Chapter 3 June 1998 #3
When she was gone, Kent gave me the grand tour.
Kent’s bed was on the far wall, in line with the door.
Over to the left, he had a small desk that was covered with books and a female bobblehead.
She had red hair with blonde streaks in the front, and she was wearing a dress with a British flag on it.
I wanted to ask about it, but he pulled me forward and shoved me down on his bed.
He stared down at his pink flamingo shirt, now covered in sour cream, and laughed.
“I need to change,” he said. He walked past his desk to his closet and pulled out a shirt.
I stared down at my feet as he peeled off the sour cream flamingo.
He was turned away from me, and I peeked up a few times, taking notice of his pale skin.
He had freckles all across his shoulders, and I kind of wanted to trace them with my fingertips.
I didn’t have a reason for wanting to do it, but it seemed like it might be fun.
He was a little chunky around the middle, but it suited him.
Every time we hugged, it was like hugging the warmest, coziest pillow, and it always left me wanting more.
I thought I’d been sneaky enough with my stolen glances, but after he’d been standing shirtless a lot longer than it should have taken to change, I glanced up. His head was turned back, watching me as I watched him.
“Are you alright, Gray?”
I chewed my lower lip, stopping long enough to say, “Yeah” before pulling it back between my teeth. Kent slipped into a clean shirt and made his way back to the bed, plopping down right beside me.
I pointed at the small television and VCR in his room. “I thought you said your daddy only uses the television to watch his sermons. He lets you have one in your room, too?”
“He thinks I use it to watch old episodes of The 700 Club. One of the ladies at church tapes them for me each week.” He smirked at me. “I’ve got a few movies hidden in my room. What Dad doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
We lay on his bed for half an hour, talking about the other kids at school.
Eventually, he said we ought to do something fun.
He leaned over the side of the bed and reached between his mattress and box springs, fishing around for some undiscovered item he’d hidden away.
With the way he was bent over in front of me, it put his entire butt on display.
I swallowed.
Gosh.
The room seemed about ten degrees hotter than it had been seconds before, and I fanned my face with my hand.
“Have you ever heard of the Spice …”
I didn’t know why he stopped talking. I liked it when he talked.
I liked hearing that voice of his, all light and airy like he was a princess in a Disney movie.
Tearing my eyes away from his backside, I looked up to find Kent staring right at me, his face pale and pasty, beads of sweat forming against his forehead.
“Girls,” he said.
“Girls?”
He pulled his arm from beneath the mattress, and he was holding a VHS tape.
Part of me didn’t want to look down and see what was on the cover.
I thought it might be one of those dirty movies like the ones my brother kept hidden under the floorboard in his room.
I didn’t mind when Trevor would make me play lookout while he watched his dirty movies, but I really didn’t want Kent to ask me to do that.
I hated having to listen as Trevor watched men and women rolling around all sweaty and icky and putting things in weird places like they were playing naked Twister.
Kent’s big brown eyes were on full display, and normally they’d lock me in place, paralyzing me like that snake lady in that movie with Harry Hamlin I’d seen a few months before we moved to Texas. But now? Now my eyes were drifting back to his …
“What girls?” I blurted.
Kent grinned at me. A big one, just like his big butt. A smile that screamed genuine. It seemed like he knew what I’d been staring at and why I was staring at it. It put me at ease. If he knew what all these new feelings were about, maybe he could clue me in, because I was at a loss.
He stood up, and a sudden rush of disappointment swept over me. Little waves of regret that gathered at my ankles the way the water wrapped around them on the shore of the lake I found on our property a few weeks back.
I wondered if Kent would like the lake. I figured I’d ask him about it later.
Maybe we could go out there together and spend the day splashing each other and lounging in the sun next to the old oak tree on the shore.
It was probably more of a pond than a lake, but that wasn’t the point—not when Kent’s eyes were still burning holes in me.
Gosh, why was he still looking at me like that?
He was smiling like he did whenever I’d give him my Pringles at lunch.
My cheeks were burning, and for some reason, I hoped he didn’t notice.
He stalked toward me, eying me like a predator with their prey. His arm was held out, offering me the tape.
“Hey,” I said. “Hey, Kent.” More heat pooled in my cheeks. “Fancy seeing you here.” The second the words were out, I groaned, covering my face with my hands. He wrapped his hand around my wrist, sending pins and needles shooting up and down my arm as he pulled it away from my face.
“Hey, Gray,” he said, flashing me a knowing look. “Fancy seeing you here, too.” He held the tape out for me, and I grabbed it, studying the case. On the cover, there were five women wearing unnecessarily bright colors, the word “Spice” was spread wide across the top.
Dang it. It really was a dirty movie. Why did it hurt to know Kent had a dirty movie with girls on the cover? It shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did.
I didn’t care how much Kent wanted to watch a bunch of girls rubbing all over each other.
It wasn’t happening with me in the room.
Something in my chest ached. Kent turned on the TV and reached for the movie in my hand, but with all of those strange feelings running through my head and my heart, I hurled the cassette forward, sending it crashing onto the floor.
Kent stared at me like I’d just slapped him.
“Why’d you have to go and do that?” he said, the betrayal heavy in his eyes.
“I don’t want to watch a dirty movie, Kent. Why do you even have that? How the heck did you get it? Your daddy’s a pastor, for Pete’s sake.”
“Dirty movie?” His eyes widened as he stared at me, and then a sudden burst of laughter erupted out of him.
He laughed until he was snorting, and then he doubled over, his arms wrapped around his stomach.
Hearing him laugh at me hurt. I’d been used to bullies back in Little Rock, but nothing Kent had ever said gave me any indication he might be one too.
My eyes got a little misty, and when he noticed, the smile and laughter faded.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“You,” I wanted to say. “You’re supposed to be my friend, and I ain’t ever had one before, so stop ruining it!”
“I wanna go home.” I hopped off his bed and walked to the dresser, grabbing my overnight bag and slinging it over my shoulder. I was halfway to the door when Kent grabbed me by the wrist and spun me around.
“It’s not a dirty movie. It’s a concert.
I thought you’d like it. They’re my favorite band.
” He blushed. “I don’t watch it because I think they’re pretty or anything.
I just really love their music. I’ve never shared it with anyone else because they’d just laugh at me.
” The look of disappointment on his face looked just as bad as I felt when I first saw the tape, and it made me feel like a monster for putting it there.
“I thought you were going to be different from the rest of them.”
He was sad. He was sad, and it was because of me. I didn’t care for that one bit. Knowing he’d wanted to share a hidden part of himself with me—a part no one else knew—launched butterflies to flight in my chest.
“I’m sorry. Trevor watches those kinds of movies sometimes and I thought …” I sighed, shoving my hands inside my pockets and digging my fingernails into the fabric against my thighs. “I don’t like them.”
I was staring at his feet, too embarrassed to look up.
Kent put his hand under my chin and tilted my face up until we were eye to eye.
“I don’t like those movies either. Tommy tried to give me a magazine with a bunch of naked women in it once.
I told Sister Thorpe and he got suspended for a month.
He had to come to the altar and confess the Sunday after.
I’m pretty sure he wanted to beat me up after. Probably still does.”
“If he ever touches you, I’ll knock his lights out,” I said. “You can count on that.”
“Yeah?” His cheeks went rosy. A deep pink that called to me. I tapped the video tape in his hand, sliding my fingertip up and down the case, wishing it was his hand instead.
Gosh, what in the heck was going on with me?
“Can we watch it,” I asked.
“You want to?”
“It’s important to you,” I said. “And if it’s important to you, it’s important to me.”
His face lit up like the Fourth of July.
Through a dreamy smile and awestruck eyes, Kent grinned at me, bigger and brighter than he ever had.
He walked to the TV that sat on his dresser and popped the tape into the VCR before making his way back to his bed.
I was sitting at the end because I figured he’d want some room, but he plopped down right next to me.
Our knees knocked, and he turned to me and flashed a grin.
“It’s okay if you don’t like them. We don’t have to watch it if it—”
I grabbed his hand and squeezed. “We’ll watch it. Start to finish.”