Chapter 1
Chapter 1“I’ve been waiting an hour. What took you so long?”
“Stuff.” Rocco Barrett squared his shoulders and ambled slowly toward the guy he had texted earlier in the night. His heart was pounding. He was breathing hard.
“I didn’t want to be seen,” the tall young junior named Buck said.
“I know,” Rocco said. “Me neither.”
“Come here. Let’s do this. I don’t have all night.”
Rocco moved cautiously in the weak moonlight of the footbridge behind Milton High.
Buck, with the spiked Mohawk, arm-length tattoos, pierced nose, and bad boy attitude, stepped out from beneath the shadows of the bridge and held Rocco’s stare. “Well? What are you waiting for?”
“I…I don’t want anyone to know about this,” Rocco said, connecting the name with a face and placing the bare-chested youth in his seventh-period Bio class. Rocco remembered Milton High’s shooting guard basketball player Buck sitting at the back of the biology room, doodling in his notebook, ignoring the teacher, and passing him strange glances between lectures. “Nobody can know this happened,” Rocco said. “I mean it. Nobody.”
Buck folded his muscular arms across his chest and smirked. “Are you wimping out on me, bro?”
“I’m not your bro. And this is just a hook up. No strings, nothing personal. I don’t want anything else to do with you after tonight.”
“You sounded more eager about hooking up earlier tonight than you do right now.”
“I was curious,” Rocco said.
Buck laughed. “About what? My tats? Body piercings? Six pack?” He posed, scrunching the knot of muscles in his stomach. “Or how good a blow job I can give?”
“Maybe this was a bad idea,” Rocco said, turning to leave.
Buck grabbed his arm. “Wait. Sorry, man. It’s just…I didn’t expect all this conversation. I thought you wanted a quickie.”
“I do.” He paused. “I’m just nervous. I don’t want anybody finding out about this.”
“That makes two of us. I don’t want to be the center of gossip at school either. Especially for this.” He shrugged and leaned into Rocco.
“Fine,” Rocco said. “Whatever.”
“Don’t make this awkward, man,” Buck said. “Just come over here. Let’s get this over with.” He backed up, encouraging Rocco to follow him to the shadowy corners of the bridge where he unzipped his jeans and yanked his pants down to his hips.
Rocco crouched in front of him and buried his face in the warm crevices between Buck’s legs, smelling the salty, musky scents of the young guy.
Five minutes later, Buck readjusted himself, pulled up his pants.
Neither guy looked at each other, as Buck walked down the long, dark bridge to the top of the hill, whistling and brushing past Rocco, shouldering him lightly before disappearing into the night like a ghost.
