The Lost Boys (57 page)

I laughed at how excited Harry still was. The adrenaline rush was lasting longer for him.  “Harry, if you don’t chill out now, I’ll have to
‘make you stop’
, you hear me! Remember, epic martial arts skills going on here!” I said in a warning tone, pinching his the cheeks.  

He raised both arms in a gesture of submission, lying on the bed hyperventilating. The rest of the boys all laughed even harder at Harry’s fast surrender.  

“Dude, she just managed to quiet Harry down! I don’t think anyone has ever done that!” Sam exclaimed between heavy chuckles.  

“Okay. I’m going to take a shower now,” I said, still laughing at Harry. “One more minute of this egg smell and I’m gonna barf all over the place!”  

“You’re telling me?” Sam moaned with a sick expression. “I think I threw up a little in my mouth five minutes ago . . .”  

“Those weren’t fresh eggs, dude,” Harry concluded, raising his head a little and resting his elbows on the bed. “Hey, I bet you five bucks that if you taste some of this stuff in your hair . . .”  

I shook my head in disgust. Boys and their awful bets!  

I left them discussing the freshness of the eggs and went to have a quick shower. I turned the shower on and picked up my tangerine shampoo that I only used when I was feeling really happy. This moment surely deserved a hell lot of tangerine shampoo! It deserved the freaking whole bottle!  

I scrubbed fiercely, shampooed, rinsed, washed it all out and I was done. I could hear loud laughter coming from the bedroom, which meant the guys still hadn’t left. I grabbed a towel and dried myself quickly, dressing even faster. It was a good job I was fast because just as I put my last piece of clothing on, Harry barged in without knocking. He was still shirtless, his red and green tattoo curling up over his arm to his smooth chest. It gave him quite the sexy rocker look.  

“Harry!!” I yelled at him. All the excitement of the day had made me forgot to lock the door!  

His face was a picture of surprise and he gave an innocent smile.  “What?! You’re dressed, and all! And I kinda forgot you were still in here. I can’t take it any more, this smell is sick!” he said, unzipping his jeans.  

“Harry!!” I yelled again, slapping a hand over my eyes fast, because he was already taking his boxers off.  

I heard him pushing the shower curtain away and turning the shower on.  

“You know, at first impression you seemed like a really,
really
shy guy,” I mumbled, peeking through my fingers. I thought it was safe to look again.  

Josh appeared at the bathroom door, curious about all the squealing.  

“Haaarry. Whatcha been doing?” he asked in a teasing voice. “Why is Joey all red in the face like that?”  

There was a lot of splashing going on inside the shower as Harry answered.  ”I dunno. Something to do with me taking a shower. Joey, you’re like one of the guys now. It’s best that you start getting used to us.”  

“You know, he’s kinda right. That’s Harry just being Harry. You’ll get used to it . . . eventually,” Josh said, smirking.  

“Hey, sweet! What’s this orange stuff here?” Harry asked between splashes. “Hum, smells nice!”  

I rolled my eyes. There goes my very expensive, hard to get, special occasions only, tangerine shampoo.  

A wave of egg smell passed by me and I wrinkled my nose in disgust. It came from Josh.  “Come on, Josh, let’s get your head inside that sink right now!” I said, pulling him to the bathroom sink.  

Then I helped Josh to wash up, rubbing soap all over his head.  

“That is reeeally good, Joey. You have magic fingers! Oh, yeah, that’s it!” Josh moaned loudly while I massaged his scalp.  

He kept gasping and moaning and doing all sorts of sexy
noises, trying to make me blush, and I kept slapping his bare back, trying to make him stop. Sam, Seth and Tristan walked into the bathroom with a startled look on their faces mixed with curiosity in their eyes. I caught a bit of a scowl in Tristan’s eyes. He wasn’t very pleased with Josh’s playful noises.  

“We heard some weird sounds coming from here, and decided it was time to investigate. We thought it was time to put a stop to this, or join in the party,” Sam said, sniggering suggestively while Tristan and Seth ranked by his side.

“Oh, will you just shut up!” I scowled at Sam, and tossed water over them.  

Josh was done with his cleaning, so I grabbed my towel and handed it to him. Harry had just finished his shower too and was stepping out now.   “Hey, where’s the towel?” he asked, looking around the bathroom.  

“Oh, good God!” I said, slapping my hands over my eyes again.  

They all laughed really hard at my gigantic blush, but Tristan seemed pretty peeved and wasn’t finding Harry’s boldness as entertaining as the rest of the boys.

“There she goes, all red in the face again!” Josh said between chuckles.

“Harry, man, there’s a lady present! Try to act decent for a second!” Tristan admonished him.

“Lady? Where? Tell her to leave before Joey kicks her butt outta here!” Sam joked, making everybody laugh hard again.

“Someone give the man a towel!” Seth interjected on Tristan’s behalf.

“Yes, please, give the man a towel!” I squeaked, all flustered. “There’s Tristan’s towel over there,” I said, pointing vaguely in the direction of the towel rack with one hand, the other still firmly covering my face.  

“You can look now, Joe,” Seth authorized after a few minutes of rustling sounds and the boys silently sniggering.  

I peeked slowly through my fingers and saw that Harry had a towel wrapped on his waist now and was already heading out of the bathroom. Seth was leaning against the sink, studying the damage to his blond mess of hair, and Josh was already outside, looking for his shirt. Tristan was leaning on the wall and Sam was slumped over the dirty clothes’ rack.  

“Okay, I’ll get some more towels. Apparently you’re not going to your own rooms to shower anytime soon,” I mumbled, leaving the bathroom quickly while still fighting my monstrous blush.  

When I got back with a couple more towels, Sam was already in the shower. I looked at Tristan.  

“Come on, Tristan. I’ll help you wash the egg out like I did with Josh. You two got almost nothing at all on your heads, the sink will do just fine,” I said, pulling Tristan by the hand towards the sink.  

He sunk his head under the tap, while I turned the water on. I started to rub his hair, and the tingling sensation I got every time I touched Tristan came back, shooting pinpricks through my fingertips. I wondered if he was feeling it too. He shivered slightly and there were goosebumps all over his skin. I guess he was feeling it, all right. He let out a small moan of pleasure and I glanced sideways at the other side of the sink. Seth was leaning against it, observing us closely with an intrigued expression.  Oh my God. Was Seth thinking I was touching Tristan in an unbrotherly way!? Because I sure was. He must have thought we were freaks!  

“So, I was meaning to ask you two about this,” Seth started to say, watching over us “Are you two twins? Or did one of you flunk a year of school?”  

Tristan’s head snapped up, bumping hard on the sink tap. He looked surprised at Seth’s question because we were obviously in the same academic year and appeared to be the same age.

“He’s my half-brother,” I answered slowly. “Same father, different mothers. Tristan’s mom passed away (I wasn’t exactly lying about that) and he came to live with us.” That wasn’t exactly a lie, either. I was really proud at my fast thinking, though I realized my story meant that “our” father must have got Tristan’s mother pregnant while he was married to mine, or vice-versa. “Oh. Sorry about asking,” Seth mumbled awkwardly. “And sorry about your mom, man,” he said, very uncomfortable to have brought up the subject now.  

“That’s okay,” Tristan said with a weak smile.

Sam peeked around the curtain and shouted, “Seth, you’re up! Can I get a towel over here?”  

I was relieved that Seth dropped the subject after that. I handed a towel to Sam and another to Tristan and left the bathroom to the boys. After a few minutes, everybody was properly showered and decently dressed again. Harry was still a little too excited, so we had to make a body pile-up over him, to calm him down. After everybody had climbed on top of Harry and he was properly immobilized, Tiffany arrived.  

Harry grunted a muffled
“Help!”
from under the pile, and Tiffany had to intervene, scolding us to stop piling up on Harry because he was thin and frail and we were going to break him. She was really bossy and had quite an imperious tone of voice, so everybody obeyed her promptly. After the pile-up, Harry chilled out and was a lot more calm.  

We retold the strip and eggs prank to Tiffany, then, each of us giving different points of views on the same story. It was a really fun day. I think the strip and egg prank would never be the same after The Lost Boys, that was for sure!  

Harry’s Prize

We were hanging around in my room at the end of the week, trying to relax after a heavy week of exams. Seth was strumming on his guitar, Sam was searching for occult websites on his laptop, sitting at the foot of my bed while I looked over his shoulder. Josh was lying on Tristan’s bed, tossing a rubber ball up in the air, while Tristan nudged him with his foot, trying to make him lose his balance and drop the ball.

It was a peaceful, warm afternoon. Right up until the moment Harry busted in, all excited, with a piece of paper clutched tight in his hand. We all turned our heads to see him walking fast to the side of my bed. He held up the paper for everybody in the room to see, like presenting a crime piece of evidence to a jury.  

“Okay, everybody!” he shouted, bustling with cheer. “It’s time for me to collect my kiss!”  We all stared at him, dumbfounded.

Josh tossed the rubber ball to Tristan and extended his arms to Harry.  ”I don’t know what you’re talking about, but come here, you!” he said, making kissing sounds, smacking his lips at Harry.  

Harry pretended he wasn’t seeing Josh and turned to me, waving his paper up to my face.  “Come on, Joey. Promise is a promise!” he said, beaming widely.  

“What?” I asked, confused, staring at the paper being waved in front on my face.  

It was a Math test. A bright red “A+” was written at the top. Harry had aced the test!

“Oh, my God, Harry! Congratulations! You’ve got an A plus, that’s amazing!” I cheered proudly.  

“No, no. No
‘Congratulations, Harry’
! I want my kiss!” he deadpanned.  

“Oh, yeah, that’s right!” Sam exclaimed. “You promised that, if anyone aces a test, you’d give them a kiss, Joey. Like you did Tristan that time he aced his History test.”

A recollection started to drift in. Oh, yeah. Tristan had cheekily scored an A plus on his History test because, miraculously, the majority of questions had been focused on the 1940s and early 1950s. At the time, I had said that I’d give a kiss to any Lost Boy holding a test paper with “A+” on it.  I rolled my eyes at Harry when I realized he was taking this seriously.

“Harry, you know I was just joking around,” I said, pushing the paper away from my face.  

“You’re breaking your promise, then?” Harry said, faking hurt and betrayal.

Soon the boys all joined in Harry’s defense. “Yeah, Joey! You did promise! You can’t do this to him! He never aced a test before!” they teased me.  

Tristan was surveying the scene with an amused expression, and then he looked at me. He shrugged and smiled, telling me silently he was okay with it. Everybody was still protesting at me when I stood up gracefully from my bed, and walked right up to Harry, putting both of my hands around his cheeks. The commotion stopped abruptly, like someone had just pressed the pause button.  

I looked up at Harry. Small laughter lines marked the corners of his vivid green eyes, registering his smile. I could also spot a hint of smug attitude in his gaze, like he was daring me to chicken out on my promise. So I leaned up and kissed him softly on the lips.  

It was a nice kiss, not hot and heavy, but deep enough to count as a real kiss. His lips were sweet and his scent hazelnutty. His lip ring felt cold and hard against the warm softness of his thin lips, giving a vibrant contrasting sensation. It felt . . . different to kissing Tristan.  For a brief moment, I forgot I had an audience, but soon enough I remembered they were all watching intently and I quickly ended the kiss.

“There you go, Harry,” I said, looking up at him. “I never break a promise.”

I walked back to my bed, resuming the same position I’d been in before.  I glanced quickly around the room. The Lost Boys all stared at me in shock.  Harry was standing stock still in the middle of the room, and looked like he’d been struck by lightning. He had thought I would never dare to kiss him. It took a few seconds for everybody to realize what had just happened.  

“Hey! If I’d known that promise was for real, I would have studied my ass off!” Josh complained.  

“Harry, you’re so dead, dude!” Seth laughed, looking at Tristan, who was standing up from his bed now.  

Harry blinked, snapping out of his shock, and watched Tristan’s slow approach. A panicky expression crossed his face. He was a lot smaller and thinner than Tristan. He glanced sideways for help, or maybe trying to find an escape route.  “H-hey, man. I-I was just kidding around! I thought she was gonna cave, or something, not . . . um, you know . . .th-this,” he mumbled apologetically, taking a step backwards.

Tristan stopped a few inches from Harry and stared seriously at him. The room was silent, waiting for his reaction. I saw Sam’s body tense, ready to jump up and stop any fight that might break loose. I rose from my bed, ready to stop this nonsense too. I hadn’t meant to start any fights!  

Yeah, you didn’t, right? Kissing Harry like that?
What were you thinking?
 A little voice whispered inside my head.

Tristan moved his hand, and Harry flinched, preparing for the blow, but Tristan only slapped him lightly on the back instead.  “Congratulations, man! Your first A plus! How do you feel?” Tristan congratulated him with a broad smile.  We all watched the scene, astonished.