Dalton never understood why his dad was so angry about what was on tv when he came through the living room yelling.
"Jesus Christ, Kiva! I can't flip through any of the channels without seeing some damn gay pride parade on tv," Dalton's dad would yell, "all these men in skimpy clothing dancing with rainbows. It's wrong and annoying!"
At 9, the idea of dancing rainbows sounded ridiculous but awesome at the same time. Dalton always thought that the parades would be interestingly colourful. I mean rainbows and dancing sounded fun.
He didn't understand his dad's anger when ever his old sister would talk about the gay people in her High school or when his little sister would draw pictures of the parades for her teacher and bring them home.
Dalton wanted to ask his dad but he got scared when his dad was so enraged about the parades on tv. Instead he would got do the street and talk to his best friend, Cole about it.
Cole would say that his parents didn't really care about the parades that strongly, his mom would even enjoy the performers on some of the floats.
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When Dalton was 11 his parents would always ask him about school and his friends. They would always ask about if her liked any of the girls in his class.
He would constantly respond with Eww no. Girls are all pink and filled with girly things that can turn you into a pink fruity rutty thing. That's gross, cooties.
His mom would then ask if he was friends with any of the girls in his class.
"I'm only friends with the cool ones that don't bring girly weird feminine things to school and bring cool stuff like nerf toys or Nintendo (s) with Sonic or Mario games." He would say with his arms crossed and his eyebrows furrowed.
When he would go to Cole's house, he'd act like his parents and ask him if he liked any of the girls or anyone at all.
Cole would say yes but he could tell who because he wasn't sure about it yet.
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Two years later after all the health takes and puberty started setting in, Dalton like any other 13 year old started to look at people more.
Dalton would talk to his friends and hear them talk about how big of a crush they had on someone.
Lacy would constantly talk about Evan and his hair and his eyes and his blah blah blah.
Some of his friends never really spoke about relationships and crushes but did help people with their problems.
Dalton started looking at his friends specifically, how they acted around certain people. He often wondered if anyone had looked at him with the weird "I like you a lot" stare. He noticed that Cole got that stare from many girls in their class.
Sometimes he would get bored in class a just looked at people to see if they were doing anything interesting.
Dalton would see girls ogling some guys. When he would look over at Cole and see him already looking at him. Sometimes Cole would try to turn around and make it look like he wasn't staring and sometimes he would make silly faces to entertain Dalton.
Dalton thought nothing more of it than his best friend being as bored as he was.
Later on when he went to Cole's house, Cole's mom answered the door instead of Cole. Dalton sat in Cole's room waiting for him to come out of the bathroom.
Cole had sauntered in to his room his hair still damp and his upper body naked. Dalton had seen Cole shirtless before but not like this.
Dalton didn't know he was staring but he started talking as Cole dried his hair with the towel around his neck.
"I saw Lacy giving Evan love eyes in class today. I want to know, do you like any of the girls like that or am I the only one that doesn't like any of them?" Dalton asked looking at Cole's surprising defined back.
