Ned Gets Stood Up

Chapter One

SAM

In the same way people might bite their nails, fidget, and mumble, Sam Hayes had the tendency to lie.

By fourteen, Sam hated Ned Flowers with all his heart.

He hated the way Ned spiked his hair with too much gel, the way he used the length of his arm to itch his nose, and the way Ned's brain needlessly complicated everything. But most of all, Sam hated all Ned had to do was smile at Sam to get what he wanted.

Ned refused to go inside Sam's house as if a dragon dwelling there would swallow him whole given the chance. In reality, it was only Sam's mother with food poisoning. She took a fat enough sleeping pill to spend the rest of their summer vacation unconscious. Sam suggested Ned's house as an alternative, but he shuddered at that option, too.

For Ned alone, Sam suffered. Sweat trickled down his neck as his shirt damped and clung to his back. Sam watched a sun burn form in real-time across his arms.

"Sam," Ned spoke, taking a break from picking at the grass in Sam's yard.

The summer before their high school career carried the heat that caused long last skin damage. There was no shade in Sam's front yard. The boys had to fight for their lives with only SPF 30, half melted popsicles, and a dream of cooler weather on the horizon. Sam, at least. Ned enjoyed anytime out of the year where he was out of school.

"Why don't we get invited to parties?" Ned asked.

It wasn't just any parties. He referred to parties like the one currently happening across the street, where a horde of high schoolers gathered around to talk and joke and play games. An aggressive match of Cornhole had been booming for almost an hour now. In celebration of another record year for their high school, Cory Fletcher threw a party and passed around a little lawn gnome with sunglasses around so people could rub it for good luck.

Closing his eyes, Sam rolled his neck and savored every crack. "Know people who throw parties."

Sam peered back across the road as a chorus of shouting was building. They cheered one boy along. The same kid from Sam's temple that admitted Jar Jar Binks was his favorite Star Wars character. He was going purple in the face as he grunted and tried smashing a can of coke flat against his shaved head. He was going to do it or shit his pants trying.

With a crunch, the can flattened, and this kid roared like he just scored a world series touch down, slamming the can to the ground. Everyone went wild.

Ned's dark eyes sparkled, and Sam could've sworn he saw drool. As they both raced towards puberty, Ned had grown like a weed this summer, so now all his shorts were too short, and his sleeves were on the verge of being too tight.

"It looks cool," Ned said. "It's like they're in a music video. Do you think we'll ever be that cool?"

Sam grimaced. "I hope not."

"I don't know." Ned shrugged as he leaned back on his hands. "It seems fun, and it'd be nice to have a million friends like that."

"The quality of friends is more important, Ned."

He just shrugged again, and Sam rested his cheek on top of his warm knee. Ned had inky black hair like the text from Sam's favorite novels with eyes so dark Sam spent too much time staring at them. He was serving his last year of his sentence with braces and wore his dentist's favorite basketball team colors because Ned was too awkward to refuse. Sam could look at him and tell something was brewing inside his head.

He hated Ned.

Glancing back at Ned's hand, a bad idea sprang into Sam's head. Mirroring Ned's posture, Sam leaned back, settling his hand on the grass beside Ned's hand. His fingers were longer, but Sam's joints were bigger. Itching, his fingers crept towards Ned's hand. He wished he could say the sun made him flush, but that wasn't it. It had nothing to do with the partying going on just across the boiling pavement.