Page 37 of String Boys

He told Seth it was his way of sticking to Seth through thick and thin.

He also told Seth that meant he could go to Bridgford and not worry about losing Kelly, but Seth had sort of… tuned out of the rest of that discussion, the same way he’d done with his father for the past two months. Here it was, the beginning of April. They were on spring break, and Seth hadstillnot made a decision.

It was driving his teachers batshit crazy.

It was drivingAmarabatshit crazy too, because she had the same opportunity, but she didn’t want to go without a friend.

Kelly had finally taken her aside one day and told her point-blank. “Look. We both want him to do what’s best for him, but he’s really stupid right now.Youshould go. You have his cell number. You have his address. For that matter, you havemine.Write him. Call him. Text him. If nothing else, he might come in the middle of next year because you frickin’ nagged him into it, okay?”

Amara had drawn her little cupid-bow mouth into a weird figure-eight shape, and she patted his cheek. “Kelly, has it occurred to you thatyou’rethe reason he’s stupid right now?”

Kelly grimaced. They hadn’t said anything about their relationship, but of the three of them, she was the least stupid. Seth had been right—she was funny and smart. The first day she’d come to sit down with them, Matty had given her a dirty look and said, “Just don’t eat my dessert, okay?”

Before Seth and Kelly could tell him to go to hell, she’d said, “I’m a good girl. Everybody knows we don’t eat pudding until we’re married. You go ahead and have all the pudding you want.”

And then she’d just stared at him, her eyes big and emerald green, and Seth and Kelly suddenly realized that she’d said something incredibly filthy.

They burst out laughing, and they could see when it hit Matty, because his ears turned practically purple. Instead of laughing—like any decent person would do when someone had just thrown that much awesome shade over their heads—Matty stood up and stalked to the trash, where he’d thrown his pudding away. Then he’d grabbed Isela from where she was having lunch with her friends and made her follow him to wherever. Probably a cave, so they could hang upside down like bats and eat puddingthatway.

Kelly loved Amara so much for that moment, he gave her his dessert with a grin, and she thanked him.

“As long as this is the only pudding you expect me to eat,” she said primly, licking the foil lid.

“Naw, I don’t get that way with girls,” Kelly said, and then he and Seth froze. He’dmeantthat to be, he didn’t get crude with girls, but in that silence, they could all hear the truth.

“Well, that’s too bad,” Amara muttered, rolling her eyes. “And I’m so surprised. I could have a heart attack and die from that surprise. Next you’ll tell me that pudding is bad for me and I should cut down on carbs.”

“Pudding is the food of the gods,” Kelly argued. “And you should eat anything you want. I swear. Girls and being skinny. You’re great. If I liked girls even a little, I’d date you. But I don’t. So sit with us all the time and keep being our friend and ignore my dumbass fuckin’ brother, okay?”

And that had been that. Amara had been solid with them. She texted Seth, she texted Kelly, and both of them had one mutual project to work on.

Getting Seth off his ass to commit to Bridgford.

But Seth was being Seth about it. He’d play all the beautiful music in the world, but figuring out how to make that work for him, take him places, was just… outside his universe.

Especially now that he and Kelly were taking Soccer Wednesdays to some unprecedented levels.

They hadn’t made it past the blowjob yet. Kelly kept hoping they’d manage to work a sixty-nine into their repertoire, but every time one of them touched the other with his mouth, there was come everywhere and it was game over.

It didn’t matter.

They were in blowjob territory, giving and receiving, and Kelly couldn’t decide which he liked better.

On the one hand, having Seth’s mouth on him, as well as his rough, strong fingers—he was incredibly talented and enthusiastic. At one point, he asked Kelly if he should take up the trumpet so his mouth muscles could get tighter, and then he’d blown Kelly stupid. So Kelly told him to take a hard pass or he wouldn’t be able to think because all his brains would be sucked out his dick, and as it was, it was a close call to make sure that didn’t happen.

On the other hand, touching Seth’s body was like the holiest part of church that no priest ever talked about. Making him shiver and make his noises and gasp and moan and come?

That was Kelly’s best thing.

It’s too bad he didn’t getgradedon that shit, because he sure did do a lot of studying and planning and thinking about it. He could practically write a paper on the best way to suck Seth’s dick, starting with teasing the end and finishing up with a little tug on his balls and a hard, slow stroke inside Kelly’s hot mouth.

But it had taken two months’ worth of Wednesdays for them to get there, and Kelly was falling down in the make-Seth-not-be-stupid department. Now, on their long-awaited camping trip in the Sierra Foothills, he watched as Agnes finally committed to the rope swing, letting go with a shriek in the middle of the lake and practically drowning Seth in her scramble to hang on to someone after she surfaced.

Seth pushed up out of the water, though, and laughed with her. “You did great!” he sputtered. “You want to do it again?”

“Yes! Yes! Lily! Lulu! You have to try this thing!”

Kelly’s mom laughed softly. “I’ll have to make Seth get out in a minute. His lips are blue.”