he makes love. What it would look like making love to me.
“And ten!” The clang of the barbells as Tyler sets them down on the holder above his head jolts me out of my ridiculous daydream. I refuse to be that girl with an impossible crush on a gay guy.
Tyler is wearing a gray sweatshirt with the arms cut out. He sits up. Sweat streams down his face. He sticks his hands under the sweatshirt and lifts it to wipe off his face. His abs belong on a movie screen. Maybe I would be that girl.
“OK, most important character in Animal Farm? I’d have to say the horse.”
“Boxer? Yeah, I can see that. He is certainly the one willing to sacrifice the most for the good of the group.”
“There’s no i in teamwork.” He grins, picks up a dumbbell, and starts doing curls. His biceps swell up, then flatten like a speeded-up film of a python swallowing a pig.
As he works out, I read him the next question: “ ‘Is Animal Farm set in (a) wartime Germany, (b) a desert island, (c) a farm?’ ”
“Is that a trick question?”
“No, just incredibly stupid.”
“Uh, I’m going to solve the puzzle, Pat: (c) farm.”
“Farm it is! Bringing your total today to seventeen dollars! Next question: ‘In the end, the pigs become like (a) robots, (b) humans, (c) dogs.’ Is this a joke?”
“No, it’s just ‘keep the jocks in school as long as they’re winning games and keep collecting the money from the state for every day all the morons show up.’ You know how it works.”
I do. In spite of Miss Olivia’s personal obsession with tracking down a few kids here and there who ditch, the whole attendance office is mostly about proving how many kids are in school so that Parkhaven High can get paid by the state. Or else that the kids who are absent are at doctors’ offices or something else that is excused and the state will pay for. That and crowd control. Attendance is also mostly about crowd control.
Tyler finishes ten reps, then pauses, waiting for the next question. Without thinking, I ask, “Here’s a question with no wrong answer. Seriously, you’ll get an A for whatever you say.”
He starts in on the next set. Watching his muscles bulge up and down, he nods my way. “Shoot.”
“Are you attracted to me? In any way? I mean, is there any bi possibility? And, seriously, it really is not an issue if you’re not.”
Tyler stops and holds the weight half up for so long that his arm starts quivering and I deeply regret my question.
“Forget that I asked that. I love hanging out with you. And it’s way less complicated that you’re not. You know. Interested. In me. That way.” I have to physically press my finger against my lips to make myself stop babbling.
Tyler puts the weight down, pulls up his sweatshirt to wipe his face, and flashes his perfect abs again. This time, though, he keeps his head lowered, buried in the sweatshirt. His back and shoulders quiver, trembling a little bit. Alarm shoots through me, and I don’t know what to do. I would give anything not to have opened my big, fat mouth. Not to have made his being gay such a gigantic issue.
“God, Ty,” I say, my voice squealy from embarrassment. “I was only kidding.” I play-slap at him. “Come on, girlfriend.”
He still doesn’t answer.
“Tyler, it’s fine. I am cool with all forms of alternative sexuality.”
He lifts his head then, and I see that the trembling is from laughing. “All forms, huh?” He looks at me like a dad whose little kid has just said something cute.
“Well, you know. Not bestiality.”
“Damn! And I was just about to introduce you to my girlfriend, Bossie.”
He sees that I am embarrassed.
“Hey, Aubrey Julie, come on. I was just kidding. I like that you’re the way you are. That’s why I want it to be different with us.”
“ ‘Different’? Different how?”
He reaches out, almost touches me, stops himself, and picks up a weight instead.
“Just different, OK? Forget it. More workout. Less talk.”
The weight in his hand is heavier than any I’ve ever seen him use before. He props his forearm on his knee and lifts. As his chest beneath the gray fleece rises to meet his fist, his whole body trembles from the effort. I don’t know if it is from the effort of lifting the heavy weight or the effort of keeping something out of his mind that