Mine To Love (manxman)

3-My Rock

JEREMY

I watched Frankie kiss his girlfriend goodbye before he jogged to my car. I'd had the horrible luck of bumping into them at the movies. I'd been sitting in front of them, two rows down, but I'd still heard the slurping gross sounds of them making out. It was a form of torture that I tried to avoid if possible. Since I'd finally admitted my feelings for him to myself three years ago I'd had to bare witness to him dating five different girls. I'd had to watch them suck face and grope each other. I'd cried myself to sleep when I was seventeen and he'd told me that he'd lost his virginity. He'd given me more details about that than I wanted and I'd had to pretend to be interested and that talk of girly parts of the anatomy didn't make me want to gag.

Frankie pulled open the passenger door and slid in beside me. "Thanks for giving us a ride, man. What did you think of the film?" He turned sideways in his seat to look at me.

"It was okay. I couldn't really get into it though." Yeah, I was too distraught about my best friend dry humping some chick behind me.

"Me neither. I only went because Sandy wanted to see it." He scratched his chin and turned back to face the windscreen.

"It must have been pretty difficult for her to see it with you attached to her face." I scoffed. My disgust was barely contained but the car interior was dark so I knew he wouldn't really see it on my face.

He chuckled beside me. "Hell, man, that was tame. That girl damn near attacks me any time we're in a darkened space together."

"Oh, so she's one of those chicks who'll only do it with the lights off?" The distaste was dripping from my words.

"Nah, she's pretty cool." He sighed. "She invited me to dinner with her folks last weekend and she put my hand on her thigh under the table, when she pulled it up further I found out she wasn't wearing panties so I-"

"Whoa, too much information Mister." I couldn't have another one of these conversations. I wasn't a prude, I was eighteen years old and I lived for gay porn. But I couldn't hear about him with someone else. I only barely tolerated these annoying girls that he dated, even though some of them had been nice.

"Sorry, Jeremy. You want to come in for a beer or something? I have some stashed in the mini fridge in my room." I'd pulled into my driveway but I looked over at his house. All of the lights were off so I presumed that his mother must be asleep. She worked insane hours as a nurse over at the local hospital but she'd taken the last few days off to visit her sister, she'd come back late last night.

"Yeah. I seriously need to get drunk." I spoke the last under my breath but he still heard me any way.

"Why? What's up?" He frowned at me over the roof of the car after we'd both climbed out.

"Oh, nothing. I'm just fried." And I was, emotionally at least.

In Frankie's room he fell back on his bed half sitting, propped against his pillows with a can of beer in his hand and I sat in his rolling desk chair. I didn't trust myself to sit on the bed with him.

"So are you going to tell me what's been bugging you?" He says out of the blue and my eyes shoot to him.

"Who said anything's bugging me?" I deflected.

"Come on, I know you too well." He sat upright. "Are you crushing on someone?" I nearly choked on my beer, as it was some of it came out my nose and made my eyes water from the burn of it.

"What?" My voice was too high pitched.

"You so are." He laughed. "Who is it?"

"No one. Now drop it." My face was burning and I couldn't look him in the eyes.