Fraternizing with the Enemy

10 // Porn for the Visually Impaired

LIFE was all about treasuring the small things. Like the tanned, glistening skin of Tyler as he seemed to glide across the gravel track, lean muscles flexing from exertion, the glorious sunlight reflecting off his dark hair. The way his dark basketball shorts swished against his thighs.

"Are you drooling?"

I jumped with a not-so feminine howl at the sudden voice in my ear, a body materializing from thin air to go with it. My hands clutching tightly to my book, wide eyes absorbed the new figure next to me, belonging of course to the epitome of all bad energy in the world.

"Demon! Be gone!"

Reese shot me a blank look. "Is that the best you got? I don't really feel that compelled to leave."

I rolled my eyes, shifting back into the warm spot I'd created on the metal bleacher. "Sorry, forgot to bring my holy water to school, I'll definitely be more vigilant next time."

In response to my palpable sarcasm came the inevitable megawatt grin, infuriatingly pearly. 

"So is this how you spend your time now, not so inconspicuously stalking Tyler?"

It wasn't really stalking. When Savannah had meetings with her fashion committee after school sometimes it was just coincidentally scheduled the same time that the track team had practice. I was just generous enough to wait for her. It was all crazy coincidence, and I also really liked sitting on bleachers and catching up on my stories. There was nothing inherently wrong with that.

I pushed the book higher towards his face, emphasizing its presence with a frown. "Reading," I corrected. "Innocently getting some light reading while the weather's nice. Sue me."

His eyebrow cocked in question. "Reading upside down?" 

We both looked to see that he wasn't exactly wrong, as the book might have been what some may deem 'upside down', if you were really so pathetically bound to space and time. But yeah, it was upside down.

"I like to challenge myself, unlike some people I could mention. It's all about progress, man. Evolution. I am above you in the totem pole of life."

Reese snorted, shaking his head as a genuine grin stretched across his face, those proverbial dimples carving into his cheeks. Involuntarily I found my face mirroring his, but as  he turned to me and our eyes locked, I immediately wiped the grin off.

"Anyway," I cleared my throat, scrunching my nose. "What's your reason for this?"

The point appeared to be well received as he gave me a weird look. "You're pretty mean to someone who currently has your diary and your deepest, darkest secrets."

I challenged his stare, but felt my scalp prickle at the awful honesty in his words. "I thought you were all, I'm too good for blackmail," I reminded him, eyebrow quirked.

"I am, but that doesn't mean I don't know that you've had some sexy dreams about Ryan Gosling."

I gasped in absolute horror, mouth wide and gaping in disbelief that he actually allowed those words to touch the light of day. I thumped him on the shoulder with my book. "Asshole!"

"Are you saying it's not true?"

"I'm saying that if you mention anything else, I am going rip out your vocal chords and use them to tie your limbs to two separate cows and then throw a firecracker in between them."

He smirked at me. "Always keeping it cool, Sandavol."

I shot him a deadpan look. Silence flooded between us, only filled with the buzz of outside noise from the track team below.