V (boyxboy short stories)

Vlad, Levi and Marley.

     Levi was holding the charcoal with the tongs while a guy swayed the lighter underneath it, waiting for it to start burning. The five other guys were managing the hookah: placing the tubes in, smearing the aroma, adding a little 'extra' in the mixture, looking around for tinfoil.

     All of this was done in the darkness, since they didn't want any teacher outside to know the room was occupied.

     And then they were all distracted when a row of thuds could be heard from the hallway.

     "The guys must be back from the ski slope." a guy stated the obvious.

     It was, after all, a ski-trip with a few classes of 12th grade. However, half of the people that came didn't even ski, and were there to party.

     The ground and doors of the hallway shook from the thuds of the ski and snowboard boots, and the men's chatter was louder than the music being played somewhere in the hallways of the motel.

     Levi handed over the tongs holding the charcoal and followed the four guys that exited his room to greet the ones arriving.

     There were about four guys and three girls, group out of which one stood out the most in Levi's eyes.

     Vlad...

     He walked heavily in his boots, snowboard resting on his shoulders as he walked. Snow clung to his clothes and hair and fell to the ground with each step he took. His snow glasses were up in his hair, their frame colored in rainbow stripes.

     His snowboard outfit rustled as he walked. He had on a green/grey jacket and black trousers, that looked as good on him as anything he wore.

     Levi couldn't tell why it was Vlad that got his attention. He deduced it to be jealousy, or admiration maybe, but he didn't give it much thought. Levi wasn't that much of a thinker.

     "Dude, just in time!" a guy nicknamed Truck gripped Vlad's shoulder just as he was about to pass. Then, he leaned to whisper. "Levi brought 'Marley'!"

     Marley was their code for the nargileh, in memory of Bob Marley. The reason Truck was whispering this was, there were more than enough people in for the hookah, but Vlad was always invited anywhere.

     "Ooh, sweet!" he grinned Levi's way, then entered the room.

     He leaned the snowboard against the closet nearby and took off his jacket while the other people went to sit on the two beds, the nargileh placed on a nightstand between them.

     The door was locked and the light off so that teachers would think people are sleeping in the room, and the balcony's door was wide open, so that the smell wouldn't linger.

     The charcoal was burnt by then, placed on the tinfoil through which a couple holes had been poked. A guy offered to take the first inhales from the tube- those first few were the worst ones, until the aroma would kick in.

     Vlad slumped down next to Levi, allowing him his scent. A mixture between deodorant, sweat and pine tree. He now stood in a loose brown shirt, with the suspenders of his trousers hanging by his sides, and his snow glasses hanging by the neck.

     Levi sighed and took a tube.

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     "Zo I carried her skis, her ski boots, my snowboard and then shes say to me 'Truck, do you even lifts!' " the guy scoffed foggily, throwing his arms in the air, at which a few men ducked out of the way.