Here Comes The Sun [wattys 2016]

DECEMBER 2007

DECEMBER 2007

"You're going to fall." Jem chides.

"No, I'm not."

"You've always injured yourself while trying to do an ollie."

"Well, today's different."
"Oh, really?"
Alex raises his eyebrows at Jem who rolls his eyes at him. "Watch me."

"I am. Watching you break your ankle."
"Oh ye of little faith," Alex says before he kicks off. The skateboard feels wobbly beneath his feet but he feels determined. There was going to be no more skateboarding after this for months and if he didn't perform an ollie before the ground was blanketed with snow, Alex would not be able to survive the winter in shame and frustration. Not particularly in that order.

Alex's heart is beating so fast that he can hear it thundering in his ears. He leaps and almost loses his balance but both he and the skateboard land on the ground, not very elegantly but landing nonetheless. He stops suddenly and whirls around to look at Jem, whose eyebrows are raised like he still can't believe it happened. "I did it!"

Jem finally snaps out of it. His lips quirk into a magnificent smile, one corner rising more than the other. "Yeah, you did!"

Alex lets out a whoop of joy he didn't know he had in himself. It was a little thing that wouldn't matter to most people but he feels like a king, triumphant and victorious. His very bones were quivering with excitement.

Even Jem looks at him in amazement before he high fives him. "Well, I wasn't expecting that."

"Me neither." Alex says truthfully, trying to downplay his joy.

"If you'd just done an ollie like, even a month ago, we could have done kickflips." Jem sighs.

"Hey, at least I did it."

"Yeah, you did." Jem grins at him. He loops his arm through Alex's and Alex reddens which he thinks is, well, stupid. He'd seen Jem's bare back covered in sweat and bathed in moonlight, had had his arms wrapped around his hot skin and run his fingers down his vulnerable arms so shamelessly and now, even though there is almost four layers of clothes between their skins, he blushes like a middle schooler. God, he was weirdo.  "You know what that means?"

"What?"

"Date night."

Alex laughs. "Date night?"

Jem is smiling drunkenly but he looks a little abashed.  "Yeah!"

"So you're like, asking me out?" Even though they were together almost every day- be it skateboarding, making out- they had never officially been on a 'date'. The very idea made Alex a little afraid. He'd never properly been on a date (unless he was willing to count Nancy Wellington from seventh grade with whom he went to the Taco counter where she kissed him and told him she loved him and never spoke to him again. He did not count this.) And he felt a little ashamed to admit that he liked things the way they were right now.

"Really, Alex?" Jem lets go of him and draws back dramatically, clutching his heart. "I thought we were more than 'just physical'."

Alex smiles thinly but he wishes Jem would lower his voice. "'Just physical'? Is this Sex and the City or something?"

"I knew sex is all that is important to you."

"Uh huh."

"I'm going to tell all my girlfriends you're a horrible guy."

"Okay, Carrie Bradshaw."

Jem raises his eyebrows. "Well? Don't leave me hanging."

Alex squints at him. "Well..."