Boys Boys Boys

Caught-2

Robby pushes past Coach Barrett and heads for the yellow school bus in which the team travels to away games. The driver’s inside CVS with everyone else, grabbing a soda or snacks. This is their final pit stop before reaching the other school’s baseball diamond, and the last chance to pay a decent price for something to eat. The cost of concessions, even for ball players, is through the roof.

The driver left the bus’s folding door open. Robby launches himself at the steps and takes them two at a time, the bus shuddering under his heavy footfalls as he clamors aboard. Rows of green pleather seats stare back at him, empty. Punching his right fist against each seat in turn, Robby makes his way to the back of the bus, where he can sulk in privacy for the rest of the ride.

When he reaches the last seat, he throws himself into it bodily, stretching his leg across the length to deter anyone from sitting beside him. With his back against the cool metal side of the bus, he ducks below the window and tugs his baseball cap down over his eyes. He should’ve swiped a pack of gum, he thinks. His jaw’s clenched so tight, he wishes he had something to chew on to loosen it.

Shifting onto his left butt cheek, he reaches into his pocket and plucks out the tube of ChapStick. It’s sealed in its plastic wrapper, unused, new. He still can’t believe he didn’t see Mike standing in the aisle behind him before he palmed the damn thing.

Well, no, I did see him, he admits, if only to himself.

From the edge of his vision, hadn’t he seen Mike watching him? He felt his friend’s gaze on his back the way he felt it so often during their games. On the field, it was easy to turn around and shout something across the distance that spanned between them. “Look alive!” or “Head’s up!” Something game-related in the hopes of jumpstarting some kind of conversation.

But in the locker room, Robby was always so damn tongue-tied around Mike. He never knew what to say or do to get the cute shortstop to look his way. Was it just him, or did Mike deliberately avoid him off the field? What had happened to the kid who used to play G.I. Joes with him after school let out, when Robby’s mom watched both of them until Mike’s father got off from work? They’d been friends once, real friends, and Robby doesn’t know how to get that back.

All he’d wanted in the store was to hear Mike say something to him, anything, and he didn’t have the first clue how to bridge the gap between them. The vague shouts of encouragement he relied on during a game wouldn’t have worked in the quiet aisles of a pharmacy. Everything else that came to mind sounded forced or insincere. “Still play with action figures?” didn’t have that seductive a ring to it.

He could’ve asked about Mike’s classes. As much as he doesn’t like to think about school when he isn’t in it, at least it’d be an opening gambit. He’d read in his sister’s Seventeen magazine that getting a guy to talk about his classes would be a great way to show interest in him, but Robby doesn’t know if that only works for girls or not. Why aren’t there any teen magazines out there with advice for gay guys on how to chat up a hot dude at school?

Robby had half-turned, intent on asking Mike what he thought of Geometry this year, but the sight of the slim ball player took his breath away. There was something so sexy about the way Mike’s white pants hugged his butt and the blue away jersey pulled around his slim shoulders, how his close-cropped blond hair curled at the tops of his ears and over his brow… Robby felt the words dry up in the back of his throat. What had he been planning to say again?

He couldn’t remember. When Mike glanced at him, Robby quickly looked away. Without thinking, he stuck his hand in his pocket and dropped in the tube of ChapStick. If Mike saw it, he’d confront Robby about it. At least then they’d be talking, right?

Only the disappointment in Mike’s pale eyes was too much to see, and Robby couldn’t admit the ChapStick wasn’t his. He couldn’t back down, either, not when he saw how nervous Mike was about the filch. Robby planned on putting the damn thing back once Mike turned away, but by then it was too late and they were already leaving the store. Robby didn’t have a chance to stop, not with Mike right behind him and their teammates up ahead.

If it had been just the two of them in the store, maybe he could’ve played it off—pulled the ChapStick out of his pocket and pretended he didn’t realize he had it in his hand. Maybe Mike would’ve laughed at that, told him it was cool.

But that didn’t happen. Now Robby has a tube of ChapStick he doesn’t need clutched tight in his fist like a shameful mistake. As much as it burns his palm, he doesn’t want to throw it away because it isn’t really his, is it? He didn’t pay for it, and he sure as hell didn’t want to use it, and now Mike knows he stole it.

What can Mike possibly think of that?

I don’t know, and I don’t care. Robby almost believes that. He peels the cellophane wrapper off the tube, not just the protective part covering the cap but the whole thing, peels it off until the ChapStick is nothing but a naked white tube in his hands. In disgust, he throws the tube against the far wall of the bus. It hits the window, then clatters to the floor, rolling away beneath the seats until it’s out of sight. Robby wants to take it back to the store. He wants to apologize to someone, tell them he’s sorry, he took it because he wanted Mike to talk to him and that hadn’t really worked, had it? It only made Mike angry with him and he didn’t want that, so please just take it back, take it all back.

* * * *

Mike follows his teammates onto the bus. From the head of the aisle, he leans to the left, then to the right, looking for Robby even if he doesn’t want to admit it. When he sees the third baseman hunkered down in the last seat, he breathes a sigh of relief. So no one caught him, good. Even if stealing’s wrong, Mike doesn’t want Robby to get into trouble over it.

As much as he’d like to take a seat beside Robby, he knows he doesn’t have that kind of courage. Instead, he falls into the first empty seat he finds on the opposite side of the bus, turning as if to chat with the guy behind him. What he really wants is to be able to glance over at Robby from time to time, just to look at the guy. With his cap pulled down low, his shoulders slouched, Robby looks sad. Mike wishes he could think of something to say to make him smile again. He wants to tell Robby it’s okay, he won’t tell anyone about the ChapStick, but he can’t say anything here, where everyone else can hear.

When he scoots back against the wall, his foot nudges something on the floor. He glances down and sees a tube of ChapStick, wrapper-less. Bending over, he plucks it off the floor and just knows this is the same tube he saw in Robby’s hand earlier. It’s his, then, he thinks, because there’s no wrapper on it. His heart soars and he’s already mentally apologizing as he uncaps the tube. I knew he didn’t steal anything. It’s—

Brand new.

He can tell because the lip balm inside the tube is still rolled down even with the top, and there’s a little concave dip in the balm where it settled after production. A used tube would be rounded out, smoothed from applying it to the lips and, if it were old enough, might have a little dimple in the middle where the stick inside was. This ChapStick didn’t have that. It was crisp and fresh, and when Mike screws up the tube a little, he knows it’s never been used.

Even though he’s on a bus full of kids, he feels someone looking at him. He glances up and, sure enough, Robby’s staring back. He has half a mind to chuck the ChapStick across the aisle, aiming for Robby’s cap, and holler out, “You dropped something.”

But he doesn’t want to answer any questions the others might ask. So he just holds up the tube where Robby can see it, then he palms it like a magician doing a trick and tucks it into his own pocket.

His anger is back.