So, I’m not convinced it’s an age thing.
And me, I do know the meaning.
And right now, he is standing in my kitchen, my date for the prom, in a dinner jacket and bow tie, with that dark brown messy hair of his, those goddamn deep brown eyes, and that playful little smile he always has when he knows I’m about to kiss him, and I think, yes, this is love, because if it isn’t, then what the hell is it?
OK, maybe right now, it’s mainly lust. Let’s say seventy per cent lust and the rest – I can’t even do the maths because I’m so horny – is love.
Thirty per cent. It’s thirty per cent love.
But normally it’s more fifty-fifty.
It’s just … Christ alive, he scrubs up well.
I go in for a kiss.
“You smell gorgeous,” I murmur.
“It’s actually my dad’s,” he says. “I just spritzed it on.”
“Well, it’s certainly a step up from Lynx.”
“Which there is nothing wrong with.”
“If you want to smell like the boys’ changing rooms after year eight PE.”
He chuckles, and his hands snake round my waist and inside my dinner jacket, and he pulls me into him. Him taking the initiative like this is a new thing. Dylan came out at the beginning of year eleven, causing a major stir because he doesn’t just play football, he is – wait for it – captain of the goddamn football team, oh, yes, he is! So basically he was the first person in school to come out who wasn’t instantly hated and bullied, because Dylan is adored as a sportsman – he’s like this hero that even the straight boys check out (in fairness, he looks so hot in his footy kit, anyone would lose their shit), and suddenly gay was cool. Now, obviously that annoys me – anyone should be able to come out and not take crap for it – but on the plus side, it did mean quite a few people found the courage to come out too, so I’m glad for that. And literally, from the LGBTQ+ society having a membership of five, it’s now up to fifteen. Next year, I get to be president and plan to double it. Next year is going to be so gay. It’s totally going to piss off Mrs Nunn, the evangelical RE teacher.
But I digress. I was sitting by myself one lunchtime as usual, and Dylan strode right up to me, with such a sense of purpose I seriously thought he was going to hit me.
“What are you doing?” he said as I cowered behind the bench.
I just stared at him.
He sighed. “I came to apologize.” He looked down at the ground, then back up at me. “About the year nine thing. In PE.”
The mention of it made my stomach turn to lead. But also the thing happened two years previously, so why was he apologizing now? The story was this: I’d just come out, and some of the boys in my year responded by refusing to get changed with me in PE because I made them feel “uncomfortable”. Their ignorant parents got involved too, backing their stupid kids up, like parents of those sorts of kids always do. After a lot of arguing, the school suggested that maybe I’d prefer to get changed in the disabled toilet – dressing the whole thing up like it was a privilege, my own personal changing room, when really they’d just yielded to the bigots because it was easier.
“It was really shitty,” Dylan said.
I shrugged. “You weren’t part of it.”
“But I didn’t stand up for you. Not one of us stood up for you.”
“Well, when you’re the only gay boy in the year, it goes with the territory.”
Then he looked me right in the eye, his bottom lip wobbling slightly. “You’re not the only gay boy.”
Obviously, I couldn’t believe it at first. Dylan Hooper. Gay. But over the weeks that followed we started hanging out more and actually enjoying one another’s company. Now, it’s true there wasn’t (isn’t!) a wealth of options in terms of gay kids to hang out with. In our year, to start with, it was just me and him. Afterwards, thanks to the Dylan Makes Gay OK Factor, there was Theo, who’s bi and seeing a girl in the year above, and then Tariq. Tariq’s super sweet, super geeky, and has a rich dad who runs an app company, so if any of those appeal, he’s your boy. He’s now on the LGBTQ+ society committee with me, and next year, he’s going to be my deputy. Honestly, he’s such a sweet lad, so utterly wholesome, he must be protected at all costs, but I guess he just didn’t do it for Dylan. The sixth formers are all in very serious and committed relationships with each other, and apart from a collection of very marvellous girls, that only leaves a couple of lads in year eight and nine, and, well, no. However, I did eventually shake off the idea that Dylan was only hanging out with me due to a lack of other options, and started to entertain the idea that he possibly actually quite liked me, and so I took the bull by the horns and asked him if he wanted to come back to mine to start the
