The Boy I Love

Gas Tank

I spend Saturday in bed, hungover. On Sunday, the doorbell rings, and of course I'm the only one home, so I'm forced to get out of bed at the ungodly hour of-

One thirty in the afternoon? Seriously? I feel like my clock must be lying to me, but I get up and throw on a T-shirt anyways to answer the door.

I open it, still half asleep. It's Vick.

"What time is it?" I ask him. He grins.

"One thirty. Did you just wake up?"

"No, you woke me up, you insensitive moron. What do you want?"

He shoulders inside and I close the door behind him, not bothering to argue.

"I suppose if I woke you up, you haven't eaten yet," he says, already on the way to the kitchen. "So you can make both of us lunch at the same time."

I sigh and follow him, grabbing a piece of toast and popping it into the toaster. "You can make your own lunch. I haven't eaten since sometime yesterday, and you've probably been eating all morning."

"You getting weak from starvation? Do you need a cane, old man?"

I make a face at him. "I didn't see you doing shots at the nightclub at whatever time that was."

"And I'm very glad for that, seeing the state you're in. Hey, speaking of that, where'd you go after the first round of beers, when we all went to dance? We couldn't find you."

I smirk. "You get three guesses, and the first two don't count."

"Oh yeah? You got lucky?"

My toast pops, and I half-heartedly put some margarine on it before going to sit at the table, where Vick's made himself comfortable. It's hard not to smirk at least a little bit, thinking about last night, with that guy. I'd do that again in a heartbeat.

"That's a yes. Did you make me toast, too?"

"No. Get it yourself."

"You're a horrible host," he says, not bothering to get up.

"You're a horrible guest. You didn't even let me know you were coming over, much less ask, and then you just woke me up with the doorbell."

"It's a skill. And I'm not the one who slept until one thirty in the afternoon. That's your own fault."

"I'd say it's Nick's fault, actually. The shots were his idea, I think."

"You agreed, your fault."

I scowl. "You know how he can get. And where were you, then?"

"Hiding. If you were smart, or maybe a little less intoxicated, you would've done the same. Man, you should've stayed with that girl you hooked up with for another half hour. You'd be a lot better off right now if you had."

I don't know why my friends just assume I'm straight. I've never flirted with a girl in my life. I check out guys pretty regularly, and I've never actually lied about my sexuality. I mean, I'm not flamboyantly gay, but I've never done anything I can think of that would imply I'm straight. Though, while I have definitely done very, very gay things, I've never explicitly told them I'm gay.

Sometimes I wonder if I should, just to get it out of the way- but that feels like such an awkward conversation. Why would I tell them? I've never felt like I need to announce it to the world, like I'm hiding something. If I straight up just said, "Hey guys, I'm gay," they'd probably think I was leading up to something. Like, they wouldn't really care about that by itself. If I introduced a boyfriend, or mentioned some guy as a past hookup, then that might be better, but just telling them? For no real reason at all, other than to tell them? Why? I don't want to make a huge deal out of it. It'd just end up being awkward.