Fearless (19 page)

Lancaster gave us a really nice speech about how proud he was of us. Looking around at Tony and Bailey and Jon and everyone, though, I could tell none of us felt any better. Even Jimmy looked depressed.

I thought maybe as the captain I should say something, but I couldn’t think of anything to say that the coach hadn’t covered. We did our best and now it was over. We’d made it as far as the semi-finals and that was going to have to be good enough.

“Party at my place!” Brian told us as we boarded the bus.

“What for?” Chad muttered. “We lost.”

“Dude, this was the first Frosh-Soft team to get to the Semis in four years. You guys got a lot to celebrate. So the varsity guys are throwing you a party,” Brian explained.

“Say you’re coming,” Kanoa urged me, appearing at my left.

I really didn’t feel like it. I just wanted to go home and hide in my room and brood. I could see the rest of the guys felt the same way. And then I realized that the party was just what they needed—we needed—and that was why Kanoa was asking me. He needed me to get the guys on board.

No, I still had no idea why anyone listened to me.

“That sounds great,” I said, hoping my fake cheer was believable. “Come on, guys, we’ve earned it.”

Bailey frowned at me for a moment and then changed gears and flashed his braces. “Yeah, we did. We kicked ass. It’s not our fault Grant High has a pack of ‘roid freaks on their team.”

The guys shared a laugh. And that was all it took. Everyone agreed to go and rides and directions were all settled.

Brian lived in the neighborhood I used to live in—the one with cookie-cutter houses and perfect lawns and two cars in every driveway. It made me homesick for a place that was no longer my home. Basically, it was a bad place for me to go with the mood I was in.

But it was really cool of the varsity guys to do it for us. They threw together a barbecue, the pool was heated, and there was great music. They even had these lame tiki torches that made it feel like a luau. A bunch of people from school showed up. I wanted to enjoy it, but it was so hard. Because it felt like the victory celebration my guys deserved but couldn’t have.

“Next year,” Kanoa said, coming up next to me and pressing a soda into my hand.

He stood next to me as I leaned against a pillar on the back deck, watching the festivities. His warmth, his scent, they were more comforting than I wanted to admit. Kanoa had never once made me feel bad for any of my screw-ups. I’d never even caught the slightest hint of disappointment in his pretty almond eyes.

“Next year, we’re taking the trophy,” I said with a fierceness that kind of shocked me.

“Damn right,” Kanoa agreed. “You did really good, Justin. I know, it sucks. Losing sucks hard. And you feel like crap now. But try and remember how many other guys you left in your wake.”

I gave him a smile, because he always seemed to know the right thing to say. “I really wanted to win.”

“Well, yeah.”

“No, you don’t get it.” I fiddled with the tab on my soda can. “I’ve never been competitive. I’ve never been good enough at anything to bother competing. I never knew what it was like, you know, that feeling of being a winner.”

Kanoa didn’t laugh, thankfully. He put his hand on my shoulder. “You’ll get that trophy.”

The mere touch of him made me tingle and sweat. “Yeah, but....”
Oh fuck it.
“I wanted to win it for you.”

Kanoa looked adorably confused. “Huh?”

“You made me a winner,” I told him. It sounded stupid and corny, but I didn’t know how else to say it. “I never would have won anything if you hadn’t put in all that time and don’t tell me it wasn’t anything. It was huge. You took this stupid, scared-shitless freshman and you helped him become something.”

“Justin.... You always had it in you.”

I laughed. “Maybe, but you made it happen.”

He turned to face me full-on, his expression a wealth of conflicting emotions. “It’s sweet that you wanted to win for me. I just don’t understand why.”

 “Because I have a huge crush on you.”

He stared at me. I stared back at him, horrified by my audacity.

“That came out wrong,” I said in the worst attempt at covering ever.
Yeah, and how was that supposed to come out?

Kanoa was gaping at me. He didn’t look horrified, thankfully. He also didn’t have that look of disgust Zach had showed at the idea of some guy crushing on him. Kanoa honestly just looked like he had no idea how to respond.

“It’s cool if you hate me now,” I said, looking down at my feet.

“I couldn’t hate you, Justin.”

Kanoa continued to stare blankly at me for a long time. I tried to think of a joke or something to move us past the awkwardness I had introduced into the nice conversation we’d been having. Liam would have one. But my mind was blank.

“You remind me so much of me,” Kanoa breathed. “But so much braver. You never back down. It was so easy to crush on you.”
Say what now?
My heart did a few somersaults. “Then when I saw you in Starbucks and I knew you were the guy I was also crushing on online, I freaked out.”

“Wait, what?” I stared at him. “You’re Hawaii?”

Kanoa gave me a guilty look. “Yeah.”

I was now so very confused. Excited, thrilled, overjoyed, but impossibly befuddled. “I waited for you for hours.”

Kanoa looked shamefaced. “I’m sorry.”

“Just…. Why? I mean, if you liked me….”

“I’m still kind of, well mostly, in the closet. A couple of my friends know, but my family doesn’t and they would kill me. I was planning to wait until college….” He looked back out at the party. “When you asked to meet, I almost said no. I figured you were either some creep or you were a guy I’d want to date, and neither of those options were any good. Because I can’t date. I can’t.”

“Then why did you agree to meet?”

“Because I was lonely,” he admitted. “Brian is always talking about his girlfriend. And Minh brags about the girls he goes out with. And I just wonder sometimes what it would be like.”

My hand shook as it sought out his. He gripped it in response, offering me a melancholy smile. “I know what you mean,” I told him. “I get lonely too.”

He bit his lower lip. “It was totally crappy of me to ditch you at Starbucks. I just…. I saw the guy I’d gotten to know and like in real life and realized he was also my online boyfriend and it got too real. I panicked.”

That sounded so familiar. It was exactly the sort of dumb thing I would do. “Well, don’t do that again.” He laughed. “I don’t suppose you want to go to the V-day dance thing with me,” I said, trying to make it sound like it was no big deal either way, even though my entire sense of self-worth was bound up in those words.

Kanoa flinched, his eyes finding mine. “I’d love to go to the dance with you, Justin. Like, you have no idea. But I can’t…. If my family finds out….”

Something suddenly occurred to me, and it made me grin from ear to ear. “I think your sister already knows.”

“She does not.” Terror flashed in his eyes. “Why would you think that?”

“When I talked to her, I think she thought I was going to ask about you. She didn’t seem freaked at all.”

Kanoa chewed on a knuckle. The gesture was too adorable to describe. “That would explain some of the things she’s said….”

I reached out to turn his face to me. Liam had taught me how to be strong, how to look into the eyes of the thing that scares you and grin. I felt free from doubt and all my hang-ups and general lameness.

 “Kanoa, I know a lot of ignorant jackasses don’t like gays. I know my mom wishes I was straight. Your parents may not like you being gay, either. But the question is, do you want to live your life for them? Is that going to make you happy?”

He stared into my eyes like he was mesmerized. “No.”

I stroked his cheek with my thumb. He was so beautiful there in the flickering light from the tiki torches, his face now devoid of guile and pretense. “Go to the dance with me?”

He bit his lip and stared into my eyes with a longing that I felt was misplaced but so incredibly flattering. “Okay.”

I grinned and somehow didn’t make an idiot of myself by letting out an excited whoop. I was learning, you see.

I leaned in. My heart pounded in my chest. His eyes searched my face as he continued to worry at his lip—and his lips were my target. I canted my head to the side and smiled at him. He smiled shyly back and edged forward, like he was scared of getting burned.

“Ew, get a room,” Aolani said as she passed us by.

Kanoa started and drew back from me. His eyes fixed on his sister’s back as she walked towards the pool and over to Liam, who was chilling in a lawn chair. She settled in next to him and whispered something into his ear. He grinned and found my eyes with his. The thumbs-up from him made me blush.

Sheepishly, I cast my gaze in Kanoa’s direction.

 “Come on,” he breathed.

Kanoa took my hand and pulled me into the house. I grinned in delight to know that his sister hadn’t completely ruined the mood.  And I was really curious where he was taking me.

Once upstairs, we went to a room at the end and slipped inside. It was masculine in decor, and that’s about all I noticed because my eyes were fixed on Kanoa. He was flushed from the run, but he looked embarrassed too. “Is this okay? We were just getting to the good part….”

I laughed, my anxiety disappearing. He really was a hopeless dork just like me. “It’s perfect.”

I didn’t want to risk any more interruptions. I grabbed him and kissed him—clumsy, awkward and so full of
need
. I’d been yearning for him for so long. I didn’t care how unskilled I was. I just wanted to know what it was like to kiss a boy I liked.

There’s a lot of sappy words I want to use to describe how it felt. I won’t, because they would make you vomit. I will say that kissing Kanoa was everything I had ever dreamed of. It was better than swimming, even. I just wanted to crawl into that moment and live there forever.

Learning the art of making out with Kanoa is the sort of thing dreams (steamy, hot dreams) are made of. I stopped worrying about everything. He was beautiful. He was perfect. He was
mine
.

I got swept away in the moment. He didn’t object at all when I went for the zipper on his jeans. I was operating solely on instinct, and that gave me a clear map for what to do. It wasn’t like I was going to lose my virginity at a party where anyone could walk in at any moment. But I had been waiting to touch his gorgeous skin for way too long.

Kanoa seemed okay with that plan.

He did let out a yelp of surprise when I laid a slap across his bare ass, though.

“That was for standing me up,” I explained and then petted the little hurt I’d given him.

There was a lot of stroking, a little licking and some very interesting gasping over the next few minutes. I’m not giving the details. All I’m going to say is that being gay rocks. For real.

As we lay there on the disheveled bed, curled up and catching our breath, I found myself feeling like I was ready to take on the world.

The dance was really a lot of fun. Kanoa looked amazing in the suit he wore for the occasion—a suit I looked forward to peeling him out of at some point. What can I say? Kanoa looks hot naked.

Liam and Aolani were obnoxiously adorable, laughing and joking the whole time. I still felt a twinge of jealousy looking at them, but it was muted. My feelings for Liam were still there, but they were pushed to the side by the incredible feelings that being with Kanoa filled me with.

Aolani's only comment on Kanoa going with me was, “About fucking time.”

At first it was scary, basically announcing to everyone that I was gay. There were some haters at the dance. Zach gave me a look of utter disgust and then wouldn’t look at me again. Others made some asinine remarks, but who cares about them? With Kanoa next to me, I was ready to take on the world.

Most people either ignored us or gave us approving nods. Even Jimmy was cool about it, saying he “figured” but smiling in a way that said it was all cool. Brian and his girlfriend Diana insisted on dancing with us.

Yeah, about that….. My only consolation was that Kanoa was almost as bad. Being an awful dancer isn’t so embarrassing when your partner is just as awkward. And we were more interested in finding places to make out anyway.

At one point, Liam found me by the punch bowl. “Justin scores the hot senior,” he said, smiling at me.

There was no way I could do anything but grin at him. I think my face had gotten stuck in smile-mode. It was freaking people out.

“Only because I have the best friend in the whole world.”

“Well, yeah. Nice to see you acknowledge that.”

I looked over to the table where Aolani and her brother were chatting. He said something that made her laugh that full-throated laugh of hers. I kind of liked her, to be honest—even if she was a man-stealing hussy.

“You seem to have gotten your own hot senior.”

“Well, I have a pretty good friend too.”

“How have you been? I’ve been kind of busy with swimming and Kanoa….”

Liam shrugged, a peculiar gleam in his eyes. “Not tonight, Justin. Lou doesn’t get tonight.”

That sounded bad, but I wasn’t going to make him talk about it when he clearly didn’t want to. “Okay….”

“Let’s go get our picture taken, the four of us.”

I went along with him, grinning at his manic demands for a picture. Kanoa and Aolani were retrieved and dragged over to the photographer. We took several, but my favorite was with me and Liam in back, our dates sitting in front of us. We had our arms around each other, grinning like the dopey idiots we were; two friends enjoying a big school dance.

Chapter 21

H
OSPITALS ARE CREEPY PLACES.
T
HEY
smell weird, they’re full of diseases and death. There’s this whole ugly feeling of misery around them. I had never spent much time in them before, but I had grown to loathe them. The fact that Liam was trapped in one only made me hate them more.

A week after the dance, his doctors had seen some things in their tests that they didn’t like and had admitted him for
more
tests. That was two weeks ago, and they still wouldn’t let him leave. I resented them for it. Liam was too full of life to belong in a hospital.