Chapter Text
june.
i. try, try, try to understand he’s a magic man.
grady was sitting on the porch smoking a cigarette when wes rode up on his bike. he had a duffel bag on his back and he was wearing those little shorts again, the ones that showed off his legs thigh to ankle, the ones that they got into a row over when it first started getting hot. he waved at grady as he coasted into the half-dead grass of the abramovitz lawn. grady waved back.
keep telling you not to, wes said, pointing at grady’s cigarette. that was enough to distract grady from his friend’s beautiful legs. grady snarled and flipped him off before tossing the cigarette into the lawn.
happy? grady said.
very, wes said, coming to stand before him on the porch after dropping his bike onto the grass. brought something.
weed? grady said, even though between the two of them he was more likely to toke. he stood up and brushed off his behind. the porch was always dirty as fuck. he tried not to think too hard about the contrast between their outfits, wes happily baring his legs in the heat, his t-shirt fitting loose over his torso, his stance casual and confident, appearing fully at home in himself. grady absently tugged at the cuffs of his baggy sweatshirt, ignoring how dewy his underarms had gotten.
no, POS, wes said. grady sneered. wes lifted the strap of the duffel off himself and set it on the grass, kneeling to join it. grady watched as he unzipped it, pulling out a pair of white roller skates and setting them aside before pulling out a red box. he held it toward grady, offering.
for me? grady said.
wes nodded.
grady took it. it was heavier than he expected. he held it with both hands and looked at wes, who was grinning wide and pretty at him. grady looked back down at the box in his hands and opened it. inside was a pair of red roller skates with white embellishments and white laces. grady’s heart dropped a little as he stared at them.
grady set the box with the skates inside on the little rattan table that sat between the porch chairs. i told you not to spend your money on me, man, grady said.
it’s okay, wes said. got them at the thrift shop. now we can skate together.
wes stood, kicking the limp duffel to the side as he stepped onto the porch.
can i at least pay you back? grady said.
no, wes said. put them on. i’ll show you the ropes.
skating is your thing. i don’t skate.
you don’t skate because you don’t have skates, wes said, and now you do. put them on. and he jabbed at grady’s sides with both hands, hitting him right where he knew he was most ticklish. grady twitched and batted his hands away.
come on, wes said. i’ll help you get your sea legs and then we can go down to the roller rink. it’ll be fun.
grady stared at wes, skepticism splashed all across his face. he let out a long sigh before he sat back down on the porch, kicking off his boots and grabbing the box from the table. he was taking the skates from the box when wes sat beside him, gently shoving his shoulder.
you can’t skate in jeans, he said.
“what,” grady said, exasperated already. why not?
they’ll drag, wes said. get caught in your wheels or something. besides, you’ll get sweaty as fuck and wanna quit sooner. i know you have shorts.
“man,” grady mumbled. i don’t wanna wear shorts today.
wes touched his arm. i know, he said, you don’t have to. forget it. just roll up your pant legs.
grady sighed. no, he said. wait here. and he stood and walked back into his house. his mother was working and so the house was empty and dark. his room was messy, books and cassettes and blankets and clothes strewn across the floor and every available surface. he unbuttoned his jeans and let them fall down his legs, pooling at his feet. he stepped out of them and over to his dresser, where in the top drawer his only pair of shorts, hand-me-down gym shorts from wes that his mother had bought him before his last growth spurt, was tucked away. grady grabbed them and threw them on - they fit long enough and loose enough that he wasn’t sent into a dark spiral of emotion upon seeing himself in them.
when he walked out onto the porch again, he saw wes laced into his skates, rolling back and forth on the walkway. he grinned when grady returned, gliding back toward the porch. grady sat down to put on his skates.
kneepads in the duffel, wes said. you’ll need them.
fuck you, grady said.
*
they skated in the streets of grady’s neighborhood until night began to fall, the sun sliding down the sky. grady wobbled to and fro, holding wes’s wrist in an iron grip as he tried to show grady how to skate, how to move. the streetlights came on and wes said they should go to the roller rink, his eyes all hopeful and bright in a way that hit grady right in the belly.
i’ve been doing this all day! grady said. my legs are killing me.
i’ll carry you, wes said.
you can’t skate and carry me. that’s not fair.
what’s not fair?
you’re so strong! grady said.
you could be strong too, wes said. maybe if you stopped smoking cigarettes.
oh, fuck you, grady said. i’m not going to the roller rink.
tomorrow? wes said. his expression was so purposefully pathetic - grady could’ve scoffed, but he just looked so desperate and sweet… why the fuck do you want to go so bad, grady thought, the back of his neck all hot.
fine, grady said. only if we get some ice cream.
anything for you, wes said.
grady trudged across the lawn, stopping halfway to bend and rip the knots out of his laces so he could kick off his skates. he ran the rest of the way with them in his hands, dumping them on the porch alongside the kneepads and throwing his boots back on. he stood a moment, looking down at his legs between where the shorts ended and the boots began. he scratched at one hairy kneecap before he ducked just inside the house, just enough to grab his denim jacket off the hook and throw it on.
feels weird to walk on solid ground after that, grady said as he walked back to where wes stood waiting on the street.
you didn’t look too bad, wes said. just need a little work, i think. you’ll get it.
thanks, grady said.
grady walked and wes skated, gliding slowly alongside him as they went off in search of the ice cream truck that usually haunted the neighborhood all summer. grady kicked at rocks when they sat in his path. wes skated ahead of him, coasting to a stop at the end of the block. grady hurried to catch up. hear anything? wes said.
not yet, grady said. just kids and cars.
grady turned so he could look at wes, walking backwards. where’d you get the skates? he said.
i told you, wes said, thrift shop. don’t flatter yourself, they were cheap.
how much, grady said.
fuck off, you’re not paying me back.
you wash all those fucking dishes, man, you should spend your money on yourself, grady said. he was self-conscious of the fact that the denim jacket he was wearing was also from wes, also from the thrift shop, also bought with wes’s hard-earned dishwashing money. it didn’t make him feel good. i could just lift this shit if i needed it.
you can’t lift a denim jacket, wes said.
if i tried, grady said.
if you paid me back i’d just spend it on you again, wes said. i’d buy your lunch or something. you can’t stop me.
it’s not fair, though, grady said. i don’t have a job.
then get one or stop whining about me being nice to you, wes said. just enjoy it. don’t look a gift horse in the mouth and shit.
grady’s hands twitched as he thought about what he wanted to say next, whether he would keep kicking up a fuss or back down. as he hesitated, he stumbled, not enough to send him onto the sidewalk but enough that wes jolted a bit, reaching for him. at that same moment he finally heard the distant tinkle of the ice cream truck. he perked up right away, swiveling in his spot, ignoring the way wes still held his arms out like he might still fall.
i hear it, grady said. getting closer.
i’m buying, wes said.
grady’s face fell. like fuck you are, jesus christ! he said.
do you have your wallet?
grady did not. his shorts didn’t have pockets and he didn’t make it a habit to leave his wallet in his jacket. he stood up straight, about to sign when wes cut him off: you can’t lift from an ice cream truck, he said.
then i won’t get anything! jesus!
sure you won’t, wes said. please. if you didn’t eat half your body weight in junk every day you’d die.
before grady could rebut, wes had skated ahead of him again. grady stood there for a moment fuming before he shouted after his friend, running to catch up - “how’re you gonna find it if you can’t hear it, asshole!”
grady caught up eventually. wes had mercy on him and waited by the stop sign at the end of the street, cars passing him by. their headlights illuminated him and as grady drew closer his heart hammered harder - it really was everything about wes. his hair and his eyes and his skin and his smile, his arms and his legs and his jaw and his neck, his hands and his laugh and the way he looked when he was thinking about something. grady stumbled again, though there was no excuse for it this time besides how thoroughly enchanted he was.
walk much? wes said.
and the spell was broken. for the moment, at least. it was only ever brief periods of respite. from being on those stupid skates all day, grady said.
offer stands, wes said, i’ll carry you.
fuck no, grady said, though he wouldn’t mind it. to be held like that by wes…
the ice cream truck’s cheery tinkle had been getting closer. grady met wes at the stop sign and he looked both ways, left and right, and he saw the truck down the street, swarmed by kids their age and elementary schoolers, a handful of adults. he didn’t have to point wes in its direction. he’d noticed it too.
i’m paying you back for this when we get to my place, grady said as they began the walk back, his still-wrapped ice cream sandwich in his pocket while he signed. wes, preoccupied with his bomb pop, rolled his eyes and shook his head. he skated ahead again, leaving grady in the dust once more, and it was then that grady decided he didn’t like roller skates.
but wes looked like the very picture of summer as he skated away in his shorts and his t-shirt with his popsicle. grady slowed, taking his ice cream sandwich and unwrapping it while he admired his friend, his pretty auburn hair, his legs, his carefree attitude. for as much as grady loved him for it he hated him in equal measure. god, he wanted it for himself - the carelessness, the freedom. he crumpled the wrapper in his fist and tossed it into the street. wes spun around to look at him. grady took a bite of his ice cream sandwich.
maybe roller skates were alright.
can i sleep over? wes said as grady crossed the lawn. he’d kept skating ahead of grady all the way back and he stood casually against the porch railing, his popsicle stick still between his teeth. don’t have work tomorrow.
yeah, grady said, i don’t care. we can watch the lone ranger or something. when his house had come into sight he’d noticed his mother’s car in the driveway right away.
wes gave a thumbs up.
grady entered ahead of him. “mom,” he called out.
“grady,” she called back. it sounded like she was in the kitchen.
“wes is staying over,” he said.
a beat as grady hung his denim jacket back up. “oh,” his mother said. a flat, short syllable - oh. ever since he turned ten, ever since he began asserting himself to her about his boyhood, it had been oh.
wes was sitting on the bench on the other side of the hall, taking his skates off. the popsicle stick was tucked into the corner of his mouth.
“so yeah,” grady said as wes’s skates clattered to the floor. “gonna hang out in the basement.”
“alright, son.”
son. his mother always called him son when she saw him most as her daughter. grady’d picked up on it a few years ago. she would say it at random moments that grady couldn’t assign a clear pattern to, and he pinned the blame on himself, as he was wont to do. it was because he wasn’t doing enough to be seen as the boy he was, to be embraced as himself. son - she was probably worried because of wes’s presence. ever since he was ten years old she’d been wary of wes. grady thought that she saw him as a ticking time bomb, like she was waiting for him to do something untoward under the guise of boys being boys or something. grady wanted to laugh. like wes would ever try to touch him, would ever want to that way.
wes was sitting on the basement couch flipping through channels, his legs curled up, his chin resting on his knees. grady was stood at the stairs, staring over at him. he shook his head and went over, throwing himself down on the couch, causing trouble on purpose. wes shoved him.
lone ranger? grady said.
i’m looking!
the pair of them fell asleep when the lone ranger reruns gave way to i love lucy, grady barely registering wes’s head on his shoulder as the day hit him all at once and he gave in.