Emery [bxb]

13

"Hey, isn't that Brandon's shirt?" Dylan asks Emery.

Yeah, Emery shops almost exclusively out of my closet.

"Yup," I affirm snuggly, shutting my locker. "Doesn't he look great in it?"

Emery looks super shy, which in turn makes him look cute. He never did lose the baby fat in his face. I hope he never does. I kiss his cheek so hard that the suction sound echoes throughout the entire hallway, and the skin turns red. It looks painful, like I bit him or punched him rather than kissed him. Soon, his whole face is flushed pink.

The other kids in the hall stare in awe.

"Um, yeah, totally," Dylan says.

We've got class but we missed breakfast today, so I break open a granola bar, pop it in my mouth and then turn to Emery. He bites the other end and it snaps in half. We eat our snack as we make our way down the hall.

I walk Emery to his music class and skip the first ten minutes of mine to hear him warm up. He sounds incredible. All the practice has been paying off. He's the best in the entire middle school and I'm super proud of him.