7. Sleepover #2
Bridger grabbed the extra duvet folded up on Gus’s mattress and laid it beside Gus’s bed.
He reached for the small blanket they’d used while watching the home movies, made it his cover, and tossed one of Gus’s pillows to the ground.
Gus switched off his lamps. The room went dark save for the soft twinkle lights in the rafters and a beam of moonlight slipping through the window.
“Can I take my shirt off?” Bridger asked in the dim quiet. “I sleep hot.”
What? Gus stopped where he stood beside his bed. “Oh. Sure. Yeah,” Gus responded.
“My jeans too?”
“Um, yeah.” Please stop asking.
Bridger lifted the hem of his shirt and yanked it upward.
Gus’s heart sped up as his eyes darted to scan Bridger’s naked torso before he could even tell himself to look away.
Twisting around with his back to Gus, Bridger unzipped and pulled down his jeans.
He was wearing boxers with cartoon skulls on them.
Gus blushed. Bridger turned back forward and Gus averted his gaze.
He needed to get into bed and stop staring.
“Night, man. See you in the morning,” Bridger said with a yawn. As Bridger stretched wide, Gus snuck another peek at Bridger’s muscles as they flexed with his body’s extensions. Gus looked away again.
Bridger lowered to the ground and whispered, “Can’t wait to rock the new board at the park tomorrow.”
Gus anxiously slid into his bed, pulled the sage covers over himself, and stared at the ceiling in quiet reflection. The starry night sky gleamed in the window behind him. Overly tense and trying to force himself to fall asleep, Gus lay in agony. His mind raced.
What was that sound?
Can he hear me breathe?
However, minutes later, Bridger was already snoring.
Gus finally exhaled the stress of having someone else in his room.
He quietly rolled to his side. His eyes stayed closed for a good while, but sleep never came.
After more stretched minutes of overthinking, Gus opened his eyes again and peeked through the emptiness across his room, hyperaware of Bridger below.
Gus’s jaw tightened as his thoughts churned.
He knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help himself.
Quiet as a snail, he inched to the edge of his bed and peered down at Bridger on the floor.
The boy was fast asleep, breathing deeply.
Indeed sleeping hot, Bridger had pushed off his second blanket cover, revealing his bare torso and his underwear.
He had hairy tufts under his armpits, defined biceps and abs, and the dazed slack-jawed expression of someone completely lost in slumber.
Gus felt drawn to Bridger in a way he couldn’t describe.
Especially tonight, especially now. Gus studied Bridger’s shirtless form in the moonlit darkness: his relaxed shoulders, firm chest muscles, the speckles of hair near his belly button, the curved outline in his boxers.
He was tempted to leave his bed to join Bridger on the floor, to find out how firm Bridger’s muscles were, to feel how warm he really was…
What am I doing? Gus snapped back to the center of his bed. He turned onto his side, facing away from Bridger. Get a grip, Gus.
A half hour later, full of shame, Gus finally fell asleep.
~
The next morning, while the boys ate scrambled eggs and waffles cooked by Dan, they chatted more about the possibility of selling boards to their friends. Dan seemed reluctant, but he couldn’t turn down potential business.
“Are you positive kids your age will actually buy handmade boards?” Dan questioned the boys from the stove.
“Well, possibly?” Gus answered. “Some of Bridger’s friends said—”
“Hell yes!” Bridger interrupted, already too comfortable in Gus’s house. “All we gotta do is get the word out.”
“How do we do that?” Gus asked.
“Already have a plan.” Bridger winked at Gus as he scarfed down the last of his breakfast.
Gus quickly looked down at his food.
Bridger pointed up at Gus’s father as he came to the table. “These waffles are killer!”
Dan released the smallest of grins as he put two more on the boy’s plate. Bridger doused them in syrup and chugged his orange juice.
The boys scurried up to Gus’s room. Bridger brought his waffles with him.
Up in the attic once again, Bridger grabbed Gus’s board and put it on the desk as Gus started up his computer. Bridger then pulled out an old camera from his backpack.
“A camera? Where’d you get that?” Gus asked.
“It’s from our basement. My dad says he wants to learn photography, but he hasn’t touched this thing in five years,” Bridger replied.
Bridger turned the camera around to face him and Gus.
He stuck out his tongue like a rockstar and Gus rushed to grin awkwardly.
The flash of the camera startled Gus. Bridger laughed at his friend’s jumpiness.
Gus blushed. He wasn’t used to this—this closeness with a stranger, this ease between two. The camera snapped again.
“Okay, enough!” Gus pushed Bridger away with a chuckle. “Focus on the skateboards.”
Bridger grinned as he next captured a photo of Gus’s board, then his own, then Gus’s sketchbook, where Gus had drawn a logo that read SCRAPS in all caps:
“The guys are gonna flip,” Bridger celebrated.
A few minutes later, the logo and photos of Gus’s board had loaded onto the computer screen.
Bridger squeezed to sit with Gus on his small wooden desk chair.
They each shared half of the same seat. Why’s he so close?
Gus wavered as Bridger started rearranging the photos on the computer into a simple advertisement.
“You sure you know what you’re doing?” Gus questioned. “I could ask Tara. She knows computers better than us.”
“Dude. We just pair these photos of our boards with your logo and boom! Business,” Bridger explained.
“So… what? Kids look for us and ask about the boards?” Gus wondered.
“No, they call your dad’s shop and buy one. Again, Gus. Business.” Bridger’s arm danced in the air before descending to dramatically press print.
Gus rolled his eyes and turned to the printer as Bridger’s flyer inched from the machine. It had the logo, pictures of their boards, a price list, and Dan’s company phone number. Bridger proudly grabbed the flyer and gave it a flick. “Bus—”
“Business, yes, I get it.” Gus elbowed him. He took the flyer and looked it over, nodding in feigned approval. It had the essentials but no artistic flair. His face scrunched up before he could stop it.
“What?” Bridger asked. “No good?”
“Uh…” Gus let out. “Let me add better designs.”
Bridger gave Gus’s shoulder a gentle shove. “Okay, Picasso. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Later that morning, the boys drove to McNair Skatepark and stapled copies of Gus’s new and improved flyer onto every nearby utility pole, wall, and wide tree trunk within a mile radius.
When Avery, Bennet, and Coop arrived at the park without Max, Bridger slapped a flyer against each of his friends’ chests.
“Bridge! You got a board, too?” Avery questioned eagerly as the other boys read the flyer. “Nice flames!”
His friends inspected his new board and roused each other up with excitement.
“Yeah!” Bridger tapped it with pride. “If you buy one, Gus and his dad can make anything.”
Gus opened his mouth to protest anything, but the crew’s wave of excitement crested, so he let it go.”
“Could they do a wolf?!” Coop jumped in.
“I want a milf in a bikini!” Bennet added.
Avery and Coop announced “We’re in!” in unison and dapped Bridger up, then turned to Gus to offer the same. Gus smiled, surprised, and dapped them back. The skaters’ handshake was awkward, but Gus got through it.
They like me!
“We’re crashing Max’s bonfire tomorrow night after skating. Wanna come?” Coop invited.
“Hell yeah, we do!” Bridger accepted without a second thought.
From across the parking lot, Max Stevens exited his pickup and spotted Bridger, Avery, Coop, and Bennet skating. That loser Gus followed behind them.
“Psh.”
As he walked closer to the park’s edge, Max spotted a new flyer beside the entrance. He squinted, suspicious, and went over to read the paper.
“Scraps? The hell?”
He saw the picture of Gus’s board and cursed, ripping the flyer from the post and tearing it apart. The shreds crumpled under the wheels of his board as he skated away from the park.