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The first time Bo talks to Jimmy Myers after the whole werewolf thing—what Bo thinks of as the night he tried to kiss Jimmy and then nearly got killed—Jimmy waves his hand magnanimously and says, “We can just forget about it.”
Jimmy’s hair, which had gone inexplicably straight during the werewolf phase, has curled again, and his movements have lost their animal grace. His mouth is pinkish and his clothes seem a little looser. Bo looks at him, this kid who never would have had the confidence to walk up and speak to him in the hallway like this a week ago, and almost loses his tongue.
“Forget about what?” Bo asks, genuinely curious. Forget about the fact that Bo handed over his girlfriend like a kind of olive branch, and that Brooke went so willingly, like she couldn’t care less who she was dating? Forget that Bo nearly got his guts ripped out by some supernatural fight he wasn’t even meant to be a part of?
Jimmy’s eyes flick to Bo’s friends, who have taken a lazy interest in the conversation. “Uh—you know. The, uh. The thing you said to me, when you came to visit me.”
Oh. Jimmy’s talking about the kiss.
“Look,” Bo says, “I’ll catch you after class.”
Jimmy stares at him. “Alright,” he says after a significant pause, and leaves, both hands curling around the straps of his backpack like he’s afraid it might fall off his shoulders.
“Okayyyyy,” John says from beside him.
“That was weird,” adds James.
“Why’s he talking to you?” asks Jack.
Bo swallows. He has had many, many opportunities in his lifetime to be brave and to be honest, and he has gotten so used to ignoring them that he’s stopped recognizing them entirely. Something about the last few days has opened that window again, and he knows he’d better jump on it. “We’re cool,” he says, as casually as he can manage.
“You and the homo?” asks James.
And that’s another thing, isn’t it? One wrong move and the whole thing comes tumbling down around Bo’s ears. “I actually don’t think he’s gay,” Bo says, because to say there might actually be nothing wrong with being gay would be tantamount to social suicide among these guys.
“Huh,” John says thoughtfully, finally pulling out his textbook and closing his locker.
They go into class. In class, they read about two chapters silently to themselves, which mostly means people pass notes and play chopsticks when the teacher isn’t looking. Jimmy is usually one of the only kids who actually does the work, but this time, even he seems distracted. He’s reading, of course, but he keeps tilting his head, like maybe he’s listening to the conversations of people around him. Bo tries not to watch Jimmy too much. He’s always trying not to watch Jimmy too much.
When the bell rings, Jimmy leaves, headed down the hallway toward the parking lot with the rest of the class. Brooke is not with him.
“Hey,” Bo says over their heads, trying to reach Jimmy. This is what he gets for sitting in the back of the classroom. The crowd parts for him, as it always does, and he grabs Jimmy’s shoulder. “Hey,” he says again, “I thought we were going to talk after class.”
Jimmy jerks out of Bo’s grip, looking first at Bo’s hand and then at Bo’s face, like this might be a prank. “Oh. I thought you said that to get rid of me.”
“Nope.”
Jimmy keeps walking, glancing around them. “Where’s your little group of followers?”
“I told them I’d catch them later,” Bo says.
Jimmy raises his eyebrows. “Oh, and are you actually planning to catch them later?”
“…Fair point.”
They push out of the school doors together, Jimmy half a step ahead of him, and sunlight swallows them for a moment before Bo’s eyes adjust, and he meets Jimmy’s squinting gaze. The parking lot seems to have soaked up all the sun’s energy and is radiating it back up at them from underfoot, making Bo feel like he’s in a heat sandwich. He follows Jimmy to the other side of the parking lot anyway.
“I thought we were cool,” Bo says, feeling embarrassingly pathetic.
Jimmy looks up at Bo, managing to make it feel like he’s looking down, even though he’s significantly shorter. “Just because I won’t tell everyone you’re gay, a courtesy you have never extended to me, I might remind you, does not mean we’re cool. It means that I am not as much of an asshole as you are.”
“Um.” Bo feels his cheeks get hot, even though yeah, he is an asshole, and he knows it. He also knows that if you’re not an asshole, you can get eaten alive in high school, and he likes his life as the predator rather than the prey, thank you very much. “That night when you… when everything happened, you gave me a ride home.”
“My dog had just wrecked your car,” Jimmy says impatiently.
“I almost died because of you, man.” Bo doesn’t have any more cards to play.
“You almost died because you chose to come to my house and then refused to leave when I told you to.” Jimmy pulls open his car door. “Don’t you have a bus to catch?”
“I helped you find your sister!”
Finally, Jimmy pauses, halfway into the car, and turns. He doesn’t quite look at Bo, but that’s okay; Jimmy doesn’t often hold eye contact, Bo has learned. He finds it endearing. “I seriously appreciate that. Thank you for helping me find my sister.”
Bo swallows. “You’re welcome.”
“And I’m very sorry you got hurt.”
Bo’s heart thumps. “That’s okay.”
They stand there for a moment, not saying anything, while the asphalt does its best to melt through the soles of Bo’s shoes and the cars in the parking lot pull out one after another. And still he stands there, because he’s always been a fool for Jimmy Myers.
Jimmy seems to be waiting for something. After a bit, he says, “Are you going to apologize for the years of bullying now or…?”
“Yes, I’m very sorry.”
Jimmy stares at him. “Are you even going to try to mean it?”
Bo doesn’t know what to say. He feels stupid apologizing for something that so clearly hurt Jimmy in a way an apology cannot fix. In some ways, it even feels disrespectful to apologize for it, as if it suggests Bo thinks it’s only worth the three words. He feels like a dog being asked to perform tricks, and even worse, he would perform them, he’d perform all of them, if only it meant Jimmy would keep talking to him.
“Cool,” Jimmy says, when Bo doesn’t speak. “Good talk.”
He gets in his car and drives off.
The second time Bo talks to Jimmy Myers after the whole werewolf thing is five days later.
For five days, they don’t speak to each other, don’t even say hi in the hallways. No one bats an eye, because they never did say hi in the hallways before, and because everyone is focused on the rumor that apparently, Brooke has left Bo for some loser kid who doesn’t talk.
“I thought we were cool?” Jack asks, as Jimmy walks by Bo without so much as turning his head.
“I don’t think he… wants to talk to me,” Bo mumbles. He clears his throat. He is not usually a mumbler.
“He doesn’t want to talk to you?” John makes it sound like Jimmy is rejecting an audience with the king.
Bo doesn’t say that he kind of understands why Jimmy doesn’t want to talk to him. He gets it. He says only, “I’m going to fix this.”
“Does it need to be fixed?” James asks, looking away from his locker mirror. “After he stole your girl?”
“Yes,” Bo says.
So he shows up on Jimmy’s front porch.
“Deja vu,” Jimmy says when he opens the door, looking Bo up and down. Bo cleaned up before borrowing his parents’ car and driving over: he’s combed his hair, picked out jeans that make him look taller, and put on what Brooke always called his “sexiest cologne,” whatever that’s supposed to mean. When Jimmy looks at him, he feels like it takes longer than usual, but maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
Then, before Bo can get a word out, a dog tackles him to the ground. It really is deja vu.
It is not, however, Jimmy’s “normal dog,” the one that wrecked Bo’s car. It’s something else, something huge and gray, with teeth that seem longer than Bo’s pinky finger. It’s a wolf, Bo realizes, pushing himself up on his elbows, the wood of the porch creaking under him. It’s an enormous, beautiful wolf, with eyes the same color as Jimmy’s. And it’s not attacking him at all; it’s licking him. Its tongue is almost as wide as Bo’s own palm, and when it licks him, pleasantly warm, it gets the entirety of Bo’s cheek wet.
“Stop it,” Jimmy says, grabbing the wolf around the neck and hauling it backwards like an enormous sack of stones. The wolf whines, straining for Bo again.
Standing and patting the wolf’s head consolingly, Bo manages to ask, “What is this?”
Jimmy looks down at the wolf, who seems placated by the petting, and sits neatly on the ground at Bo’s feet, staring up at him with those luminous eyes. Its thick tail curls around Bo’s ankles, as if to keep him there. “That’s the werewolf,” Jimmy says. He doesn’t sound too happy about it. “Obviously, I am not a werewolf anymore. It sort of… split. I mean, he’s sort of me, actually.”
“Oh.” Bo looks down at the wolf. He sees how this could be Jimmy. It’s really, truly beautiful. “In what way?”
“He’s like a limb, he’s like, he doesn’t really think for himself—” Jimmy has this incredibly fast way of talking when he’s impatient and he doesn’t feel like the conversation is relevant, and he’s using that voice right now. It’s one of Bo’s favorite voices of all time. “He just reacts to what I think and what I want. He’s like my, my, intuition, he’s like my id.”
“What’s an id?”
Jimmy flushes. He’s so pale that whenever he flushes, it’s extremely obvious, and for some reason, Bo really likes this. “It’s like your deepest desires, you know, before logic and self-control kick in—did you ever pay attention in class?”
Bo opens his mouth.
“Don’t answer that. Obviously not. I have a better question: why are you here?”
Bo wants desperately to know more about this deepest desires thing. He wants to sit down and interrogate the wolf, and then somehow find a way to become that thing, whatever the thing is Jimmy wants most. At the moment, though, what Jimmy wants most is probably for Bo to leave, given the disdain with which he’s watching Bo shift wordlessly on his front steps. Something is wrong with Bo, because that look is seriously turning him on.
But right now is not the time to be horny; right now is the time to be brave. With great effort, he looks Jimmy in the eyes and says, “I—uh, I came to say I am sorry. I’m sorry that I was an asshole to you for so long.” Jimmy raises his eyebrows, which Bo takes to be an encouraging sign, so he continues. “I feel like maybe you’re upset because you think I think it’s all good now, but I don’t think that. I know it’s not just suddenly erased just because I’m gay, and I helped you save your sister once.”
Jimmy tilts his head. “It kind of sounds like you do think that.”
“I don’t.”
“So then what was that fight in the parking lot about?”
“I don’t think that, but I do want it to be true.” Bo licks his lip. “I really want it to be true. I want to know you.”
The wolf, which Bo is still petting, tilts his head up and noses at Bo’s palm, licking his skin again in long stripes. They both look down at the wolf. Bo looks up at Jimmy and finds that Jimmy’s flush has grown deeper. Huh, Bo thinks, isn’t licking supposed to be a sign of affection?
“Do you want to know me?” Bo asks experimentally, and the wolf practically leaps onto him again, going up on his hind legs to put his front paws on Bo’s chest. The wolf is whining and licking his face. Again. Bo has to grab the porch posts just to stop from falling over, the rough wood scraping against his fingertips—
And then the wolf is off him, and Jimmy has his arms around the wolf’s middle, hauling him backward again. With what looks like great effort, Jimmy shoves the wolf back into his house and shuts the door, where they can both hear the scratching of claws against wood.
“It seems like the answer is yes,” Bo begins cautiously.
“You don’t know anything,” Jimmy says shortly, but the flush has spread all the way down his neck.
“But your wolf—” Bo begins.
“I’m gonna need you to leave, okay?”
Bo shuts his mouth. This is not happening, he thinks to himself fervently. He has not finally, finally worked up the courage to talk to Jimmy Myers only to barely get five words out.
But Jimmy’s already going on: “I’m having a bad enough day already, with everyone saying that I stole Brooke off of you, and talking about how ridiculous it is that she would pick me, and that I’m ugly and I’m weak and my hair is bad—”
“I think your hair is good,” Bo says quietly. He hears the werewolf thump against the door as if in response, and watches Jimmy grit his teeth.
“You shut up.” Jimmy brandishes a finger in his direction, stepping in close. Yeah, Jimmy’s hot when he’s mad. Really, really hot. “The last thing I need is you showing up at my house, making everything—” He pushes a hand through his hair. “—confusing.”
But of course it’s happening, a terrible little voice in Bo’s head counters. Why shouldn’t it? Is he so arrogant to think that just because he has something to say, Jimmy must want to hear it? Why should he assume the whole world works on his clock? Maybe Jimmy really does want to get to know him, but even if that’s the case, it’s clear that whatever isn’t his “id” disagrees. The logic part of Jimmy’s brain. The self-control.
Sure. Because Bo is an asshole.
“Look.” Bo swallows. “If you really want me to leave, I’ll leave. I—I know the whole thing with us is kind of…”
“What’s the ‘thing with us’?” Jimmy throws up his hands.
“I’m just saying—!” Bo says loudly, and forces himself to lower his voice again. “I’ve been shitty to you.”
“It’s been mentioned.”
“And so now I’m going to just—” Bo holds up his hands. “I’m going to do what you want me to do. Okay?”
“What?” Now, finally, Jimmy looks entirely disarmed. His face goes blank. “Why?”
“Because I want you to like me!” Bo bursts out before he can stop himself. What the hell. It’s not like keeping his cards close to his chest was helping him at all. “Obviously.”
Behind Jimmy, the wolf resumes the pawing at the door, now emitting a low, pleasant sound, like a dog-version of a purr. Jimmy once again seems incredibly annoyed by this. “I don’t—I can’t deal with you right now,” he says, dragging a hand over his eyes. “You live your life, and I’ll live mine, okay? That’s all I want.”
Bo licks his lips. He wants to say that it doesn’t seem like that’s what the wolf wants, but he knows it wouldn’t go down well. Plus, it doesn’t seem fair. What would Jimmy see, if Jimmy had access to Bo’s unfiltered thoughts? Something like please, please, please don’t make me go, or I’ve had the biggest crush on you since seventh grade, or if he got really unlucky, I think I’m in love with you.
So he grants Jimmy the respect he deserves and leaves, pretending not to hear the howling of that beautiful wolf with Jimmy’s eyes.
The third time Bo talks to Jimmy Myers after the whole werewolf thing is after the rumor reaches him that Jimmy and Brooke have officially broken up. He’s heard rumors like this before, partly because they seem to be the fixation of the month, and partly because he pays such close attention whenever Jimmy’s name gets raised. His boys have learned to bring any piece of news about Jimmy they’ve heard in the hallways straight to Bo, and Bo’s beginning to suspect that they’re beginning to suspect why.
When James pulls Bo aside and mutters to him, “I heard Jimmy and Brooke broke up for real this time,” Bo gets a full-body rush of adrenaline, like he’s gone into fight or flight.
“I’ve heard that before,” Bo says, because even though he doesn’t speak to Jimmy, as per Jimmy’s request, everyone knows that Jimmy and Brooke’s relationship has been rocky at best all week.
“I know,” James says, “but I heard it from Brooke.”
So Bo smooths his shirt, takes a deep breath, and goes to find Brooke.
“You’re going to ask me why,” Brooke says when Bo finds her, toying with her school-provided fish-sticks absently. She seems not to be very broken up about it, if her bored expression is anything to go by. “Why don’t you ask him instead? Everybody knows you’re obsessed with him.”
Bo puts down his lunch tray and slides onto the bench beside her. “He told me not to speak to him.”
Brooke makes an incredulous sound, and Bo can’t blame her; it sounds much more pathetic when said out loud. “And you’re taking that very seriously, are you?”
“Yes.” Bo considers for a moment whether this will be too obviously transactional, then decides there’s nothing else he’s got left in the barrel: he slides Brooke his cookie, her favorite one, the snickerdoodle that tastes like sugary clay. “Will you tell me what happened?”
Brooke scoffs. “You,” she says.
“I didn’t do anything,” Bo says, because he hasn’t. He has wanted to do many, many things. He has wanted to stop Jimmy in front of the whole school and say please believe me this is not a joke I like you so, so much. He has wanted to send Jimmy flowers and a notecard that say can’t we try talking again? He has even wanted to corner Brooke and ask her extremely creepy questions, like what does Jimmy’s room look like and is he a good kisser, even though if Jimmy was a bad kisser Bo wouldn’t care one bit. And he’s done none of those things. He’s stayed away, just like Jimmy told him to, and it seems very unfair that after all of that, Brooke is still going to pin the break-up on him.
“No,” Brooke says, “but every time I come over, the wolf hates me, and every time I so much as say your name, the wolf’s ears go right up in the air.” She does a swooping motion with her index finger, as if imitating the wolf’s ears perking up. “I don’t know what’s going on with you two, but I’ve had enough of being in the middle of it.”
Bo’s mouth goes dry, his head goes swimmy. “There’s nothing going on between us,” he finds himself saying.
Brooke gives him a flat look and unwraps the snickerdoodle. “Maybe that’s the problem, genius,” she says, and picks up her tray, and leaves.
Alright, Bo thinks, one more try can’t hurt. If this one doesn’t go well, he promises himself, then he’ll stop. Really. This time is the last time. And if it’s the last time, he wants to do it right, wants to give it one-hundred-and-ten percent, like his coach always says.
He ends up buying flowers, having spotted a stand on the side of the road selling them, and even though they’re a little overpriced, at least it means he’ll get to Jimmy faster than if he were to go looking for a florist. Then, just for good measure, he gets a card, too, because so far, using his words has not turned out the best results.
I know you said I should live my own life and you live yours, he writes in his most legible handwriting, but the problem is that I really want you in my life. I’m sorry again that I was not just an asshole, but a bully to you for so long and it won’t happen again, obviously, but if you’re not over it, I don’t blame you. If you just don’t like me anyway, I don’t blame you either.
But honestly, I feel like you might be interested in getting to know me. I’ve been thinking about your wolf, anyway. And so I wanted to be really clear, in case this will help you trust me. First of all, I’ve had a crush on you since seventh grade. Second of all, I feel really crazy inside when I see you or when you look at me, and I feel like it’s only fair that you know that about me, too, so you don’t have to worry that I’m going to use your wolf against you. Now you have in writing that when you speak to me, Jimmy Myers, I feel like I’m falling off a cliff. Third of all, if I hurt you, I will come to your house and let that wolf tear me limb from limb.
Hope this helps,
-Bo
Then Bo climbs into his parents’ car again and, one last time, drives to Jimmy’s house. As takes the walk up, he’s suddenly not sure he knows how to hold a bouquet of roses correctly, and as he climbs the stairs he feels that he has never, once, known how to bend his knees and lift his feet. His heart is going wild, and his mind is going wild, and frankly, this whole thing seems like the stupidest idea on earth. Why did he think he should buy roses and a card when the guy he likes said pretty clearly that he wanted to be left alone? Why is he doing it the day after said guy broke up with his girlfriend? Is he insane?
Bo is pretty sure, by the time he reaches the door, that he should turn around and get back in the car and go home, when the door swings open.
Bo hadn’t even knocked.
“—now behave—” Jimmy is in the middle of saying, two leashes on his arm, when he looks up at stops short.
They stare at each other: Bo with his nicest outfit and sexiest cologne and a bouquet of roses, and Jimmy with a dog and a wolf each on a leash.
“Uh—” Jimmy says, for once unable to fill silence.
Bo should fill this silence, he thinks; this is the one chance he’s going to get to talk without Jimmy getting a word in edgewise, to say all the romantic and sincere things he wants to say without Jimmy scoffing every other sentence, but he can’t seem to find his tongue. “Uh,” he replies, and that’s all he gets out before the wolf is on him again.
He’s not exactly sure what happens, actually. One second, he’s standing there with the bouquet, and the next, the world’s most gorgeous wolf has two paws on his chest, sending him toppling, and the next, he’s caught up awkwardly in Jimmy Myer’s arms.
“Sorry,” Jimmy gasps out against him, as the wolf springs energetically around them both. His breath gusts against Bo’s skin, and he shivers before he gan gather the presence of mind to surpress it. “I didn’t want you to hit your head on the ground.”
“I know how to fall,” Bo rasps against him. He clears his throat. “Wrestling, remember? I didn’t hit my head last time.”
“Right,” Jimmy says, seeming distracted; he keeps looking down at the bouquet. He lets Bo go. “Right, yeah, I forgot.”
The wolf flicks his ears a few times, gazing up at him, and then, very firmly, pushes Bo in through the doorway. Bo clings to the doorframe, looking at Jimmy, waiting for Jimmy to say, no, get out, waiting for Jimmy to pull on the leash he still has in his hands, but Jimmy just stands there, his softly curling hair casting a shadow over his forehead. He looks so, so beautiful in the evening light, unsure but not quite hostile.
Bo goes in through the door, pressing the roses into Jimmy’s hands as the wolf urges him backwards, backwards, until he’s sitting on Jimmy’s carpet floor. “That’s for you,” he says, finally letting the wolf lick him, his face, his neck, his hands.
“Um.” Jimmy closes the door behind them, unhooking the two leashes from the two collars with one hand, as if he doesn’t want to put the roses down. “Okay.”
The wolf noses at Bo’s neck, right where he’s ticklish, and a high giggle escapes him, a noise he hasn’t made since he was ten at the oldest. “Alright, alright,” Bo says, petting the wolf’s head the way he knows the wolf likes.
“There’s a card,” Jimmy says, sounding rather dumbfounded.
“That’s for you too,” Bo says, and then feels idiotic. Obviously, Jimmy would know that. He looks away as Jimmy opens the card, suddenly unable to watch as Jimmy sits on the arm of the sofa and begins to read.
He focuses instead on the wolf, which must at least be double his weight and countless times stronger than he is, with a shining gray coat that feels like silk between his fingers. When he pets the wolf, he has to extend his arm all the way to get halfway down the wolf’s back from where he’s sitting. He doesn’t even want to think about what’s in that extremely embarrassing card. This is what happens when you don’t sleep on decisions before you make them, he thinks. Bo wonders if, when the wolf twitches his ears, it has something to do with what Jimmy’s reading. He wouldn’t know. He can’t bring himself to check Jimmy’s expression; there’s only so far his limited courage can stretch.
Then, with a deep breath, the wolf rolls over on his back and shows his tummy, a soft white, and Bo’s heart constricts. He looks up.
Jimmy has the flowers in one hand, the open card in the other, and he’s looking right at Bo. “You’re serious,” he says, as if he has just figured this out.
Bo swallows. “Well. Yeah.”
“I didn’t mean to—” Jimmy steps towards him, then comes to sit next to Bo on the carpet. “I didn’t think you seriously—”
“Yeah.” Jimmy’s so close, and Bo feels lightheaded.
“You smell good,” Jimmy whispers, as the wolf noses at Bo’s skin again.
“Thanks,” Bo whispers back, looking at Jimmy’s mouth. He rubs the wolf’s stomach absently, feeling the vast curve of its ribcage, and a jolt seems to run through Jimmy all at once, his eyelids fluttering closed.
“Oh god,” Jimmy breathes.
When they kiss, it is the first kiss in Bo’s life that feels the way he’s been told kisses are supposed to feel. Jimmy’s hands wind into Bo’s hair, the tugs feeling like pure electricity down Bo’s spine, and then, just like his wolf likes to do, he slips his hands down to Bo’s chest and pushes him down, so he’s lying back on the carpet, staring up. He kisses Bo open mouthed and with tongue, enough tongue to make Bo grow hard in an embarrassingly short amount of time.
“God,” Jimmy says again, and nothing else. He just kisses Bo again.
Bo wonders if this is what Christains imagine heaven to be like, like they have suffered and suffered, and when they get their reward it will all be worth it and it will feel like the purest ecstasy. He really, truly does feel like some kind of god has taken mercy on him, that god being Jimmy and his wolf.
The wolf, he realizes as he pushes up on his elbows, is behaving itself at long last. It’s lying there next to Bo, curled warmly at his legs, making no noise and scratching at nothing, as if it is finally satisified. Curiously, he reaches out to pet the wolf’s stomach again, and Jimmy shudders above him, a tiny groan escaping his lips.
“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this,” Bo says, running his hand along the wolf again and watching pleasure color Jimmy’s cheeks.
“I do,” Jimmy says. “You told me.”
“I hope you want this,” Bo says, running his hand along Jimmy now, under his shirt, up his side. “It’s not just your wolf, is it?”
“My wolf is me,” Jimmy says, which is answer enough. After all, even if Jimmy’s been cold, even Bo can tell the wolf is obsessed with him.
“Please don’t tell me to go away again,” Bo says against Jimmy’s neck.
Jimmy pulls back, and for a second, Bo worries it’s too much too fast, but Jimmy just looks at him, licking his kiss-swollen bottom lip. “Are you seriously worried that’ll happen?”
Bo blinks at him, smirking a little. “What happened the last times I tried to talk to you?”
“I’m not going to tell you to go,” Jimmy promises. “I—Bo. Have you been paying attention? I’m—I’m—” He doesn’t quite seem able to say it, but at the same moment, the wolf comes up behind Bo and licks a long stripe up the side of his face. Jimmy blushes furiously. It is so unbearably cute.
“I know,” Bo says, scratching the wolf behind the ears. “I get it.”