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He’s completely minding his own business, being friendly with his physics textbook, all pressed up against the end of the bookshelf in the library, successfully having a love affair with headache-inducing math equations, when Mira ambushes him.
“Hiya,” she says, suddenly right in his face.
“Aisghls!” he gurgles, in a completely manly way, thank you. She sits back on her heels and laughs at him, loud and mocking. He scowls at her.
Her braces are blue now, matching the streaks in her hair. She looks nice, he decides, all neon green and blue. The loudness of her wardrobe suits her -- she’d be strange to him if she ever tried to tone it down.
“Oh, man, you should’ve seen your face.”
“Fuck you,” Kai snaps, smoothing out the pages of his book. “I am busy learning how to destroy the AP Phys exam. Stop being a distraction.”
She pouts at him. “Come on, you're seriously not still mad at me about the ceramic pig.”
“I’m always going to be mad at you about the ceramic pig,” he says primly. Then he sighs, unable to resist. “What’s up?”
Her smile turns bright, and his heart does that familiar little stutter. Kai has always, always loved her. Sure, she’s Adam’s best friend and has inclinations more Reeve-based, but there’s always going to be something about her that just catches him in the right spot. He’s over it now, and he has erm, other areas of interest, but she’ll always be special.
“Nessa’s having a party--”
“Ugh,” Kai interrupts.
“--with alcohol--”
“Double ugh.”
“And cute boys will be there,” Mira wheedles, whipping out her best puppy-eyes.
“I don’t care,” Kai says, shuffling away from her and looking back at his textbook. The particles will... he reads.
“Adam will be there,” she tries. Obvious trump card. Goddammit.
He cuts his eyes toward her, calculating. She’s grinning, triumphant, confident that she’s got him. He groans internally because it’s either that he goes to this party and enjoys at least twelve percent of it, or Mira and Adam will wake him up from a dead sleep sometime in the AM, drunk and needing a ride.
Part of his resistance is a lie, he always likes parties. He doesn’t like Vanessa, but she’s Reeve’s friend, and by proxy, Mira’s friend. He can pretend to like her for one night, especially if he gets to hang out with people. What can he say, extroversion. It’s a disease.
It’s just, recently, there’s been this trend. It’s like he’s been cursed.
Kai pretends to think about it.
“Fine,” he grits out.
“Yay!” Mira says, standing up and doing a little celebratory wiggle. She pulls her phone out of her pocket and unlocks it. “I’ll add you to the group text. Also, I want Reeve to drive me so you’re taking Adam alone okay bye.”
“Huh,” Kai says as she speed-walks away from him. “What? Hey!”
But she’s gone, vaguely eucalyptus-scented-shampoo left in her wake. Alone? With Adam? Fuck.
His phone buzzes.
-
Group: party 🎉🥂🥳🎊 time
mirakat added humantorchkai to the group
abeaverdam: oh he’s coming?
lochnessa: Damn I didn’t know he left his house anymore
mirakat: ya i cornered his ass in th library
mirakat: hes a total slut 4 skool
mirakat: kais my bitch tho lol so ya hes comin
mirakat: dam hes drivin u
abeaverdam: is that ok kai?
humantorchkai: yeah
humantorchkai: when?
lochnessa: Friday.
-
Kai’s late to first period on Wednesday, which Reeve notices, and bugs him about for ten minutes straight. He rolls in twenty minutes after the bell, wearing the clothes he left on his bedroom floor, all rumpled up and disorganized, and without a note. He drops into his seat and makes it approximately two minutes before Reeve leans over, into his space, and starts the interrogation.
“Oh my God,” Kai says to the ceiling. “For the last time, my alarm didn’t go off.”
“My Spidey-senses tell me you’re a liar,” Reeve says, and seriously, what does Mira see in this complete dork? He’s so nosy.
Kai drags his gaze from the ceiling to stare at him. “I think your janky-ass ‘spider-sense’ needs a psych eval.”
Reeve crosses his arms and sniffs at him. “Rude. I thought we were friends.”
“We are--” Kai scrubs his hands through his hair violently, frustrated. He catches the smirk on Reeve’s face. “Hey! That doesn’t work on me anymore. I’ve evolved.”
The smirk doesn’t leave Reeve’s face.
The truth is, Kai’s late because he had a nightmare. Or a wet dream. Depends on your definition of either thing. It’s been reoccuring pretty consistently, and Kai always wakes up from it breathing hard, adrenaline in his veins, and a hard-on. Today just happened to be shittier, and he couldn’t get back to sleep right away, so he overslept when his alarm went off.
It’s pretty much the worst, been happening for almost a month, and Kai is slowly losing his mind. But. whatever, the important part is this: he’s with Adam, and Adam kisses him. They could be in space, or in a submarine, or whatever Kai’s subconscious feels like cooking up. They could be anything, pirates, elven rebel warriors, it doesn't matter. In every dream, Kai’s with Adam, and at some point Adam leans over, the smell of Hennessy whiskey on his breath, and kisses Kai.
It’s why Kai’s been so rigid lately, avoiding his friends and refusing to go to parties, because of what happened Last Time he’d gone.
Mad Libs! Fill in the blanks, Sherlock.
He’s so totally, totally, totally screwed. And no one is allowed to know, not even Reeve, who knows Adam’s a flirty drunk and that Kai’s pathetic, and hasn’t even told anyone any of Kai’s other secrets, because this? This is world-ending levels of FUCK.
So, when the bell rings, Kai basically sprints out the door to avoid Reeve.
-
Group: party 🎉🥂🥳🎊 time
speedyskeet: should i bring da weed
reever: ohhh shiiiit hell yeah
lochnessa: No LSD though
speedyskeet: :O
speedyskeet: um ok MOM
reever: wtf ness
reever: psychedelic rights!!!
speedyskeet: let me get us fkd up!!
mirakat: wait didnt we hav 2 call an ambulance for coop last time u brought more than weed to a party
mirakat: or was tht a different school
speedyskeet: .........
speedyskeet: ok so im assuming edibles and my bong right
-
Kai takes his lunch to Mr Tucker’s room.
Mr Tucker is the APUS history teacher for the senior class, and he is the only non-STEM teacher that Kai likes. Mira is also his favorite student, so he lets them eat lunch in his room. It’s better than fighting for a spot in the crowded cafeteria, and Kai likes hiding from the rest of the student body.
Adam, Reeve, and Mira are sitting at one of the table groups when Kai walks in with his plate of chicken nuggets, Vanessa and Skeet nowhere to be seen. They’re probably getting high in the parking lot.
Mr Tucker is scrolling through youtube, his computer desktop displayed on the projector screen.
“Why’d you look up Nyan cat?” Kai asks, tilting his head as he watches Mr Tucker scroll.
“It’s stuck in his head,” Mira pipes up, helpfully.
Mr Tucker grunts confirmation and apparently selects the version he likes. Reeve groans when it starts playing, slumping forward over his tuna salad. Mr Tucker picks up his normal vegetable-based salad, his bushy mustache wiggling in that way that means he’s smiling.
Kai sits next to Reeve, across from Adam. Mistake, Kai realizes too late. Big mistake. Because now they have to make eye contact, and Kai’s belly catches fire at the memory of drunk Adam he’s drunk he’s leaning in he smells good he’s KISSING ME SOMEONEHELP when he looks down at his plate of chicken nuggets. It’ll be obvious on his face in a few moments, he’s never been able to fight off a blush well, and then there’s going to be Questions. Capital-Q Questions.
But Reeve’s talking about, like, whatever drama majors talk about, and when Kai chances a peek up, Adam’s not looking at him. So.
Kai can’t help it, okay? He’s creepy. Sue him. No wait, that’s not-- ugh.
Kai studies the contours of Adam’s face while he’s not looking. His high cheekbones and his sharp chin. His heavy eyebrows that are shaped perfectly (”Ugh, you’re so fucking gross,” Reeve had said when Kai had voiced this thought aloud. “His eyebrows? I think you need to ask him out. Get it out of your system.”) and his eyes are that warm shade of brown, almost gold, soft and kind.
His hair is longer now, and errant curls flop over his forehead and around his ears. Kai watches the long line of Adam’s throat when he tilts his head back from the force of laughing at something Reeve said. Kai’s transfixed by the inviting stretch of dark skin, entertaining a thought of leaning over and just biting down so it’s not his fault he doesn’t see it coming when Reeve violently jabs him in the rib.
Kai jumps. “Ah! What the fuck?”
“Language,” Mr Tucker says in the toneless inflection of someone who doesn’t really care but responds on reflex. He’s now scrolling through Seasame Street videos.
Reeve shrugs, unrepentant. “You were gone there, dude.”
“Yeah,” Adam agrees, eyebrows raised in polite curiosity. “Planet Zenon gone.”
Kai ducks his head. “I’m, uh, stressed about AP physics?” he tries.
“Uh-huh,” Reeve says, “and are you asking us to confirm that for you?”
“Leave him alone,” Mira interrupts mildly. “Only, like, a hundred people a year get above a three on that exam.”
“Wow, how is that class still funded?” Adam asks.
“Elitism?” Mira guesses. “Maybe it’s like, a torture thing. Like, a test within a test.”
“What,” Reeve says, “like, if you pass you can become a super-secret spy?”
“Or I can, like, do another Chernobyl. Or I’m allowed secret access to government secrets. Ooh, maybe they’ll tell me the moon is a projection into the sky.” Kai says, warming to this idea.
“Then how would they explain waves?” Reeve asks.
“Uh, giant wave pool,” Kai answers.
“Hot take: the world is in a giant wave pool,” Mira grins at him.
Adam blinks almost in slow-motion, the sweep of his eyelashes against his cheeks, a smile growing on his face, and Kai is once again caught like a fly in honey. Just like that, all the saliva is gone from Kai’s mouth, and he’s completely lost the thread of whatever’s happening around him.
Okay, so, recap: totally, totally, totally screwed.
-
adam: u sure you’re ok driving me?
kai: dam i swear its fine
kai: i’d say something if it was a problem
kai: my parents have been trying to kick me out basically every weekend, this’ll make them so fucking happy
adam: lol
adam: [A stock photo of two white parents sitting on a beach towel in a tropical location, smiling adoringly at each other. In the blurry background, a toddler with similar skin color and hair is being attacked by a seagull.]
-
“There is a PROBLEM!” Kai announces, flopping heavily onto his bed, tossing an arm dramatically over his forehead. Mira doesn’t even look up at him.
“Hm?” she says from the floor, knees drawn up to her chest, eyebrows furrowed in deep concentration. She loves her iPad more than him.
“Oh my God,” Kai groans. “You don’t even care. I’m nothing to you. You enjoy my suffering.”
“Die white man,” Mira says tonelessly. “I’m trying to beat my old high score in Tetris. What’s your damage.”
“I have nothing to wear on Friday,” Kai moans, pained.
“What? Why do you even care? Your regular clothes are fine.”
“Oh my God, Mira! It’s a party,” Kai breathes the word like its holy, a precious thing nestled in the crook of his tongue, not the be defiled by people who wear school clothes to special events. “And I want to get hit on.”
“I’ll hit on you,” Mira promises. The iPad makes a wah-wah-wah sound. She sighs, setting it aside and looking up at him, expression thoroughly unamused, clearly blaming him for her high-score loss.
“I did not do that,” Kai says. The blood’s started rushing to his head, so he sits up and blinks away the black spots as they dance in front of his vision. “I just wanna be hot,” he whines.
“Okay, so, wear that stupid blue button-up with the tigers on it, and the black skinny jeans. It brings out your eyes,” she elaborates. “And tucked-in button-ups are hot on dudes. Oh, and--”
“If you’re gonna Queer Eye me, I swear to God,” Kai complains.
“Will you just... I was gonna say you should wear a tiny bit of eyeliner. It’s like, accentuating your features or some shit.”
“Why should I trust you?” Kai asks playfully. “I’ve never seen you go anywhere near a make-up in my life.”
Mira shrugs. “I saw it on Instagram. Anyways, Reeve said I have ‘good bone structure’, what does that even mean?”
“That he’s an idiot and I can’t believe you’re into him?” Kai ventures. Mira glares at him, so Kai leans back on the bed, rolling his eyes up to the bedroom ceiling at the glow-in-the-dark stick-on stars that have been there since he was seven. “Okay, okay. He was probably trying to compliment you, but since he’s a robot sent by aliens to infiltrate the earth he did it in a really bizarre way.”
Mira perks up. “You think?”
“He said ‘good’.”
“What should I say back?”
“Erm, that you’ll have his babies?”
Mira throws one of her glittery highlighter pens at him. It bounces off the center of his forehead and onto his lap. He laughs, picking it up and tossing it back.
“I don’t know,” he admits. “Maybe say that you like his bones, too.”
Mira takes out her phone.
-
adam: [A picture of a pina colada sitting on a kitchen counter in a pool of sunlight.]
adam: winky face
kai: you could just like, use the emoji keyboard instead of typing it out
adam: don’t make me frowny face
-
Kai spends fifteen minutes messing with his hair in the mirror. He gels it sticking up, twists his mouth critically at his reflection, and wets his hands to wipe it out. Nothing’s working for him today. It’s just one of those things, his clothes seem to hang off him awkwardly, and nothing looks right.
He makes a sound of frustration, and his mom pokes her head into the bathroom.
“Oh,” she says. “I thought you were going to a party?”
“Mom,” he growls. “I’m getting ready!”
“Hm.”
She pushes the door all the way open, surveys him from head to toe, and reaches over to run a hand through his hair, leaving parts sticking up in her wake. Kai looks in the mirror. Now, instead of awkward ‘trying-too-hard’, he looks artfully tousled. He unbuttons two top buttons of his tiger shirt and messes with the collar to make it look like someone had grabbed it and reeled him in for a kiss. He grins at himself.
“That’s better, I think,” she says.
“Thanks Mom,” he says, shuffling past her and out to the hallway.
“Limit yourself to three drinks!” she calls as he stuffs his feet into old converse. “If you get too intoxicated to drive, spend the night! Just text! Don’t forget to wear condoms and--”
Kai shuts the door in her face.
His car is a silver Prius, owned five times prior to him. The interior always smells a little bit like shamrock shake and in the winter requires a prayer and three engine turnovers to start. Kai loves it.
He pulls up to Adam’s street and texts without looking that he’s close. He parks in the street and jogs up to Adam’s front door. He raps his knuckles on Adam’s door, the red one with caterpillar decals, and a blue handprint on the doorknob.
Adam throws open the door. “Gimme a sec, gotta grab my jacket.”
He’s wearing a white shirt and Kai’s favorite jeans of his (do Not judge him, okay, liking your crush’s ass is basically a given and is no longer considered a sin under the New Testament, so really Kai’s not weird for liking this pair of Adam’s jeans because it accentuates his butt.), the ones with rips in the thigh and at both knees, because Adam lives reckless and dies reckless.
He jams his feet into vans and grabs the heavy olive jacket off the coatrack and follows Kai out to the Prius.
“You look nice,” Adam says, offhand. Kai feels how hot his face immediately gets and hopes it isn’t ugly, sometimes his blushes look like a rash.
“Thanks,” he says, rubbing his neck, right hand fumbling for his keys.
They slide into their seats, and Kai is hit with the violent-sense memory of Hennesy whiskey, and the dark shadows tossed by the orange glow of the streetlamps, and Adam’s soft voice and brown puppy-dog eyes imploring Kai, look at me. Look at me, please. And. And.
His phone buzzes.
“Oh, Vanessa wants us to pick up some soda,” Kai says through the rock in his throat.
“Ooh, ooh. Cherry 7-Up, Jarritos Lime, uh like, a ton of mountain dew... and Coke! We’ll need Coke,” Adam lists as Kai pulls away from the street and heads toward the local general store.
-
mira: WHERE
mira: R
mira: U
mira: 2
mira: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kai frowns at his phone. They’re in the check-out line, waiting for their turn with about three tons of soda on the conveyer. Kai’s got a fifty dollar bill from his parents, because they’re stupidly open-minded, but he’s still gonna make Vanessa pay him back. Adam’s inspecting the tabloids, making comments about all of the covers and whatever he thinks about them.
kai: WE’RE
kai: FUCKING
(Not sent !) kai: GETTING
(Not sent !) kai: DRINKS
mira: FUHDUK WHATTTT!!!?????????
Kai groans.
-
The party’s already alive by the time Adam and Kai get there, music thrumming against the walls of the house, the glass panes of the windows shaking with the vibrations. Weighed down by plastic bags full of drinks, and a little bit anxious, Kai fumbles with the door handle three times until Adam reaches over him and opens it.
The crowd is huge. He didn’t even know that Vanessa and Skeet knew this many people. There’s a wall of heat that hits them when they step inside, the difference between the inside and outside must be a solid ten degrees. Most people are crammed in the living room, near the speakers, where a sort of impromptu dancefloor has evolved. There are plenty of people lining the hallways, sitting on the stairs, and spilling over into the other places of the house.
Vanessa has changed the lightbulbs to fuschia, cobalt, and teal colors, so the house looks almost like a club from a TV show. There’s this haze over everything - and, yep, definitely Skeet’s weed - that makes it seem smoky and mysterious. Adam kicks the door shut behind them as they begin to navigate the crowd.
Skeet’s leaning against one of the walls, talking to a tiny girl with piercings and too much eyeliner. She tosses her head, her hair flying up like a halo for a moment, luminescent in the multicolored lights of the house, and leans closer to Skeet. She’s holding a red solo cup, Skeet’s holding weed, and Kai’s arms are starting to hurt from all the soda.
“So, your, like, real name is Skeet? What kind of name is that? I mean, like, who does that to their kid?” she’s asking, valley girl accent and everything, even twirling a strand of hair around her finger.
Skeet shrugs, unbothered. “My parents are hippies.” he spots them, then, and lifts his joint in a get over here gesture. Kai and Adam shove some people to stand in front of him. He grins. “Oh, dudes, nice. You got drinks. I wasn’t sure if you would, since Mira told us that you, uh, made a pit stop.” he waggles his eyebrows.
Kai groans, flushing.
“Uh, yeah,” Adam says, lifting up his bags. “for drinks? Hello?”
Skeet leers, grin stretching bigger. Kai scowls. He’s going to eat her one day, all Hannibal-Lecter style.
“Where is Mira, anyway?” he cuts in before Skeet says anything weird. “Where should we put the drinks?”
“Oh, just, you know,” Skeet makes a vague gesture with his hand that doesn’t really mean anything. “I think I saw her in the kitchen?”
“Thanks,” Kai mutters, shoving through the crowd and deeper into the house.
Mira and Vanessa are leaning against the sink, Reeve’s standing at the counter, completely covered in bottles of alcohol, thumb and forefinger at his chin like he’s surveying fine art.
“Oh! You made it! I hate vodka without coke,” Mira says, striding forward and grabbing the bags from Adam.
Kai followers her back to the counter, and shoves the receipt into Vanessa’s limp hands without looking at her. Together, Kai and Mira start to set up the drink line, stacking up all the empty red cups at the edge of the counter as they try to make sure all the soda and alcohol are equally accessible. How Skeet even gets this stuff... he shudders to think.
Kai waits until Adam and Reeve have wandered out of earshot to lean into Mira’s space. Vanessa had vacated the premise the moment it looked like any physical work would be happening, so he doesn’t worry about her particular brand of nosiness. He takes his phone out of his pocket and tilts the screen so she can see it.
“My texts didn’t send,” he tells her in a low voice. “We weren’t actually, you know.” he flushes violently.
Mira shoots him a grin. “No, I guessed that something had happened. It was just funny. You look nice.”
He smiles at her, genuinely, which means his gums are probably showing. She looks nice too, in her little black dress with a flared skirt and combat boots. The neon green streaks in her hair glow in the weird light of the house.
“I like your outfit,” he says. The din in the background is starting to grow. More people have probably showed up.
She nods at his jeans. “Cuffed jeans. The true mark of a bisexual.”
Kai nods very seriously. “I can’t leave my house without announcing every aspect of my sexuality to the entire world.”
Adam’s talking to a group of people at the other end of the kitchen, his smile is blindly white in the pink light, skin pitched a shade darker, a stark difference against the glow of his white shirt. Staring, unable to look away, Kai steals Mira’s cup and takes a swig. It’s straight vodka, so Kai coughs immediately when it hits his tongue.
Mira laughs at him.
-
Group: party 🎉🥂🥳🎊 time
speedyskeet: do any of u know anyone named travis montery
mirakat: no
lochnessa: No
abeaverdam: Nope!
humantorchkai: no
reever: nah
speedyskeet: fucking L lmao
speedyskeet: im kicking this fool out then
-
Kai’s wandering around, pleasantly buzzed from two Cherry 7-Ups with a tiny bit of vodka, looking for any familiar face. Mira and Reeve had abandoned him pretty much straight away, he’d left Adam alone in the kitchen, and he’s actively avoiding Vanessa.
He stumbles around, moving his shoulders a bit in time with the music, his body gone languid and loose from the heat and the alcohol and the atmosphere.
His phone beeps at him again. He really hopes it's not Skeet checking with them before he bounces a guy again. It’s just Mira, he sees when he’s fumbled his phone out of his back pocket. He has to squint to read in the pink light amid the thrumming bodies of people all around him.
Eventually, he escapes the crowd and heads down the stairs to the “game room” and finds another living room, with a soft white carpet and a couch in front of a big flatscreen. There’s a group of about a dozen kids, plus Kai’s friends, sitting on the carpet in a circle by the couch, with a beer bottle laying on a Monopoly game board. Kai blinks, the lights here aren’t fun colors, and everyone in the circle raises their arms and cheers when they see him.
He walks over to them. Mira grabs his arm and begins to drag him onto the carpet beside her. The group begins to chant.
“Spin the bottle! Spin the bottle!”
Oh no oh fuck, Kai thinks, beginning to resist Mira’s grip on his arm. His drink is sloshing about, and Kai holds it away from his shirt and pants as he tries to reverse his crouch and pull his arm back. Skeet reaches up and confiscates the cup, downing the rest of it in one go.
“Spin the bottle! Spin the bottle! Spin the bottle!”
But he’s buzzed and his coordination is spotty, so when Adam reaches out with his hand and spins the beer bottle, Mira tugs once, hard, and Kai crashes onto the carpet, and the bottle spins,
and spins,
and spins.
And points the neck straight at Kai’s disheveled spot in the circle.
So, let’s revisit that cursed theory, shall we?
Kai looks at Adam, and Adam looks at him. He’s got that dopey half-smile on his face, and his pupils are blown wide, iris a thin gold ring around them. Kai knows when Adam’s drunk, or blackout, and he’s tipsy right now, just like Kai. And... oh no. But the kids in the circle are jeering, giggling delightedly.
“Uh,” Kai says.
Adam licks his lips, and Kai tracks the movement of his tongue helplessly. His eyes are moving on Kai’s face, like he’s cataloging everything, like he can’t keep them still. Kai’s mouth is very, very dry, and he misses having the cup in his hand.
“So, uh,” he says, and the tension buzzes even harder. “Is this, like, a kissing thing?”
Skeet grabs him by the arms and manhandles him up. Reeve and Mira grab Adam and start frogmarching them down the short hall toward some room and closed doors.
“No,” Skeet says, “This is more like a seven minutes in heaven thing.”
“Wait,” Kai says. Skeet reaches past him and opens a door. “Wait.” Skeet pushes him in, and Adam follows behind. “Wait.” The door clicks shut, then there's a clunk, then the sound of something heavy being pushed against the door.
Kai tries the knob, but it's locked. He jiggles it, but his muscles won’t cooperate and yank hard enough. Adam could probably break it open, but Kai has the vague thought of Vanessa’s parents and property damage, and underage drinking.
“Guys!” Adam yells. He pounds on the door with his fist. “Guys! This isn’t funny!”
But they don’t answer.
Evil. Mental note: make sure your friends aren’t evil next time.
“Looks like we’ll be trapped for a while,” Kai sighs, giving up on the door.
They’ll just have to wait out the seven-minute sentence. It’s simultaneously worse and so much better than the alternative. This way, Adam won’t have to kiss Kai if he doesn’t want to. But also: he won’t have to kiss Kai if he doesn’t want to. It’s a testament to how drunk all of them really are.
Kai turns, presses his back against the door, and slides down it, pulling his knees to his chest, wrapping his hands around his shins, and resting his cheek on his knee. He surveys the room. It’s small and dark, Kai doesn’t have the wherewithal to search for the light switch, but from what Kai can see it looks like a guest room no one ever uses and has accumulated with old junk. There’s a tiny window at the opposite wall that leads up to the lawn. Adam groans and drops onto the ground beside Kai.
The night is clear the moonlight is touching the window and peeking into the room. Adam’s shirt is glowing against his skin from the moonlight, his eyes a bright point in the semi-dark of the room. Kai locks eyes with Adam, and the tension from earlier crops back up tenfold.
This situation is... stupidly pointed. Kai’s pretty sure Reeve is the only person in the world who knows Kai thinks Adam is kinda hot, but he’d also have to be massively stupid to ignore the strain in their friend group lately.
Adam’s looking at him the way he does right before he reaches out to touch Kai’s hair, or brush his fingers against Kai’s freckles, or leans over to kiss Kai’s cheek. He’s looking at Kai like a hungry man, like he’s about to make the stupidest decision of his life and never look back. Kai can feel the pull of that look drawing him in, the temptation to run his hands against Adam’s chest, touching his shoulders or his mouth.
So Kai does the only thing he can think of.
“What did you think of that new Hey Arthur episode?”
Adam blinks at him. “Uh. You mean that kids show?”
Kai bites his lip and nods vigorously.
Totally. Totally. Totally screwed.
-
reeb: [A video of Mira on the dancefloor among a huge throng of teens. The song in the background is completely drowned out by people attempting to sing along drunkenly. She’s grinding against Vanessa, who’s wearing Skeet’s sunglasses and drinking a mimosa with a cocktail umbrella in it.]
(Not sent !) kai: let us out of here!!! its been like 15 mins!!!! guys!!! dam’s phone is dead!!!!!
(Not sent !) kai: goddammit COME GET US
(Not sent !) kai: NOTHING IS SENDING!!
reeb: lol wya we cant find dam either
(Not sent !) kai: YOU LEFT US IN THE BASEMENT
-
“Ugh,” Kai says, flopping back down onto the pillows beside Adam. At some point during their imprisonment slash debate on the ethics of twenty-three seasons of the same children’s cartoon, they’d moved from the floor to the twin bed. “I’m pretty sure they forgot about us.”
“Well, it’s been like thirty minutes. And they're drunk.”
Kai’s starting to sober up. He has to pee, and his mouth tastes like cherry coughdrops. He stands up on the bed, bouncing a bit on the mattress. He reaches up and touches the seam of the window and the sill.
“What are you doing?” Adam asks, trepidation in his voice.
“Uh, escaping?” Kai says.
Kai presses his foot onto the upside down elliptical that’s propped precariously against an old wardrobe. He puts some of his weight on it, testing. Satisfied that it won’t give, Kai lifts himself up onto it, closer to the window, and pushes against the glass pane. The window opens out suddenly, making Kai wobble. The wardrobe groans.
“Careful!” Adam barks.
Kai glances back at Adam, his worried eyes watching Kai from the bed, sitting up on his knees in a half crouch. Kai sticks his head out the narrow window, then his shoulders, and manages to drag himself up and out.
He turns back around and offers his hand to Adam.
“Come on,” he says. “I’ll help you out.”
Adam climbs up onto the elliptical like Kai had, reaches his right hand to Kai’s left, and uses his left to leverage himself closer to the window. The wardrobe and the elliptical make that sound again, like they’re scraping together.
“Hurry!” Kai says, afraid of the whole makeshift apparatus falling apart. Adam’s left palm slaps against Kai’s right and Kai pulls.
The elliptical falls over as Kai yanks Adam up, a great big crash resounding in the room they just escaped. Kai’s momentum and Adam’s weight makes Kai step back once, then twice, then his footing goes and he sprawls onto his back, Adam on top of him, in one big undignified heap.
Adam looks down at him. He looks soberer, too, like he hasn’t had much to drink. Kai should really be pushing Adam off of him. Or trying to sit up. But his hands are on Adam’s waist, and Adam’s looking at Kai’s face like he can’t quite look at anything else, and Kai cannot, for the life of him, break this moment.
Adam’s hands are on either side of Kai’s face, boxing him in. His breath puffs against Kai’s mouth over and over as he breathes shallowly. His eyes flick all over Kai’s face, and Kai’s thinking kiss me, please so hard he’s pretty sure NASA catches the brainwaves.
“I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice,” he says, voice soft and vulnerable, like Kai has the power to hurt him with whatever Kai says next.
Kai’s hands tighten on Adam’s waist. He’s thought about this a lot. Like, a stupid amount. Who doesn’t daydream about confessing to your crush? But Kai cannot dredge up any words to say. He’s dry, completely dry, and he can only think about how good Adam’s weight feels on him. He dips his eyes to Adam’s mouth and thinks This is where I kiss him, right? and Adam’s eyes slide shut as he leans in, towards Kai, and Kai loses his mind.
The backdoor opens, the sounds of the party spilling out into the night air, pink light washing over them. Adam scrambles off Kai so fast that Kai’s pretty sure he breaks the world record for speed, and stands up.
Kai props himself onto his elbows and squints at the silhouette in the doorway.
“Vanessa?”
“Oh my God, there you guys are!” she leans back into the house to yell, “Guys! I found Adam and Kai! They were fucking around in the backyard!”
“Hey!” Adam snaps indignantly. “You locked us in the basement! We had to escape!”
Vanessa rolls her eyes at them.
-
adam: hey uh
adam: sorry about what i said when i was drunk lol
adam: i didn’t mean it
-
Kai turns his phone off and stuffs it into his bag, frustrated. He hadn’t meant to not talk to Adam all weekend, he’d just needed to think things through, and then his dad had asked him to help paint the deck, and he’d had to finish up some code for robotics and time had kinda slipped away from him without really meaning to.
He hadn’t meant to ignore everyone else, either, but they weren’t in a Situation with Kai on Friday night, and he’s not in love with them, and they didn’t seem to mind so much.
Kai had spent all weekend staring at the texts, in between being too busy to answer them, but he can’t figure out what to say back. He’d gotten them Saturday morning after the party, probably because he hadn’t stuck around long enough to be left alone with Adam again.
Kai had left because.
Well, because.
Because he feels played.
Is that it? He can’t tell. He just feels so hollow about it. Adam doesn’t mean to, Kai knows that, but it still feels like he’s being led on. Adam has kissed him once while blacked out and almost kissed him while tipsy and flirts pretty outrageously, and it’s all too much for Kai’s head, which is designed for building robots and lying to his English teachers.
So at lunch, instead of going to Mr Tucker’s room, he lets Freddie from Calc drag him to the auditorium to help build the drama department’s Spring play set.
He’s not avoiding anyone. He’s just... helping his friends.
Fuck.
-
reeb: ok i give
reeb: wtf is going on
kai: ?
reeb: don’t “?” me mfer
reeb: adam is sulking n shit and u’ve been sorta MIA
kai: i’ve been busy, sorry
kai: i am the captain of a team u know. its not personal. i’ll hang out with you guys soon
reeb: spidey sense says there is something u are not telling me
kai: i really do think your spidey sense is actually overactive bladder syndrome
reeb: [An image of the caveman spongebob meme.]
-
He’s in the library, sitting in his favorite spot nestled in the bookshelves, brow furrowed over The Great Gatsby, his English journal, the notes Hannah lent him, and the Sparknotes page for the novel, surrounded by every color highlighter and pen, just trying to get his homework done, when Adam ambushes him.
“You’re avoiding me,” he says, out of nowhere.
Kai jumps, sending his highlighters and books flying. Adam is standing above him, eyebrows furrowed and his arms crossed. He looks a little bit light a superhero, all righteous indignation at injustice, his muscles buldging slightly. You’re dead. Goodbye. his brain supplies.
“Holy shit,” he says, gathering his stuff back up slowly. “You scared me.”
Adam’s eyes soften. “Sorry,” he murmurs.
Kai shrugs. “Don’t worry about it.”
The silence hangs there as Kai avoids his gaze, reshuffling Hannah’s notes back into their correct order. He’s lost his page in the book, so he opens it to the middle and starts looking for the correct page number. There’s no sound in this corner of the library except for Kai’s over-loud breathing and the turning of pages.
Go away go away go away, Kai prays, wanting the world to end so he won’t ever have to face this moment. He thinks about the echo of Adam’s voice in his memory, Kai, look at me, the feeling of Adam’s weight in his lap, the ache Kai feels when he looks at Adam, and wishes that he could just stand up and run.
Adam clears his throat. “You’ve been avoiding me,” he says again, only this time it comes out more like a question.
Kai keeps his face as blank as possible, schools it into something politely curious unlike the shattered glass mosaic he feels like. “Am I?”
Adam rubs his hand across the back of his neck. “Look, I’m sorry,” he says haltingly, sliding his hands into his pockets. “I shouldn’t have... come on to you like that. It was inappropriate, and we were both drunk. And I didn’t mean it.”
Kai looks at him for a long moment. He can feel it, a rock on his chest, crushing him. He feels the ball in his throat, the hot prickle against the backs of his eyelids. “I know,” he says eventually. His voice comes out steady, even though he feels like he’s falling apart.
“So... we’re cool?”
Kai forces himself to nod. “Okay.”
“Really? Because I still feel like I fucked up somewhere here.” Adam takes his hands out of his pockets to open them, palms up, like he’s pleading. “Tell me what I did wrong so I can fix it.”
And it’s now or never. As much as Kai abhors the idea of talking about his feelings in the school library at 4 PM, as much as he wants to just lie through his teeth and stitch this all back up into one big internal bag of FUCK and pretend like nothing happened, he’d be leaving Adam hanging, and Kai’s not a dick.
He takes a deep breath. Then another one. He tries to channel his internal Reeve, but decides against it because Reeve’s kinda an asshole.
“I just... wish you did,” Kai says eventually. If he wasn’t himself, he’d slap him. Adam stares at Kai like he’d just spoken another language, like he’d just spat out part of a puzzle to piece together.
“Wish I did... what?” he asks slowly.
“Mean it,” Kai grits out, the words dragged from him. He feels ridiculous. This is stupid.
“Mean...?” Adam says like every word means something else. Kai scowls at him.
“Do you remember the St Eve’s party?”
Adam shrugs, looking helpless and confused.
“I drove you home that party. I drive you home every party. And every time we’re alone, you say that you like me, that you want me to go inside with you, that you think about me all the time,” Kai’s stomach is churning and Adam looks like he’s about to faint.
“I didn’t...”
Kai can’t hear him say it again. “And I know that you’re just drunk, and that’s just what you’re like when you’re drunk, but I just... I just wanted it to be true so bad. Part of me kept driving you home because I wanted you to be like that with me, part of me just wanted to pretend. But then you kissed me, and I just...” Kai makes a helpless gesture with his hands.
Adam licks his lips. He’s breathing a bit hard.
“...Fell apart,” Kai finishes.
Adam’s looking at him, wide-eyed, deer-in-the-headlights look, pure panic. Kai’s fucked it up, ruined their friendship, destroyed their friend-group, and will probably be unable to look anyone in the eye for a very long time.
Adam didn’t want to hear this. Kai should’ve just lied, shut it all up and let himself wither up inside. He should’ve avoided Adam harder, or refrained from falling in love with him in the first place. He should’ve just dated Jesse when she’d asked and made himself get over Adam.
“How long?”
Kai blinks. “Huh?”
“How long have you wanted...?” he shrugs.
Ah. The million-dollar question.
“Officially? Middle of junior year. If I’m honest with myself? Probably since middle school.”
Adam’s mouth opens and closes nonsensically. Kai asks God to strike him down, just so this can end, just so Kai can go back to trying to figure out what the fuck is up with Gatsby and Jay, just so Adam will stop looking at him like that, like Kai’s killed his puppy.
Adam drops to his knees in front of Kai.
“Okay. Since freshman year. And I’m a liar. I did mean it. I kept thinking, you know, maybe you’d like me back, because I could see you looking, but I just couldn’t make myself say anything. And I meant it. I mean it. I do. I want to kiss you.”
Kai swallows. He’s feeling that dangerous thing again, like there are snakes in his chest, or his feelings are in a bucket that’s about to overflow.
“Okay,” he squeaks out.
Adam leans down and fits their mouths together. It’s chaste, and Kai’s lips are a little bit chapped, and he didn’t close his eyes, but when Adam pulls back Kai smiles so hard his mouth hurts.
And he leans up to kiss Adam, insistent, insistent, tasting Adam without Hennessy whiskey (and he does taste fantastic), and something electric happens to Kai’s spine when their tongues touch. He feels like he’s going to burn up, burst into stars, create a fissure in the earth that goes down to the core, or all three at once.
Adam licks along the roof of Kai’s mouth and yeah - that’s the one thing he’d like to never, ever, ever forget.
He’s about to be totally, totally, totally screwed.
-
Group: dandilyin hoes MFERsssss!! skeet DONT CHANGE CHAT NAME
mirakat: omfg
mirakat: k & a suckin face in library
mirakat: [A blurry creeper picture of Kai pressed against the bookshelves, Adam leaning over him. Their silhouettes are blacked out against the sunlight streaming in through the window, so they almost look like one body. It’s taken at an angle and half of a wooden shelf is in frame.]
speedyskeet: arent they in this GC too
lochnessa: Lmfaaooooooo
speedyskeet: they r gonna see this.....
reever: WTF ADAM’S INTO KAI???
reever: ?????
lochnessa: What planet do you live on
speedyskeet: fuckin jesus christ reeb
locknessa: Literally no one knew KAI was into Adam. EVERYONE KNEW ADAM WAS INTO KAI
reever: WHY AM I THE LAST ONE TO KNOW STUFF
mirakat: s2g i tld u this whn we were @ fortescue’s u nvr listen 2 me
-
“I hate them all,” Kai announces.
Adam looks up at him from where his head is pillowed on Kai’s thighs, Pride and Prejudice held aloft.
“Don’t worry, I set all their ringtones to Maroon 5.”