Brett (Boys & Toys Season 2 2)

“Seriously,” I insist. More specifically, we’re on our backs on my bed, totally naked, the bed sheets and pillows somehow kicked onto the floor, and our bodies utterly spent from having driven each other over the edge—twice in a row. “I was invited to a few. But never actually been to one.”

“They’re a lot like funerals,” Skylar tells me. “You have the first part everyone is obligated to endure. Then the second part where everyone lets down their hair and all the truths come out.”

“Sounds promising.” I chuckle. “Never been to a funeral, either.”

“You’re lucky. I don’t like seeing things … end. Whether it’s a life. Or a party. Or a school year. Or a …” Skylar’s mouth scrunches up as he stares up at my ceiling. His eyes change. “You should get that spot inspected.”

I shrug at it. “Probably just a leak. Are you alright?” I prop my head up with a hand, my elbow digging into the mattress. “You’ve seemed … kinda strange ever since the bachelorette party.”

“Seriously. You shouldn’t let problems go.” He squints at me. “Don’t you have roof access? Isn’t this the top apartment?”

“Through Connor’s room, yeah. Fire escape.”

Skylar hops off the bed and yanks on his pair of pants without underwear, then hurriedly kicks on his shoes sans socks. “Come on!” he encourages me as he makes his way out of my room. I sit up, put on my boxers and shoes, then run after him.

Slipping through Connor’s window onto the fire escape, we climb up to the roof. The cool night air sweeps over our shirtless bodies like a silken blanket as Skylar inspects the smooth tar roofing surface roughly over my bedroom, then nods with a discovery. “Yep, thought so. I’m pretty sure I can see a crack here. Pinhole.”

“Dante’s usually good at keeping up with the maintenance of this building,” I say automatically. “His dad gave him the place to run on his own. I think if there was a hole, even a pinhole, he’d—”

“My dad’s in construction. I see these things.”

Oh, I’d forgotten. “Well, still, my bedroom never actually leaks. Maybe it’s evidence of an old leak? I don’t see what the issue is.”

“The issue,” Skylar tells me, crouched by the alleged tiny pinhole I still don’t quite see, “is that you’ve gotta be proactive with these things. You don’t want to wake up one day with water dripping on your nose while you’re asleep, do you?”

I stare at him. “Is this when I answer, ‘No, Daddy’ …?”

Skylar’s brow furrows. “I’m being serious.”

“So am I. What’s with the sudden lecture? You don’t think I’m proactive enough?”

“I just …” He presses his lips shut and glares down at the roof and its rough, uneven texture.

I come toward him. “Is this the real issue?”

He pushes himself up to his feet. “What do you mean ‘real issue’ …?”

“Is there some problem I’m not addressing? I mean, other than some imaginary pinhole. You didn’t really address my question from before … from the party.”

“It’s not imaginary. And … what question?”

“Why you seemed so distant.”

Skylar gives me a frustrated look, then turns and walks away to the edge of the building where he stares out at the world pensively, for a moment looking like some jeaned, shirtless superhero, his messy hair flapping dramatically in the wind.

“It’s because I am distant,” he finally answers.

I come up to his side. “Huh?”

“Literally. Distant. Far away.” Skylar crouches by the four-foot concrete parapet lining the roof and rests his hands on it, staring down below at the flashing neon high-heel sign of Dames & Dudes. “I live so many hours away, Brett. I’m … distant.”

“So?”

He stares up at me incredulously. “So?? What are we going to do after Saturday when the big day is over and it’s time for me to go home? What am I supposed to do when I want to hang with you again? Or … do more?” he adds, a touch quieter, as his doe eyes drop to my chest.

After several attempts at forming a sentence, I realize rather disappointingly that I don’t have an answer to give him. Defeated, I crouch down right next to him, our knees gently touching. “I guess I honestly haven’t given it much thought.”

“See? You’re not proactive. You just … leap in however you want with no regard to consequence.” Sky looks away. “You’ve always been like this.”

“Have I?”

“Yeah. Didn’t you notice how I was freshman year, when you first met me? I’m not a guy who ‘leaps headfirst’. I plan. I think of the future. You kinda have to, when you code like I do. But you?” He scoffs, unable to look at me. “You get bored and you drop out of college. That’s what you do.”

“I didn’t drop out because I was bored.”

“It doesn’t even matter the reason, because it doesn’t change the fact: You left. I don’t think you gave two thoughts to how that decision of yours affected so many. Not just me. You left a gaping hole in the fraternity. It wasn’t the same afterwards. It lost its fun. It had no soul …” He sighs. “I even considered leaving the frat right then. I … couldn’t bear to be a part of it without you. There were many times I would lie to the other brothers and sleep in another friend’s dorm room just because I couldn’t stand being in the house. I’d even go all the way home on weekends sometimes.” He looks down at his hands. “I think you took more than just that book of confessions with you, Brett.”