Week Seven: excerpt of chapter five

At 12:18 tomorrow morning,

                                    the countdown was well

over

                  { we made it up. }

We both came out,

                  laced fingers,

                                    back rubs,

                                                      a mixtape,

                  { don’t you know I love you? }

Alex’s friend group had gone through a phase of playing spin the bottle every chance they got. It had been how he kissed Carlos for the first time, cheeks burning and palms sweating as he tried hopelessly to do well enough to make Carlos have feelings for him. Carlos had been soft touches, eyelashes tickling Alex’s cheeks as he leant into it. Aiden was a little more firm, fingers flexing on Alex’s hips like he was scared to move and frighten Alex off. Jaemin was more aggressive, tugging Alex into his lap and circling his arms around his waist, holding him in place as their tongues slid together.

Alex wanted to suggest it, but he felt weird doing it with his brother there. And even if they went back up to the house and played it just the five of them, something about the thought of kissing Mark made Alex’s heart clench and his ribcage contract. He settled for turning his head to lean his face into Mark’s neck, smelling the weed and cigarette smoke on his skin. Mark giggled again, planting a kiss on Alex’s temple that made him feel a warmth that seeped into his bones.

Alex thought that the main shift in his friendship with Mark wasn’t the distance, or them feeling removed from each other. It was the way they interacted; letting gestures and touches do all the talking for them. The way Alex’s skin rose in tiny bumps when Mark’s fingertips trailed over it. The way Alex felt comfortable when he draped himself over Mark in Mark’s tiny single bed in the corner of Carlos’s spare room. The way he sometimes couldn’t read Mark’s face, but rather than making him worried it made him excited to try and decipher it.

The countdown to the first of January came far more quickly than Alex was expecting it to, his perception of time warped by the weed. Carlos and Jaemin kissed each other forcefully as Chiáng turned away, and in his haze, Alex didn’t notice Mark shift them to sit face to face. He turned his face at the last second, making Mark’s lips land on his cheek, just shy of his own mouth. Alex panicked, pressing his lips to the smooth skin of Mark’s cheek and trying to ignore Aiden falling off the hay bale near them. It took Mark a couple of seconds to realise what had happened, his processing speed slowed right down. He pulled away and started laughing as Alex felt a dopey smile spread across his face. Aiden crawled forward to sit at their feet.

“Did you just try to kiss Alex and miss his mouth?” he asked, hands hooked onto Alex’s kneecaps.

Mark wiped a tear away with the pad of his thumb. “I sure fucking did.”

Aiden pouted up at him. “Well now I feel left out.”

Mark giggled again, leaning forward and pressing a soft kiss to Aiden’s pout. They were both laughing about it, but suddenly Alex’s cheeks were burning with something he thought might be shame. He stood up without ceremony, startling Aiden who fell back onto the grass. Alex stumbled around to the car, knees wobbly from being curled up for so long, and poured himself a glass of water. As he drank it, Ty appeared at his side and got himself a beer.

“You doing alright?”

Alex finished the water and looked over his shoulder to where Aiden was still sitting on the ground, talking to Mark.

“Mark tried to kiss me.”

“Tried?” Ty asked, brow furrowed.

“He missed.”

Ty laughed into his beer, coughing a little as it went down the wrong way. Alex reached up to rub his back soothingly through it.

“That what you’re freaking out over?”

Alex shrugged. “He kissed Aiden right after, so.”

Ty’s face softened and he gave Alex a one-armed hug. “You’re all high, try not to think about it too much.”

“Okay,” Alex said, looking down at the beer still in Ty’s hand. “Wait, you said we weren’t allowed to get cross faded.”

Ty scoffed, talking over his shoulder as he went back to sit with Johnny and Chiáng. “Those rules don’t apply to me.”

Alex drank three more glasses of water before Mark walked over to pour himself some coke.

“You okay? I don’t want you to feel weird about what happened back there.”

Alex shook his head, a little forcefully. “No, I don’t really care.” He gestured to their other friends. “We’ve all kissed each other anyway.”

A second hesitation. “Right, I think I remember Carlos mentioning that in the group chat once.”

Alex was taken aback, wondering if they had a group chat without him as Mark pressed a glass of coke into his hand.

“Thanks,” Alex said, not making eye contact before he walked over to where Chiáng was lighting up another joint.

Chiáng handed it to him in exchange for the coke and lit the joint as Alex inhaled, taking a long drag and holding it for a little longer than necessary before exhaling. Ty patted his arm.

“Don’t go too fast, Alex. I don’t wanna have to explain you being out of it for days to Mum.”

Alex waved a hand through the smoke he let out. “Don’t worry about me.”

He handed the joint back and walked over to where Aiden was looking at his phone, despite there being no reception in that part of the farm. Alex sat himself down in Aiden’s lap and held his face between his hands, pressing his mouth to Aiden’s, open. Aiden let out a soft squeak, but melted into it, hands resting on Alex’s hips as they kissed languidly. Distantly, Alex heard Ty complain about doing it in front of him and Chiáng, but Johnny just laughed. Somewhere between breaths and Aiden’s hands slipping under his shirt, Mark sat next to Carlos and Jaemin on another hay bale.

Alex prided himself on keeping his room tidy, well-lit and well aired. He almost always had a window open, or at least the door to allow airflow, the walls a crisp white and bare. His sheets were white to match, with an untreated wood frame to match his chest of drawers. As he walked from the door to his bed, he shed his shorts and hoodie, climbing into bed and lying on the side closest to the wall. Once he had rearranged his pillows, he threw back a corner of the duvet and patted the mattress. Mark laughed, pulling his shirt off over his head with a hand on its collar and crawling up the bed to lie next to him. Alex rolled over to face away from Mark, but he scooted a little closer to him. Mark hesitated behind him, shifting the mattress, before lifting a single finger to trace shapes on Alex’s back. Alex sighed at the contact, a trail of goose bumps across his back as Mark moved his finger across his skin, up and down his spine and blooming in spirals across his shoulder blades. Just as Alex was falling asleep again, Mark spoke up.

“I’m really glad we still get along, Alex.”

Alex curled his toes, pulling his feet under the covers to retract in a ball. “So am I, Mark.” He rolled over again, Mark resting an open palm on his cheek. “I forgot how important you are to me, but it’s easy to remember now.”

Mark huffed a laugh, dropping his voice to a whisper. “You sound like an indie movie.”

Alex laughed as well, letting his eyes fall shut as Mark started scratching lightly behind his ear. “Have you seen my music taste? My whole life is an indie coming of age movie.”

“That’s true.” Mark shifted closer to him, and Alex could feel the heat coming from him. “Sorry I missed your mouth earlier.”

Alex’s eyebrows twitched. “’S okay.” He hummed, adjusting himself in a way that made their noses bump together. “If I stop replying it’s because I fell asleep.”

“Oh.” Alex couldn’t read his tone through his exhaustion. “Okay, I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

“Mm, love you.”

One of Mark’s fingers twitched on the side of Alex’s face. “Love you too, Alex.”