[Twice Featured Noteworthy Novel & Staff Pick on Tapas.io] ✔
[Previously featured on Tapas.io's LGBTQ+ Community collection] ✔
One night. That was all it took for Senn Reyes' life to change drastically--and permanently.
Senn Reyes is a seventeen-y...
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Friday
Going home with Elio, skipping school to go and do sexual things hadn't been the best plan Senn had ever had. Not that he had any regrets about their activities—on the contrary. Being intimate with Elio had brought them closer together and it was getting increasingly harder to not show feelings in public, and most of all not in front of Joyce. It wasn't so much the fact Senn was still closeted when it came to his sexuality; Elio was too.
Mostly at school and in public.
Elio's family knew about it, and they were accepting of it. Which meant they could openly show their feelings whenever they were in his home, weren't it for the fact they both got in some trouble for skipping school again.
It took Senn two whole days to get Tessa and Dean to agree on him going out with his friends on Friday. Elio wasn't going to be there—he really didn't like going out to drink alcohol and end up drunk—but Avan, Lucas and the girls would be there, and Senn wanted to spend some time with them.
Which was why, on a Friday night, he found himself in the middle of drunk, high, screaming teenagers in Elmer McCoy's villa not too far away from his old home. The living room was turned into a dancing area, and just like Senn remembered, Elmer—who was solely popular in school for throwing these amazing parties—hadn't spared any effort to transform the property in some sort of club.
With a DJ in a booth on a small stage, two bartenders not much older than they themselves were, pouring teenagers every drop of alcohol they asked for, and bouncers at the door to keep uninvited guests and curious by passers out so that a chance for a visit from the cops would be limited to a minimum.
The garden and the pool were used by drunk girls, both from Senn's own class and girls who were slightly older and still friends with the McCoy brothers while they were in college already. Some had taken off most their clothes, while some didn't need to because their white clothes hardly hid any details about their bodies.
Senn didn't mind looking at them while they were tossing a ball around the pool, wrestling each other, singing loudly and jumping up and down in the shallow end of the pool. He definitely still appreciated girls with hot bodies.
Which made it easier to hide the fact he was into guys from Joyce and Samantha, while Avan and Lucas were too occupied by taking in all the beauty as they sat on the porch of the pool house with beers and spliffs in hand.
"Isn't that Julian?" Samantha asked as she pointed a finger towards a group of older guys on the other side of the pool.
Senn followed her finger and found him in the middle of the group, telling a story that made most of them laugh. It made Senn smirk, seeing him like he remembered him from months ago. Julian, always the joker, with the funny stories that nobody knew if they were true. But nobody questioned him, since they were funny.
"Did you hear about his dad?" Joyce turned to Samantha shortly, before looking at Senn. "Did he tell Killian or you about it?"
"He did, yeah." Senn nodded his head in reply, still admiring the fact Julian was here, entertaining his drunk friends at a party, while at home his father was too sick to get out of bed. Time wasn't on his side, yet Julian was here. He wasn't hiding from the world like Senn himself had done for as long as he possibly could.
