Bromosexual

What ensued next was nothing short of the beautiful stuff of my fantasies. Stefan leapt on me while I laughed and fought him off for precisely five pathetic seconds. Stefan had me pinned yet again, just like in that boy’s bathroom, straddling my waist and holding down one of my wrists, his other hand still holding the cheese puff—still wet with his saliva. I laughed and tried to hit him with my free hand, but then he got smart and pinned that one down to my own chest with his own body. It brought his face so close to mine, all I smelled was cheese and all I could see were his shining blue eyes, his flaring nostrils, and his perfect teeth as he spread his mouth into a superior grin.

“Open wide, bitch,” he repeated, this time quieter.

Just when I parted my lips to throw back a teasing insult, he shoved the wet cheese puff into my mouth and slapped his hand over my lips, baring his teeth as he put all his weight on me and continued to grin.

I felt the wetness of his mouth in my own.

It was the closest I would ever get to kissing the boy of my dreams, and I didn’t even know he was the boy of my dreams yet. I couldn’t be a fag. I wasn’t a fag. I knew it. Homos were just on TV. They were celebrities, and weirdly dressed men in scarves, and silly boys who laughed shrilly and acted girly.

There was no way I was a homo. Homos didn’t look like me.

Or Stefan Baker.

What I felt in this moment, surely all other guys felt this too. That’s what I thought during that moment on the bed beneath Stefan Baker with his saliva-coated cheese puff in my mouth and his firm, strong hand still pressed against my lips. The other guys on the team would be so jealous of me right now.

I really believed that.

Denial is the most powerful force on Earth. Maybe even more powerful than love. Or anger. Or ego.

Stefan’s voice turned small and silly and taunting. “C’mon. Eat up, butter cup.”

Slowly and while never releasing my eyes from his, I started moving my teeth. It was so wet already, there was hardly anything left to chew. It melted away on my tongue like it was never there.

When he let go of my mouth, he remained lying on my chest and staring down at me with that pompous look in his eyes.

I knew I was getting stiff. I knew that the embarrassing thing was happening again, but either Stefan didn’t notice … or he didn’t care. And because he paid it no mind, I paid it no mind either.

All guys got hard-ons when they wrestled around with their buddies. It’s adrenaline, maybe. Just basic chemistry … right?

Right …?

“So gross,” I whispered to him, a mock scowl on my face.

“Told you not to dare me,” he said back quietly, sounding so cocky even speaking in a near whisper.

My heart jumped. He wouldn’t dare … “You wouldn’t dare to d-do that a … again.”

The words almost didn’t come out. I could hardly speak, my heart was racing so fast.

“You bet I would,” he warned me. “Better watch it, Caulfield.”

The two words came out like gunshots: “Dare you.”

He let go of my wrist—which I did not lift to fight him—and snatched another cheese puff from the bowl. He slipped it past his lips, and I watched his jaw work and his cheeks suck inward as he did his worst to it. I swallowed hard, eyes glued to his lips.

His perfect, plush lips that glowed from his saliva.

His cheeks, naturally flushed and adorable, sucked inward as he wetted the puff in his mouth.

Then he popped it out and held it between his fingers once again. “You just don’t listen, do you?” he murmured down to me in a taunting, singsong voice.

Oh, I was listening just perfectly that day. Stefan was either playing the same flirty game I was playing, or else he was my perfect violin across which I drew my soft-haired bow again, and again, and again.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Open wide, bitch.”

The second one was so much wetter, yet I was somehow able to chew it twice as long. This time, he laughed while I chewed, like this was amusing him to no end.

Something about the laughter drew me out of the drunken haze of Stefan’s beauty that I was lost in. I brought up my hand he forgot to pin down again and used the leverage to topple Stefan over, and the pair of us started to wrestle and laugh on his bed.

The bowl of cheese puffs went flying off the edge. Neither of us heard it land.

We were too determined to pin each other and win.

Always a game. Always a competition.