Page 30 of Guitars and Cages

I scrubbed a hand down my face, tired. I wanted to go home. I drank the beer and he gave me another; didn’t take long for me to drink that, too. “So why the boobs?” I blurted out.

“Because I wanted them,” he said simply, handing me another beer to drain. “I never felt right as Alex; I never liked being a boy, looking like a boy. I wanted curves and breasts and hips. I like myself this way, Asher. Simple. I can’t help it if you don’t.”

“But I mean...” I scowled, ’cause I sucked at words and I couldn’t quite figure out what I wanted to ask or say first. “Why would you want people to point and laugh and stare?”

Alex shook his head. “They don’t; most don’t ever even notice.”

“That’s ’cause you make a wicked hot chick,” I muttered, and then blushed and glared as he had the nerve to giggle at me.

“You should know; you were checking out my ass on the steps of your apartment,” he said cheekily, and a part of me wanted to hit him.

“Yeah, but how the hell are you gonna get a job that way? I mean, don’t you gotta tell them you ain’t a girl? Don’t you gotta tell people who hit on you that you’re a guy? You’re gonna end up getting your ass kicked.”

He grinned, and I didn’t get what was so goddamned funny.

“Thanks,” he said, while I sat there confused.

I finished my beer, and he shook his head and handed me another.

“I was thanking you for still giving a shit, doofus.”

“Do people even call each other doofus anymore, dork?”

His grin grew wider, and the next thing I knew he’d chucked a pillow at my head, spilling a bit of my beer on me.

“Oh, that’s it—that’s alcohol abuse,” I informed him before I guzzled the beer down, snatched up the pillow, and attacked.

“Hey!” he yelped as I thwacked him on the side of the head with it. “Ack!”

I hit him a few more times as he fumbled for the other pillow, finally bringing it up as a shield. He wrapped my arm in a blanket, trapping it so he could beat me with his pillow for a bit before I could get free. I thwacked him with the pillow again; he socked me in the face with his, and we went back and forth until the pillow I’d thrown at his head smacked the lamp on the bedside table and sent it to the floor with a crash. My eyes got wide and so did his, and we knelt there on the bed, frozen like we were little kids again, waiting for Mom to come in.

“Oh, shit,” he said, hands in front of his mouth, hiding the smile that had brightened his eyes. I was laughing openly, and it felt good. I hadn’t laughed like that in a while.

“Least Mom can’t come in and ground us,” I said, laughing still.

“Yeah, and Dad can’t beat your ass.”

“Mine? You’re the one who started it!” I said indignantly.

“Yeah, but you’re the one who threw the pillow.”

Logic won; it usually did, though I hated that he’d pointed that out. I laughed and shook my head, sputtering a half-excuse before giving up on it. He passed me another beer, and I sat cross-legged on one end of the bed while he sat at the other, grabbing a beer of his own.

“The truth is, I’m out of work at the moment and I was, umm, thinking about moving down here, if Morgan doesn’t hate me after he sees me. I thought maybe I could work in the kitchen for him while I finished school.”

“You’re in school?” I asked, shocked. What the hell could he be studying?

“Yeah, I am, online, and before you make any wisecracks, I’m not studying fashionordesign, thank you very much!”

I laughed, ’cause that’s exactly what I’d been thinking. “So what are you studyin’?”

“Filmmaking,” he said with a grin.

“Holy shit, you’re gonna make porn!” I exclaimed before I could stop myself.

His face turned red as he tried not to spit his beer across the room, the liquid dribbling from the corner of his mouth as he tried to hold it in. He finally managed to swallow and wipe his mouth, as well as the corner of his eyes where tears had begun to leak.

“I am so not gonna make porn, Asher; what the hell would make you think that?”