Direct Confusion - 11. Chapter 11

I wake on Saturday nervous and it takes me nearly half an hour to even pick a fantasy so I can sort out the burning erection in my boxers and try to start relaxing. Everything is already prepped for the party, and no one is due over until like, six, but my stomach starts doing flips from the moment I get up and get dressed after my shower. I wander around the house for a while, pausing to rub the stubble on my scalp, until my mother tells me to stop wearing a hole in the carpet and do something productive.

In my room I pick a couple of outfit choices for tonight. Most of the guys will have their letter jackets anyway, since it won’t stay t-shirt weather for the whole evening, but I’d like for Erin to see me in something other than the jeans-tee-jacket combination he sees every day.

Maybe you could just wear speedos instead… My inner voice smirks. I roll my eyes, because that’s not useful at all. The idea of Erin being here, in my room again makes me more nervous than I thought it would. Because now you know: now you know you’re going to be number seven in the line of people who’ve tasted his body.

I stare at the clothes I’ve laid out, unable to shake off my nervousness. It’s not like I’m a virgin, I shouldn’t be surprised there are people in Erin’s past either.

Eventually I pick out a pair of dark green chinos, a leather belt and a pale butter-yellow button down shirt my mother bought on one of the days when she was making good colour-matching decisions. As I lay the clothes out on my bed, I rub my head again and scowl. Better to shave now. I have a much nicer razor at home than the cheap ones we all keep in our lockers, and as I finish laying out the stuff I need and strip off my shirt there is a knock on my door.

“Come in!” I shout, muffled through my shirt. My father has probably been sent to find out why I’m so nervous. “What d’you want?”

“So polite in the morning.” Jameson’s lilting voice snaps me to attention so hard I crack my elbow on the side of the towel rail.

“OW! Fuck!”

“You kiss my brother with that mouth?” Jameson sounds rather like he’s laughing at me. I struggle briefly, but I seem to have gotten myself stuck in my jumper. “Oh stop wriggling. Hang on.” Jameson’s hands are firm and quick on my chest, and then he pulls my jumper off over my head, freeing my arms. “Much better.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re mom said you were stressed out.” His eyes drift to the sink. “Stubble removal time? Trying to look your best for tonight?”

“Yeah.” I feel suddenly guilty for trying to seduce my friend’s brother. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“I came to see if you wanted to go for a run?” For the first time I notice that Jameson is wearing navy blue sweats and a vibrant red t-shirt. He perches on the toilet seat. “But I’ll wait.”

“Where’s Erin?”

“Being stressed, just like you. I left him baking; it always helps him to relax.”

“Erie bakes?” I’m not sure why I’m surprised. “You wanted to run?” I begin to spread shaving foam over my scalp until I appear to have grown fluffy white hair.

“Yeah, the treadmill is useful, but it’s boring.” Jameson shrugs. “And I still don’t really know the area too well. I figured you could show me around.”

In the mirror, I look past my reflection to my unmade bed. Having tossed and turned most of the night, my bed looks rather like it would have if I’d been up half the night having rather wild and rampant sex. My bed hasn’t looked that bad since Jeremy. I pick up the razor and stare at the bed, wondering if, or when, Erin and I might get to use it. It won’t be tonight, but it might be nice to lie under the covers with him, still dressed, and giggle tipsily while all around us sleep the passed out shapes of our friends and teammates.

“Luke?”

“Hmmm?”

“Stop. Or do you want to shave your eyebrows off too?” Jameson is frowning at me, and I am holding the razor perilously close to my eye. “You’re too distracted. Here,” he gets up, takes the razor and pushed me back towards where he had been sitting, “I’ll do it for you.”

I raise a surprised eyebrow.

“Yes.” He looks slightly peeved. “I do actually have to shave you know.”

“Uh huh.” I sit.

No one else has ever shaved any bit of me before, and it’s a weird experience. Jameson starts at my temple, just where I would have, and works backwards towards the crown. I relax, letting my mind wander, and then he clicks his tongue and tilts my head forwards to start at my neck. Jameson steps forwards, half straddling my knees and I’m suddenly faced with his crotch inches from my nose. The boy obviously has no sense of appropriate personal space, because even though he’s my friend and I don’t fancy him, at this distance with his hand on the back of my neck, it’s not like my brain is even getting a say in the matter. He could be Erin when he’s this close and I’m this wound up.

“You OK there champ?” Jameson stroked the super smooth back of my head for a moment. “You’re not worried are you?”

“No… Yes. I dunno.” It’s hard to concentrate when he touches me like that. “Jameson? You’re doing it again.”

“Oh fuck.” He jumps back quickly. “Only one more bit, hang on.” There is a final quick swipe of the razor. “You’re all done.”

I splash water on my head, and rub in a pea sized blob of post-shave moisturizer. I don’t care if people think it’s girly or whatever, I refuse to have stubble burn for the sake of being considered manly. It’s easier to think with Jameson a bit further away. I find my reaction to him aggravating; I don’t want to be attracted to my friends, even if I did accidentally kiss him.

“I look alright?”

“You look fine Luke.” Jameson grins. “You wanna go for that run now?”

I change into a bright yellow thermal running shirt and pull on my trainers. Jameson is waiting by the door.

“I thought we could match training schedules for a week and see how it affects our performances during the week.”

I let us out of the back gate with a nod.

“Sounds good. You want to come to core training on Monday and shadow me? Then next week we can compare times and so forth and see how the week had affected our stats.”

“Heart rate monitors and everything?” Jameson groans, and I use it as the ideal opportunity to finish our quick paced warm up and break out into an actual jog. “Remind me why I agreed to this again?”

“You wanted to spy on me for your brother?” I turned as I jogged, grinning cockily. “C’mon cheerleader, it’s time to really run now!”

“Meathead!” He growls

“Girl.” I taunt him before turning back to the route ahead.

“You’ll pay for that!”

“Catch me first!” I sprint away, Jameson hot on my heels.

I know the lay of the land much better than he does, but he keeps up, and we make good time through the streets of rather well off houses before reaching an open and slightly wooded tract of land which runs between this part of the suburb and the next. The leaves all went gold a week or so back, and it’s starting to turn properly from the tail end of autumn and into the beginning of winter. The trees are starting to look bare and the going is harder as our trainers crunch on the thick carpet. In a month, we’ll have frost, and then maybe snow.

“So… you and Erie.” Jameson sounds quite breathless, so I slow up the pace to an easy jog as we go around the end of a kidney-shaped duck pond.

“I knew there was another reason you wanted to go for a run with me. Isn’t a man allowed to have any secrets?”

“I know what he told you.”

“Huh?” Jameson could be referring to anything, but I know he’s not.”

“About the other guys.”

I stop dead, and Jameson ends up jogging right past me. He doubles back and I walk to meet him. Stopping suddenly isn’t good for the muscles.

“He told you?”

“Luke…” Jameson sighs. “He’s my brother.”

“And? Greg’s my brother and I don’t tell him everything, especially not that kind of stuff.”

“All due respect, but it’s not the same.” We’re walking now, quickly, but slow enough to have a normal conversation. “You might love your brother, share things with him, whatever: but Erie and I are twins, I’ve been there from the second he was born.” He smiles. “I’m older by twenty minutes, not that it actually matters. I don’t think we’ve ever spent more than three days apart, and we tell each other everything, all of the time.”

“Oh…”

“Hence my complete inability to understand appropriate ‘straight’ level of guy-ish closeness, because I think we’ve probably hugged every single day we’ve been alive.” Jameson shrugs. “Went was the last time you hugged your brother?”

“Eight months ago.” I haven’t thought about the day Greg left in ages. He was all done up in his army khaki with his square edged cap drawn low over his eyes. I know even if he had been here, we wouldn’t have hugged each other in all that time. We’re not close, though I like him plenty.

“So of course I know he’s slept with others guys, and he told you about it. Is that why you were nervous before?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t be.” Jameson lays his hand on my shoulder; his skin is strangely cool for someone who had been breathing so hard. “Erie likes you, a lot. Don’t sweat it.”

“It’s a lot to live up to.”

Jameson gives me a strange look, half way between a frown and a smug sort of grin.

“Just because he had sex doesn’t mean it was good sex, Luke. Just be your usual charming self.”

*

“You look nice honey.” My mother stands at the foot of the stairs evening up her collar. “I always liked that shirt on you.”

“You are going out right?”

“Yes dear.” My mother frowns at me in the mirror. “After Jim and Derrick get here, it will be nice to see them for more than ten seconds before you vanish into your room.”

“Mom…”

“And then we’ll go. The movie finishes at midnight, and we’re going to come in and go straight up to bed. I expect the music to be off before then, OK?”

“Yes mom.” I see little point in arguing with her, because my parents are generally lenient and don’t mind that there is a small beer keg in the kitchen for a bunch of underage high school kids. “I won’t let anyone drink and drive. I promise.”

“I expect the floor to be littered with bodies.” My father trots down the stairs looking slightly too posh to be going to dinner and movie. “The boys are not here yet?”

“Luke!” Derrick hollers from the garden. They’ve obviously come in the back entrance.

“Der! In the house!”

My best friend wanders in, holding hands tightly with Cherrie, followed closely by Jim. She looks bubble-gum sweet in dark tights, a denim mini skirt and a thin pink sweater. I hug her one armed and she kisses my cheek.

“Handsome.”

“Thanks.”

“Cherrie sweetie, you look lovelier every time I see you.”

“Aww, thanks Mrs. McBride.” Cherrie blushes in an adorable manner, and it’s easy to see why Derrick likes her. I love it when they are cute like this, not showing off for anyone, and Derrick pulls his girl close to whisper in her ear. I know he is telling her how good she looks and it’s plain to see how proud he is to be the one who gets to hold her. “Are you guys going somewhere nice?”

“Just dinner out,” Mom smiles. “It’s so nice to have the house full of people again.”

I sigh, because in less than an hour the house really will be full of people.