Something Like Summer Read Online Free Page A

food was soggy
and flavorless. Even the soft drink machines were filled only with
sugar-free lemonade and some sort of chocolate drinks that didn’t
contain one grain of cocoa powder.
    “ Ronnie Adams!” Allison
sang out as they sat down at their table.
    “ Who?” Ben started
unpacking his lunch from the brown paper bag, wondering why the
name sounded familiar.
    “ The fine black brother
from driver’s ed?” Allison prompted. “He’s in my home ec
class.”
    Ben snorted and spit the
juice box straw from his mouth. “Are you telling me because you
think he might be gay?”
    “ No!” Allison protested.
“There’s always straight guys on the prowl in home ec. Lord knows
that’s the only reason I’m taking it. Anyway , the nutty old teacher has us
sitting alphabetically, and by some miracle he’s the only ‘A’ and
I’m the only ‘C’ with no ‘B’s’ in the middle.”
    “ See? It’s good that I
refused to take that class.”
    “ You are forgiven,”
Allison said gracefully. “So how goes it with your ‘T?’”
    “ Technically, it would be
‘W’ if we are going by last names,” Ben corrected. He had long ago
scoped out Tim’s mailbox and discovered that his family name was
Wyman, although thus far he had resisted scrawling Ben Wyman on any of his
notebooks. “Unfortunately it isn’t going anywhere. I was hoping you
had seen him.”
    “ Nope,” Allison said,
swapping her Cheetos for Ben’s sour cream Pringles without having
to ask. “Maybe he goes to a private school or
something.”
    “ Maybe,” Ben said,
glancing around the cafeteria. There were three different lunch
breaks, so there was a fair chance Tim wouldn’t share one with them
anyway. Ben was glad that he and Allison still shared a lunch
period for the third year in a row. He decided to turn his full
attention to her and put the whole matter out of his mind as much
as he could. Like so many other things in life, maybe what he
wanted wouldn’t come to pass if he thought too much about
it.
    * * * * *
    Fourth-period was math and
started out promising. There was an attractive guy in class named
Craig, who looked vaguely like Zack Morris if Ben squinched his
eyes up just right. Ben hadn’t talked to Craig since junior high,
after spending the night at his house.
    What had come between them
was a fairly common story in Ben’s sordid history. It all began in
the seventh grade, when a routine sleepover at a friend’s house was
transformed by a pilfered porno. Watching the video together led to
trading hand jobs. This act was repeated during more sleepovers
until the time his friend claimed to be too tired to mess around
and insisted that they go to sleep instead. This confused Ben
until, after some less-than-casual tossing and turning, it became
obvious that something was expected from him. Ben happily went down
on his friend that night, for the first of many times, although the
favor was never returned.
    Eventually, word of Ben’s
noble deed began to spread around the school, and guys he barely
knew were inviting him to stay over. The same routine was played
out over and over again, with his hosts usually pretending to be
asleep. On their backs. With their pants down. It was, needless to
say, a very exciting time in his life. The demand for his services
came to a screeching halt when he decided to come out of the closet
halfway through the school year. Suddenly none of the boys,
including the friend he first started experimenting with, wanted
anything to do with him. Craig was one of the last guys he had
messed around with before going public, and they hadn’t spoken
since.
    Until today that is.
Instead of refusing to make contact, Craig greeted him warmly and
even chose a seat next to his. Hope began to burn in Ben’s chest
that Craig had come to terms with his own sexuality, which turned
out to be true but not in the way he expected. Craig soon began
ranting about the girlfriend he found over the summer. Obviously
their