Fate

Chapter 1: First There Was Brian-4

And so the ball was hit and lobbed his way. I prayed he’d volley it back lightly. Instead, he slammed it over the f*****g net. “I remember the last time I saw you.”

The last time. The last time. The last time. My mind raced. In fact, it could’ve done laps around the Indy 500. I turned my face his way. He turned his face my way. There was maybe a half a foot between us. I don’t think I’d ever been alone with another boy and been that close before, close enough to smell his breath, to feel it on my skin. This was what Crest commercials were like, all minty fresh.

“You kissed me,” I blurted out, my mouth way ahead of my brain on that one.

“So, you do remember some things.” He smiled and ribbed me with his elbow.

“Hard to forget your first kiss, I suppose.”

“But we were seven.”

I blinked. “Still.”

He blinked. “Yeah, still.” He turned over on his side, still looking my way. His face was even closer to mine now. Nine out of ten dentists recommend using the aforementioned Crest; now I knew why. “How come we remember that, but not the rest? We were best friends, right? That’s all my mom ever says. In the pictures, it’s weird. We were always together, but I don’t really remember it. You think when we’re thirty we won’t remember being sixteen? What did people do before cameras, rely on paintings?”

I grinned. “Pretty deep stuff for a guy wearing Superman underwear.” Stupid mouth! Shut the f**k up already!

He punched me beneath the sheets, his fist lightly making contact with my chest. “Nothing wrong with Superman. Besides, why were you staring at my underwear?”

My grin promptly vanished. My grin, in fact, went as flat as one of my mom’s bad v****a jokes. “Why did you kiss me back then, Brian?”

He blinked. “Why did you let me kiss you, Eddie?”

“I was seven.”

His grin returned, looking like a shrug on his face. “Same here.”

Again, I stared up at the ceiling. “But out of everything, out of all these years, that’s what we both remember. And that’s not in a picture.”

“What do you want me to say?”

I fidgeted, my knee knocking against his. Damned twin beds. Ma always got a queen. But at least she usually got me my own room. Now look how that turned out. “You brought it up,” I replied.

He didn’t say anything. There was a pause, and then he pushed himself up until his face was just above my own. I stared up into his eyes. The room was dark, but I could still make out the faintest shade of blue. “Say it,” he whispered.

“Say what?” I whispered back.

“Say that you wanted me to kiss you.”

His face moved in even closer. The room was hot, hotter still by the sheets and the blanket and him hovering above me. “I wanted you to kiss me because we were best friends and you were leaving me forever.”

He chuckled, the vibration travelling through the bed and up into my chest. “Not so forever though, huh?”

And then there was that kiss again. Only it wasn’t the kiss from before. Brian wasn’t seven anymore and this wasn’t a fleeting goodbye. In fact, this was more of a hello, nice to see you, let’s stay like this until our lips need a crowbar to pry them apart. And guess what? There were no crowbars in the mini-fridge. Not even a fingernail clipper. Nope, all there was, was me and him kissing as if nine years hadn’t even been nine seconds and he didn’t have a girlfriend and our mothers weren’t in the next room.

If that previous kiss all those years earlier had been my first kiss, then the second one was one hell of an encore. My mom would kill for such an encore, in fact. You see, among everything else in the universe, it was unique and perfect and wouldn’t ever be forgotten, not when I was thirty, not when I was eighty.

When at last he broke free, his face still above mine, he smiled. “And why did you let me kiss you this time then?”

I pulled my hand up above the sheets and blanket and ran it through his thick mane of hair, just like I’d always wanted to do. “Because we’re best friends.”

His lips again touched down on mine before he resumed his position. “Are we?”

My hand caressed his cheek. There was a light stubble there. I wondered if he could grow a beard, or if he would in a year or two or six. “I don’t know what we are. It just felt like the right thing to say. Does that make sense?”

He nodded. “Do you believe in fate, Eddie?”

My body suddenly tensed and then relaxed. There was that word again: fate. It felt as if he had hit me with it. “You think fate brought us together again, or that it brought us together the first time?”

His hand also rose from beneath the covers before finding its way through my hair, his fingers lightly raking across my scalp, sending a million little goosebumps up my arm. “When I saw you standing in the parking lot earlier tonight, that’s the first word that popped into my head.” The kiss repeated. I was shocked that it was even more amazing than the last. “So do you?” he asked, when again he moved his lips away.

My eyelids fluttered open. “Do I what?”

“Believe in fate?”

Yes, I did in fact. Though I was scared to admit it. Scared that I’d be tempting it. I was sixteen. This was all new to me. And so, I replied, “Well, my mom is pretty damned funny, but not worth travelling all the way from Pittsburg to see.”

“So that’s a yes then?”

I pulled him in, my arms wrapped tightly around him. I kissed him in reply. That felt safer than a yes. That felt more honest, at any rate. That felt, like I’ve said, perfect.