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“Ari,” Gina said. “Is that a hickey on your neck?”
I crumpled the empty beer can with my hand and tossed it. I missed the fucking trashcan by a few inches. Gina leaned over and started pulling in my collar.
“Gina,” I said without looking at her, “I didn’t think you were interested in me like that.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Gina replied, but she laughed. “But seriously, is it a hickey?”
Susie stared intently at me. “Who would give you a hickey?” she questioned. I glared at her.
“It’s not a hickey,” I said, and stared at the empty swings before us. They were swaying softly in the wind.
The playground was empty by now - most kids had run home for dinner. I smiled to myself, ignoring Gina's and Susie’s questions.
Susie slid of the bench and stood up before me. I looked up and met her gaze calmly.
“Aristotle,” she said and I narrowed my eyes. She knew I didn’t like it when they called me by my full name. “Why do you have a hickey on your neck?”
I tilted my head. “Would you believe me if I told you the truth?”
“Depends on what the truth sounds like,” Susie said.
“Okay. Fine. You know Dante?”
“The guy you saved from being hit by a car?”
“Also known as the guy you two interrogated at work.”
“Yeah, we remember him.”
“Good. Well, turns out he’s been in love with me for a while, and whilst I denied for the longest time possible, my parents finally decided to tell me to basically pull my head out of my ass and admit my love for him. So I took him on a impulse-trip to the desert, and we made out under the stars, and now we’re boyfriends.”
Gina and Susie stared at me. I stared back.
“Ari, you’re so full of crap,” Gina said.
Thing is, even though I told Gina and Susie the story with ease, it still felt weird to call Dante ‘boyfriend’. I had never believed I would have even a girlfriend, much less a boyfriend.
But I liked it.
Next day, I was at the park with Gina, Susie and Dante. Susie wasn't late to point out the new hickeys that Dante had made on my skin.
"You have new hickeys."
I glanced at Dante, who grinned and looked away.
"I have?" I said, pretending to be surprised. "How did they get there?"
"Oh, shut up," Gina said. "But really though. Tell us who made those!"
"I told you yesterday," I said, looking at Dante for help. But the traitor just pretended to be just as surprised as Gina and Susie.
"Is it Ileana? Didn't she dump you?"
I sighed. "It's not Ileana. I told you that yesterday!"
"Right," Gina snorted. "Because you are the one making hickeys all over Ari's neck, right Dante?" She raised her eyebrows at Dante.
"I have to go," was his reply. "Mom is taking me to the art centre."
"What?" I exclaimed when he stood up. "You can't just leave me here with these two!"
"You're avoiding the question!" Gina called after him.
"I thought we were in this together!" I called.
"Bye Gina! Bye Susie, bye Ari!" Dante replied, not looking back.
I bit my lip.
Did I really have to face Gina and Susie alone?
"He left his shoes," Susie said after a while.
Later that day, Susie and Gina knocked on our door. I opened.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” Susie said, but Gina started talking immediately.
“We went to Dante’s house and I knocked on the door and he opened, and I asked if this was true, you and him, and he said it was, and I asked him why, and he said ‘Because Ari is my soulmate’ and I said that it was the cheesiest fucking thing I’ve ever heard, and he just said ‘okay’ and closed the door, and I had some more questions but I decided to ask you instead.”
I blinked. It was the longest sentence I’ve heard Gina say.
“Okay,” I said eventually. “What questions?”
Susie smiled and pulled up a notebook from her pocket. With the other hand, she found a pencil in her bra.
“Interesting hiding place,” I said.
“Shut up. First question; are you gay?”
I shrugged.
“How can you not know? You like kissing Dante, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.” Understatement. I loved kissing him. But Gina and Susie didn't need to know that.
“Whatever. Moving on; have you been on an official date yet?”
“Um, no. We just went to the desert one more time, but we haven’t really had time to do anything more.”
Gina nodded thoughtfully, as if processing my words was something that needed to be done with absolute precision and analyzation. Then, out of the blue, she said:
“Have you had sex yet?”
“What?”
“Have you made love? Done the deed, slept together, penetrated the …”
“Okay, I get it!” I interrupted, blushing. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business, Gina.”
She raised her eyebrows. “So you have done it?”
“No.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Yes as in yes we have done it, or yes as in yes, really, you haven’t?”
“Go away, Gina.”
Dante was barefoot when we walked towards my house. He held his shoes by the shoelaces, letting them swing next to his leg.
“It’s raining,” I pointed out. Dante just smiled.
“And it’s Saturday,” he said.
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Saturday is a free day. The only day you can sleep for as long as you want, or stay awake for as long as you want.”
“And Saturday also equals no shoes?”
“Exactly.”
I smiled. Dante didn’t smile back, but I knew he was smiling inside.
“There is a new car on your driveway,” Dante said. I looked up and - would you look at that, a nice, shiny blue car was indeed parked behind mom’s old white one.
“Shit,” I said.
“Shit,” Dante said. We stood still for a while, looking at the car.
“What are we saying shit for?” Dante asked.
I pointed. “That is my sister’s car,” I said.
“Which one of them?”
“Cecilia. But I bet Sylvia’s with her.”
I turned to him. His wet hair was plastered to his face. I followed a single drop of water with my eyes as it made its way down Dante’s face.
“I’d rather stay outside with you,” I said quietly.
“What’s stopping you?”
I hesitated. What was stopping me?
“Nothing, I guess. I mean .... my parents don’t have to know I’m outside the house. I can stay here for a while, I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
“Yeah.”
“Can we have one of those cliché-kisses in the rain?”
“Where did that come from?”
“Well, partly from the rain, and partly because I really don’t know what we could do outside your house without showing we’re outside your house.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“I’m always right.”
“Yeah, almost.”
And we kissed.
"By the way," Dante said after a few minutes, "how did Gina and Susie find out we were dating in the first place? How did they even find my house?"
"Meh, it's Gina and Susie, they always find what they're looking for. And they saw this ..." I pointed at the hickey, still visible on my neck, "and started asking questions. They just didn't believe me when I said it was you."
Dante's grin grew bigger. "It's a rather nice-looking hickey though," he said. "What kind of questions?"
"If we had gone on a date yet, if I were gay, if we had had sex."
"What did you tell them?"
"No, I don't know, no."
"You don't know if you're gay?"
"Well, I said it mostly to confuse them."
"The sex part was funnier. Why did you tell them we haven't had it?"
I raised my eyebrows.
"Because we haven't?"
"You should have told them we had the most amazing, emotional and passionate first time ever."
I snorted and pulled away from him.
"Maybe next time," I said.
"Maybe next time."