingered in the places that haunted him the most. “What? Like I was gonna fit into your nifty little clique of jocks and rich kids and beauty queens and movers and shakers?”
Banks nodded resolutely, glancing toward the sales counter with a heavy, almost resigned sigh.
“Probably not, Harp. But I’ll tell you a little secret.
As many years as I spent with that crew, football games and parties and proms and homecomings and malt shops and beer bongs, I’ve never had a conversation with any of them that meant as much to me as the one we’re having right now. ”
Harper took a moment to respond, the smartass smile fixed on his face as he struggled to reply.
Then he leaned a little closer, then closer still, until he could smell the predictably masculine scent of Banks’s cologne and whispered, “Who are you and what have you done with the real Banks Principle?”
They chuckled then, soft and low and lazy and warm, the kind of laugh he hadn’t shared with anyone, possibly, ever? “I know, it’s... I’m not trying to get mushy, I just want you to know that I wasn’t who I seemed growing up, that’s all.”
Harper nodded. “I have to admit, I’m seeing hints of that today. But still? Beginner’s luck, maybe?”
Banks stretched, as if unused to sitting for extended periods of time.
Harper struggled not to notice the way his forearms were sinewy just beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his stylish rugby shirt, his skin smooth, his eyebrows dark beneath the brim of his Piedmont Panthers cap.
He wondered, idly, what his underarms might look like, wispy and dark, and was he the kind of dude to manscape until his pubic thatch was carefully tended and inviting just above the base of his smooth, savory cock.
“Harp?”
Harper snapped out of his sexy reverie, keenly aware Banks was waiting for an answer. “What now?” he sputtered bashfully.
Banks snorted, shaking his pretty little head. “Jesus, I was saying ... we could find out if it’s just beginner’s luck.”
“How?”
Banks waved his iced coffee cup, halfway empty now, at something on the wall beside him.
Banks glanced over and saw a poster on a kind of community bulletin board, the borders covered in dancing skulls and bloody butcher knives, the words spelled out in predictably blood-dripping letters: “Spooky Scare-a-thon,” it read. “Part of Welcome Week Mayhem!”
“What ... what exactly are you suggesting?”
Banks rolled his eyes, waving his cup closer to the poster. “Read the date, Harp.”
“Can you just...” Harper glanced over and saw the date. “Tonight?”
“Do you like scary movies?” Banks made scary movie hands, waving his fingers ominously over the table and making what he must have assumed looked like a creepy face.
“Yes, of course, I mean ... wait, you do too?”
“Love ‘em, actually. All my friends were too lame to go with me back in the day, so I’d go by myself.”
Harper narrowed his eyes, picturing their small hometown theater, all those late nights standing at the concession stand alone, popcorn in hand, wondering what it might be like to share that particular experience with another living soul. “I call bullshit, Banks.”
Banks was indignant. “What? Why?”
“Because I used to go see horror movies by myself back at the Sagebrush Cinemas and I never saw you once.”
Banks made an immature raspberry sound with his lips, waving his big all-star hands in case Harper had missed it. “Yeah, like I was going to go in our hometown. I drove forty minutes away to the dinky little theater in Stapleton, duh.”
“What? Why? That’s ridiculous.”
“Not if you don’t want to look like a pathetic loser when someone you know walks in the theater and finds you siting there alone with a giant bucket of popcorn on your lap wearing your favorite Vampire Cyborgs from Hell 3 t-shirt and ... what ... why are you looking at me like that?”
“Did ... you just call me a pathetic loser?”
Banks was unapologetically amused at Harper’s admittedly mock indignation. “Pretty sure I just called us both pathetic losers, loser.”
“Yeah, well at least I had the balls to go to our hometown theater and sit there watching a horror movie alone rather than drive two towns away just so one of my bros wouldn’t see me.”
Banks shrugged. “I think I’ve already made it abundantly clear by now that you were the bigger man back in school, haven’t I?
All I’m trying to do is prove to you that I’m trying to be someone different here at college.
Trying to be the person I always wanted to be but wasn’t brave enough to be back then.
Back ... home. And I’d like to try being that person with you. ”
Harper was as flattered as he was surprised. “At a horror movie marathon?”
Banks chuckled, almost shyly. “It’s a start, okay?”
Harper glanced at the poster, scanning the list of movies, many of which he’d never seen before, none of which he’d ever seen in a theater, live, with other horror fans. Banks watched him, nudging his damn foot again and huffing predictably.
“Why are you even bugging, Harp? You like horror movies, I like horror movies, you got anything better going on tonight?”
Harper relented, Banks making more sense than he cared to admit. Why was he bugging, indeed? “You mean other than listening to my pothead roomie snore and fart the night away? I mean...”
Banks winked. “There we go. Listen, I’ll even pay for the tickets, okay?”
Harper pointed to the flyer with a wry, almost playful grin, the double whammy of adrenaline and anticipation gurgling up in his already butterfly dancing guts. “It’s a free event, you know that, right?”
Banks played dumb, and not very convincingly. “Why, no. Where does it say that?” He pretended to squint, even as Harper pointed to the giant capital letters at the top, bottom and even the middle of the poster that said, “Free.”
Banks grinned, making it clear he was not to be denied. “Fine, then, I’ll buy the snacks. Happy now?”