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Linda’s condition didn’t really change much. After a few weeks, she eventually managed to croak out a few words, much to my parents’ and Jay’s delight. I’d actually participated in a few conversations with her, and made her laugh on occasion with the accidental sarcasm. She was still in hospital; having taken a bad reaction to various drugs, but other than that she had more or less stayed exactly the same since.
Jay however, grew slowly more and more talkative as time went by. Every time I thought I had the shy guy figured out, he’d come out and surprise me with some other new aspect of his personality. Sure he could be shy, awkward, and quiet, but he could also be sarcastic, teasing, and downright immature.
He was a pretty cool guy.
I groaned, and huddled closer to Jay’s roasting body. It was a Friday, almost six weeks exactly since Jay had come to live with us, meaning one thing.
“Jay!” I yelled, sitting up and prodding him in the ribs. He opened one eye and regarded me sleepily.
“Uh…?”
“Remind me never to try and hold an intellectual conversation with you early in the morning,” I laughed, whacking him in the face with a pillow. “Now move it, get up, come on, etcetera!”
Then Jay sneakily snaked an arm around my waist, pulling me back down into the bed. I felt an inexplicable tightening in my chest when he jerked me down into the mattress, which was still warm from the previous night. And suddenly, all desire to move from my current position evaporated as I collapsed into Jay’s warm arms.
“Five more minutes,” he promised, squeezing me like I was some sort of teddy bear. I scowled at the thought and swatted his arms away, ignoring the small twisting feeling at the pit of my stomach when he withdrew his arms, hissing slightly.
“Ow…” he said, shifting in the bed so he was sitting up, his shaggy hair falling into his eyes. I stared at him in fascination for a few moments before I realised what I was doing and slapped myself on the forehead, twanging myself back into reality like some sort of elastic band.
“Um…. I’m being nosey, but why are you so excited about today anyway?” he asked, rubbing his eyes sleepily. A huge smile made its way onto my face.
“Dude…” I started, my grin only growing wider. “Guess what?”
“Um…”
“I’m sixteen!” I announced happily. “Sixteen baby! Whoop whoop!”
And I proceeded to bounce up and down in excitement, like a five year old, my excited jumps only magnified by the springs in the mattress. Jay watched my movements with amusement, before my words clicked in his mind.
“Oh! You mean, it’s like, your birthday?”
“No shit Sherlock,” I smirked, still smiling. “Sixteen. Able to legally change my name without my parents’ consent! I can buy a lottery ticket and win millions! I can hold a license to a moped!”
Jay snorted when he heard the last item on my list and threw the cotton covers from his legs.
“Dude, where’re you going?” I asked, frowning. “Just five seconds ago you were dragging me back down and now you’re the one venturing from the safety of the bed.”
Jay blushed, and delved a hand into his suitcase, which he still hadn’t got round to unpacking, even after six weeks of shacking it with me. Or rather, he’d littered the majority of his clothes around the room like me, and when my mum requested I clean the bedroom Jay and I cleverly devised the plan of just shoving everything into the suitcase. So as far as my mother was concerned, my bedroom was spotless.
A rather ingenious plan, if I do say so myself.
Suddenly Jay pulled a small square of shiny blue wrapping paper from the bulging suitcase. I stood up and walked over to him, curious about the package.
“Um, here,” he mumbled awkwardly, handing me the little wrapped square. It was a thin package, and hard like metal or plastic. I stared at it.
“Huh?”
“It’s, um, for you,” he said, purposefully avoiding eye contact. I could feel a small smile tugging at the corner of my lips, threatening to show on my face. “Um, you know… As a birthday present. So, um, happy birthday Ash.”
I was still hesitant to take the package. “But… But how did you know? I mean…”
Jay blushed and shyly met my inquiring gaze. “Um, you probably don’t remember, but when we first met you mentioned that you were gonna be sixteen in six weeks. And then that one time at the hospital you mentioned this…”
A small lump rose in my throat and that sneaky bastard of a smile wormed its way onto my face. I carefully tore the wrapping paper from the mystery item. And I couldn’t help but feel so… touched when my eyes fell on my present.
It was a CD. Sum 41, Chuck. The only album I didn’t have. A simple, cheap, and rather stereotypical present, but Jay had remembered. Jay had remembered all the way from when we first met to the simple conversation we had at the hospital, while I couldn’t remember what I’d had for dinner last Tuesday.
Nobody had ever paid that much attention to me before. I was just that loner kid at the back of class, who caused trouble. And don’t get me wrong, I knew it was my own fault. I just didn’t mesh with other people very well. But Jay had made the effort…
“Thanks Jay,” I whispered, and was horrified to hear my voice sounding slightly hoarse. Jay picked up one the slight change in tone and immediately jumped into action, doing what I was too scared to do back at the hospital. He hugged me. He walked over and wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me into his chest. I’d never really hugged anybody, especially not my parents, so I was pretty shocked when my arms wound themselves around Jay’s neck of their own accord. I felt myself being lifted slightly off my feet as I clung to him. And it felt so… natural.
“Um, you’re welcome,” he replied eventually, removing his arms from my waist. For some reason, I was reluctant to let go, but my common sense kicked in and told me to stop hugging before I lost whatever self-respect I had.
I didn’t move, still staring down at the shiny CD, my shiny CD that Jay bought for me, with an expression of mingled delight and disbelief.
“Boys! Breakfast!”
Jay and I jumped apart, wearing a pair of matching sheepish grins. I followed my nose downstairs, the delicious scent of bacon wafting up my nostrils and briefly wondered why my mother had bothered making us breakfast. Normally she would leave the house in a flurry, stopping only to pinch Jay’s cheeks on the way out the door and remind me to ‘stay out of trouble for at least a day’, and leave us to whatever crunchy (or soggy) cereal had been left in the cupboards.
It couldn’t be because of my birthday, could it?
Apparently, I’d overestimated her, because as soon as Jay and I appeared through the doorframe she came rushing forward to Jay, engulfing him in a huge hug.
I couldn’t help but feel a small flicker of jealousy. Although I wasn’t sure if it was because my parents were more interested in Jay, the perfect son, than me or because I wanted to be the one to hug Jay…
“Well done for getting on the track team!” she shrieked, her eyes shining with excitement. “Steven is at work just now, but let me tell you, he was equally as proud! We were both on the track team too you know, along with your mum and…”
She continued blabbering on and on, but the weird possessiveness feelings towards Jay rising up in my chest drowned the words out. Sentence after sentence spilled from her rouge-painted lips, but I heard none of them. Why hadn’t Jay told me about track team? Was it because he didn’t think I’d be interested, because quite frankly, I suck at PE? Or because I generally dislike most of the people on track, so he thought I wouldn’t approve?
Or was I overvaluing myself and he hadn’t told me because he didn’t think about me?
Oh, why the hell did I care so much anyway? He’s on track, so what? But I couldn’t stop the sour, twisted glare from showing on my face. And Jay evidently noticed. Mumbling an apology to my mum, he squirmed out from her grasp and went over to stand beside me.
“Hey, um, are you ok?” He placed a hand on my shoulder, but I smacked it away.
“Yeah, I’m fantastic. Fucking whimsical. Now piss off.”
I bit my lip, immediately regretting it. As soon as those poisonous words had spilling from my mouth, I wanted to swallow the sentences, but my pride wouldn’t let me. It was too… embarrassing.
I could see the confusion flash in Jay’s eyes but instead of treating me equally bitterly he did something so freaking surprising I almost fainted.
He walked over, slunk an arm around my shoulder and steered me to the table, even pulling out my seat for me
“Here Ash, you can’t do any of the cleaning and stuff, um, seeing as it’s your birthday,” he laughed, and awkwardly scratched the back of his neck. I swallowed and gave him a weak smile, following his gaze to my mother, who was rapidly paling in the background.
“Oh, er, Ash, happy birthday,” she muttered, brushing some hair away from her face like she was trying to seem distracted. Her eyes wandered over to the mantelpiece, where a bright yellow envelope with my name on it was sitting, untouched.
“Uh, thanks.” I didn’t really know what else to say. Most of the time my parents just handed me a twenty on my birthday and told me to buy something nice. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I appreciated the money, it was just… did they really not know me well enough to even buy me a CD?
I guess that’s why I was so happy Jay had gone out of his way to get me something.
Mum abruptly stood up and left for work, without a goodbye. As soon as she was gone, Jay jumped up and sat on the chair next to me, sliding some bacon out of the pan and onto two plates. He pushed one towards me.
“Um, here you go.”
“Cheers.”
We ate in silence after that, Jay and I occasionally stealing small glances at each other, the card, and each other again. Eventually my alarm went, reminding us that we did indeed have school to attend. As we headed out I took one last look at the card and on a whim, grabbed it and stuffed it into my pocket. Jay smiled and wordlessly laced his fingers with mine.
School passed by pretty quickly that day. Jay went out of his way to make sure I had a pretty good birthday, daft little things like pulling my chair out, or pushing forward in the lunch queue. I had to laugh most of the time too. He didn’t do anything too ridiculous thank God, like bring out a birthday cake in the middle of the caff, but hey. It was pretty much best birthday of my life.
When we arrived home, my parents weren’t home. No surprises there. Jay raced upstairs and dumped our school bags, claiming we could do homework on a day that wasn’t my birthday. As I kicked off my shoes and flopped onto the sofa, I had to say, I wholeheartedly agreed with him. I turned on the telly, absently flicking through the channels, when Jay came into the living room, a large poly ASDA bag poorly hidden behind his back.
“Uh, Jay? Hate to break it to you, but it’s a damn good thing your athletic abilities aren’t on par with your concealment skills.”
Jay snorted. “Sh. You hungry?”
As if on cue, my stomach growled. He let out a small bark of laughter.
“Um, I’ll take that as a yeah.”
“Shut up,” I commanded, talking more to my moaning stomach than Jay himself. Smirking, he made his way into the kitchen.
I continued flipping between the channels, trying to find some decent Friday afternoon telly. A few loud clatters and clashes echoed from the kitchen, and I almost went up to see what was wrong, but Jay poked his flushed face around the door frame and panted assurances of normality.
I didn’t quite believe him, but shrugged and returned my attention to the telly, which had now settled on the music channels. Heavy guitar riffs and mental drum solos blocked out most of the noise from the kitchen, so I relaxed a little.
“Happy birthday!”
Startled, I shot up about three feet in the air. Jay stood, albeit slightly battered and floury, with two cans of coke in one hand, and precariously balanced victoria sponge in the other. It didn’t have any candles, or fancy icing, but know what? It was pretty damn perfect.
I stood up to help him carry everything but he simply shook his head and slowly hobbled towards the coffee table, cautiously placing the scrumptious looking cake in the middle and throwing a can at me. I caught it with ease, grinning.
“How’s that for a fast reaction?” I joked, popping the seal and guzzling the contents. “I’m a fucking ninja.”
“‘Course you are,” Jay agreed, and sat down beside me, really, really close I might add. I shivered slightly when his thigh brushed against mine.
We spent the next few hours simply messing around, imitating the singers on TV, balancing cake on our noses, that kind of thing. The typical, teenage boy mucking around. We polished off most of that delicious Victoria Sponge too, me somehow managing to get some jam in my eyebrow in the process. Jay lightly brushed it off and I smiled in thanks.
By the time six rolled round, I was exhausted from all the laughter and jumping around, and had collapsed on Jay’s shoulder.
“Um, Ash? Pass me some coke, will you? I can’t reach with your head on my shoulder.”
Ordinarily I would have scowled, but at this particular moment in time I was too comfortable, too warm, and too happy to care. Grinning, I lazily stretched and arm out, epic concentration evident on my face. I grunted, I panted, and I grimaced, while Jay simply laughed at my pitiful efforts
“Uh…” I moaned, looking up at his smiling green eyes. “I can’t reach it.”
“Lazy,” he teased. I scowled, and handed him my own can, which was probably flat by now. But not before taking another quick sip. He gratefully took the can and brought it up to his lips, not even hesitating to wipe it down. He handed it back, and my confused state I took a drink.
And then I spat it out in a fountain when I realised what had just happened.
“Um… Ash?” Jay looked wary, still oblivious to what had just happened.
“Dude!” I yelled, bolting upright and slamming my coke can down on the table. “We just… we just…”
“We just…?”
“That was an indirect fucking kiss!”
Realisation dawned on Jay’s face. “Oh… um…”
“Dude! We’d have been as well… you know… like, licking each other or something!”
And Jay broke out into snorts of laughter, while I covered my face in horror.
“Oh my God, that came out so wrong! Shit! I just meant… I just meant…”
And suddenly I couldn’t keep talking, because I was now pretty much nose to nose with Jay, and for some reason, I couldn’t breathe.
“Um, Ash?” Jay whispered, his hot breath on the tip of my nose.
“Yeah?”
He fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat, obviously debating something inside his head. I watched him carefully, staring into his wide storm coloured eyes. He met my gaze, and I dropped it, my eyes staring at the only other place I could think of.
His lips.
And that did it.
It was short, nothing more than a peck really. But Jay, a guy, gently brushed his lips across my own. My heart was pounding in my chest, and I was unable to form any sensical thoughts. All that mattered was the sweet, feather light feeling of Jay…
And then reality kicked in. I panicked, and roughly shoved him away, leaping to the other end of the couch. I was so fucking confused! Jay’s face displayed a sorry mix of guilt, anger and hurt, and I felt my own heart tighten in response.
“Oh my God Ash, I’m so, so sorry!” Jay gushed, covering his face with his hands. “Oh my God. I’m sorry! I’m really, really, really sorry!”
“Shut up,” I snapped, running my fingers through my shaggy black hair. “Just shut up! Please,” I added.
Jay swallowed, nervously, and obliged to my request. I sat there, staring at boy sitting before me and honestly… I’d never felt so frightened in my entire life.
Was I… was I gay? I mean, I liked Jay and everything. I liked Jay a lot. He was somebody who’d been willing to look past all my stupid flaws and snarky defences. And he was a really nice person. A great guy. And whenever he was near me, I felt a stupid bout of giddiness, and a desire to make him happy. Was it attraction I was feeling towards him? Was it… love?
“Oh my God, no fucking way!” I wailed, smacking my forehead off the couch. “I’m just one big disappointment after the other! I suck at sports, suck at school, I’ve given up Church… And now I’m fucking gay!? Ugh, no wonder my mum and dad don’t even like me! I’m just one big fucking disappointment!”
I took a deep shuddering breath and rubbed my eyes. Jay opened his mouth and I shot him a dirty look.
“And I’m not crying,” I hissed. He frowned, but didn’t laugh. Instead he placed a gentle hand on my shoulder and another on the side of my face.
“Um, Ash?” His voice was cracking, but he managed to hold himself together. Unlike me.
“You’re not a disappointment. You’re the best person I know. Sports, school, friends… all that stuff doesn’t matter. You’re… um… you’re a great guy and I really admire you. So don’t put yourself down, yeah?”
He dropped his gaze and stared resolutely at my knees before adding in a quiet voice, “and I’m really sorry for kissing you too…”
“Oh, fuck it,” I whispered, and snaked my arms around his neck, crashing my lips to his. He seemed surprised for a moment, but responded to my ferocious attack right away. Soon I was straddling him on the couch, his fingers tightly wound in my hair.
I really didn’t know what had happened, but I loved every minute of it.
I loved the way he responded to the lightest caress of my fingertips.
I loved the way he possessively wound his arms around my waist when I tried to take control.
I loved the fact that it was Jay underneath me, my favourite person in the whole fucking world.
A low moan escaped my throat and I pulled back, blushing furiously.
“Uh… sorry,” I murmured, somewhat awkward now that the initial heated passion was over. “I’ve, uh… I’ve never done anything like this before. With a girl or a boy.”
“Me neither,” he admitted, his cheeks scarlet. I sat there for a few moments, unsure how to react, until Jay spoke up again.
“Um, where does this leave us?” he asked shyly. I swallowed.
“I’m really not sure,” I answered honestly. “But could we… could we keep this on the down-low for a bit? I’m not… I’m not sure about everything.”
Jay’s eyes widened at that statement and I quickly backtracked.
“No, no! Not like that! I mean, I’m sure about you and everything,” I told him, staring anywhere but him as I made this embarrassing confession. “But, you know… I’m just not sure about… Other people.”
He nodded. “Ok.”
“Ok?” I repeated weakly. “That’s it?”
“Um, yeah.”
I found myself staring into his eyes for a moment, lost in time, until the doorbell rang and I cleared my throat.
“Uh, that’ll be my mum,” I mumbled. “I must’ve left the key in the door again. She’ll be raging.”
“Um, don’t worry about it,” he insisted, pushing me back down. “It’s your birthday. I’m treating you.”
I smiled softly. The doorbell rang again, more insistent this time, and Jay sighed. Just before leaving the room he bashfully pressed his lips against mine for a moment, letting the taste linger. He abruptly pulled away, leaving me blushing, scowling and unsatisfied.
“Um, since we can’t do that when you’re mum’s around,” he confessed, grinning slightly. I smiled.
“Yeah.”
For the second time, he turned to go answer the still ringing doorbell, but I called him back.
“Uh, Jay?”
“Yeah?”
“This was… uh,” I coughed, still awkward expressing my feelings like this. “Uh, like the best birthday ever.”
Jay smiled, a huge, genuine smile. “Know what? I think so too.”
And it really was. Hey I hadn’t been swamped with cards, drowned in cash, or smothered with presents, but hey. I had Jay.
Best. Present. Ever.
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