“Hi,” I mutter back.
The word is lost as he’s already buried back in his phone, typing to his girl, the one who stole his heart or whatever. At first, annoyance floods me. But the longer I study Clayton and the light in his eyes as his thumbs make sentences to that girl on the receiving end of them, the more my mood shifts. When I pull my own selfish needs out of the equation, I realize that all that’s left is a ringing relief and happiness that Clayton’s finally found someone who’s shed light in that dark-as-hell heart of his. I’d be a pretty shitty friend to hold that against him.
And maybe someday, there’ll be a girl that I’ll tell Clayton about to the point of making his own eyes roll. Maybe there will be someone with whom I’m so consumed that I start canceling plans with friends, or start clumsily walking into walls, or negotiating taking off all my clothes in front of a classroom just to impress them.
I chuckle dryly at that last thought.
“I met this girl,” I start to tell him, staring at my hands. “Or maybe it’s more accurate to say, this girl met my cock.” I take the spoon for a spin of my own along the tabletop. “Y’know, I’m not gonna lie, I can’t stop imagining the squeakin’ that the springs will make when I drop her onto my bed. Is that bad? I mean, she’s hot. She’s hot hot. Like, I don’t know if I want to have sex with her or kiss her first. I could do both with this one. She’s got this sly sort of … always-something-up-her-sleeves thing going on. Finally I got her attention and she wants me to meet her somewhere on Saturday and, like, I’m feeling all these nerves I haven’t felt since we were kids and you were gettin’ all the girls. I can’t stop thinking about getting my face in her boobs. Just the thought makes me sweat. Mmm, and what she tastes like between her legs. Damn. But … I mean, is it worth it if all she’s gonna do is turn me down? She’s … feisty. Is it worth all the damn trouble when I got a hundred or two other pretty girls who won’t make it so damn difficult to just … wang-bang ‘em?” The spoon stops. I pick it up and talk to it. “But maybe that’s the point. This girl isn’t like the others, is she? She’s making me work. I think that’s kinda hot, too. I’ve had too many easy girls. I need a hard one. And she makes me hard. Hell, I’m hard now.”
When I look up from the spoon to see if Clayton’s laughing at my joke, I find that he’s missed every word, still buried in his phone and typing away. As if pulled by my little glance, he looks up suddenly, then smiles. “Sorry. Dessie just scored Jeremy Hardenberg. Can’t believe it. Our set’s gonna rock! I can’t wait to work with him and make a fucking color and light orgasm onstage. Oh, how’s the painting thing going?”
I’m gonna make a color and light orgasm with an art chick Saturday night. “Photography, not painting,” I correct him with a smirk. When he gives me a quizzical look, I bring a couple hands to my face to mimic a photographer looking through his camera.
“Shit. Photography. Right.” He sets his phone down. “What’re you gonna do with your photography degree? Doesn’t that add, like, two more years to your college time? You’re gonna miss graduating with the … the rest of us.”
I sigh, annoyed. “It’s not about graduating that’s the goal. It’s—”
“You need to graduate, dude.”
His phone jumps, but thankfully he ignores it, keeping his eyes on me. I hate how much like a scolding older brother Clayton looks right now. He’d given me this same look half our lives ago when he could still hear, reprimanding me for how dumb I got when I talked to girls, or berating me about what we’d achieve when we grew up, or fuming over my inability to skip class without getting caught by Principal McPherson. The tables turned when we hit high school, and then they seemed to turn even more when we hit college. Now he’s the driven one with the fire in his eyes and the arrow in his heart, and I’m the one with just a fire between my legs. I think the arrows are there, too.
“So?” Clayton prompts me, lifting his eyebrows. “Is this art school photography thing gonna work out?”
“I hope so,” I finally say. “It’d be better if I was any good.”
“You’re no good?”
“Not sure. Last week, I had to take forty photos of trees. Lights and shadows, or something. The hell I gotta take photos of trees for?”
“Trees?” he echoes, eyes on my lips.
“Yep.”
He smirks. “The more you take, the better you get, right?”