Page 27 of String Boys

THEY WASHED.

Kelly went upstairs and started a load of laundry and put on clean sweats and new underwear. When he got back downstairs, Seth was in clean clothes, and his hair had droplets of water in it.

Seth was standing in his practice corner, tuning his newly strung violin, and he startled self-consciously when Kelly opened the door. Kelly laughed. “This is gonna be complicated,” he said, because it had finally dawned on him. “We’re gonna be jumping like rabbits at every sound in the building! How we gonna live? I mean—”

Seth scrubbed his face with his hand and set his violin down. “Calm down,” he said, walking over to shut the door behind Kelly. “Look at the clock.”

Kelly looked over his shoulder at the microwave. “Six o’clock.”

“Dad gets home at seven thirty. So we’ve got time. Here.” He pulled out his phone and set it for seven fifteen. “Let’s do it this way. You and me, we’ll be boyfriends until seven fifteen.”

Kelly kissed him quick. “That’s not long enough. I want to be boyfriends forever.”

Seth’s cheeks washed pink some more. “I mean, we can act like boyfriends,” he mumbled. Then he frowned. “Why can’t we tell people?”

Kelly put his hands over his eyes. “Because my brother’s girlfriend’s father’s an asshole, and my brother’s starting to smell like the same kind of asshole. And because we don’t know what your dad will do. And because if we go walking downthisstreet holding hands, we’ll get the crap beat out of us. And….” This one was really selfish and personal, and he was almost embarrassed. “And because my parents don’t let Matty and Isela stay in his room with the door shut. If they find out we do what we just did, they’re going to make me go watch everybody play soccer and keep the curtains open forever. I might not ever find out what made that big wet spot on your jeans.”

Seth smirked, looking like a normal sixteen-year-old boy. He would be seventeen in February, and for this tiny bit of time, after Kelly’s birthday in late November, they were only one year apart.

Kelly loved it when he looked young and not a thousand miles away.

“You know what made that wet spot on my jeans,” Seth said, biting his lip wickedly. “I’m pretty sure you have one too.”

Kelly’s earthy chuckle surprised them both, and he covered his mouth with his hand. “Think, you know, we’ll see those things someday?”

His face burned, and the tips of Seth’s ears were almost purple.

“Yeah,” Seth mumbled, looking down at his music as if he was reading the words there. “Pretty sure.”

Oh good.“Not now, though,” Kelly told him, not even regretful. The afternoon had gonemuchbetter than he’d planned.

“I already started laundry,” Seth said. And then, unaccountably, things were awkward between them, when they’d never been awkward before.

Kelly saw the music stand all set up, and his heart fell. “Did you want to, uh, practice—”

“No,” Seth said, meeting his eyes. “You… you know. Sometimes, we watch TV. Think maybe we could watch some TV? Then when my alarm goes off, I can practice again.”

Watch TV?“Okay….”

“I have one in my room,” Seth said, his eyes darting away like fish or squirrels. “We could… you know. Just, lie on the bed and, uh….”

Oh! Kelly got it now. “Cuddle?” he asked, suddenly excited again. This was Seth, making Kelly important.

“Yeah,” Seth said, nodding. “That.” He swallowed. “Your body’s so warm.”

Kelly’s heart suddenly throbbed in his throat, and he wanted to feel Seth behind him, the big spoon, as they watched something funny on TV.

He wanted that more than anything.

“Okay,” he whispered. “Make sure your phone’s set, okay?”

Seth nodded.

Seth led the way, holding his hand unselfconsciously, almost as if they were children. His bedroom was simple. He had a plain blue comforter on the bed and a TV on the sturdy wooden dresser next to it. A laptop sat on a small desk in the corner, next to a framed picture Seth’s dad had taken of the boys the day Seth had graduated from junior high. The whole Cruz family had gone, even though it was a different school, because Seth had presented Matty’s parents with a hand-written invitation two weeks before. Of course, he’d tagged along with them when Matty hadhisgraduation, but this had been special.

And the picture had them all eating ice cream, with one of Seth’s smiles making a rare appearance.

There were posters of Disney’sFantasiaandFantasia 2000on the other walls, and Kelly knew—because he’d asked—that it was because Seth loved to listen to the music and imagine the cartoons. He’d told Kelly that he did this with almost all his music after seeing those movies. He’d close his eyes and wait for stories to unfold.