Chapter 9 #2
But then he said, “I’m Kevin.” He laughed a little as he held out his hand to Jules. “How do you do? Kevin Clark. My friends call me Hobbit.”
Behind them, the locker room door opened with its telltale cah-chunk, and all four boys turned.
Topher dropped Jules’s pack and jeans, and he and Joey both went into a crouch that Jules tried to imitate because it was undeniably menacing looking—like something from a panel in a superhero comic book.
Hobbit/Kevin, seasoned improv actor that he was, was just a heartbeat behind.
And whoever opened that door took one look at them and shut it fast without coming out.
And they still didn’t come out and still didn’t come out. In fact the door didn’t open again as quite a few seconds ticked by.
It was almost anti-climactic.
“Wow,” Hobbit said finally straightening up. “That was... wow.”
“Fucking pansies,” Joey muttered.
“Yeah,” Topher said. “Let’s not use gay slurs.”
“Shit.” Joey’s eyes widened. “Yeah. Sorry. God. Fucking... babies?”
“Babies works nicely,” Jules said as he scooped his pack and his jeans up from the gym floor. Sooner or later his heartrate would return to normal. But he had to clear his throat a few times before he could ask, “You guys need a ride home?”
“Nah, my mom’s probably already out there,” Joey said as they headed together across the basketball court. “And Topher’s on our way, so...”
“Hob?” Jules said as they went out into the warmth of the late afternoon, but then he caught himself. “Or should I say Kevin?”
“You can call me whatever you like,” the younger boy said. “And yes, please. Not having to walk home would be great.”
Sure enough, Joey’s mom was waiting for him—in an ancient VW van. She looked like she’d stepped directly out of that movie about the music festival in Woodstock. Go figure she’d have a kid in ROTC.
But Joey and Topher both walked Jules and Hobbit all the way to Jules’s car, which was really sweet.
“Thanks again, guys,” Jules said as he and Hobbit got in.
“We’ll wait for you from now on,” Topher said and Joey nodded.
“One of these days we’ll actually fight those motherfuckers.” He swiftly added, “S’okay to say motherfucker?”
“Mother-fucking is generally not a gay activity. We might help her do her hair or nails, maybe pick out an outfit if she’s got a big day at work.”
Joey laughed. “You’re funny.” But then, with unexpected insight, he added, “I guess you kinda have to be.”
“It helps,” Jules agreed. “Thank you both again.”
“No worries, man.” Topher and Joey headed back toward the van and what started as a double-time march quickly turned into a sprinting race. Jules smiled as he started his car. He’d been nervous going into this today, but now he felt... okay.
He glanced over at Hobbit before he backed his car out of his spot and headed for the parking lot exit. “Thank you again, too.”
“I couldn’t just leave you there, either,” Hobbit said.
“Do they do that often?” Jules asked, pulling onto the main road. “Rodney and his...” How had Hobbit put it? “Idiots.”
“Hmm.” Hobbit made a thinking-about-it noise. “Not really. Just a few times a week.”
“Just?” Jules asked, agog, his voice going up an octave or two. “Kevin, that’s not okay.”
Hobbit shrugged. “Yeah, well, no one cares.”
“I do.”
“Yeah, I know,” Hobbit said quietly. “You cared even before you knew it was me.”
“I care even more now.” Oh, crap, things not to say to a boy who had a crush on him. Except it was entirely possible that, after this afternoon, after seeing this kid rush to his rescue, Jules may have had a little bit of a crush back.
Fuck you, David.
The sad truth was David would’ve never done what Hobbit had—willingly gone into a locker room while knowing Rodney and his idiots were in there.
Not even to save Jules. Jules had always believed it was because David had gotten bullied so badly when he was younger.
He simply couldn’t. It was just too hard to overcome the crushing fear.
And yet, Hobbit hadn’t hesitated. Hobbit, who’d been bullied and threatened “just” a few times last week alone.
“Hey, in my backpack,” Jules told Hobbit now, “main zipper, right at the top...”
“You want me to...?”
“Yeah,” Jules said. “Open it for me, will you?”
“Sure thing, boss.” Hobbit unfastened his seatbelt to dive nearly headfirst into the backseat where Jules had tossed his pack.
“There’s a permission slip,” Jules told the younger boy. “For the club. Green piece of paper. I got it for you.”
“For me?” Hobbit’s voice actually cracked.
“Yeah. I think learning to fight is a skill that would be useful to add to your resume,” Jules told him.
“Along with roof climbing, improv, and telegram singing.” He heard papers rustling and the pack’s zipper zipping and then Hobbit pushed himself back so he was once again sitting in the passenger seat.
“I know you just met him a few minutes ago,” Hobbit said, fastening his seat belt, “but Kevin Clark doesn’t fight. He only gets the shit kicked out of him.”
“No, I’m pretty sure I just saw the rather magnificent Kevin Clark coming into the locker room with his warrior face on, ready to throw down and kick ass.”
“Warrior face,” the kid cracked up. “Right.” He pulled down the sun visor to look in its mirror as he bared his teeth. “Grrr. I look like a frightened cartoon dog.”
“That’s not how you looked to me,” Jules told him. “You looked... fearless.”
Hobbit laughed. “Okay, yes, all right already,” he said, “I’ll propose. If you insist.” He sighed heavily. “Will you marry me?”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Jules teased back—or shit, maybe he was actually flirting. “But I’m nursing a broken heart.”
“David, what were you thinking, you complete and utter fool.” But then Hobbit broke character. “No, seriously, Jules. I’m really sorry. That must’ve sucked so much, getting dumped like that, out of the blue.”
“Yeah. It was... bad. I mean, we were making plans for me to fly out there, to visit. I was psyched, I mean, I was psyched to see him, obviously, but also... Los Angeles. I’ve never been.
And he was like, You’re gonna love WeHo, and Mann’s Chinese Theatre, and he knew I’d be into seeing the tar pits.
LaBrea. Santa Monica—the Pacific freaking Ocean.
One minute we had all these plans, and the next he was all This won’t work.
Have a nice life. He actually said that. ”
“Fuck you, David,” Hobbit said. “And I mean that very sincerely.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Jules laughed so he wouldn’t start to cry.
It was easier to talk about this with his eyes firmly on the road in front of him.
“I don’t know what to do with this... with these.
.. massive feelings I have. Like, I still love him, but now I hate him, too.
Have a nice life. Part of me still doesn’t believe it, that he could just..
. flip some kind of switch from I love you to, you know, I’m done loving you. How does that even work?”
“I don’t know,” Hobbit whispered. “I can’t even imagine.”
“He’s just gone,” Jules said. “Just out of my life, completely. Instantly. It’s so surreal.
And then, before I could figure out what the hell just happened, we moved here.
I mean, that was planned—he was going to LA, I was moving here, and we were going to talk on the phone every night and, you know, share it, like it was happening to both of us, but suddenly I’m doing this alone.
And God I’m just so hurt, and I feel so stupid and I just keep thinking about my dad—we lost him suddenly, except it wasn’t because he was an asshole, he didn’t want to leave, he loved us so much, but God, he’s gone forever, too. And it's just all so... goddamn sad.”
He’d reached the light at County Line Road, and stopped for the red. “Sorry,” he said, glancing at Hobbit. “That was a lot.”
“I’m in love with someone who doesn’t love me back, too,” Hobbit said, but then quickly backpedaled.
“Oh, jeez, no, not you. Although yes, I could definitely fall hard out of love with Liam if you so much as kissed me, but wow, that would suck even worse, because being in love with someone who’s pining for someone with a stupid name like David would be a whole new level of hell, and I think I’ll stay here in He Doesn’t Know I Exist-Land, because it’s the misery that I’m familiar with, thanks. ”
Jules looked at over at Hobbit. “Liam as in Topher’s brother Liam?”
Hobbit nodded. “He was a senior when I was a freshman and... We both worked in the library after school on Tuesdays and... He was just always... really nice to me.”
Jules narrowed his eyes. “Define nice.”
Hobbit laughed in mock disgust as he looked back at him in fake horror.
“Well, not blow-job nice, if that’s where your filthy mind has gone, Cassidy.
Come on, look at me. I look twelve. Back then I looked eight, but a very gay eight which didn’t work well for me socially most of the time because I hadn’t met Belle and Shelly and Sadie yet.
The school musical wasn’t until that spring, so I was kinda on my own back then.
And Liam, well, he wasn’t out yet, but he was still just..
. really kind. Like, he talked to me, you know, like I’m a person.
Like you talk to me. That’s still a relatively new experience for me since I’ve mostly been talked at for most of my life.
So yeah, I did what any self-respecting gay freshman woulda done—I fell in love with him. Hard.”
“If he talked to you, he knows you exist,” Jules pointed out.
“Yeah...” Hobbit drew the word out. “Sadie’s Aunt Jen has a really obnoxious little dog that I absolutely know exists. Now, I know for a fact that I’m at least twenty-five percent less obnoxious, but—”
“Friends don’t let friends compare themselves to obnoxious dogs,” Jules pointed out. The light turned green and he hit the gas.
“Yes!” Hobbit said. “Right? Thank you! Because I didn’t mean to highjack the conversation. I just wanted to say that you don’t need to be so careful around me. That I’m really happy we’re friends.”
Okay. Jules had been a boyfriendless underclassman himself a few years ago, and he didn’t quite believe that Hobbit wouldn’t’ve immediately tossed his feelings for Liam out the car window if Jules so much as leaned over and interlaced their fingers, the way David had done that very first time, but.
.. “I’m happy about that, too,” he said.
“Well, good. And see? That means you’re not alone,” Hobbit said with almost as much ferocity as when he’d come charging into the locker room.
“And I know that’s not what you meant because you’d made all those plans as Javid or Dules, God those are both really stupid ship names, that should’ve been a sign back when you first met him, but to hammer home my point, it’s not nothing to have friends like Sadie and Shelly and Belle and Tom.
And God, now for me, I have you and Topher and Joey?
Is this really my life? And maybe you just always had a million, billion friends, but—”
“No,” Jules said. “You’re right. It’s not nothing. Having friends. It’s extremely something.”
“I’m not saying that makes everything all better because it doesn’t. You’re still sad and I’m still... whatever I am.”
“I’m gonna go with still too young for a senior, and even more too young for someone who’s already in college.”
“He’s only going to community college,” Hobbit said as if that somehow mattered. “Anyway. Back on topic.” He rattled the green sheet of paper. “This FU club. You really want me to join?”
“I think you have to,” Jules told him. “I need you to even out our little gay superhero squad. We could train together. Go running.”
“Running. Wow. On purpose? Without someone chasing me? That would be new.” Hobbit looked back at the FU Club flyer, frowning slightly.
“Getting my parents to sign this is gonna be...” He looked at Jules.
“But yeah, I’m up for the challenge. I mean, why not learn to kill Rodney with a Vulcan nerve pinch, right? ”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not part of the curriculum.”
“Don’t assume anything. Mr. H is pretty intense.”
“He kinda is, isn’t he?” Jules signaled to make a left.
“Oh, wait, no, sorry, I live over on Pond Street, it’s down...” He pointed to the right.
“I know where you live, Kevin Clark,” Jules said as he took the turn but then pulled immediately into the parking lot for the Soft Serve.
“First you saved my life, and then, after I trapped you in my car on the pretext of driving you home and instead endlessly woe-is-me-ing, you were unbelievably kind, and delightfully honest. Child, I’m buying you an ice cream. ”
“Gee thanks, Grandpa!” Hobbit said in a high, squeaky voice. “You’re the best!”
And yeah, the kid was young, but he was sweet and funny—and brave—as hell.
And he was right.
Both Javid and Dules were stupid names. But if Jules went home to find David waiting for him, sitting on the front steps of his house? He’d take him back. No questions asked.