Bone

It's not that he thought it would be easy. Years of tongue-tied mishaps with Summer had taught him that much. But Ryan was the opposite of Summer. The anti-Summer; a California Winter, cool and damp and a little dirty, but always a welcome change from sun and good clean fun.

Ryan was there, there when he woke up, there for breakfast and dinner and sneaked snacks, there in the pool, paddling idly with long pale bare feet. Present for him in ways only his own things had been before, like a game, or his skateboard, there for the picking up and playing with when he was bored or lonely, only that sounded worse than it was, because he didn't think of Ryan as a toy, exactly. No, not something inanimate, plastic and resin and wired for his enjoyment. If he knew one thing too well, it was the flesh and bone Ryan lived in—banged up, sunburned, God only knew what they'd done to him in juvie, bruised skin, sore muscles and four perfectly spaced tine marks in the side of his neck.

Ryan was here now, stretched out beside him, watching Scream 2 like he'd never seen it before, and maybe he hadn't. Parents out, lights out, and how weird was it to try to seduce someone by the glow of a TV? God, seduction. Seducing. It all sounded so sordid.

Better just to stick with what he knew: videos, Mountain Dew, and given the practice he'd had on himself, a probably too quick but otherwise killer hand-job.