I remember…lunch without lust

 

I HAD STRAIGHT jock friends at my last school, not all of whom fit the stereotype of dumb jocks. One was my top competitor for the best grade point average. For the first two years our averages, which we updated with every test result, every scored essay, every homework assignment, seesawed between us.

At one point he tried to convince me we should just settle the issue once and for all like “manly men”—only he pronounced it with a phony deep voice as “MAHN-lee men”—with my choice of three events: (a) a five-K run, or (b) arm wrestling, or (c) bench pressing. He guffawed and gave up when I agreed to the third event, as long as I could use my own iron.

Given the hostilities of the Gang of Four, I expected to eat my lunch alone, at a table out of the way of the direct path to and from the very select table where they held court. I doubted anyone would dare go against their implicit edict the fairy boy was anathema.

Another word to put in my reverse Auntie Mame-style notebook: words I expected to have to explain to the Four if I ever used them in their not-so-august presence.

Except…Johnny did one day. Go against them.

It was as if he lived in some other world when it came to friendships. He saw everyone as a friend and no one as an enemy. He didn’t notice—or if he did, paid no attention to—the glares from the Four and their sycophants (notebook entry, check!) the first time he brought his tray to my table, plunked it down, and dropped his fine, tight, muscular ass into the chair next to me.

Not that I noticed fine, tight, muscular straight asses on good-looking jocks.

Nope. Not me.

“Hey, goth boy, what’re you reading?”

I looked up from my ebook reader. I should have done the whole internal Hamlet lie-not-lie-question thing, and chosen the first one, but I surprised myself by trusting him with the truth. “Calming the Enforcer. It’s a gay romance about shifters. The fourth in the Cloverleah series.”

He reached for one of my fries. I instinctively swatted his hand. He let me, but took the fry anyway, straight, no catsup. “Shifters?”

“Werewolves.” “Huh.”

“Yeah.”

He snagged another fry. I let him. “Your allowance doesn’t cover fries?”

“Not allowed. I’m in training.” He took another one. “These need more salt.”

I moved the plate with the remaining fries to his tray and squashed the temptation to B&B “be my guest” at him. In song.

“Thanks,” he said. “Good book?” “Yeah.”

“Werewolves, huh. Like…the guys turn into wolves and back again on a full moon and Halloween?”

I snickered and he smiled back. “Not these guys. They shift any time they want.”

He considered his new knowledge. “Okay. And, uh, the guys, uh, do

things together? Um, dick things? Since it’s a romance?”

“Duh, jock boy. Of course they do dick things. They kiss, and they su―”

“Whoa, whoa! Back off there!” He held up his right hand in a fencer’s gesture, one long fry dangling in my direction as a sort of limp en garde. “TMI, goth boy, TMI.”

I gave him one of my best smiles—a genuine one—as a gift. “You do realize I’m not goth?” A small gesture indicated my current attire: another suit but not black. Not a hint of guyliner. With lashes as thick and long as mine, the envy of every girl shifter I’ve ever met, I didn’t need any.

He returned the smile, a fold or two. He gestured at his jockness hotness in jeans, tee, and letter jacket. “You do realize I’m not dumb?”

We both laughed and I tried for a fry, but got swatted. It stung. “Hey!

I let you have some.”

He shrugged. “That was then, this is now, and now they’re mine.” “I’ve heard nice jocks share fries.”

“You heard wrong. We protect what’s ours to the death, or the last fry. Whichever comes first.”

“Kind of like werewolves and their mates.” “Are you about to TMI me again?”

“Wouldn’t think of it.” Okay. I would think of it, but I wouldn’t do it.

I’m nice that way.

“Yeah, yeah.” He ate a couple more fries. “So, this book, I guess it’s not what I should pick when Mrs. Denton lets us choose one to do a book report? The report we have to read in front of the class?”

He managed to maintain a “This is a serious question, I expect a serious answer” look for all of a second and a half, and then we cracked up.

I shut the ereader down, which activated the password protection. It didn’t have any porn of the real porn kind, but I had a bunch of gay romances on it, mostly shifter, but some fantasy and sci-fi. A couple of contemporaries. Definitely not YA. At all. I suspect if Principal’s Daughter got her hands on it when it was open, she’d run to Principal Daddy screaming “Obscenity!” in the most ladylike way. Well, ladylike for someone with the heft of a football player, before all the padding is applied. Ladylike delicacy and Principal’s Daughter do not go hand in hand. They don’t even know each other.

After the laughter, we talked until the prison guards came and moved us back to our cells.

It became…not quite a pattern.

We didn’t eat lunch every day. Without saying anything Johnny understood inviting me to join his jock buds would end in disaster. I suspect he got some harassment from them about the times we did eat lunch, but he never mentioned it, and for obvious reasons I never asked.

Without saying a word, I understood two things.

First, I needed to be grateful—and I was—for however long this friendship lasted. I doubted we’d make it to the end of the semester before he was forced to make a choice. A choice I would never ask him to make, but I would acquiesce without argument when he chose them. Second, I had to avoid physical contact, or even the appearance of it.

Guys clap each other on the back, squeeze a shoulder, touch an arm to get attention. At Hollister, my jock friends accepted that from me, knew it wasn’t sexual. I knew Johnny would be the same. But the Four would make sure any touch of mine was seen as something a queer predator would do.

I had no idea how I’d avoid those touches from Johnny without hurting his feelings by flinching away.

If I wanted his friendship, for however long it lasted—and I did—I’d have to figure it out.

Except…I never quite managed it.

I liked him—as a straight friend, as the first and only person to be nice to me at the school—and I wasn’t strong enough to turn him away by rejecting any friendship overtures. Even the casual touches.

I don’t know whether he noticed I never initiated a touch, but even without, I wasn’t sure it would be enough to shield him if the Four decided to convert his touch into my fairy fingers fondling him.

I decided I’d enjoy what I had while I had it, and when I didn’t have it any more…I’d cope.