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Mac gets his driver’s license in the summer of 1994. It’s a good summer; the kind where you can start to wear shorts the last week of May but you don’t really sweat until August. This isn’t a problem for Mac, whose shirts lack arms. But for Charlie, he’s perpetually tepid, like a human humidifier. His mother doesn’t believe in air conditioning almost as much as she believes that switching the lights off and on thrice will keep her son alive.
So Charlie starts hanging out at Mac’s, more specifically in Mac’s car. It’s a Cadillac Cimarron, slate grey framed with silver trim, and the cool air isn’t the only bonus. Charlie thinks it would be kind of gay or something to tell him, but he thinks Mac looks really cool when he drives. Maybe it’s the way he rolls into Charlie’s driveway, one hand on the steering wheel and the other hand curled around the beer in the pretty sweet expandable cup holder. Or maybe it’s the way his hair is tousled after he’s just gone a good ten miles over the speed limit with the windows down. When he thinks about it, it’s probably the way Mac winks at Charlie when he asks him if he wants to go for a spin. Yeah, probably that.
They both decide that driving at night is the most fun. Mac can’t legally drive Charlie yet, but he also can’t legally drink beer or legally have a tattoo. Mac and Charlie decide that legally is more of a concept, and it’s as if they’re in a modern art museum when they interpret it.
Charlie likes when Mac opens the sunroof when he drives under the bridge beneath Fletcher Street, because he lets him stand on the center console and spread his arms as if he were to take flight. The wind carding through Charlie’s hair and the blossoming feeling in his chest make up for the heat.
Besides, that summer, Charlie feels a different kind of heat, one he doesn’t wish he had a conditioner for. When Mac rests his hand on Charlie’s thigh when they’re driving, Charlie thinks he’s going to just about pass out . When Mac breathes his the smoke from his cigarette into Charlie’s mouth, he wants to close the space between them. But he’s scared, and Mac’s probably just showing off, so he doesn’t.
“Mac,” Charlie says, lazily drawing circles on Mac’s palm. Mac doesn’t take his eyes from the road. He may be purposefully reckless, Charlie thinks, but he’s an alright driver after all. “Why do ya always drive me places?” He knows he’s mumbling his words, and he can’t place just why he would be nervous.
Mac pauses for a moment, lacing his fingers with Charlie’s. His hands are hot against Charlie’s skin. “Because I like you, dumbass.”
“Oh,” Charlie says, and he knows he must sound stupid. He panics a little before rushing, “I like you, too.”
Mac doesn’t look at him and Charlie’s secretly thankful for this. He’s smiling though; his lips pulled into one of those real, genuine smiles that Charlie likes so much. He thinks he might be blushing a little as well.
“Good.”
Mac calls up Charlie on his faded rotary phone from the sixties. Bonnie, his mother, won’t dare part with it. According to Charlie, she says that if she were to remove it from the house, the ghouls living inside the number five would choke her to death or stab her in the stomach or something. Charlie might have embellished upon that last part.
“Meet me at Paddy’s,” he says, voice hushed. Charlie didn’t know why , but Paddy’s let them drink without showing any kind of ID, so it’s not like he’d say no. Plus, it was Mac. Mac likes Charlie. Charlie likes Mac.
“Okay,” Charlie says slowly, and he’s about to ask a question before the line buzzes. Mac hangs up too quickly. It makes Charlie’s stomach turn. He doesn’t have a good feeling about their cryptic meeting, and he wishes he were already drunk.
Two shared drinks in, Mac takes Charlie’s hand and leads him through the back door into the alleyway. It’s past eight now, Charlie’s sure, but he’s not quite got all of his bearings about him at the moment. He can smell the intoxication on Mac’s breath and he feels as if he’s moving in slow motion when Mac presses him into the brick wall and cups his jaw in one of his hands.
“Can I kiss you?” Mac slurs, and Charlie’s never felt warmer in his life . He nods rapidly, because he doesn’t trust his fat tongue to say yes quickly enough.
Now, Mac is kissing Charlie. And Charlie can’t breathe . Not because Mac’s bad or anything, no, definitely not that, it’s that this was the feeling. The hot feeling, the nervous feeling. It’s a Mac kind of feeling.
Charlie’s never been kissed, but he reciprocates the way he sees in those made-for-TV movies Bonnie watches religiously. He thinks he must be doing alright because Mac whispers a fuck, Charlie, when he disconnects them.
“Did’ya have to get me drunk to make a move?” Charlie garbles, sliding his hand into the back pocket of Mac’s jeans.
“No,” Mac confesses, kissing Charlie on the corner of his mouth. “I had to get me drunk.” Charlie lets himself curl into Mac’s chest when they laugh. He can smell the cologne Mac has arguably over-applied and Charlie wonders why he’d never kissed him before. Kissing was nice, he decides, and even nicer when it’s Mac.
They don’t go driving that night, because Mac is so drunk on rum and Coke and Charlie that he thinks he might run them straight into the river. So they walk home, hand in hand. It’s close to one in the morning now, but humidity still hangs over the city. Charlie feels pleasantly warm now. Not sweltering, at least not any more. He knows its not just from the buzz, because he’s what he’d call experienced in that. This warmth is new, and he knows all too well who it’s because of.
Charlie hopes that Mac and his car stick around for next summer, too.