After School Activities Read online

  Maybe I was.

  “YOU’RE GOING to need to turn right up here,” I said, breaking the silence of the drive back into Oak Lake. We hadn’t spoken since Adam had pulled away, wiping his eyes and clearing his throat. Together we had sat and watched the sun set past the trees.

  “I remember,” he said, taking the turn.

  “You remember? When have you ever been to my house?”

  “Seventh grade, for your birthday party.”

  “Oh right,” I laughed, remembering. “I invited you so I could dare you to spend the night in that old house everyone thought was haunted.”

  “And I double dared you to come with me. Then Tony dared Derek, Derek dared Malachi….”

  “And suddenly everyone was going. Yeah, how did I not see that coming?”

  He chuckled. “’Cause you’re an idiot.”

  “In my defense, I was convinced you’d be too scared to follow through.”

  “Me? Scared? You were the one with the girly screams every time the floor creaked, pussy boy.”

  “And you, big, strong jock that you are, pissed yourself ’cause you were having so much fun?” Adam began grumbling excuses under his breath: someone spilled water on him, it was just a shadow, there wasn’t a working bathroom in the house anyway. They were all the same ones he’d given that night. “I planned that whole thing just to humiliate you in front of everyone,” I continued, “but everyone was having too much fun to notice. See, this is what I was saying before: our hatred has only ever led to good things.”

  “Except this.” Adam reached across the car and, gently, with the tips of his fingers, touched my jaw where he had punched me. “I never actually said sorry for that.”

  Well, this had gotten awkward really quickly. Was I getting my cheek caressed? Was this seriously a thing that was happening? “Uhhhhh, yeah. Don’t worry about it… I guess.” Adam suddenly seemed to realize what he was doing and snatched his hand away. We returned to silence, only this time, instead of being oddly comfortable, it had gained the level of awkward I had been expecting this whole trip to have. Like it had taken that weird, almost intimate, gesture to suddenly remind us both who we were, and just how weird what we were doing really was. I think we had forgotten for a moment.

  Luckily, we were saved from any further awkwardness. After maybe two minutes, Adam pulled into my driveway, and I was quick to hop out of the car.

  “Hey, Dylan?” Adam said.

  I stopped, half in and half out of the car. “Yeah?”

  “You’re not gonna…. I mean, what just happened….” He licked his lips nervously. “You’re not gonna… tell anyone that I —”

  “That you have a stupid face, and I hate it? Sure, I’ll keep mum, but I think they already know.”

  He smiled at me then, one of those rare, pure smiles. I’d never actually seen him smile at me that way before. It made his face seem warm, which was weird, ’cause it was Adam, and made a weird ache appear in my chest, which was gross, ’cause it was Adam.

  “Thanks,” he said, sounding really sincere. Which sucked, ’cause that meant I’d be a superdouche if I made some sarcastic comment to hide this weird feeling I was suddenly having. So instead I shrugged and shut the door.

  Worst of all, he kept smiling.

  I found twenty-two texts from Kai on my phone, demanding to know if I was dead. I decided to ignore them and let him stew a bit. I texted Mel, though. She was less funny when she worried. Like, “they’d find Adam’s body in the morning” less funny.

  I’m home. Not dead.

  She responded almost immediately. You okay?

  Yeah. Weird night.

  I’ll bet.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  KAI’S ROOM was filled with the sound of gunshots. His mom wasn’t home, so we were there alone and felt no need to turn the volume down.

  We lay side by side on his bed, PlayStation controllers in hand, doing our very best to murder each other with a wide array of virtual guns and explosives. You know, best friend stuff.

  “When’s Mel getting here?” I asked, raising my voice over the screams of the dying.

  “Oh, she’s not coming. I figured it’s been so long since we’ve hung out, just the two of us, so I didn’t invite her.”

  It had been too long since Kai and I had spent much time together without Mel. Months, in fact. Every time Kai and I made plans over the summer — even when I dropped some not-so-subtle hints we should have a bros’ night in — Mel always ended up being invited, and Kai would shoot me those “I’m innocent, don’t hate me” eyes. I guess you can’t compete with a girl, you know? Sometimes I wished it weren’t Mel, so I could hate her for being that bitch who keeps getting between us. But she’s my best friend too, so I can’t. Ironically, Mel and I have found plenty of time to hang out without Kai, but then she’s not the one with the massive crush.

  So I had a feeling I knew what this sudden desire for a Saturday alone was all about.

  “Sooooo,” Kai said after a moment. “What have you and Adam been spending all that time talking about?”

  I knew it. It had been a week and a half since Adam picked me up after school that Wednesday, and since then we’d hung out four more times. Mel and Kai wanted to know what was going on, of course, and I told them that Adam just needed to talk about some stuff, and they couldn’t tell anyone even that much. Which was the truth. Adam had a lot he’d needed to talk about. At his clearing overlooking the lake, Adam started spilling his heart to me, in little fits and starts at first, but it had gotten to the point where we’d have long conversations about family, school, life in general. His mom had been diagnosed with breast cancer the year before — that’s what I’d caught him crying about in the bathroom — and they thought she’d beaten it. But over the summer, they discovered it had migrated to other parts of her body, which made it a lot harder to treat.

  Right before school started, she had been admitted to the hospital, where she’d been for almost a month now. That was also when his dad had started drinking and getting really angry. But he’d never hit Adam, not until that Sunday, when he beat his son and left.

  It was a crazy experience, seeing a softer side of Adam. He talked about wanting to go to college, which I had no idea he was even thinking about. I guess I always assumed he was just some dumb jock and didn’t care about education. Only he didn’t know if he’d be able to now. His older brother Pete was basically supporting them both, though they had gotten a check in the mail from their dad. But Adam was worried that those would stop soon. And I knew he’d do whatever it took to make sure his mom’s hospital bills got paid. He talked about football too, how he didn’t want the team to think he was weak. How the coach expected so much of him, but he was afraid he wasn’t gonna be able to deliver now.

  He talked about feeling alone, having no one to talk to. At least before I came along.

  Basically a bunch of really personal stuff. “I can’t really tell you.” I could feel the sulk vibrating off him. “Unless you want to invoke Best Friend Privilege and force me to break my bond of trust.”

  “No,” Kai grumbled, “you can have your stupid secrets.” He sighed, dropped his controller and stood up. “Let’s go swimming,” he said as he pulled off his shirt and crossed to the other side of the room to his closet.

  “Now? It’s kinda cold out.”

  “Fine. We can go in the hot tub. Wuss.” He threw his pants at me, hitting me in the back of the head.

  I kept my eyes focused diligently on the TV screen. The last thing I needed in life was to accidentally fall in lust with my best friend. We already cared for each other more than a little bit. Kai had never been sparing with his affection, and he’d been telling me he loved me since middle school, but he was still straight, so it was important my feelings didn’t stray too far from the platonic. And once you’d seen someone’s dick, you could never quite look at them the same way. I learned that the hard way — Oh, James P. Hogan, the way that soapy water cascaded down y
our every divine contour in that locker room of destiny. I know you caught me staring, but you only smiled that perfect smile and…. Dammit, see what I mean? Unfortunately, Kai had always been really comfortable around me, so I’d always had plenty of temptation. When I came out to him, I had hoped that might curb his enthusiasm a bit. And it had. For about a week. Then it was back to showering with the door open and shedding clothes without a care in the world.

  Or pausing to admire himself in the mirror, which I was pretty certain he was doing now, if the occasional reflection in the TV was anything to go by.

  “Hey, Dylan, I need your opinion on something.”

  “What’s that?” I swear to God, if he expects me to help him pick out the right swimsuit, like our friendship were some episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy….

  “Look,” he said, so I turned around. Big mistake. “Do you think my dick’s too small?”

  Remember that hotness scale I was discussing before? Well, Kai falls in solidly at number three. He’s the textbook definition of tall, dark, and handsome. And while lots of other guys rely on copious amounts of exercise to maintain their spots on the scale, Kai’s abs were all genetics. And, it turns out, that wasn’t the only gift his parents had given him. For the first time in our long friendship, I got a pure, unadulterated look at Kai’s junk. It took a nanosecond for my eyes to hone in, and now they were trapped. I couldn’t look away. His cock wasn’t huge, it was probably even a little shy of average, but what it lacked in bulk it made up for in beauty. His package dangled, perfectly symmetrical, below his neatly trimmed bush. His balls hung heavily, in ideal proportion to his circumcised shaft. His dick was art — da Vinci could have used Kai to model the Vitruvian Man.

  It felt like a semitruck had crashed into my gut.

  “I’ll take that as a no,” Kai said with a decidedly wicked little laugh.

  “Please put some pants on.” I said. I did not moan.

  “Is that really what you want, Dylan?” Kai shook his hips from side to side, making his cock flop about luridly. My own dick jumped, and that time I might have moaned. “Thought not,” he said.

  Slowly my brain started to catch up to what was happening. Which is to say, it started to remind me that maybe I shouldn’t be staring at my best friend’s junk, drooling. It also began to wonder just what exactly was going on here, and what I was supposed to do. Kai, however, seemed hell-bent on keeping me from getting my footing.

  “You love me, right?”

  “What?” Hard as I tried, I couldn’t catch my breath enough to say that above a whisper.

  “’Cause I love you,” Kai continued, not seeming to hear me. “And I’ve been thinking… like, I’m horny all the time, and you probably are too. We’re teenagers, right? I don’t know about you, but I masturbate, like, whoa. And since we already love each other…. I mean, there’s really only one way for us to get any closer… and how do I know I’m not gay anyway, without trying? I already like you more than anyone else.”

  “What are you…?” I had to stop, search for my voice, and try again.

  “What are you trying to say?”

  He cocked his head to the side, hands on his hips. “I’m asking if you want to suck my dick, dude.”

  My brain finally quit trying to catch up. It threw up its little brain-hands and went into a back room somewhere to watch TV. In its defense, I don’t think it was getting anywhere near enough blood right then to have even a fighting chance. I finally managed to tear my eyes away from Kai’s downstairs magic, only to stare up at his face, my jaw hanging open, with a dumb look of incomprehension. Kai giggled a little at my confusion — was he nervous? — and stepped right up to the bed, until his cock was literally in my face.

  Tentatively, I reached out my hand, cupped his balls and lifted ever so slightly, feeling the weight of his junk in my hands.

  It was amazing.

  Kai didn’t slap my hand away, laughing at me for falling for some elaborate prank, which, I realized, a huge part of me had been expecting. I lifted a little higher, until his dick was a fraction of an inch from my lips.

  My tongue darted out and, delicately, I licked the tip. This time, it was Kai who moaned. This is really happening, I thought and, inhibition suddenly evaporating, I gave into years of pent-up desire and swallowed his cock.

  In seconds, Kai was hard in my mouth. I massaged his balls with my hand as I worked, gaining confidence and speed. Kai’s moans became louder until they drowned out the sounds of the video game, unpaused but forgotten. Suddenly, I felt his hands grab my head, fingers clutching at my hair. He shoved my head down, thrusting over and over, his cock working deeper as he fucked my face. He did it with a force and an intensity I was totally unprepared for, and I gagged.

  I pulled away, and Kai laughed at me, teasing, “Come on, dude. Take it like a man.”

  I laughed too, and punched him softly in the stomach. Honestly, I was glad for the break, if only because it gave me the opportunity to look again at Kai’s entire body. Hard, his dick had grown exponentially; it stood straight and tall, throbbing. Kai grabbed his cock and stroked it slowly, twice, along the entire length of his shaft. I growled with desire.

  I leapt up and pushed Kai down onto the bed. Kneeling on the floor, I found myself in a much better position to devour his cock. His legs were spread wide to admit me, and the hand I used to massage his balls began working its way farther down. I found what I was looking for, took his cock as deeply as I could without gagging, and at the same instant thrust my middle finger into Kai’s asshole.

  “Dude!” Kai yelped. I could feel his whole body tense around my finger. “What the fuck are you….” but right then I found it. His prostate was a little harder for me to find than my own was, but the second I stroked it, Kai’s words dissolved into shouts of pleasure. I went faster, tongue swirling the head of his cock, one hand massaging his insides, the other his balls, which had begun to draw up close to his body. His ass tightened around my finger, gripping it. His breath came in ragged, heaving gasps.

  “Dylan.” Kai moaned. “I’m going to….”

  But I knew what was coming, and I was prepared for it. Kai’s ass clenched so hard I was almost afraid it would snap my finger. He thrust up, forcing his cock deep, and with a yell, he filled my mouth with his cum, hot and salty. It hit the back of my throat, but I fought the urge to gag — I was getting pretty good at that. I swallowed every last drop, sucked him dry through spurt after spurt until finally he was empty. I licked him clean, popped my finger out of him, and flopped down beside him on the bed, listening to him catch his breath.

  Suddenly I became painfully aware of my own needs. The front of my shorts were stained with precum, and I was so hard, it hurt.

  Kai noticed too. “Dude, little Dylan’s straining to escape his prison. Let him out, man.” But when I reached down to unbutton my pants, he grabbed my arm, stopping me. “I guess there’s gotta be a little quid pro quo, eh, buddy?” He slid off the bed, knelt between my legs, unbuttoned my shorts, and tugged them off. I pulled off my shirt and put my hands behind my head, propping myself up for a better view. My bush was the same dark red as my hair, and more wild than Kai’s had been, and my dick was longer — though, it seemed to me, less immaculately shaped. Freed from my shorts, it flopped against my stomach with a wet smack, which made Kai giggle. Definitely nervous this time.

  He grabbed my cock and slowly started jerking it. He quickly began to go faster. The sight of him there, head just beyond my cock, tongue caught between his teeth in concentration, made my heart skip a beat. This is really happening! I hadn’t even let myself dream of this possibility, but now it was right there before me. Touching me. Kai covered his face with his other hand, as if embarrassed or unable to believe this was happening too. He looked up at me through his fingers, saw me watching him, and winked. I shuddered. Seeing the effect he had on me gave Kai confidence.

  He began to work my cock harder, stroking from base to tip instead of awkward
, rapid jerking. He grinned at me wickedly as my moans filled the room, and laughed every time I gasped his name. With a mischievous glint in his eye, he brought his face closer to my cock, and my breath caught.

  His tongue darted out, and I thought I would die. He ran the tip of his tongue along the entire length of my shaft, and it was too much. I burst, hot ribbons of cum blasting onto my chest, my neck, and even beyond, spraying Kai’s bed with the evidence of my pleasure. I had never cum so hard in my life.

  Kai got into bed next to me, laid his head on my chest, and said, “That was actually kinda fun.” In seconds he was asleep. I wasn’t far behind.

  I HAD the most remarkable dream. In it, Kai and I had been naked, fooling around. Then we lay enfolded in each other’s arms, him holding me close as he whispered in my ear, I love you. I floated in that in-between of waking and sleeping, where you were still dreaming but knew it was fake and you were about to wake up. But I wanted so desperately to stay there forever, because in real life….

  My eyes snapped open.

  Wait, some of that had actually happened. I looked over and, sure enough, Kai was lying there naked, curled into a ball on the complete opposite side of the bed, his back to me. It wasn’t the postcoital snuggle of my dreams, but we were still naked, and I was covered in dried cum. And I could remember the taste of his.

  All I could think, as I watched him sleep, was the sight of him standing there, naked and erect, or holding my dick in his hand. I felt an ache, deep in my gut, to crawl across the bed and hold him close, feel his heartbeat against mine. Instead I rolled out of the bed, looking for my clothes and a way to escape before Kai woke up and everything was ruined. He might love me, but this could tip me off the edge into falling in love with him.