"Dude, you should go for this one brunette who always comes into Starbucks. She's fuckin' hot." Michael told me. We were sitting in the woods on a fallen tree behind his house smoking a joint. The sun was setting and some rain clouds were slowly coming in for the evening.
"Brunette?" I furred my eyebrows.
"Yeah, she's probably easy too. I've seen her give her number out more than once." He passed me the joint.
I took it and brought it up to take a hit before replying. "I don't really go for brunette's, man."
"You haven't seen this girl." He said. "And what the fuck? You've been with like 5 brunettes!"
"I'm sure she looks good." I didn't doubt him. "And I know. But I'm just attracted to blondes more than brunettes." I said, thinking about Mrs. Young.
"Like, her titties and everything. Her ass, man!" He put his hands out in front of him, groping the air as if it were the brunette's ass cheeks. "You shouldn't even be worried about what color her hair is."
"Why don't you get with her?" I handed the joint back to him, dropping the whole hair color conflict.
"Hey, I'm just trying to help you out. You haven't gotten laid in months."
I let out a breath of laughter, then tried not to look smug. "I'm just tryna focus on my shit. Like you said yourself a few weeks ago. Might as well keep track of school. Then it's off to the real world working for the rest of our lives. Why, did you change your mind about that?"
He shook his head, giving me the half smoked joint back. "No. We're about to graduate, Matt. Shit's about to be gone. We won't ever be able to get away with what we do now. Chillin' like this... it's not gonna last. Which is why we need to do everything now. Everything."
I watched smoke drift up above my face after it left my mouth. "I guess you're right," I agreed with him, not wanting to miss out on anything.
"Fuck the future," he said, "we gotta live right now."
"I still don't want to fuck that brunette though." I told him, smiling.
He looked at me like I was insane, "You're gonna fuck her. We both are."
"Fuck her yourself." I said.
"I can't." He said and took the joint from me, taking a big drag from it.
"Yeah you can. You're a big boy. Grow some balls and fuck her."
"Well," he said, looking down at his shoes. "I actually already tried too."
"And?" I asked.
"She wouldn't."
"And now you wanna see me get shot down by someone I don't even wanna try to get with?" I laughed.
He grinned, "No, man. She said she likes having threesomes."
I gave him a blank stare. Michael and I were best buds. Pretty close. I knew just about everything there was to know about him. Did about everything with him. Except that.
"I don't know about that, bro." I said.
He sighed, and looked a little annoyed with me, "Come on, man. It's sex. Pussy! Think about it as us taking our friendship to another level. We've never fucked a girl together."
"I never thought about doing it either to be honest."
"Well start thinkin'. I'll even introduce you to her before."
"Woah," I took the joint from him. He had almost smoked the rest of it. "I never said I was doing this with you."
"You're not saying no either." He commented. And he was right about that.
***
After smoking we headed back through the woods. It had started raining by the time we got out and made it to the back door. The kitchen was empty when we got inside.
"Aye," I said, "where's your mom been all day?"
He looked around, almost as if he had just realized we hadn't seen a lot of her all day, too. "I don't know. I haven't seen her since she got mad about my jock strap joke." He chuckled.
"I don't think she was too upset about that." I told him.
"She's probably been up in her room all day then I guess." He said. "Don't know."
"Do you think she's gonna make something for dinner tonight?" I asked, making it seem like I had a reason to bring her up.
He shrugged. "Maybe she will since you're still here."
I actually felt like I should talk to Mrs. Young. I had been thinking about the way I'd talked to her this morning all day. I didn't know if I really insulted her or hurt her feelings. She was still my best friends mom, and I didn't think she deserved that. Even though I still thought she was teasing me.
"We could order pizza or something if she doesn't," Michael told me.
"Sounds good to me."
***
"Aye, fuck you, man!" Michael punched my arm. The hardest he had ever punched me. I hate to think about how hard he'd punch me if he knew what his mom and I did.
We were sitting upstairs in his room. I was kicking his ass at some Black Ops.
"Temper, temper." I waved my finger at him. He quickly smacked my hand out of his face.
A knock on the door made us both turn our heads. Mrs. Young was in dark blue capri sweatpants and a black t-shirt. I liked her casual, young mom look. I'd been liking a lot of things about her young mom look lately.
"Hey, you making anything for dinner?" Michael asked her before she could say anything to us.
She nodded, not giving me a single glance. "I was coming to see what you guys wanted to eat." I watched her lean against the door frame and cross her arms, waiting for an answer.
"We were talking about pizza maybe if you didn't feel like cooking..." He brought up.
"Pizza sounds good." She stopped him, getting out of cooking all together. "I'll order here in a few. What do you guys want?"
"Large pepperoni and buffalo wings from Gino's," he answered for the both of us. It was good with me.
"Okay," she said, then disappeared from the doorway. And still, she didn't even look my way.
***
"So, did you think about that thing we were talkin' about earlier?" Michael asked me.
We were sitting downstairs in the living room eating our pizza. I felt a little uneasy because Mrs. Young was sitting on the other couch watching TV with us.
"What thing is that?" She asked, looking at Michael.
"Shh," Michael waved her off. She rolled her eyes at him. He looked at me, waiting for my answer.
"What thing?" I asked, glancing at Mrs. Young. She looked away from me then took another bite of her pizza.
"You know," Michael mumbled. "The thing."
"Oh," I said, the light bulb coming on. "Oh! Uh, I don't know, man." I shook my head. Not really wanting to talk about it right then, especially when his mom was with us.
He was about to say something else, but was interrupted. "When are your parents getting home on Sunday, Matthew?" Mrs. Young asked.