Page 9

FOUR

“ T y!”

The porch door slams against the wall as my best friend barges into my parents’ kitchen and drops a cardboard box onto the dining table.

“I think my dick’s falling off,” Lamar says, pointing at his crotch. “Can you look at it?”

I can only stare, the knife in my hand forgotten as I stand at the counter, mid-chop on some tomatoes for a mean breakfast-slash-lunch burrito.

I slept in a bit—something I normally don’t do—but we were out late last night.

Perks of being the designated driver: no hangover to nurse and birthday or not, I’m not about to mess up the diet I’ve worked so hard for.

“It itches ,” he groans, rubbing himself through his sweatshorts like a menace. “It’s my birthday, and this is what I get? That’s just fucking cruel!”

I blink. He seemed totally fine yesterday.

“So, can you?” he presses, nearly hopping in place.

“Can I do what , exactly?” I squint at him, already suspicious.

“Take a look?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer. Because of course he doesn’t. My best friend since childhood just drops trou, and—

“Oh, holy shit,” I exclaim, snorting and slapping a hand over my mouth, nearly stabbing myself in the face with the knife.

“Is it falling off?” He covers his eyes with one of his enormous paws. “I’m afraid to look. Please tell me if Kaa’s still alive.”

“Kaa?” I snort, staring in disbelief at the giant black dick covered in… fucking something .

“ Yes, the big-ass anaconda from The Jungle Book ? Thought it was fitting—mine’s good at hypnotizing the ladies.”

“Does that big-ass anaconda have red sores all over it? Because yours does. Dude, this is not okay. You need to see a doctor.”

Lam whines and lifts his shirt to have a better look himself. I mean, I think I’ve seen his dick a million times before—we’ve been on the same team for a decade—but I’m not inspecting his disease-infested anaconda for him. I turn around and focus on my tomatoes.

“I feel like I should tell my boyfriend you’re flashing me,” I mutter, snickering as I slice up more vegetables and grab another plate. Knowing Lamar, he didn’t just show up perfectly timed for an early lunch. He can be very conniving when he wants to be.

“What the hell did you do last night to get herpes? I never saw you wander off or anything. Is it herpes?”

“I don’t know! And it’s not from last night, asshole. At least I know it doesn’t spread that fast,” he says from somewhere behind me. “While I had fun in that club, I prefer if the hands roving over me while dancing are a little smaller.”

“We can always find you a pretty little twink.” I grin, flipping on the gas to heat a pan. “But if it wasn’t from yesterday, then how’d you get it?” I ask as I throw the chopped veggies into the pan.

“The only one I can think of is this girl I met last week at the Summerset Shore Fun Fest. We had some fun , yeah, right behind the shooting gallery.”

“Well, for future reference, if you want to keep it safe, you should cover the snake.”

“I know. I always do. But we didn’t have sex. She just gave me a blowie, and I made her come on my fingers a bit, that’s it.”

“Did she, by any chance, have something funky on her lip?” I glance over my shoulder as I crack a couple of eggs—and yep, like expected, the idiot still has his pants around his ankles.

His eyes go wide. “Wait, can you get herpes from a blowjob?”

The door swings open, revealing Mom holding a boxed birthday cake and probably wondering if she should start charging admission for the entertainment in this house.

I want to believe she hasn’t walked in on anything weirder before, but that’s wishful thinking.

She has three sons, two of whom could’ve easily been cast for Jackass .

And their friends? Somehow, even worse. Lamar’s basically a saint compared to them. So yeah. Chaos is the default.

“That doesn’t look healthy,” she says, completely unfazed, nudging the door close behind her with her hip while Lam yanks his joggers back up. She sets the cake on the table. “And yes, you can get herpes from receiving oral. Or going down on someone. Even from kissing.”

“Well, shit. Don’t tell my mom, please.”

“I won’t,” she says casually. “You should take some ibuprofen for the pain. And I think I still have some prescription cream that helps with the itch.”

I can only stare at my damn mother . “Why do you have cream for herpes?”

“Who says it’s for herpes? Let me go get it,” she tosses back, already disappearing into the hallway toward the main bedroom, leaving me gaping after her, almost forgetting to stir my food before it burns.

“And happy birthday, son of mine!” she hollers on her way out.

“You ready for your present?” Lamar asks when she’s gone, leaning against the oak countertop, scratching his damn crotch over his shorts.

“Jesus. Stop doing that.” I wave the spatula at him. “I’m not interested in herpes as a present, thank you very much.”

“I can’t . It itches.”

I grimace. “Go wash your hands, idiot. And grab us some drinks.”

“I didn’t touch Kaa,” he grumbles, but complies anyway. Meanwhile, I finish up the egg burritos and set the table.

“You first.” I nod toward the two gifts already on the table when we get seated. One is an envelope, the other bigger.

“Oh fuck yeah, do I get two gifts?”

I nod again, mid-chew on my still-hot, delicious roll, and—as expected—he goes straight for the bigger one and tears into it.

“Oh, duckies!” he shouts, holding up the hideous turquoise Hawaiian shirt covered in bright-yellow rubber duckies. “This is awesome. Hey, there’s two of them!”

I snicker as he tosses one at me, smacking me right in the face. “Of course there are. Got to keep the tradition alive. It was my turn this year.”

Every birthday, we alternate buying each other stupid shirts and wear them the whole damn day while we do something fun. Since I wasn’t about to wear a neon-green mesh shirt like he did last night, this’ll have to do.

We both swap shirts, and the print hurts my eyes when I look at Lamar. He, on the other hand, is thriving —grinning like a fool as he opens the envelope and pulls out the pamphlet I stuck in there this morning.

When his expressive brown eyes go wide, I know I nailed it.

“We’re going to cuddle alpacas?” he says, punching me in the shoulder. “Yo! This is awesome. Look !” He shoves the paper in my face. “They have cows, too.”

“And ducks. And guinea pigs. And if I’m reading this right, you can collect eggs, feed the animals and do all kinds of fun stuff.”

I press my lips together to keep myself from laughing while he scans the list of activities at the petting zoo-slash-learning farm I found only about an hour’s drive away.

Lamar lives for dumb shit like this. He looks tough, but on the inside he’s basically a fluffy marshmallow.

“When are we going? Next week?”

“Nah, today. Right after lunch.”

He looks up with a frown, but it disappears almost instantly.

I tilt my head. “What? It’s not like you have plans.”

We’ve always spent our birthdays together—ever since we were kids. We exchange gifts, do something stupid during the day, and end it with a backyard barbecue with both our families, stuffing our faces until we pass out somewhere outside.

It’s part of the tradition. And a good one.

“No, of course not. It’s our birthday. Now open yours!

” He grins and shoves the box he brought toward me a bit too forcefully, nearly sending his plate flying off the table, then immediately digs into his food like nothing happened.

He’s acting weird. Well— weirder than usual.

Lam can’t lie for shit, so he better not have planned something, too.

I paid extra for the cow-cuddling experience.

When I open the box, I snort. A picture of a massive purple dick is staring up at me. “What the hell is this?” I pull out two tubes from the box. “ Clone-a-Willy? ” I ask, inspecting the almost identical kits. One’s in a neon pink case. The other’s glittery purple.

“Yes! You can clone your dicks and make dildos out of ‘em! I bought two! I saw them online and thought they were cool. That way, if you’re missing your man, at least you’ve got a part of him.” He snickers, clearly proud of himself. “The most fun part, ya know?”

I’m not even going to ask how the hell he found this—I do not want to know what’s in his browsing history—but I have to admit... yeah, I kinda dig this.

A grin tugs at my lips as I read the side of the box. “Oh, it has a vibrating function as well. Jace’s gonna love this.” My smile fades almost as fast as it came. “Too bad it’s gonna take a while before we can use it.”

Ten more weeks, to be exact. Every time I think of how long ten weeks is, and how long we already went without seeing each other, my heart just aches with impending dread. I can’t help it. I try to stay positive, but then the call came the day before yesterday… and I just—

Lamar slaps my back, and my cap falls on the table from the force of it. “Aww. Don’t turn that smile upside down and get all mopey on me. We’re going to see alpacas this afternoon! If that ain’t something to look forward to, I dunno what is! Can you ride them too?”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to ride alpacas. But I think I saw something about horses on their website. But is it the best idea to ride a horse with ya know…” I wave at his lap. “With that ?”

He pouts and complains some more while I shovel in the last of my food and skim through the rest of the instructions on my gift.

When Mom walks back in, holding the anti-whatever-cream, I cringe.

Of course, I’m too late stuffing the soon-to-be dildos back into the box.

Well, out of the closet, out of the box, I guess.

“Those look like fun,” she honestly says as she plucks the neon pink one out of my hands. “Maybe this’ll come in handy when your dad goes to visit your uncle in Oahu next month.”

I shudder and snatch the thing back. “Mom, Jesus . I don’t need to know that.” I glance at the two packages. Yep. They’re tainted now.