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“You see those two guys over there?”
Will frowns and looks away from his popsicle, which is melting in the midday heat, to where Lucas tilted his head.
When he follows Lucas’ head tilt to the side of Melvald’s, Will sees two guys around Jonathan’s age, maybe a little older, leaning close to each other. The guys are sharing a cigarette which Will thinks is probably their first because they’re coughing a lot, like, a lot, which is unlike when his mom or dad smoke.
One of the boys is heavily freckled, like the whole night sky is stained on his skin. The other boy is taller than the freckled one by a few inches, maybe because of his big puffy hair; it’s like he got electrocuted.
He looks back at Lucas who’s sitting beside him on the bench in Town Square, not looking at him but at the older boys, almost like he’s studying them.
It’s Saturday and instead of staying at home with Jonathan, Will radioed his friends to see if they wanted to hang out and Lucas was the only one who didn’t have anything to do.
“Yeah?” Will says, a bit confused.
“Do you think they like each other?”
Will doesn’t feel as caught off guard by the question like he was a few weeks ago when Lucas asked him, right out in the open, if Achilles loved Patroclus, but his heart still speeds up considerably.
(It’s still a topic they shouldn’t be talking about, despite both boys agreeing that that kind of stuff can’t possibly be wrong.)
“I don’t know,” he admits, feeling his cheeks heat up as he turns back to his popsicle. “How am I supposed to know?” he says, licking the sticky, slightly melted ice-pop.
Lucas shakes his head, taking a bite of his own Bomb-Pop.
(Lucas always bites stuff, suckers, popsicles, ice cream, a Kit-Kat before breaking it apart, ice. Mrs. Sinclair even told him that Lucas used to bite himself when he was a baby.)
Will’s teeth buzz even though it’s not his teeth biting into the cold ice. He just licks his own red, white, and blue popsicle to get rid of the painful ache in his teeth.
(Well, all his teeth except the front one he lost a few days ago and got the money to buy him and Lucas both a Bomb-Pop at Melvald’s. And even though he was a nickel short, Mr. Melvald said it was okay and didn’t tell Lucas, which Will was grateful for.)
“I think sometimes you just know,” Lucas turns to look at Will, “you know?”
Will frowns again, shaking his head. “No, I don’t know.”
Will’s parents don’t love each other anymore, that much is clear to him. Maybe they loved each other at some point, they had him and Jonathan together, so they had to have, but he doesn’t really remember that time…he’s not sure if his brother does either. His parents fight a lot, and even though Jonathan tries to make it so he doesn’t hear or notice, Will always does.
But Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair love each other a lot. Will can just tell by the way they interact with each other, the way they smile at the other, and even when they fight, because it’s not loud and scary like when his mom and dad do it, but like they’re actually having a discussion.
All in all, it makes sense that Lucas would know when someone likes someone else and he wouldn’t.
“See,” Lucas moves slightly, bumping his knee against Will’s, the one with a band-aid because he and Troy fought, “Freckles definitely likes Big Hair, you can tell by the way he looks at him.”
Will squints, looking at the boys, specifically the one Lucas dubbed “Freckles”, and Freckles does seem to be looking at Big Hair more than Big Hair is looking at him. He can’t tell if Freckles likes Big Hair though, not from this distance.
(And when boys like each other, they have to do it in secret and use little code words to let the other know, but Will knows they’re here, despite how they have to hide, they’re here.)
Shrugging, Will turns back, taking another lick of his ice-pop. “I guess.”
“So,” Lucas takes a final bite of his pop, licking his purple lips, “Freckles likes Big Hair, but Big Hair doesn’t know Freckles likes him,” he declares, tossing the blue stained popsicle stick in the trash, not even really looking and making it anyway.
Will frowns at him. “How do you know?”
The other boy shrugs. “Dunno, just do.”
And it’s Lucas, so Will takes it as fact.
“Okay,” he says, smiling, “what else?”
Lucas grins back, teeth stained blue. “Well, Big Hair’s a ladies man, always surrounded by girls, so Freckles has resigned himself to never being with him.”
“So…Big Hair doesn’t like Freckles?” Will asks in clarification before chasing after a wayward drip of popsicle juice.
The other boy shakes his head. “No, Big Hair doesn’t know he’s allowed to like Freckles.”
Allowed.
The word sticks to Will’s skin like the sticky-sweet popsicle juice trying to slide down his wrists.
Since he and Lucas talked about Achilles and Patroclus, Will has been thinking more and more about boys being “allowed” to like each other.
Instead of saying anything though, he just turns back to the older boys.
Freckles is knocking his shoulder against Big Hair’s and Big Hair is knocking right on back, smiling.
“Big Hair waits for Freckles,” Lucas continues. “He doesn’t know it, but he is. But Freckles never makes the move because he’s scared.”
Will turns back to Lucas, noting his frown. “Is he gonna always wait for him?”
Lucas tilts his head like he always does when he’s really thinking about something.
And Will wonders when he learned that Lucas tilts his head when really giving something some thought.
“I think,” Lucas starts cautiously, as if he’s choosing his words very carefully, “one day, Big Hair is gonna stop waiting, not because he stopped liking Freckles, but because he met someone new.”
And for some reason, that makes Will’s heart clench and his chest feel a little hollow.
Freckles and Big Hair leave, shoving each other and laughing as they go.
“Well,” Lucas stands, rubbing his hands down his legs, “come on.”
Will stands too. “Where to?”
The taller boy shrugs. “Dunno.” His brown eyes glitter gold in the sunlight. “Does it matter?”
And Will thinks that, no, it doesn’t matter, because it’s Lucas Sinclair and Will thinks he would go to the ends of the Earth, down into the deepest pits of Hell, to the worst places in the world, if he was with Lucas.
“Okay,” Will answers, smiling.
Lucas smiles right back, and they start to walk along the sidewalk, Will still licking his ice-pop, which is now melting faster than he can lick.
And maybe Freckles does like Big Hair and Big Hair is waiting for Freckles to make the first move, but he never will, and maybe Big Hair will meet someone new, but Will doesn’t think it matters all that much, because he and Lucas are walking together, jumping over the cracks in the sidewalk, and everything is good.