Blue Monday

Chapter 4 - Kids In America

***GIDEON***

"Looking a little lazy on that bed, aren't you?" Dad ambles through my door on Monday morning, and I hastily shut down the internet window I'm looking at. "No, no, don't be shy," he laughs. "Whatcha doing?"

"Dad, you nosy - hey!"

Before I can stop him, he grabs my laptop with lightning-fast speed. He thumbs the mouse pad for a second, then he tilts his head. Oh shit, did I close that window or just minimize it? "Seriously," he says as he returns the laptop to me with that window totally open for the world to see, "don't be shy. I wanna help make this easy for you, you know?"

I roll my eyes, not wanting to look at that same window while Dad's in the room. "Yeah, but it'd still be hella embarrassing, asking for a prosthetic penis for your birthday."

"You mean your birthday."

"You know what I mean!"

"And what do you mean, exactly?" Dad asks, wearing his patented "I'm gonna awkward the shit out of your day" face. "I thought you said you weren't gonna date until you started at Sunset."

"I wanna at least be prepared before starting my college dating life, you know?" I say. "Or what if my summer job at Joey's Pizza gets me knocking on some girl's door and she wants to jump my bones to pay for the pie?"

"You know that doesn't happen in real life, right?"

"I know." I drum my fingers on the corner of the laptop. "But this isn't just for sex. I mean, short of surgery, this is the closest I'll be able to get to having a full-size, working dick. I'm already gonna have to have surgery anyway, I bet, to take care of..." I pound my chest a couple of times. "And that'd be pricey enough."

"One obstacle at a time, though," Dad says. "Don't push yourself too hard."

"Yeah," I say. "Sure. But hey, at least my voice is starting to sound like a guy's voice now."

"Was that what you were most preoccupied with?"

"For a while, yeah." I grin, then shut down the prosthetic-penis site - for real, not just minimizing it.

"What, you're not ready to buy any yet?" Dad asks.

I unzip my hoodie, toss it aside, and stretch my wings through my tank top. "I'm gonna go down to San Jose, remember? Gonna play basketball with the Snows and the Scags."

Dad raises his eyebrows. "You really call them the 'Scags?'"

"Luca came up with it." I pat his shoulder as I walk over to my window and open it. "Don't lock me out, huh?"

"No promises, Gid. See you later." I perch on the windowsill, then he adds, "Hey, your wings are getting bigger."

"They should be," I say. "I've been flying more since August than in my whole life up to now." I wave goodbye to Dad, then take wing, heading south to San Jose. It's a bit of a long ways to go from San Castiel, but I need every minute of flight time I can get so I can stay in decent shape. I'm already a little bit sweaty when I land on the concrete path in Seven Trees Park, so I stop to take a swig of water from the bottle I brought with me.

"You're late," Luca says dryly as he sees me approaching. He's already on the park's red-paved court, and he's playing with a younger boy, early teens, I think. This must be his little brother Giovanni, the youngest Scagliotti. He's not coming to Balthazar until after Luca graduates next year, so I haven't met him before.

Giovanni brushes his overgrown hair (which reminds me of Alex's before he cut it, but worse) out of his eyes. "Hey, when did you plan on telling me your friend was Spider-Man?" he asks with a crooked smile on his face.