“Hey, man,” Carlos says, and his voice is gentle, like he’s sensed that he upset me. “It’s cool. You don’t have to talk about it either way.” Nice kid, giving me an out. “It’s not like I’d think you were gay if I saw you walking down the street or anything,”
“Definitely not,” Dorothy scoffs after looking me up and down, somehow managing to make it sound like a bad thing.
“Yeah, but, I mean, you wouldn’t think that about Rafe either, right?” adds Mikal.
He’s certainly right about that.
“So, then, why…?” I start again, but stop, unsure if I want to know the answer.
“It’s how Rafe looks at you,” Carlos says, sounding serious now. “How, like, in tune you guys are.” The rest of the kids all nod, even DeShawn, who stops himself the moment he notices he’s doing it.
I can feel my chest heat up and hope that it doesn’t show above my collar. I want to know how exactly Rafe looks at me, but I can’t ask.
“Totally,” says Mischa. “It’s like he’s completely focused on you. Protective.”
“Possessive,” says Mikal, and he mock swoons against Mischa’s shoulder.
“And Rafe would never go for a straight guy,” Carlos says.
“How do you know?” I could kick myself the second the words are out of my mouth. I can’t believe I’m pumping a bunch of kids for information about Rafe’s love life. Ugh. My stomach tightens at just the thought of Rafe loving someone else. Like Javier—perfect, revered Javier: the ghost I could never hope to compete with. I shake my head in disgust.
“Because he’s not self-loathing,” Dorothy mutters, and DeShawn elbows her.
“He just wouldn’t,” says Carlos, like it’s obvious. “Besides, DeShawn’s uncle is, like, the hottest guy you’ve ever seen, and Rafe doesn’t look at him the way he looks at you.” DeShawn looks embarrassed but everyone else nods their assent.
“Wow, seriously,” says Mikal, staring off into the distance dreamily. He shakes his head.
“Well, he never really dates anyone,” Carlos starts to say, but Mischa cuts him off.
“Okay,” she says, “but how do you know he just wasn’t attracted to DeShawn’s uncle? That doesn’t mean he’d never go for a straight guy.”
“Um, no offense,” says Mikal, “but you’ve never seen DeShawn’s uncle so you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Mischa looks confused.
“He’s fine,” Dorothy says. “Like, for real, undeniably.”
“I still don’t get how—”
“Rafael touches us if we touch him first,” Ricky says, her voice flat, her gaze distant, and I know she means the other kids, since she doesn’t touch anyone. “Only for two seconds. Then he stops. He shakes hands with grown-ups but never touches them even if they touch him first. You have never touched Rafael. But Rafael touches you at least five times every workshop. And you’re a grown-up.”
Everyone stares at her in silence, including me.
“What did I miss?” Rafe’s voice cuts through the crowd as he walks back over to us and puts a hand on my shoulder.
“The viscosity of oil changes based on temperature so you have to use a multigrade oil to account for heat fluctuation.” Ricky doesn’t miss a beat, and her eyes stay glued to the engine block the entire time. There’s general throat-clearing and knuckle-cracking and then Mikal starts to laugh.
“What?” says Rafe, and everyone just shakes their heads.
“SEE YA next week, Winchester,” Carlos calls as the group fractures and everyone goes their separate ways. Okay, I guess Winchester is kind of a badass nickname.
The kids all basically told me that they know I’m—that Rafe and I—whatever—and nothing happened.
Nothing happened at all.
“So, um,” I say to Rafe once everyone’s gone. “Do you want to run?” I brought my running clothes in case he did, so we wouldn’t have to go back to my neighborhood. It seems only fair.
Rafe looks conflicted.
“I can’t today,” he says.
I didn’t realize how much I was counting on him saying yes. The idea that now we’re going to go our separate ways makes me feel twitchy and wrong. But why would he want to hang out with me? I didn’t call him and tell him what he needed to hear. I came and did the workshop and never mentioned it. Even fourteen-year-olds have more balls than me. And Rafe deserves that. Um, not a fourteen-year-old, I mean. Someone who isn’t a coward and a fucking phony.