Me, Me & You

Chapter 6

Gym lockers slammed, boisterous male voices reverberated off the breezeblock walls, the rubber soles of their trainers squeaked against the epoxied floors, and the entire room reeked with the tang of sweat and musk of spray deodorant. Due to poor funding, we spent the gym period playing baseball without mitts. My palms still tingled from catching pop-ups in the outfield.

"Hey, Arch'! ARCH'. HEY, YA FUCK!"

I fought to mold my face into a smile before turning to David, a pathetic man-child with two blonde pubes on his upper lip to call a mustache. He was a stray that our friend group attracted and failed to shake.

David was putting on his shirt inside-out and backwards. The clothing tag flapped at me, but before I could say anything, he saw the tag and ripped the shirt back off—only to not invert the shirt, but flip it around so the tag was in back. While I was thinking what a moron he was, he shout-asked me:

"Are you still dating Luna or did she friendzone you?" He tugged on the edge of his shirt.

"No, we've never dated."

"But you tried her, right?"

I hesitated.

"Bro," a voice interjected. Nathan, a buddy of mine, sat on the bench that divided the aisle. His foot rested on the wooden planks as he re-tied his shoelaces. "Archie was the first of us to get to second base when he finger-fucked Luna."

"Whoa, so it's true? You mean like..." David flashed the two fingers signal. I looked away and brushed my hand across my forehead and into my hair. Shit.

I turned and gave them my cockiest smirk. "Yeah, I finger-banged her, but it took forever for her to cave and it was boring."

"But that was back then, now..." David said, drawing out the sentence.

Nathan interrupted, "Why you asking, dude? If you just want your dick sucked, go to Claire like everyone else. Now Claire... Claire would suck any bro's dick. You have to put some effort in for Luna. Right, Archie? Isn't that why you moved onto Claire?"

David's eyes bulged comically as they darted between me and Nathan.

"Yeah, Luna made me work for it, but we decided to ice it for a while. Claire's the way to go."

"So, let me get this straight." David lifted his arms overhead and stretched out his torso, giving me a letterbox view of pubes. His arms fell back to his sides with a slap. "You're with Claire now, but not with Luna? I don't want to step on your toes, man."

Well, I was sort of with Claire, and I was never with Luna...

"Yeah, it's just a no-strings-attached thing with Claire." I flicked my eyes to Nathan, exasperated that he chose to abet David here, but Nathan only sat and grinned at me.

"Awesome! Do you mind if I have a go?"

"With Claire?"

"With Luna. Do you know who Luna's interested in? Could you ask?" David asked and leaned against the lockers.

"If you're serious just ask her out."

"God, it's not that fucking easy." The expletive limped through his lips and fell hard thanks to his mock-machismo. "I bet she's nice and soft." He touched his chest and did an odd shimmy dance.

Nathan barked a laugh and took his feet off the bench. "Da fuck was that, man. Oooo!" He imitated the boob dance.

"It's how girls' boobs work. You wouldn't know," David said.

"Uh-huh. You never even touched a boob. You probably think they feel like sacks of sand or something."

I took their side-conversation as an opportunity to escape. I yanked my head through my t-shirt—making sure it was right-side out, of course—and zipped the fly of my jeans. Now for the deodorant...