More Than Everything (Family 3)

Since starting at the beginning seems like as good a place as any, that’s the first picture I’m putting into the album: Scott Boone at age sixteen, blond hair cut jock short, no shirt, shiny with sweat, and the fodder for almost all of my masturbatory fantasies for years to come.

Charlie (“Chase”) Rhodes

“HI, UH, hey, uh, hello,” I smoothly said to Scott as I came running down the stairs. “Do you want some he—”

And that’s when I really kicked the seduction strategy up a notch by managing to slip on thin air and then land ass-first at the bottom of the stairs, knocking over some of Scott’s stacked boxes in the process. I sort of froze then, just did the slow pan up to him to check whether he’d noticed my snafu. Because, you know, it was totally possible he’d somehow missed someone yelling out to him, then screeching while falling down the stairs, and finally banging around boxes loud enough for deaf Mrs. Winters in 3E to hear.

He was staring at me, mouth gaping, hazel eyes wide. Yes, hazel. Death-defying accidents and unbeforeknown humiliation weren’t enough to prevent me from inventorying everything I could about his appearance. In case you’re interested, his nipples were tiny and pink, and I had this strange urge to feel their texture. With my tongue. And my eyes are blue. Just thought you might want to know.

I assume there were other noises around us. Probably cars driving and honking, people shouting, a kid playing hopscotch, birds chirping, a mugging; whatever, you get the idea. There were noises. But the thing was, I couldn’t hear any of them. It might have been head trauma from my fall, I’m willing to remain open-minded about that possibility, but as I sat there and locked gazes with Scott, everything went quiet, everyone around me disappeared, and he was all I saw.

“Are you okay?” he asked me once he finally closed his mouth.

His lips were really nice. Not too thin, not too plump, and a great shade of red. I wanted to kiss him. I’d never kissed anyone. I wondered if I’d be crap at it.

Was I supposed to stick my tongue in his mouth and twirl it around his tongue, or what? I thought about asking Loose Linda on the fourth floor, but there was a higher than likely chance she would have wanted to take a hands-on, or in this case lips-on, teaching approach and I wasn’t up for it. Let’s take a moment to think of all the double entendre jokes we can make about that last comment. Okay, moving on.

“Hey, can you hear me?” Scott asked, sounding worried.

I could hear him just fine but I decided against mentioning it because he was rushing over to me and, as I might have mentioned, he wasn’t wearing a shirt. He squatted in front of me, brow furrowed, chewing on his bottom lip.

“Should I call an ambulance?” he asked. “Do you need anything?”

And just like that, he’d handed me the perfect opening.

I pushed my brown hair out of my eyes and said, “CPR.”

He raised both eyebrows. “What?”

I did that fake cough thing that never sounds convincing because it’s all dry.

“CPR,” I repeated. “I think maybe I need CPR.”

“CPR is for people who aren’t conscious or breathing,” he patiently explained.

I doubled up on the fake cough and added a dramatically hoarse voice to complete the picture. “Are you sure?” I asked as I rubbed my throat. “Shouldn’t we go ahead and do it just to, you know, be safe?”

Scott shook his head. “I took a babysitting class from the Red Cross when I was thirteen,” he said, sounding very earnest. “And I have to do annual refreshers to keep up my certification. I know what I’m talking about. You’re breathing on your own and conscious. That means CPR is not indicated.”

Damn Red Cross, cockblocking me. I dropped my hand from my neck and let out a sharp sigh of disappointment. “Yeah, okay.” I looked down and tugged at a loose thread in my jeans.

“I’m Scott Boone,” he said.

That was the point in the conversation where a light gust of wind should have made my hair blow just so, a guy on the corner should have started playing a violin, and those chirping birds should have flown around us and landed on a shoulder, or, at the very least, a dinged-up box. Alas, none of that happened. Instead, I dragged my gaze up to meet his and proceeded to ramble like an idiot.

“Hi, Scott. I’m Charles Rhodes but everyone calls me Charlie. Well, not everyone. In third grade Maxwell Jacobs used to call me Chase. Chase Rhodes, get it? ’Cause people get chased on the road. Not that anybody chases me, but I never complained because it could have been worse. The girl who used to sit next to me? Her name was Sandra Butts. She used to beg people to call her Sandra but it was third grade, so even the teacher called her Sandy and—”