Another Lifetime - 7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The days leading up to Friday were fairly uneventful. The rumors about Leo had reached a fevered pitch, and Kyle just knew it was Ethan and his bitch girlfriend doing it. He had no idea why she was so loyal to Ethan. She had to know he was seeing Leo at the same time. Surely she realized what a bastard he is. But other than that, the rest of the week was pretty boring.

At home, Kyle’s brother had continued his bizarre trend of being nice to Kyle. Not too nice, but he didn’t spit venom at Kyle every other sentence. More and more Kyle got the feeling he was missing something major, like the world had moved on without him and he was struggling to keep up.

Kyle and Stanley had worked out a system with their mothers. They’d walk to the hospital to see Leo after school, and then their mothers would alternate days taking them home from the hospital. It worked out pretty well, seeing as both moms were pretty busy, and this gave them both a break.

At school on Friday, the day of the party, there was a lot of buzz in the hallways about it. It seemed like everyone was going to be there, and that made Kyle nervous. He really didn’t want to run into Ethan there. Especially if they were going to be doing some digging.

The plan for today was for Kyle to go over to Stanley’s house, and from there they’d go to the party. Brent King lived only a few streets down from Stanley, so it would be only a short walk.

“Hey, you ready to party?” Stanley said as he caught up to Kyle at the end of the day.

“Not especially,” he said in response. “I’m worried.”

“You’re always worried,” Stanley said with a smirk. Kyle looked at him indignantly.

“I am not always worried!” he said hotly. “I’ve just been under a lot of stress lately.”

“Worry-wart,” Stanley said, giggling. He raced off down the hall, laughing all the way.

“Why do I put up with this?” Kyle whispered to himself, shaking his head.

He hurried to catch up with Stanley, who was already waiting for him at the front door of the building. The light was streaming through the glass door in such a way that it illuminated one half of Stanley’s face, leaving the rest mostly in shadow. He was standing with one hand on his hip, the other looking at his watch, and he was tapping his foot impatiently, a mock show of anger on his face. Kyle couldn’t help but notice for the first time how utterly cute Stanley could be.

“Come on, Kyle!” he said dramatically. “We’ve got things to see, people to do.”

Kyle laughed.

“Shut up, you horn-ball,” he said. “Don’t make me hose you off.”

“Oh, that sounds kinky!” he said with a lecherous grin. Kyle blushed so hard he thought he could feel it in his toes.

Kyle recovered, and said, “Come on slowpoke, lets not keep your mom waiting.”

“Slowpoke?” Stanley said incredulously, then grinned his wicked little grin again. “I’ll show you how fast I can poke.”

Kyle wasn’t quite sure how to take that statement. He caught the obvious double meaning, but the way Kyle said it, combined with the look on his face, made Kyle curious. It was easily possible that Kyle was just imagining things, he thought to himself. But he got the feeling that it had something to do with the thing that Kyle felt he was missing. He felt stupid, like it should have been obvious to him, but was not.

“I’m…I’m just joking around, Kyle,” Stanley said a little uneasily. It occurred to Kyle then that he’d been staring at Stanley for a little too long.

Kyle shook his head, and smiled at Stanley.

“I know,” he said. “I just feel bad not going to see Leo today.”

“Hey, it’ll be fine,” Stanley said. “You’re doing more to help him than anyone, except maybe his father. You deserve a little bit of a break now and then. Besides, you’ll be doing more good trying to get proof than you’d be doing at the hospital.”

Kyle knew he was right. He stewed over this as they walked outside, toward Stanley’s mom’s car. Kyle smiled at Stanley, as they got to the car.

The drive to Stanley’s house was uneventful, and they listened to more music that neither boy could understand. Kyle had become a big fan of Tokio Hotel since first hearing them, and developed quite a crush on the lead singer. He was just too cute to be legal.

Once they got to the house, they went up to Stanley’s room.

“I’m guessing that based on your complete lack of style, you don’t have anything to where at the party,” Stanley said with his wicked grin.

“Lack of style?” Kyle said incredulously. “I have a lot of style!”

Stanley giggled.

“Hey!” Kyle said with a raised voice.

Stanley laughed again, and turned his back on Kyle, walking to the closet. He poked around in the closet for quite a while, pulling out shirts, looking at them, and tossing them aside. He pushed all his shirts aside, making a gap between the shirts and pants, and started looking through his jeans.

“What size pants do you wear?” Stanley asked.

Kyle was caught a bit off guard. He had been watching Kyle rifle through his clothes with amusement, but when Stanley asked his pants size, his throat tightened.

Stanley looked back at Kyle when he didn’t answer. He saw the look on Kyle’s face, combined with the blush, and laughed at him.

“Easy tiger, just looking for something for you to wear,” Stanley said.

“Thirty-two,” Kyle said finally.

“Yeah, but your pants are all baggy,” Stanley said. “The look doesn’t suit you.”

Stanley looked back in his closet, and pulled out a pair of faded jeans with a hole in the knee. He frowned, thinking something over, and then put them back in the closet. He pulled out a pair that was nearly identical, but without the hole.

“What, is one pair for when you feel holy?” Kyle asked.

“Har-har,” Stanley said. He threw the pants at Kyle and ducked back into the closet. “Put those on.”

“What, right here?” Kyle asked worriedly.

“No, in the bathtub,” Stanley said in a serious tone. He didn’t look up from the closet.

Kyle looked around, as if looking for somewhere to give him some cover. Unless he wanted to duck behind the TV, there was nowhere for him to go. He sighed, and unbuckled his belt, not taking his eyes off of Stanley. When he was satisfied he wasn’t looking, he looked down and quickly pulled off his pants.

“I like the polka dot boxers,” Stanley said, trying to contain the giggles.

Kyle blushed like he never blushed before. His eyes went wide, and he quickly tried to pull on the pants Kyle had given him. But he wasn’t used to putting on pants that actually fit him, and he fell on his butt.

Stanley clamped his hand over his mouth, trying as hard as he could not to laugh at Kyle again. It was hard, but he managed.

Kyle sat on the floor, looking as if he was about to cry. He’d never felt more embarrassed, and for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why. He was acting like a schoolgirl with a silly crush. Kyle could freely admit to himself that Stanley was cute, but it wasn’t as if he had a thing for him. Kyle loved Leo. With all his heart, and he wasn’t willing to give up on Leo yet.

Besides, he thought to himself, there was no way Stanley was gay.

He slowly climbed to his feet, and pulled on the pants. He felt strange wearing someone else’s pants. They were a little tight, but not unbearably so. Finally, he looked up at Stanley.

Stanley’s mouth was hanging open slightly. He’d gotten control of his giggles when he realized how embarrassed Kyle was. He looked Kyle in the eyes, and his lips curved up into a small smile.

“Graceful,” he said,

“Shut up,” Kyle said, chuckling embarrassedly.

Stanley handed Kyle two shirts. One was a long sleeve, dark blue shirt made of a lightweight wicking material, and the other was a gray polo with a tribal type design on the left side.

Kyle pulled off his simple T-shirt, and put on the shirts Kyle had given him.

“It’s official, you’re keeping those,” Stanley said in a whisper, with a far off expression on his face.

The look on Stanley’s face, combined with the breathy way he said that, caused something to click in Kyle’s mind. The thing that Kyle had been missing suddenly became clear.

Oh my god, he’s gay, Kyle thought to himself. He likes me!

If Kyle had been uncomfortable before, he was infinitely more so now. This had never happened to Kyle before.

“Well, you…umm…want to get some food?” Stanley asked. Stanley felt incredibly dumb. He didn’t want to accidentally out himself, and that’s exactly what he was likely to do acting the way he was.

“Umm, sure,” Kyle said, fidgeting in Stanley’s clothes.

“I think there’s some leftover pizza in the fridge,” Stanley said. “Lets go find out.”

Stanley bounded out of the room, leaving Kyle standing, staring after him. As Stanley got to the middle of the stairs, he realized Kyle wasn’t behind him. He turned around and came back up to his room. He actually grabbed Kyle by the wrist and pulled him out of the room.

Kyle snapped out of his daze, and giggled at Stanley’s enthusiasm. They went downstairs, and as they heated up the cold pizza and ate it, Kyle put thoughts of Stanley liking him out of his mind. It just was something that he didn’t need to worry about. Stanley was a great friend, and Kyle wasn’t willing to risk that friendship by confronting him on it.

The pizza was just a simple pepperoni pizza, but it was tasty. Stanley’s mom came into the kitchen, where the two boys were sitting.

“When are you boys leaving?” she asked.

“We’re probably going to head over at about eight,” Stanley said. “We want to be able to talk to as many people as possible.”

Kyle was surprised at first that she knew they were going to the party. He knew if his parents had known he was planning on going to a party tonight, he’d have been grounded on principle. They had a tendency to go slightly overboard on things like that, so as far as they knew he was going to a movie with Stanley and sleeping over.

Stanley’s mom was a lot more lenient on things like this. She knew Stanley well enough to know he wouldn’t do anything stupid. She understood what they had planned to do, and fully supported them on it. When they’d told her about what Ethan had done to Leo, she was outraged. Kyle almost thought she was going to go over and beat him up herself.

“Well, I want you two to be careful,” she said seriously. “At the first sign of trouble…”

“Leave, we know,” Stanley said. He smiled reassuringly at her. “We’ll be careful mom.”

They finished off their pizza, and still had a few hours to kill. They went into the living room and watched some TV. Stanley’s mom had a large, fifty inch widescreen TV, and it was unlike any TV Kyle had ever seen. He knew big screen TV’s existed, but he never thought he’d be watching one. The picture was so clear, he felt as if he was going to fall into it.

Stanley laughed at the expression on Kyle’s face.

“Never seen a big screen before?” he asked.

“No,” Kyle answered. “This is amazing!”

“You’ve not seen anything yet,” Stanley said. He turned the channel to one of the high definition channels.

“Wow!” Kyle exclaimed. “And I hate football! This is awesome!”

Kyle was completely shocked at the sheer wonder of the TV. It was stupid, but Kyle didn’t care. He felt like a kid in a candy store.

Stanley, having long since gotten over the awe and wonder of the big TV, watched Kyle’s reaction with amusement. He had this completely dazed look on his face, the tip of his tongue poking out of the side of his mouth. His eyes followed the action on the screen, darting back and forth.

Stanley reached over and pulled a tissue out of the box. He handed it over to Kyle, who broke his gaze on the screen.

“What’s this for?” he asked.

“The drool,” Stanley said.

“I can’t help it,” Kyle said with a pout. “Quit making fun of me.”

“Well, it’s just about time to leave,” Stanley said. “We should probably head out.”

Kyle took one last look at the screen, and sighed, having to leave the relative comfort of the couch. He still wasn’t looking forward to this party, and Kyle just wanted to get it over with. He just hoped everything would turn out all right.

How often does that happen? He thought to himself.