Breaking the Ice

fifteen*

I think sex was becoming a problem, if only because I did it so often. And when I wasn't doing it, it was all I could think about.

This had never been an issue for me before—but, I guess, I had never clicked physically with someone quite like I had clicked with Beau. Sex had always just been a means to an end, an expectation when pretty girls batted their eyelashes and dragged their painted nails down my shirt buttons. The room was always dark and the air I shared with them always tasted like cheap liquor. My eyes had always squeezed shut to ride the waves, my hands always fisting the sheets instead of long, shiny hair. It was an out-of-body feeling, like I was an observer instead of a participant. Maybe that was because all the people I had thrown into my bed before him had been women. Maybe it was because they hadn't been Beau.

Regardless, I hadn't seen him in a week, and it was starting to show.

That night, I had dressed up in some nice jeans and my leather jacket to go to Carrie's Friendsgiving party. The house was clean and beige, with a closed-off kitchen-slash-dining-room combination connected to the living room and framed family pictures hung along the walls. A large, silver cross shone chrome next to the television, which was playing some obscene party music. I had dropped off some of my mom's famous green beans in the kitchen before being dragged to the couch by some of Carrie's cheerleader friends, including an already-smoking Madison wearing a thigh-length, off-the-shoulder dress. I took a seat in between Inna and Ted, and someone threw a deck of playing cards onto the table.

Tiana was talking about the December theater production, how I should sign up to work tech so that they had some eye-candy backstage, and Angel pushed her off their lap with a jokingly-offended remark. Tiana shrieked something about dirtying her new dress, and Adam, who had been wandering between the living room and kitchen helping Carrie and Brandon cook, cut in with some joke about taking my place as pretty-boy backstage. The cheer girls giggled at that.

Madison started to deal cards, her vape between her teeth and watermelon smoke curling from her lips. "Who wants to open a bottle of wine? I have some stories."

Someone found a corkscrew and Adam brought a few handfuls of colorful wine glasses—some crystal, some a tacky, glittery plastic—to pour out the four cheap bottles Carrie had bought. "The expensive ones are for dinner," she'd said, bringing the champagne back to the kitchen.

I was focused on the party, I really was. Until the pre-dinner wine started to flow, the gossip about the football team I didn't really care for started, and the stairs creaked. I glanced over my wine to see a familiar, lithe body peeking over the white-painted railing, and my mind was gone.

We made eye contact, and Beau looked startled, flushing a baby pink. A massive, pastel T-shirt with a figure skate decal across the front swamped him, and between that, his damp hair, and his bare feet, he looked pitifully underdressed. My next thought was that I wanted him even less dressed, and I washed that one away with a deep sip of red wine.

"Hey!" one of Carrie's friends, Hashmiya, called. She had South Asian features, long dark hair, and a deep cupid's bow. Her wine glass sat on the coffee table as she topped it off with wobbly hands. Laila—her sober friend with glassy green eyes like swirly marbles and a hijab—was helping her not to spill it. "You're Carrie's cousin, right? Why aren't you down here?"

"Oh, I'm doing homework," he murmured, eyes going wide and darting around as people gestured for him to join us. "I really shouldn't—"

"Come on!" Inna called, already pouring a fresh glass of wine. "You'll work better when you've had something to drink, I promise."

His eyes flitted to me, and I smiled behind my crystal glass. Reluctantly, Beau came up and took a pink plastic cup, sitting across from me in the circle. I was just drunk enough to wish he was next to me, but sober enough not to make a fuss.