Chapter One“Hey, Carter!” I barely heard my cousin, Wade, yelling at me over the sound of the music in my headphones. I looked up at him from my sketchbook, wondering how long he had been calling to me before I realized it.
He was standing in the doorway that led into the bathroom we shared, naked and toweling off. He must have just stepped out of the shower. Something else I was oblivious to. Seeing him naked was no big surprise. We’ve shared a bathroom for six years, and spent many a summer’s day skinny dipping in the pond, out back behind our grandmother’s house, where we both lived- he because his mother abandoned him when he was an infant, and I because my parents kicked me out when I came out of the closet. We were both so accustomed to seeing each other naked, “letting it all hang
