Chapter 5
“No. Did I screw up the reference?”
“I never saw the show either, but I think you’re good.” He looks me up and down, “Wes, someday, you are going to make the right other boy very happy.”
“No! As a person. In a relationship. Wes!”
He snaps me with a beach towel. “Are you planning to go away for college?”
“Duh. As far away as possible. Is the University of Alaska any good?”
“Are you majoring in comedy?”
“I already have my masters in that.”
He smiles, “College will be your time. You’ll see. Life will be so different. And in the meantime Mateo’s already come out… I bet more will soon follow. And what did Dylan say? 10 to 20%? I bet some of them are the ‘hot guys’ Dylan picked out for you.”
My cheeks heat up, “I never should have told you about that.”
“Hey, I love that you trusted me. I’d never bring it up front of anyone else.”
As we make our way back over to the others I tell Hayden, “I know I can be a lot to take sometimes.”
Destiny overhears this, “Just sometimes?”
“Seriously,” she says. “There’s no such thing as too much Wes. We wouldn’t have you any other way.”
I know they love me.
Hayden looks at the three of us not swimming and says, “I’ll bet anything you’re all in that pool within the next fifteen minutes.”
Dylan eyes his cousin suspiciously, “No way.”
My phone chimes. It’s Mateo. I look up and realize that I don’t need to tell them that because the big dopey grin on my face does the talking for me. Hayden sees it too. I abruptly change the subject, “So what’s your plan to get us in the pool, Hayden?”
As if on cue the gate swings open and Hayden’s friend Ren steps into the yard with his two kids. Isaac is 10 and Judi is 8. They are already in swimsuits. They kick off their flipflops and run over to us. We’ve all babysat them over the years and they know us well. Isaac starts pulling on my arms, dragging me out of my chair. He’s surprisingly strong for a little guy and my butt thuds on the concrete.
The kids are too young and excited to even realize that the water is freezing. Wes stands and says to Hayden, “Nicely played, bruh.” He has accepted the inevitable. There is no way we’re disappointing these kids.
I sigh in helpless resignation and say to everyone, “Who wants to play Marco Polo?”
Isaac and Judi jump and squeal in delight.
Destiny says, “Five’s a crowd. I’ll watch the fun.”
I sidle up next to her lounge chair and kneel down beside her. I take her hand in mine and say, “Pleeeeaaase…”
She shakes her head.
I wait for her to look at me before pouting out my lower lip.
She can’t help it. She smiles. Then she lets out a theatrical sigh, like she’s exasperated by a three-year-old’s antics. She plants her left foot in middle of my chest pushes me back. Still holding her hand, my momentum pulls her to her feet. She punches me in the arm, “You and your cousin are exactly alike. He knew we couldn’t say no to these cute kids and you knew–“
She stops herself. How was she was going to finish that sentence? Was she about to say that I knew she couldn’t say no to cute me? But now there’s an awkward silence.
Fortunately, Wes breaks it by grabbing Isaac by the armpits, lifting him off the ground, spinning him around three times and launching him skyward. Isaac laughs and screams while he’s airborne before his NASA-like splashdown in the deep end. When his head breaches the surface on the far end he grins and waves Wes and me in. Wes complies first and I take a step to follow but quickly realize I’m still holding Destiny’s hand. I let it go.
Destiny stretches and I can’t help staring. She’s in a two-piece today and I’ve never seen so much of her skin before. I shiver. She has scattered freckles in all the right places, not that she has any wrong places. I force myself to look away. Destiny is my friend and my tingling shivers are inappropriate. Judi tugs on Destiny’s arm and pulls her down to her level. She cups her hand between her mouth and Destiny’s ear and tells her a secret. The secret makes Destiny blush redder than I’ve ever seen her.
I laugh and ask Judi, “What did you tell her?”
Destiny cuts in and answers for her, “She said she wants you to throw her in the water like Wes did with Isaac.”
Judi looks at Destiny like she’s concerned that her ears might be broken. “That’s not what I said. I mean, I do want Dylan to throw me in the pool, but I said that I hope when I’m older, my boyfriend is as cute as yours is.”
Now I’m blushing hard. It is so time for a cooldown. Without the spinning or the high arcing launch, I do throw Judi in the pool and jump in after. Destiny joins in and we forget all about the frigid cold. Mostly.
The five of us are playing games and splashing around when the gate slowly opens again, this time producing Mateo. He immediately slips off his shirt, jumps out of his high tops and strips off his socks. He cannonballs into the pool causing a not-so-mini tidal wave and making the kids laugh hysterically. When Mateo surfaces, his eyes bug out. He hadn’t heard about the broken heater and didn’t expect the jolt of cold he’d leapt into.
Eventually the six of us all pair off. Shockingly, Wes and Mateo end up next to each other like a natural magnetic pull. Lots of smiling. Lots of whispering. Everybody can feel the buzz between them. If this is still “nothing” it’s surely soon to be something. Destiny is coaching Judi through her backstroke technique and Isaac has challenged me to some one-on-one basketball on the shallow end where the nerf ball and hoop are set up. Isaac edges me out by one basket.
Isaac swims off and I realize I’m staring at Destiny again. “May I help you?” she smiles back at me.
Despite the fact that Isaac swims like a fish, he’s letting Judi teach him what she just learned from Destiny. He’s a good big brother. Water beads all over Destiny’s glistening skin and I’m almost in a trance. I point with my chin in the direction Wes and Mateo. “What do you think is going on there?”
“I don’t think even they can answer that question yet, but clearly there’s a spark.”
“Clearly. They should get out of the water before someone gets electrocuted.”
She laughs, “What about you?”
My heart misses a beat, “What about me?”
“Do you miss Tessa?” she asks.
I wonder if Wes told Destiny about our text conversation from the other night. I shake my head, “She wasn’t the right one for me.”
Destiny scoffs, “I could have told you that six months ago.”
Now I scoff, “Could you have?”
Alone now, she moves in closer to me. “Uh huh.”
I move closer too, “So, who is the right one for me?”
She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “They say that opposites attract. Tessa was your opposite in a bad way.”
“Dylan, you’re sweet, kind and generous. You do need someone who can be tough for you, but tough for the right reasons. Not just tough for the sake of being…” She trails off.
She snorts. “Right.”
Tough for the right reasons. Is she aware that she’s describing herself? She holds my eye for a moment before swimming off to join the kids. I survey the scene around me again. I have some pretty amazing people in my life.
I need a break from the water. I’m toweling off when Hayden appears beside me, “You okay, kid?”
He eyes me suspiciously.
We both look out over the pool. We can’t hear what, but Mateo says something that makes Wes splash him. Mateo laughs and lunges, dunking Wes. When he pops up, all five of them crack up.
I tell Hayden, “It looks like Wes won’t need me to pick out hot guys for him anymore. I think he just might already have one.”
Hayden says, “I guess you know that he told me that story.”
“Are they official?” he asks.
“No. But come on. It couldn’t be more obvious if one of them had hired a skywriter.”
“If it’s true, I assume you’re happy for them?”
“You know you’ll always be his best friend no matter what, right?”
“I’m not placating you. I really am happy.”
“He chose you, Dylan.” He grips my shoulder, “Four years ago, you’re the one he ‘came out’ to. You and only you for a long time. And without you to lean on, to confide in, to trust… Who knows how much tougher Wes’ journey could have been?”
“I’ll never not be there for Wes, but the reality is that he would have been fine without me. I’m just one of many in the cast of supporting characters in Wes’ story. He has his parents, Destiny, Mateo… He even has you. You’ve been like a third parent to him.”
“Let’s call it big brother. I’m ridiculously too young to be a teenager’s father. And I’m way too fire–“
I don’t want to smile, but I do. “Did my friends put you up that shit? Don’t ruin it.”
“My point is, no matter what happens with boyfriends and girlfriends, what colleges you each go to, where life takes you, you’ll always be best friends.”
I nod with a lump in my throat.
Destiny just asked me that same question. I reply to him the same as I did with her, “What about me?”
“Do you still need Wes to pick out hot girls for you?”
“That’s probably something we’ve outgrown at this point.”
He cocks an eyebrow, “My question wasn’t literal but it wasn’t rhetorical either.”
“I’m not missing Tessa if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“So be literal then. What are you asking me?”
“I was once eighteen too.”
He laughs, “This boomer can shove you back in the pool.”
I’m not so sure he can but I raise my hands in surrender.
“There’s no doubt that sparks are flying between Wes and Mateo, but between the four of you, we’re in for a full out fireworks show.”
I thought I was doing a decent job of hiding my incredibly inappropriate feelings for Destiny. I should have figured that Hayden would see right through me. I lead us a little further away from the others and sit us down.
“Hayden, I don’t know what to do. She’s my friend and I can’t lose her. The way I’ve been feeling is so wrong. I’ve tried to ignore it. It won’t go away.”
“Dylan, it’s a pretty low-risk situation.”
He cuts me off, “She’s crazy about you, fool!”
“She’s only dropped like a million hints. You’re just cluelessly tripping over all of them.”
“But we’ve been friends forever. I figured we were too deeply rooted in the ‘friend zone’.”
“Dylan, the ‘friend zone’ only exists if you want it to. And believe me, neither of you do. You said you have feelings. Tell me about them.”
“She makes me smile, laugh, blush, tingle…”
“That’s more than friendship. Look, these ‘tingles’ she gives you… That’s been happening for a long time, hasn’t it?”
“So being confused by these feelings and afraid of scaring off your friend, you turned to someone else. You started dating Tessa. But you never really wanted to date her in the first place. You dreamed of a different destiny. A destiny with Destiny.”
I ask him, “Are you like a wizard or something?”
He shakes his head, “No, but I was you once upon a time.” He points a finger at me, “Don’t call me boomer again.”
“Tessa was never my person.”
“Everybody but you knew that. And then she pushed you to get intimate. Who knows even with the right person when you’ll be ready, but with the wrong person – Tessa – you might never have been.”
“How old were you for your first time.”
I snort, “I’m being serious.”
“I was eighteen. A freshman in college, away from home for the first time. But everyone has their own timetable and both people need to be ready.”
“Thanks for telling me.”
He nods again. “Umm, Dylan? There’s actually something about me that I haven’t told you yet.”
I grin, “I may be a dumb teenage boy when it comes to my own love life, but I’m not so dumb when it comes to others. Someone gives you tingles.”
He blushes hard. “You could tell?”
“Uh huh. You could be the grand finale in our collective fireworks show. And if I was why you were keeping things quiet, please don’t on my account. I’m super happy for you.”
Just then Ren walks over and Hayden takes his hand and kisses him. I grin like an idiot.
“Back to you and Destiny,” he says. “You are both afraid to make the first move.”
I chuckle, “Destiny isn’t afraid of anything.”
“Exactly,” he says. “What does that tell you about how scary this is for her too?”
I walk back out onto the patio and Wes is coming right at me. He’s still grinning like a fool. He says, “The kids are done with the pool. We thought we’d all do something else with them.”
I look at my best friend. They don’t come any better than Wes. He could have said that he and Mateo are gonna take off – that would be his obvious preference, but he’s not abandoning those kids. Or Destiny and me.