Heteroflexible

“You gonna sit down?”

I’m jerked right out of memory lane with his question. “Yeah. I was just …” I give a chuckle at the giant mirror by his walk-in closet. “I keep forgetting how big your room is.”

“Yeah, I guess,” mumbles Jimmy, distracted, staring off.

With that, I take a seat in the matching wicker chair near him right by the window and prop my feet up on the bed next to his.

Then we proceed to sit there in the warm, strange, thought-filled silence, and say not a damned word.

Minutes flow by.

All we do is sit here and breathe, and think, and breathe some more, and think a lot more.

Then he touches my hand.

I flinch and turn my head his way, looking at him.

The touch turns into something else as Jimmy slips his fingers into my palm, then takes hold of my hand completely.

It feels so good when he holds my hand.

I lift an eyebrow. “Jimmy …”

“I don’t know where to begin,” he blurts. “I just know I gotta hold your hand or something while I’m doin’ it, ‘cause otherwise I’ll totally freak the fuck out over here.”

“It’s fine.” I give his hand a little reassuring shake and a firm squeeze, then let him hold that hand hostage as long as he needs. “Just … tell me what it is you need to say.”

“I think I might be bi.”

16

BOBBY

My entire soul drops through the floor and crashes through the earth at that one word Jimmy just uttered: bi.

As calm as I was a second ago, at once my heart jumps into my throat and my stomach flips over.

Bi.

Just giving it a name, this thing that’s been going on …

In my heart, a door flies open, a door I didn’t even know was there, a door I kept shut because I thought it wasn’t possible.

“Bi?” I murmur back, stunned.

Even saying the word out loud, my feelings can hardly contain themselves. All those wishes, all those cravings, all those long nights of wondering what could be … if only …

He isn’t saying anything. Keep him talking. “You think you’re bi?”

“I dunno how else to explain what’s goin’ on with me.”

We’re still holding hands. That act suddenly becomes so much more meaningful, just from that one blunt word. Bi. “Well, why don’t you make it super simple and just … say what’s going on with you, Jimmy? Tell me what you’re thinking about.”

“I’m thinking about that kiss.”

Me too. “I wonder if Malcolm knows what he almost saw.”

“Not that kiss. The one back at the hotel.” His hand flinches. Our palms are so sweaty suddenly. “The first one.”

I shift my weight slightly, causing the wicker chair to groan under me, and watch him, listening.

A flicker of pain enters his eyes as he searches for the words. “Do you remember in eighth grade when we went to that big end-of-the-school-year party at Carter’s?”

I remember it instantly. “The one where Michael stood watch at the stairs for the parents while we all played spin-the-bottle in the living room, unsupervised for all of ten minutes.”

“And I spun the bottle in those ten minutes, and it landed on Darcy Pryor, the girl I’d had a crush on all year …?”

I nod. “And you kissed her. And when we went home later in the back of your ma’s car, you wouldn’t shut up about how it felt.”

“It was amazing. It changed my life. Girls were everything to me from then on. Freshman year football, all of my buddies had girlfriends, and I wanted one, too. Darcy had moved away, but the spark she ignited in me was something I chased for years. I was so girl-crazy. I couldn’t get enough.”

“I remember.”

“And …” Jimmy gazes at his foot, but his eyes are far away in the memory of it all. His face hardens. “And I think … I think I had feelings for guys, too. My teammates … Guys in general … I’d just always excused it, thinking, ‘Oh, all guys feel this way. All guys like gettin’ their asses slapped. All guys feel a rush of excitement when they hug their friends.’ I’ve … I’ve been tellin’ myself those lies for fuckin’ years. I never let myself even consider another possibility for these feelings, that … that I might actually …” Jimmy lets out a long, jagged breath. “Wow, Bobby.”

I swallow hard, then grip his hand even firmer, despite all the sweat between our palms growing more slippery. “What?”

“I’m just shocked that it’s taken me all this time to say this.” He turns to look at me. “The reason I brought up my first kiss with Darcy …” His watery brown eyes search mine for a while before he finishes: “… is because I felt that same surge of excitement inside me when I kissed you in that hotel.”

Those words do something to my heart.