Boy Midflight Read Online Free PDF Page A

The sun beats down on my face and I am thankful. My mind, however, is in consternation over our last jolted comments. Can friends be friends after sex? Something must change, right? Once you share something like that, it must be hard to look at them the same way over a cup of cappuccino. The conversation could be foraying into stock market crashes, and all I can think is I saw your hoo-hoo. You touched my ding-a-ling! Maybe I’m just very immature. But there definitely are emotional ties that bind with sex.
     
     
    FOR EXAMPLE, I met Justin at a house party in high school. He was twenty-one and was in line to inherit a construction company from his father. Justin was bigger and taller than me, and the image of him giving orders to a crew in hard hats clinched it. I had to hang out with this guy. We punched our digits into each other’s cell phones that night and from then on were like Thelma and Louise. We liked the same music. His Goldfinger, Pennywise, and Bad Religion collection made me feel right at home. He was into bikes, and we were planning to take our motorcycle license tests together. In essence he was everything I like in a buddy. He had never delved past the fence before, so to speak, and he turned into a challenge for me. I love guys and if I’m going to get with a guy, I want him to act like a guy. I’m not into Tinkerbell.
    One night Justin asked me over for a few beers with friends. After a couple hours of swapping stories and laughing our fool heads off, there were only a handful of us left. We sat cross-legged on his living room floor listening to Rick Dees count down the week’s Top 40 hits. Deciding another day was over, I got up to say my good-byes and the others followed my lead. I got into my Jeep and started driving home, reviewing all the moments when Justin was just “too cute” that evening. Then my cell rang, bringing my attention back to the road.
    “Hey, Ashley?”
    “Yeah?”
    “It’s Justin. What are you doing?”
    “Just driving, why?”
    “You wanna come back and spend the night? It’s a long drive home.”
    It wasn’t.
    “Yeah, sure. I’ll just turn around.”
    Holy shit! I can’t believe this!
    After parking the Jeep, I grabbed some gum from the glove box, checked my hair in the rearview mirror, and walked around the corner to his front door. Justin was standing there in pajama bottoms, no shirt. Light spilled from inside over his big tan shoulders. Muscle. At this point I froze, just couldn’t move, like if you woke up in the middle of the night to find a ghost in your room. No mobility in my limbs and no passage of time.
    “Hey,” Justin said in a quiet voice. A gentle voice, one I’d never heard him use before.
    “Hey,” I managed after a second.
    “I just thought it’s kind of a long drive and you may as well stay here, with me.”
    “That’s cool, thanks.” I followed him into his place, kicking off my shoes. In silence Justin led me to his bedroom, where he brushed his teeth and I thumbed through his books. My mind was racing too fast to even register the titles. He flicked off the bathroom light and walked around me to lie down.
    “You gonna sleep like that?”
    “Well… uh….”
    “You’ll be uncomfortable. At least take off your jeans.”
    Slowly, turning away from Justin, I unbuttoned my jeans and took them off tentatively, wrestling in my head whether to take my T-shirt off or not. Geez. I don’t look like he does without a shirt. How does someone get muscle like that? Don’t take it off. He’ll laugh at how scrawny I am. Did I put on deodorant today? Don’t recall. The shirt is staying on. I sat on the edge of the bed and removed my socks, then lay down robotically, dreading what he might say… “Not here stupid, on the couch” or “Nice chicken legs.” At which point on my slow descent toward the pillow I’d laugh, say “just kidding,” and slink out to the living room.
    He didn’t.
    I lay as close to the edge of the bed as