Page 35 of Out of My Mind

It was perfect timing. They were in the middle of the days of atonement, the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. This was the time to get in your last sins before getting them absolved on the latter holiday. And there was one sin he was dying to do tonight, something that had been tucked deep inside his brain. So he let himself take the rest of class to tune out his professor and imagine Mac exploding with orgasm all over his bed. In a few days, the chapter would end.

Φ

Tonight was a night made for whiskey. Gideon pulled out his bottle of Jameson. He took a swig straight from the bottle before bringing it into the living room. Mac sat on the couch, hands folded in his lap.

Gideon nudged the shot glass over to Mac, whose muscles poked through the tight sleeves of his baby blue polo. During geology class, he was allowed to look.

He picked up his shot glass. Mac’s remained on the table. “Your Jameson is calling for you.”

“I don’t feel like drinking.” Mac lacked any enthusiasm for geology class.

“You feeling okay?” Gideon tried to keep the energy up. Their experimentation was a house of cards. It could topple in disaster at any moment.

“Yeah,” Mac said.

“We don’t have to do this.”

“No, it’s okay. I want to.”

“That was the least convincing answer in history.”

Mac rubbed his palms on his thighs. Gideon was just as nervous in that moment.

“Aunt Rita has a tumor.”

“Shit.”

“She told me today. It’s benign, but she’s still getting surgery to have it removed.”

“Fuck.” Gideon wished he had better words, but sometimes life knocked the wind out of you and all you had left wereshitandfuck. “When’s the operation?”

“Next week. She waited to tell me because she didn’t want me to worry.”

“My mom did that, too.” Gideon hadn’t planned to spill any of this, ever. “I was the youngest, so I was the last to know about my dad’s cancer. They think they’re sparing your feelings, but the delay, the waiting, it was the worst part.”

He put his arm around Mac. He hated watching a friend go through this.“I can’t lose her,” Mac whispered. “If I lose her, then I’ll just have my parents.”

“You won’t. They call them benign for a reason. She’ll get the surgery. She will recover.”

“What happened with your dad?”

“Pancreatic. That shit is the worst. It’s hard to detect, and it’ll destroy you in months. It’s the go-big-or-go-home cancer, although nobody gets to go home.”

He nudged Mac’s shot glass closer. This was the absolute best time for a drink.

“I can’t drink alone,” Gideon said, the shot glass in his hand. “That would make me an alcoholic.”

Mac took the shot. Gideon dragged a finger down Mac’s ear, which was all it took to distract his roommate.

Their mouths met in a violent car wreck of need and tension. Mac traveled up to Gideon’s ear to nibble, and his stubble grazed Gideon’s cheek.

Gideon pulled himself away and poured them another shot.

“I’ll pass.”

“You sure?” Gideon held up his shot glass and jiggled it. “I’m drinking alone.”

“Then don’t drink,” Mac said, almost as a challenge.