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“You’re not kids anymore.”
Rhett had heard it over and over for months from the adults around him. He was about to be a senior in high school, and soon enough he would have to make big decisions about what he would do for the rest of his life.
But for some reason, his parents seemed to think growing up meant separating him from Link. The two of them had been friends for over a decade by then. Even if they weren’t kids anymore, they had grown up together, and separating them felt like breaking apart the two parts of a whole. So if keeping his distance from his best friend was what it took to become an adult, Rhett knew for sure he wasn’t ready.
That summer, the roughhousing he and Link had always done suddenly brought on sidelong glances and warnings from Rhett’s parents.
They’d play one-on-one basketball in the McLaughlins’ driveway, pushing and shoving (and cheating) with no referee to stop them, laughing until their sides hurt. “Behave, boys,” his mom would say, her eyes kind, but her mouth turned downward into a concerned frown.
Link would pick a fight after a day playing video games, knees and thighs pressed together between them and a can of Mello Yello on the floor at either end of the couch. He’d punch Rhett’s shoulder, elbow his ribs, step on his smallest toe, until Rhett was fighting back with a roar of laughter. He’d pin Link to the floor, holding both of his friend’s skinny arms with one hand as he tickled his side. They were nearly a ritual by then, these fights that weren’t.
But in July, when Mr. McLaughlin walked in to find Rhett sitting on Link’s legs, both of the boys’ faces red from breathlessness, his reaction indicated that something was wrong. He cleared his throat and announced, “I think it’s time for Link to head home.”
The color drained from Rhett’s face and his eyes fixed on Link’s as he let him go and stood. Link’s blue eyes had gone wide and scared, and his voice was shaky when he replied, “Oh, uh, yeah. I didn’t realize it was that late. See ya later, Rhett.”
“We were just playin’,” Rhett told his parents, his shoulders turned down and doubt welling in his chest as Link got in his truck and pulled away.
‘What’d I do?’ and ‘You know we’re just messin’ around, right?’ had become Rhett’s constant refrain that summer. His dad had seen them wrestling a hundred times in the decade of his and Link’s friendship, and by then his mom must have already known they weren’t going to hurt each other playing basketball. But now something was different.
“Well, watch how you play,” Mr. McLaughlin responded coolly.
By the end of the summer, Rhett would hardly dare look Link in the eyes in front of his parents. The two kept their hands to themselves in public, and for fear of his parents’ judging eyes, their relationship, their friendship, was all but private now.
Mr. McLaughlin seemed happier.
But to Rhett, it felt like suffocation. Like having a lung taken away and being forced to run.
Their only respite during those long, warm months had been Saturday nights after finishing up a day at their summer jobs. He and Link would spend entire evenings in the grass of a cow pasture, looking up at the stars. They’d stay that way for hours on end, contented just to be still, sometimes talking, sometimes not. In those moments, Rhett could finally breathe deeply.
When the summer ended and September rolled around, getting back to school was a relief. Being back at school meant more opportunities to hang out with Link without either of their families watching them. At least at school the teachers only told Rhett to behave when he was goofing off in class.
“You about ready to head home?”
Rhett sighed at the prospect of having to go home to a family dinner and more questions about his future. “Not really.”
“My mom’s gonna start wondering where I am if it gets dark.”
Rhett gestured toward the sky, the sun still forty-five degrees above the horizon. “Dude, the sun goes down at like nine o’clock.”
Everyone else had been gone for at least an hour, the football team having packed up and the band done practicing for the day. A heavy breeze passed over the boys as they sat in the empty high school parking lot on the tailgate of Link’s truck, pressed together from hip to knee. To Rhett, this proximity felt normal, right, natural, even as their thighs dripped sweat where they touched. It was a rare pleasure these days to be so close without hiding or waiting for nightfall.
He sighed again as Link hesitated. “Just stay with me for a little while.” Rhett lay his long frame out in the bed of the truck, allowing his legs below the knee to continue swinging off the tailgate, and smacked his hand down onto the space next to him. “Please?”
“Okay.” Link joined Rhett, propping his head up on his arm as he lay on his side facing his friend.
They quieted again, breathing in the thick, still-summer air until the parking lot lights flickered on and the sun moved dangerously close to an angle at which Rhett knew Link would no longer agree to stay.
“Hey Link?” Rhett was the first to break their comfortable silence.
“Yeah?”
Rhett’s heart raced as he looked to the sky and considered for the final time how to broach this subject. He couldn’t get it off his mind, but they hadn’t discussed it yet. Until now, there had been no real decision to act differently, just an unspoken agreement. He had just assumed Link shared his inclination toward avoiding further scrutiny from his dad.
The words, bottled in so long, came out all at once. “Have you thought about what’s going on with our parents? My parents, anyway? Why they’re being so weird?”
“Uh, yeah,” Link hesitated, face thoughtful as he sat up, pressing his back against the wheel well behind him and crossing his legs, the toe of one of his shoes resting against Rhett’s arm. “I’ve thought on it some I guess.”
“What do you think it is? Do you think they’re all that worried about us not getting into college?
Link shook his head and seemed to force a smile as Rhett finally looked up into his eyes. “None of them are worried about you getting into college.”
At his father’s insistence, Rhett had been working hard at becoming a sought-after basketball recruit. Given his height, talent, and work ethic, there was no doubt among any of those who knew him that he’d be offered scholarships to play for at least a few schools in North Carolina.
“Yeah, I’m still thinking about what to do about all that,” Rhett said, offering Link a matching half-hearted smile.
“I’m still thinkin’ ‘bout tryin’ to break your ankle maybe. Or just an arm might do it.” Link repeated the joke he’d been telling for months now and laughed, digging the toe of his tennis shoe into Rhett’s ribs. “Then you can’t go be the next Larry Bird or John Stockton or somethin’ and leave me here.”
“You couldn’t take me.” Rhett raised an eyebrow at Link, a grin taking over his face. As he took a moment to imagine himself as a star in the NBA, another thought hit him. “And hey! I’m taller than John Stockton!”
Link rolled his eyes. “So is everyone. I’m almost as tall as John Stockton. You’re not as tall as Larry Bird.”
“Whatever, he was a giant. No one wants to be that tall.” Rhett tried to brush off the comparison, but it occurred to him that even as he reached six-foot-five, his mom continued to call him a ‘growing boy’. And to her point, he’d grown another half inch over the summer and was constantly hungry.
“And I may keep growing anyway.”
“I’m just messing with you, man. But if you don’t cut it out you’re going to be a seven-foot giant and even I’m not going to be able to make you look normal.”
“That’s what I’m saying!” Rhett sat up, whacking Link across the shoulder as he turned to face him.
The sun was setting now, but neither of them moved to leave. Rhett’s eyes twinkled in the orange lights above them as he followed up on Link’s joke. “Maybe you wanting to break my ankle has something to do with my dad’s thing. He can see it in your eyes.”
Link took a long breath and pressed his lips together, tilting his head to the side. “I don’t think that’s what he’s seeing.”
“What?”
“I don’t know, man.” Link quieted for a moment and stared at the toe of his shoe where it was pressed up against Rhett’s. “I guess they just want us to grow up and act like men or something.” Link turned to face the tailgate again, and Rhett mimicked his motion, pulling his legs into his chest and pressing their shoulders together.
“I mean, does...does your dad have any friends like us?”
Rhett thought it over. His dad had a few colleagues he was closer with than others. He was friendly with their neighbors. But he didn’t have a best friend. Not like Rhett had in Link.
“No, I guess not. But he’s a professor, y’know? He’s a...serious person. And he hasn’t always lived here. Does yours?”
Link glanced back down at his hands and fidgeted with the bottom button of his shirt. “No. Jimmy either.”
Rhett tossed the idea around in his mind. His mom had closer friends than his dad did, but none as close as he and Link were. “They don’t have best friends anymore, so they don’t understand it, I guess. Something like that.”
Link looked up and caught Rhett’s eyes again. “Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Understand it.”
Rhett quieted again as he stared ahead, his mouth opening and closing again around any answer he thought he had. Finally he stretched his legs and kicked at Link’s foot. “Maybe not.”
Link stared at him for a moment, surprise at Rhett’s uncharacteristically short answer registering in all his features. Link was always accusing him of being a know-it-all.
Rhett smiled. “Come on, let’s get you home to your momma.”
By November, there was no time for those peaceful moments after school. Rhett was always busy running drills in preparation for basketball season. When he wasn’t practicing at school or at home, he was doing homework. He and Link talked on the phone once or twice a week, but they didn’t see each other much outside of school.
One afternoon, Link’s old truck pulled up on the street in front of his house while Rhett practiced. Rhett’s heart skipped a beat when the truck slowed and stopped, and he missed his next shot as Link approached.
“I’ve hardly seen you in a month with all this practicing and you’re not even makin’ free throws?” Link stood with his hands on his hips at the bottom of the driveway, but his smiling eyes made it clear he was teasing.
“It’s about consistency, not perfection, Link,” Rhett chuckled as he sank his next shot.
“Yeah, well you’re consistently never around. How many more you got today?”
“That was 162. Just 38 more.” Rhett took another shot and made it. “37. Will you wait on me?”
“‘Course I will, brother.”
Link stood under the goal quietly for the next several minutes, dutifully catching and passing the ball back to Rhett after each shot to speed the process.
When Rhett missed his 200th shot, Link kept the ball, and Rhett held up his hands for the pass. “Hey. Right here.”
“I thought you were done? Go ask your dad if you can hang out. I miss you, man!”
Rhett grinned. He knew Link couldn’t stand being so quiet. “I can’t end the day on a miss, bo. One more shot.”
Link rolled his eyes and passed Rhett the ball, which he promptly shot up. Rhett smiled broadly as the ball left his hands. As it swished through the net and into Link’s arms, Rhett was already jogging up to his house to ask if he could leave. After he reported just 32 missed free throws and improved times on his speed drills, his dad agreed to let him leave for an hour.
Rhett bounded out of the house and grabbed Link’s wrist, dragging him down the driveway and into the street. “We have an hour man, let’s run!”
Link’s feet were tangled, trying to get moving as quickly as Rhett’s were. “Run where? I thought maybe you could have supper at my house!”
“Nope, no time!”
When they had been running as fast as they could for nearly five minutes, Link grabbed Rhett’s arm and pulled him to a stop near some wide rocks in the cow pasture adjoining Rhett’s neighborhood. “Rhett! Slow up, man!”
Rhett came to a stop and walked in circles around the rocks, his lungs straining for oxygen against his effort.
Link stood with his shoulders sagging and palms on his knees. “Why did we have to run?” he panted, looking up as Rhett stopped pacing and took a seat on one of the rocks. “There’s nothing out here.”
“Exactly,” Rhett smiled, still breathing hard as he patted a spot on the rock and signaled for Link to join him. “We’re alone. We can just hang out.”
Out here, on the wide, flat rock, Rhett’s heart and mind felt settled. With Link, he never had to be worried about what someone would think of his ideas, and because they were alone, he was free to say or be anything. He was free to imagine a future unlike something anyone else in their small town dared dream of. And he was free to admit he’d rather be spending those autumn evenings acting a lot more like a kid than a potential recruit.
For 45 minutes they chattered away, catching each other up on stories they couldn’t or wouldn’t tell in front of their other friends during their school lunch hour. And as he often did, Rhett ended up talking about the future. But he stopped talking when thinking of their future reminded him of the conversation he had been avoiding having with Link.
Link must have sensed the change, because he quieted, too, and the boys sat for a moment looking out at the pasture and the few wayward cows chewing grass nearby.
Suddenly, Rhett grabbed Link’s wrist and twisted it around to check the time. He frowned at the watch. “Dang it. It’s almost been an hour already.”
Link’s mouth twisted down into a disappointed frown and he moved to stand, but Rhett retained the grip on his wrist and held him to the spot.
“You don’t hate me, do you? For always being busy?” Rhett searched Link’s eyes, his blood pumping loudly in his ears. He prayed his friend could somehow forgive him for how little they’d been able to see each other in the last few months.
Link’s brow was furrowed and he cocked his head to the side. “You kiddin’ me?”
“Nah man, I’m serious.” Rhett released Link’s arm but continued staring him down. “I’m a horrible best friend nowadays. When do we ever even see each other?”
Rhett’s chest hurt and goosebumps ran from his neck down his arms. He clutched them to himself and looked away, attempting to shake off the cool air and Link’s eyes.
“Rhett…” Link drawled the name, turning it into a two-syllable word. When Rhett only looked back up at him, expecting more, expecting some sort of comfort, Link continued. “Rhett. You’re my favorite person.” Link’s crossed legs scooted a few inches forward until four knobby knees touched. “And you’re gonna be even if you can never hang out after school. Heck, even if you take some big scholarship and go off without me to play in the NBA, you’re still going to be my best friend.”
“You mean it?” When Link nodded, Rhett smiled, relief washing over him. After another moment, he chuckled. “And I heard that, by the way. You think I could be in the NBA.”
Link rolled his eyes and stood from the rock, reaching his hands out to pull Rhett from his seated position. When he tried to start back toward the McLaughlins’ home, Rhett didn’t move.
He hadn’t let go of Link’s hands when he stood, so Link tugged at them. “You’re gonna be late if we don’t start walking.”
“We can run.”
“Rhett, come on.”
“I’ve barely seen you and now you’re in a hurry to get back?” Rhett dropped Link’s hands and started jogging. The uncertainty of moments before was replaced in Rhett with frustration. Hadn’t Link said he missed him? Rhett wanted to squeeze every last moment from the hour they’d been afforded.
Link ran to catch up to Rhett’s side and nudged at his shoulder. “You idiot, I’m trying to make sure you don’t get in trouble.”
Rhett stopped, standing still. “Oh I’m an idiot now? So much for ‘I’ll always be your best friend, Rhett.’ ‘No matter what, Rhett.’”
Link squinted at his friend and stepped closer to him. His voice was just above a whisper now, holding in his rage, Rhett assumed, at the way the declaration of his plan for a life of friendship was being mocked. “Yes, you’re an idiot.”
Rhett’s skin burned when Link reached for him, but he found his feet unable to move as Link grabbed two handfuls of his t-shirt. This was it, Rhett knew it. They were going to have a real fight. An actual knock-down, drag-out fight like the ones they’d played at for years.
Link used his hold on Rhett’s shirt first to shake him, then to drag Rhett down toward him, forcing the taller boy to stoop as Link stood up on his toes.
When their lips met, Rhett felt like he’d been stung by something poisonous. Something that might kill him. The initial shock gave way to a bolt of electricity jolting down his spine and crackling out into the air through his fingers and toes, leaving tingling, singed skin in its wake.
Rhett’s eyes had gone wide and then shut tightly, opening again only when Link’s mouth pulled away from his. One of his hands had found its way to Link’s neck, and his feet were still unable to move. He caught Link’s eyes just as they darted down.
“What was that?” Rhett murmured toward Link’s lips, where he’d sucked the bottom one into his mouth to bite at it.
“I think,” Link breathed, still gripping the t-shirt as he pressed his forehead into Rhett’s shoulder. “I think that’s why your parents look at me like that.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“You’ve been wanting to--”
“Yeah.”
Rhett took Link’s chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting Link’s blue eyes up to meet his grey ones. “Well then why did you stop?”
Rhett still wasn’t seeing Link as much as he’d like, particularly given how much more fun hanging out with him had been in the last few weeks. But by mid-December, Link had become a nearly perfect assistant during Rhett’s free throw practice, showing up just as he was getting started and relaying the ball to him after each shot for a couple of hours. Then, when Mr. McLaughlin was satisfied with Rhett’s dedication to his sport, they’d run off for an hour to the cow pasture.
Most of the time Link was quiet as Rhett practiced, only commenting occasionally with a “Nothing but net!” or “That was close!”
Most of the time. Some days Link couldn’t help himself.
He’d lean on the goal post, staring Rhett down. He’d wiggle his eyebrows at Rhett and call him a “the star of Harnett Central” with his most put-on Southern lady voice. He’d run the ball back to Rhett rather than pass it, just for a chance to brush their fingers together for a moment.
This afternoon, Link stood with his back against the basketball goal, shaking his hips against it and lifting the hem of his shirt. Rhett missed his next shot.
“My dad’s inside, dude!” he yelled in a whisper. “You’re going to get me in trouble.”
“Well then hurry up so we can leave,” Link sighed. “I’m getting bored. Plus, you always look so good practicing in those windsuits…”
Rhett walked up to where Link was standing and forced him into the goal post as he took the ball back. His voice low in Link’s ear, he whispered, “I’d probably get done faster, but you’re a little distracting.”
Link went white, his eyes darting toward the house and its windows before he stood on his toes and planted a quick kiss on Rhett’s lips. “Sorry. But, yeah, hurry up.”
With a grin, Rhett jogged back to his spot at the free throw line. For another thirty minutes, they continued in silence.
When Rhett missed his 200th shot, Link passed him the ball, and Rhett ran with it into the house to tell his parents he was leaving. When he came back outside, he took off running down the driveway. Link ran after him, only a step behind.
“What happened to not ending on a miss?”
“I’m not. Race you to the rock!”
As they neared the edge of the neighborhood, Link grabbed Rhett’s hand. There was no need for Rhett to win this race by much. Not when they could get there together.
As they neared their usual meeting place, Rhett jolted to a halt, pulling Link on top of him as they tumbled to the ground. The grass was dry and cool, and their cheeks were red from their exertion, their noses from the cold air.
“Hey Rhett?”
“Yeah?”
“I think we’re alone now.”
Link wasted no time getting his mouth and hands on Rhett. Rhett understood. After having to remain quiet, or mostly quiet, around the McLaughlin home, just feet away from Link, the feeling of having him within reach was undeniable. Rhett sat up on his elbows as Link snaked his arms around his neck, pulling him into a deep kiss.
As he often did, Rhett started laughing, the euphoria of the feeling too much to contain. They sat up, facing one another with their legs and fingers intertwined. Link chuckled along, stealing another quick kiss. “What is it this time?”
“I’m just. I’m happy, Link. We’re out here hiding this from everyone and I don’t even care because I’m so happy.”
“We don’t have to hide if you don’t wanna.”
“That’s the thing. I can’t imagine what they would say. But I’m too happy to care. Do you know what I mean?”
Link grinned, squeezing Rhett’s hand. “I know what you mean. And I’ve been thinkin’. I think I kinda like hiding out with you in this smelly pasture.”
Rhett moved his hands to Link’s chest and pushed him down. With his hands up under Link’s school spirit hoodie and his mouth pressing another gentle kiss to his lips, he asked, “Oh? And why do you like this smelly pasture so much?”
“Well for starters,” Link murmured, wrapping his hands around Rhett’s waist, “I think if it weren’t for hiding out in this place I might never get to do this.” He pulled Rhett’s body in closer. “Or this. Or this.” For every glance they were denied, Link gave Rhett one kiss. For every touch they had missed, Link’s hands caressed his cheeks, or arms, or chest, or legs.
“I think I see where you’re coming from,” Rhett laughed again, his breath catching as Link’s hand roamed across his stomach and down toward his waistband. “There’s something to be said for being alone.”