Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 116177 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116177 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
And when we head down the street, Jimmy can’t even leave an innocent lamppost alone. He grabs on and swings around it like a stripper pole, his shirt flipping up for a second by the wind and flashing me the beautiful sight of his toned lower back, his chiseled abs, and his tight buns in those low-hanging jeans, before hopping off and landing on his feet as lightly as a cat, laughing.
Dance is in his blood, and it’s evident with every thump of his passionate, boyish heart.
Of course, a highly-inflated sense of over-confidence is in his blood, too. And it’s made all the worse when we stop for lunch at Biggie’s Bites—Billy’s pa’s restaurant—and I have to sit there while a bunch of girls two tables over keep looking our way and giggling.
“They still lookin’?” asks Jimmy.
I roll my eyes. “And droolin’, and gigglin’, and dreamin’.”
Jimmy snorts, shakes his head, and takes a one-handed bite of his Touchdown Burger while flipping an arm over the back of his chair—enjoying the attention, from the look of it.
“Don’t go encouragin’ it,” I mumble after taking a sip of water.
Jimmy eyes me. “Why not?” He peers over his shoulder and makes eyes with the girls, giving them a quick chin-lift that makes them all giggle and blush. “It’s good to be back home.”
I feel my ears flatten like a cat’s. “Yeah, sure, right. Back home where everyone and their mother wants your Strong nuts.”
He turns back to me. “Depends. Whose mother?”
Despite my annoyance, the look on his face makes us both burst out laughing, and the girls turn our way again, all dreamy-eyed and silly. I’d bet half of them aren’t even graduated from Spruce High yet, way too young to bother dreaming of catching a man like Jimmy’s attention.
After lunch, we decide to catch a movie, since something’s starting in the next five minutes, then sit in the back of the theater with our feet up on the seats in front of us. Only a handful of others are in the theater, scattered among the front and middle rows, including someone I might’ve had English with junior year.
“Hey, weren’t we supposed to throw some ball with your bro today?” I ask him.
Jimmy shifts in his seat with a sigh. His elbow touches mine on the tiny armrest between our seats. “Nah. I was thinkin’ I’d give my brother and Billy some space this summer.”
I wrinkle up my face. “But you just got here. You haven’t seen the pair of ‘em since January.”
“I don’t wanna be all on top of them like I was last summer.”
Neither of us are bothering to keep our voices down at all. We have no shame or manners in movie theaters, it turns out. I’m pretty sure we have a reputation for this. I feel like maybe it’s our sworn responsibility to hold up that reputation, too.
“Alright, then.” I study the side of his face awhile. “Is that why you’re wantin’ to crash at my place tonight?”
He just shrugs for an answer.
When he shifts in his seat again, his foot on the back of the chair in front of us moves and finds itself resting against mine.
I smile inwardly, noticing that. He doesn’t mind when we’re touching. He never pulls away. He’s so comfortable around me. I wonder why all straight guys can’t be like Jimmy Strong, unafraid to show affection for another male, unafraid to just let ourselves fall into each other’s spaces.
“I know why you don’t wanna play ball. You’re afraid I’ll kick your ass in soccer again,” I taunt him. “Y’know: the real football.”
Jimmy snorts. “Don’t you let my brother hear you sayin’ that. He’ll kick your soccer-ball butt from here to next Tuesday.”
“Hey, all I’m sayin’ is dancin’ isn’t the only sport that requires strong, quick, flexible legs. And my legs are better than yours.”
From somewhere in the middle of the theater, an older man turns around and shushes us.
I wince and prepare an apology, but Jimmy leans forward and shouts back, “Shush yourself, grandpa!” before kicking back in his seat some more—resulting in his elbow digging worse into my side and his foot leaning fully against mine.
I eye him. “Didn’t your ma teach you to respect your elders?”
To that, Jimmy only smirks.
After one last swing around town in Jimmy’s red truck, we at last stop for the night at my house, coming in just in time for my ma’s creamy chicken and dumplings, which we eagerly consume.
It’s the crisp, early hour of nine o’clock when my ma retires to her bedroom with an exhausted pa, and Jimmy and I start kicking a ball around my backyard under the young night sky, still bruised by Spruce’s nearby streetlights and a hint of distant light from the recently-set sun. The only light we need anyway is the bright-ass one spilling off my porch, lighting us up as I continue to—over and over again—steal the ball right out from between Jimmy’s legs.