He looked at the clothes in his hand like they were an alien or something. When I began tugging my jeans down, he twisted around in a quick half circle, giving me his back.
Shit. I was making him uncomfortable again.
“Sorry. I guess I should have said something first. Nudity isn’t a big deal to me and, well, I’m in my underwear. Hell, I wear some smaller than this when I dance.”
“No.” He shook his head. “It’s okay. I don’t know why I did that.”
He turned back around just as I was pulling my exercise shorts on.
“Bathroom is across the hall. Don’t have one in here. You’re welcome to use it to change.”
“What are we doing?”
“Not telling.” I was having fun with him. It was weird because it felt like no time had passed at all, like we’d been friends for the past twelve years.
“Fine. I see how you are.”
I smiled when he went ahead and took off his shirt, changing into the tee. I walked to the closet, trying to give him privacy as he put on the basketball shorts I’d given him. “I’m a size ten and a half in shoes. What are you?”
“Ten,” Clark replied.
I took a little longer than I needed to look around for a pair before handing them to him. “Close enough.”
Once we were ready, I went for the door. Clark followed easily without asking again where we were going.
The park was about a block away. We chatted as we walked, and I found a nice, grassy, open space for us to practice again. “We’re going to do gymnastics,” I informed him, and his reaction made me chuckle. “Oh my God. You should see the way your eyeballs nearly popped out of your head.”
“Well, that’s because there are”—he waved his arms—“people around, and I haven’t done this in years. I’ll probably break my neck.”
“You won’t break your neck. I promise. I won’t let you.”
“How do you expect to save my neck?”
“I’ll figure it out. Come on.” I reached out for him, but he didn’t lift his hand. I could tell by the flare of panic in his eyes that he really was nervous to do gymnastics in the park. “Shit. Sorry. Again. I didn’t mean to push. I thought it would be fun.”
“No, no. Don’t be sorry. I’m being stupid. I don’t know why I’m acting weird. It was a good idea. I’m just…”
When he let his words trail off and didn’t continue, I added, “How about you be my cheerleader? You can watch me break my neck.” Though I wouldn’t. “And we can work up to you getting back out here with me. Deal?”
Clark’s bow-shaped mouth stretched into a wide smile, one I could swear I damn near felt. “Deal.”
He found a place to sit in the grass.
“Turn on some music,” I told him, and he settled on a pop mix.
I stretched and warmed up, then started with a cartwheel, followed by a roundoff and a roundoff back handspring.
“Holy fuck. You’re still amazing.”
I winked. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.” Damn it. I was flirting with him again. I needed to cut that shit out.
We spent a good hour in the park. I did some gymnastics, with Clark playfully cheering for me. In between exercises, I lay in the grass beside him, and we chatted about…well, nothing in particular really. It was cool when you could be with someone and talk about nothing but it somehow didn’t get awkward. I didn’t understand how or why it was so easy with Clark. It simply was. But then, it always had been, and it had never made sense. Nothing about the two of us being friends had.
When we were done, we walked down the street to this juice place, got lemonades, and sat at the table on the patio. “So…I know you said you’re hoping for the whole marriage-and-two-and-a-half-kids thing—which is weird as fuck. I’m randomly picturing half a kid.”
Clark laughed. “Okay, so that paints an odd picture.”
“Any prospects, though?” Hello? Why was I obsessing about his love life?
“No, not right now. Like I said, I had a boyfriend a while back. We broke up. You mentioned your mom still picks the wrong men…?”
“She legit showed up at my work in tears the other night because the latest love of her life broke her heart. There’s a reason why I’ll keep mine to myself, thank you very much.” I loved Mom, but sometimes it was exhausting. I felt like the parent, and then I felt guilty for feeling that way.
“I’m sorry. That has to be hard.”
“It’s the way it is, so there’s no point worrying about it. Are your parents okay with…well, everything?”
It took Clark a moment to reply, but then he said, “As okay as they can be, I suppose. I mean, they know I’m gay, and they didn’t disown me or anything. They would’ve preferred me to settle down with a nice woman, but since that’s not going to happen, they expect the same with a ‘nice, upstanding young man’…” he said, using air quotes. “And I’m okay with that. You and I…we’re not built the same that way, I guess.”
Those words hung in the air between us. Yeah, we were built differently that way. “So we’ll have to make up for it by being extra kickass friends instead.”
Clark gave me another of his megawatt smiles, just as sirens began to fill the air. A fire engine raced by us, then another.
I held up my lemonade. “To old friends.”
Clark clanked his cup with mine. “To old friends.”
6
Clark
If my parents could see me now. Not only because I was out in public with Skylar Davison, but also because I’d changed out of my nice outfit and expensive shoes and into sweat shorts and a T-shirt with some bling—not sure he owned anything different—all because Skylar asked me to. But that was Skylar, so engaging, charismatic, and fun that you followed right along, even if you had no clue what you were getting yourself into. It reminded me of how he’d coax me to try something new on the vault or uneven bars, all the while cheering me on.
C’mon, you can do it. You’re good at this, Fancy.
I might’ve balked if he’d handed me a crop top and short shorts, because hell no, but I’ll admit not knowing what we were about to do had enticed me. And that was so not me. I was a planner, not a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants guy. But somehow reuniting with Skylar made me feel like a kid again, like we were picking right back up where we’d left off.
And it was almost better knowing he wasn’t a commitment kind of guy, that the flirting between us would remain just that. To be perfectly accurate, the flirting was mostly one-sided because that was just Skylar’s personality, while I was woefully inept at it. When I’d first met Donald, he’d had to do all the work to get my number because I was both too rambly and too stilted to ask him first. I flushed, remembering twelve-year-old me blathering to Skylar at those first beginners gymnastics sessions until I got to know him better and we’d become friends.
It was bound to be the same as we reestablished our friendship as adults because I almost couldn’t help my reaction to him. He was still shockingly good-looking, but I never went for guys like him, plus we wanted different things, so flirting for fun would have to do.