It's been a year since Clay, otherwise known as Porkchop, planned the graduation event in Newport Beach. The event where a handsome Tyler Hamilton caught Clay off guard by kissing him. Clay, up until that day, had never kissed a boy before.
At 24 ye...
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MY head was slightly pounding when I woke up the next day after 10 in the morning. That was a clear sign that I'd had too much to drink, and the saddest part was that I hadn't even been that drunk. I was morphing into a lightweight.
I mean, I hadn't exactly wanted to get drunk last night, anyway. Because I wanted to focus on having a good time and not being a drunk idiot around Clay. Drunk idiocy was my high school thing, and eh, it just didn't have as much appeal anymore. What had real appeal was sitting on the balcony eating with only Clay, talking to him and getting to know more about him, and Clay teaching me how to use chopsticks because I'd never been able to figure it out. And yeah, I still couldn't do it, but he really tried. Damn, was he nice about everything.
I was all-there last night. All-in. No doubts in my mind that I actually really liked this dude.
But things got a little foggy when my phone lit up with a certain someone's text message.
The thing about Alexander's text is that it sent me into a spiral. I had been focusing on Clay, who offered to plan mine and Alex's birthday party. And the thing about Clay is that ... I could tell just how good he was. Yet, I was suddenly thrown in the middle of an Alexander Taylor Just Responded To Me thought spiral consisting of way too much shit running around in my brain.
Ignoring the text was easier than I thought it would be last night. I was enjoying being around Clay and all of his friends, and it was simultaneously a great distraction. I was able to completely act like Alexander's text never popped up, and that was probably for the best. No one could know right now. Not Cayden, not Jesse or Alex, no one. I mean, it didn't matter anyway, right?
I was choosing to try this thing with Clay, and I was enjoying it. I could text Alexander because it was platonic and friendly, simple as that.
Rolling over on my side, folding myself further beneath the sheets of my bed, I looked at Alexander's text again:
ALEXANDER: thinking of you too, ty. been busy. how are you?
It was the question that got me: How are you? For one, it was a simple question which held much weight. And secondly, it was a question begging a response. He wanted to talk.
I didn't want to get ahead of myself. He might have just been asking how I was to be nice, and then once I asked the question right back to him, and he answered, our conversation would be over. It would end after the simplicity because it had been so long since we'd spoken, surely we were no longer anything more than acquaintances.
I could handle that.
TYLER: i'm doing pretty great rn, how are you?
See? Simplicity.
I threw my sheets off my body and stood up, stretching and letting out a massive groan as I did. Groaning while taking that first morning stretch was pure bliss.
