Chapter 16
ISAK
I wake up late on Saturday, and when I open my shades, I’m met with a gorgeous view.
Here on the central coast, it’s always about seventy degrees.
In summer, visitors ask why it’s so cold, and in winter if it’s always this nice.
Which means that my neighbor is washing his car in January wearing a loose crop top and cutoff gray sweats, and he should make people pay for the viewing pleasure.
Especially when he reaches over to wash the top of the classic car. It makes the sliver of exposed skin stretch to a good six inches of tanned, muscled, firm … Okay, yeah, I need to not perv on the pretty jock.
Because he’s unavailable. I get him in the closet, literally, and nowhere else. Other than when I’m sucking his cock, we barely acknowledge each other. I know how his spunk tastes but not what it’s like to kiss him.
I close my eyes. Taking a deep breath, I reach out and hold the silver-painted paperweight he gave me.
That crop top, though … He has to know what kind of effect he’s having on others. By others, I mean me. Although as far as he knows, there’s no one around right now, so perhaps he’s just comfortable.
He turns around to squeeze out the sponge in the bucket, and I get a full view.
He’s not muscled like a bodybuilder or anything like that.
But he does have ridges on his lean abs and the indent at his hips where that ligament is—along with his hidden tat that I’ve never asked about—and okay, yeah, he looks like an actor from the beach volleyball scene in Top Gun, either version.
Water runs in rivulets down his legs and into his cheap flip-flops.
Lachlan isn’t the kind of guy who usually wears ratty clothing, but I guess you don’t dress nicely to wash the car. He wipes the back of his hand across his brow, pushing back his messy blond curls. He really is a golden boy.
Too bad I know the truth: that underneath, Lachlan is very, very sad. How could he not be when his family treats him like utter shit? I sag in my bed, a flicker of uncomfortable guilt in my belly. He’s not untouchable anymore. He’s just … sad-eyed and confused.
The sponge plops back into the bucket, and Lachlan again picks it up and sloshes suds over the Porsche’s paint. There’s a reason why car washes are sexy—all that reaching, muscles working, water dripping.
Don’t objectify him, Isak.
I’m going to quit perving on him without his permission.
Turning my back on the scene, I pick up my phone and find my favorite porn site, the one with the big, healthy-looking jocks.
I navigate to a video of a threesome, then dip my hand inside my sleep pants to stroke myself.
Fuck, that feels good. The guys on the screen are naked and kissing, and they seem to have so much fun and camaraderie with their sex.
Not a quick blow job in the dark where afterward I want more. So much more.
I wish my sex life—my partner—could be real. That we could kiss and hang out and have fun.
I wish I weren’t sitting here in my bedroom with my phone and my fist, palming my own cock and wishing I had someone to do this to me. For me. With me.
When I come, I wish I weren’t so lonely.
We’re reminded of prom presale tickets during morning announcements on Monday. Zanita pulls out her phone and starts showing me the ideas she has for her Persephone-inspired dress after we rearrange our tables for a group project in English.
“You’re going to look sick,” I tell her.
“I know, right?” Zanita’s gray-lipsticked lips curve in a smile. I wish her excitement were enough to distract me from the fact that Lachlan is surrounded by girls. ’Tis the season for promposals, I guess.
“Remember when Lachlan went to prom sophomore year?” I mutter, needing to stop staring at him.
She gives me a look. “No.”
Guess that’s on me for always paying attention to him. “He asked his girlfriend at the time, who was older, to ask him to prom. He did it at a pep rally.”
“Oh, that’s right!” Zanita inspects her nails. “He can be a little extra sometimes.”
“Who do you think he’s going to ask this year?” I blurt in a whisper.
Zanita narrows her eyes and squints at me. “I have no idea. Do you?”
I jerk back in my seat. “No. I just want to know who not to ask.” I cross my legs.
“I thought you weren’t even going to go to prom.”
“I’m not.” Maybe I said that too quickly. “Or I wasn’t. I’m having second thoughts, though. If this is my last year in high school, should I be trying to do more? Be more involved?”
“Try out for the musical. That’s involved enough.”
I shake my head. “Crew, remember?”
“Yeah, yeah. I know.”
“Today, we are going to reveal the spring musical. Are you all excited?” Ms. Laurent asks in drama class.
There’s a lot of whooping and whistling.
She’s used to us, so she just waits for us to quiet down.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” She gets a sly grin on her face.
“So do you want to find out what it is?”
There’s a chorus of “Yes” and “Please.”
“Then here’s your first hint.” She holds up a tiny folded piece of paper about the size of a fortune from a fortune cookie. She hands it to the person next to her—Zanita—who frowns.
“101,” Zanita reads.
We all stare at each other. “101 like the freeway?”
“Is it in binary? A code?”
Finally, after a few more guesses, someone asks, “Do you mean room 101?”
Ms. Laurent gives us a sphinxlike smile.
“So it’s a scavenger hunt?” Jody asks.
Whistling, Ms. Laurent looks at the ceiling.
“Can we be excused?” Zanita asks.
“You may.”
For the next twenty minutes or so, we chase around to different classrooms. There we find a series of helium balloons in various colors, each inked with a letter, and inside each balloon, once we figure out we need to pop them, is the number to a different classroom.
We collect the letters R, O, B, S, W, E, and another R.
Eventually, we end up in Mr. Frank’s history classroom, where there’s a silver balloon with nothing on or in it.
“So now we have to arrange the letters?” Jody asks.
“Can we borrow your whiteboard?” I ask Mr. Frank.
He agrees, and we start writing all kinds of combinations.
BEORRSW
WOEbrSR
ROBWSRE
“brO … It’s Browser, isn’t it?” Zanita says excitedly as Ms. Laurent catches up with us.
She nods. “That’s one word.”
“And the blank balloon?” Jody asks. They look around. “We’re in history class. Is it Browser History?”
Ms. Laurent smiles. “Yes! Good job, everyone. Browser History is a new sci-fi musical about a world where deleting anything digital deletes it in real life. If everyone deletes a photo of someone, they die, or if it’s photos of a place, it disappears.
The idea is that everything is ephemeral, and it raises the question of how to fight for something real. ”
“Whoa,” Malik whispers. “That’s a cool idea.”
“It’s about a group of friends, and there’s a love story, so there are a lot of opportunities for different people to shine.
It’s not just one or two people who get most of the songs, either.
I have scripts you can borrow to read and decide which characters you want to try out for.
Please return the scripts at the audition, and don’t write in them yet.
” The school has to pay for every script, so she’s careful to note who has them.
She tries to pass me one, but I don’t immediately take it. “Isak, I think you should audition.”
“I was going to do crew,” I say.
Ms. Laurent presses her lips together. “I think you would really like this script. Take it home and read it through.”
I accept it, but I’ve already made up my mind.