Chapter #54Two Friends You Barely Know by: Seuzz   A quarter-hour passes. Mercifully, Caleb's doppelganger gets onto his phone and lets you sidle a safe distance away.
You can't help jumping a little when a figure finally comes sauntering out of the barn: Keith. He doesn't look any different than he did before. Same sloppy clothes—a short-sleeve button-up shirt and blue jeans. Same beetle brow and chapped lips and spotty forehead. Same blank and dopey gaze. He even bobs his head in greeting the same way, at you and "Caleb."
"So," he drawls as he shoves his hands into his front pockets. "What we all gonna do now?"
"I dunno," Caleb says, then nods at you. "Ask the meatbot."
You feel yourself flushing as Keith looks between you and Caleb with a light, puzzled frown. Then understanding breaks.
"Oh, right," he says. "So you gonna hang out here?" he asks you. "Getch'erself a new face?"
"I dunno," you mutter.
"He's not hanging out with us," Caleb says. "He thinks he's too good for us."
Keith's frown returns as you feel your jaw slacken.
"Come on, man," Caleb tells Keith. He puts his phone away and saunters around to the drivers-side of his car. "We'll go back to town, find something to do. Will'll hang out with the guys in the barn, figure out what he wants to do. Though I hope, man," he says to you as he leans against the open door of his car, "that by tomorrow you'll be doing stuff with us again. At least, I hope someone who looks like you will be. Maybe he'll want to do something you never would. Like, go and pick up some girls."
With leer and a sneer he climbs into his car and shuts the door behind him.
* * * * *
That leaves you alone with the Larsons, and dependent on them to get back to your house, for you rode out here with Caleb and he's driven off with Keith. With a feeling like you're walking on needles, you return to the barn.
Jared is leaning against a wall, scrolling through his phone, and he looks up with a distracted air as you come in. "Oh, hey," he says. "I was almost betting you were gonna go back to town with the, um—" He blinks and doesn't finish the sentence.
"I'll get a ride from you, if it's okay," you say. You aren't looking at him as you speak, though, but at the figure on the ground. It's Cody Larson, unconscious with his eyes closed. He is barefoot and bare chested, with only a pair of khaki shorts to cover his nakedness. He is slim and mostly hairless, with a fading summertime tan, and a layer of baby fat all over. But there is some light definition to his pecs, and he's well-proportioned all over.
"We can try getting someone else out here for you," Jared says. "Me and, um, Cody will be out all night, we can get you one of our, um, friends. They all stay out all night on Friday, Saturday nights."
"No curfews?" you ask.
"Well, sure. But none of them or their friends pay attention to them."
You can't help snorting. "Must be nice."
"It is," says Jared. "Let me get one out here for you."
He starts to scroll through his phone again, but you interrupt him with a question: "Do I get a choice?"
Jared stops and frowns, and chews on the inside of his cheek.
"You don't know them, Will," he says, "you wouldn't know who to ask for."
"Then maybe I should— I dunno." You feel yourself wilting under Jared's stare. "Look, how about you and, um, Keith go have fun. And then we'll talk later this weekend. Tomorrow. You can give me some ideas then. Or I can give you some ideas." You not only hear, but feel the tremble in your voice. "I need to get used to this idea."
Jared continues to stare. Then he says, "It's just like when we were going around as those girls, Will. Except now it's as guys who happen to be real."
Then he adds, in a gentler tone, "Look, don't worry about it. I've been thinking about it, and we're just gonna do this for a week, until, like, Wednesday or Thursday. Then we'll all change back, and Jared and his bro will go back home, and they won't even notice the week they missed because they'll just think they got the dates mixed up. So if you're like, um—"
He's saved from having to finish that sentence by a groan from the figure on the ground. Cody's face curls up with a look of pain, and his eyes open a crack. He groans again, and sits up. You scramble a few steps back.
"Fuck me, man," he mutters. "I feel like I got cracked on the back of the skull with a bat." He clutches his head, then pushes himself up onto his feet. Briefly he sways, then his eyes pop as he gains his balance. "Oof," he gasps with relief. "That's better!"
Then his eyes settle on you, registering surprise.
"Hey," he says, and jerks his chin at you in a very Keith-like way. "Caleb says we're gonna hit the Warehouse tonight. You comin'?"
But before you can answer, he catches sight of his own dangling hand and does a double take at it, lifting it to stare with wide eyes as he flexes its fingers. Then he looks down at and touches his chest, and twists around to look at the sides of his legs. He shifts on his feet.
"Wanna mirror?" Jared asks him.
Mouth dangling open, Cody looks up. Then he accepts the phone that Jared is holding out to him, and holds it out at arms length to stare intently at the screen. He makes some faces at it, and touches his cheek, and turns his face this way and that without looking away from the phone.
"So," Jared says to you as Cody continues carrying on in this way. "We could all go out to the Warehouse, and you could hang out with us and our, um, friends." His lips twitch. "Get a good look at them and decide which one you want to try out." A knowing smirk spreads across his mouth. "Maybe even help you get laid."
There is something really enticing, but also really frightening, about the offer. You almost can't believe that it is Caleb who is making it to you, and it's not just because it is Jared Larson who is talking to you.
* * * * *
It will be ten-thirty or eleven before they even head out to the Warehouse, which is right up against your curfew. But Caleb tells you not to worry about it.
"Sure, you'll get in trouble with your dad if you stay out all night," he says after you've all piled into the Larsons' car. He's behind the wheel with Cody in the passenger side, and you in the back, between them, leaning forward to listen and talk. "Or you can tell him you're spending the night with me or Keith. Or just get in trouble by not coming home. If we do it right, it won't even be you going home, it'll be someone else who just looks like you, and you'll be out with us having fun with hoes and hormones."
He turns the motor over, puts the car in drive, and steers onto the road.
"That's the thing about these masks, you know," he continues. "You can use 'em to get into the kind of trouble you want to get into, and out of the kind you want to get out of."
Wasn't this the guy who was telling you just a few days ago that you get into too much trouble with the masks?
As you ponder this, a phone rattles off a rap beat. Cody looks at his phone and asks, "Who the fuck is Dillon Marr?"
"One of our best friends, dipshit," Jared replies, and punches his brother in the shoulder. "We've only known him since sixth grade."
"Well, fuck me for not remembering! I told you I don't got—! How'm I supposed to fool anyone if I don't know this shit?" Cody whines.
"I toldja, I'll help you through it. So what does Dillon want?"
Cody squints at the screen. "He wants to know if we want to 'have a burgasm' before 'hitting the brick.' The fuck?"
"Tell him you're hot to hump to the meat-beat."
"The fuck?" Cody cries.
"He wants to know if we want to hit Five Guys before going out to the Warehouse," Jared impatiently explains.
"So you want me to say yes?"
"Christ, yes! 'I'm hot to hump to the meat-beat.' Type it in, Tilley!"
"I don't know what the fuck I'm doing," Cody mutters as he thumbs in a text. In the rearview mirror, you see Jared flashing you a look of pain.
* * * * *
That's not the only text either Cody or Jared get before they've got you home, and by the time they pull up in front of your house, they have laid plans to meet three friends at Five Guys in an hour, following which (Caleb forecasts) they will house-hop to various other friends' places before landing at Eastman High, from which they will carpool out to the Warehouse.
"You should at least come with us until we get out to Eastman," he says as you sit in front of your house. "You can even drop your truck off there, if you want to pussy out on going out to the Warehouse with us. But hang with us until then, get an eyeful of our friends, get an idea who you might wanna take a vacation as. Our friend Dillon for instance"—he makes a brief face at Cody—"he's on the baseball team, pretty popular, pretty good at scoring snooch."  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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