I feel Camille studying the side of my face intently. After a minute, it gets to me and I lift my quizzical eyes to her.
Her lips purse. “Like a brother?”
My eyebrows pull together. “Yeah, that’s what I said.”
She nods slowly, then peers back down at the yearbook on the bed next to her. “There’s just no coming between that.”
I bring the photo down to my lap. “What do you mean?”
“You and Bobby. Your friendship. It’s just …” She softly beats a fist into her palm, like a demonstration. “… impenetrable.”
“Yeah, I know that. So?”
Her pretty hazel-eyed gaze lifts up to mine, piercing me. “I’m not saying all this to make you defensive or think I’m trying to get at anything. I mean, look, the guys in Europe …”
“Guys in Europe?” I cut her off, my heart racing as if my fight or flight response has been triggered somehow, but unsure why.
“They’re far more open in Europe,” she goes on blithely. “Guys are sexually … flexible over there. Guys kiss other guys and it isn’t always a gay thing. Guys and girls, girls and girls, guys and guys …”
“I’m not gay,” I blurt out more snappily than I mean to.
“I don’t care what you are, Jimmy.”
“My brother’s the gay one of the family. I’m not gay, Camille. My closeness with Bobby—”
“You don’t gotta explain anything.”
“—is because I’m not afraid to show my love for my best friend. So what if Bobby’s gay? My brother set the example for Spruce, and I’m not about to ruin it by perpetuating some homophobic ‘dudes can’t be close with other dudes’ toxic masculinity bull crap. Guys show affection for each other all the time, and they should do it even more. Why else do athletes like slappin’ each other’s asses after a big game? Or in gym class? We like it when a buddy slaps our ass. It makes us feel good. It makes me feel good when a pal smacks my butt cheek with pride. And when I hug my best bud Bobby, I feel fucking great, because I’m showin’ him how much I love him. You wanna talk all European at me? I’ll kiss Bobby if that proves how secure I am, just like your fancy Europeans. I’ll call him over right now and kiss that motherfucker on the lips.”
After my tirade, Camille just sits there staring at me with this cool-mannered, patient, half-lidded “Are ya done?” look on her face that would be comical if her words hadn’t just gotten me all hot.
I huff with frustration and stare back down at the photo in my lap, fuming and red-faced.
She says, “You don’t have to prove a thing to me, Jimmy.”
I don’t say anything, my hardened eyes on the photo.
She glances down at her phone, then sets the yearbook aside. “Alright. It’s about time I head back home. Mom’s waiting.”
I look up to watch her rise from the bed, step gracefully over a couple of boxes full of high school trinkets and crap, then stop when she reaches the door.
She turns and eyes me. “I kissed a German girl last summer.”
My pulse continues to throb in my ears and I’m still red-faced, but I lift my eyebrows at her words anyway and wait for the rest.
A dreamy look sweeps over her face like a fog. “Her name was Genoveva. Took me saying it about a thousand and a half times to get the pronunciation right. Damned Texas twang never quite gets off your tongue, even across the ocean.” Camille shrugs. “She tasted like strawberries and wine. Maybe it was her lip balm.”
“Genoveva …” I murmur, trying it.
“Close.” She grips my doorknob, jiggles it for no reason, then eyes me. “Maybe I’m a little gay, a little flexible, or a little nothing at all. Or maybe the better point is, it doesn’t matter. You like what you like.”
And with another one of her totally-Camille shrugs, she wags a photo in the air that she fished out of the yearbook. It’s one of me and her in our first dance routine together sophomore year.
“I’m keeping this one, Jimmy Strong,” she says, then swings her way right on out of my room with half a smile on her face.
My heart still beats aggressively inside my chest.
For what, I just don’t know.
7
BOBBY
It didn’t seem like all that long ago when Jimmy and I were in his beat-up red truck coursing down the open road, music blasting and windows rolled down and Jimmy grandly steering his steed.
Our trip into the city isn’t as chill.
Something has clearly been on Jimmy’s mind since we left our comfy little hometown. He’s snappish and irritable one moment, then chipper and smacking my arm after telling a joke the next. The dude is downright maniacal.
Then Jimmy becomes a furious fireball two hours later when we finally reach the city through a crawling, horn-honking, five-hundred-lane highway. A pinched look of stress paints Jimmy’s face redder and redder as we navigate the web of busy city streets. He white-knuckles his steering wheel, grits his teeth, and argues with his phone. “I went left already!” he shouts at the poor thing. “We’re goin’ in a dang circle, ya dumb piece a’ metal!”