"Stevie! Stacey! The next person who tears through this house hollering at the top of their lungs is going to be in big trouble. Do you hear me?"
It's been raining all day, and the kids can't stand to be cooped up in the house, so they have been getting a bit loud and rambunctious. But they recognize that tone that signals their mother reaching the end of her patience, and they halt in their tracks. "Sorry, Momma," Stacey mutters.
"Thank you. Now. You may remember me telling you at breakfast that we're having visitors. Pastor Ray and Miss Lila will be here in one hour. In fifteen minutes I am gathering any toys laying around the parlor and they will be put away for a week." She doesn't mean away as in where they belong in the children's rooms, she means away as in the trunk of her car, where the children can't access them. They scramble to gather their things.
When the toys are cleared, she sets Stacey to scrubbing the sink and counters and Stevie to dusting before turning to her eldest son. "Sammy, honey, I need to sweep the floor..." This means she wants him to move the furniture for her—she can't do it herself too easily anymore after her accident at work a couple years ago.
"I really don't mind sweeping, Momma," Sam tries, as he does every time. But she won't hear of it, as usual. Ever since his voice got deeper and he started having to shave, she won't have him doing any housework that could remotely be considered feminine.
The four of them finish cleaning the house with just enough time for Mary Evans to shoo the younger children off to get themselves cleaned up before the pastor and his wife arrive. She's in the kitchen getting the refreshments ready when the doorbell rings, so Sam answers it.
He's stunned by who's there. Not by Pastor Ray and Miss Lila—they've visited a bunch of times since Pastor Ray got transferred to the church here in Dutchman's Breeches a few years ago. He visits all his parishioners frequently, and when the parishioners are unmarried ladies he always visits accompanied by his wife. But there's a third person today, a boy around Sam's age, or maybe a little older, who is...well, stunning. He's got curly dark locks, and beautiful amber eyes, and...and Sam realizes he's staring and he looks away quickly. He stands aside and ushers the group inside.
After some interminable small talk—how nice it is to see Sam outside of church, though of course they always appreciate seeing him in church too; how quickly he seems to be growing; how the football team's loss yesterday was too bad, but the team played a good, solid game, and that was a brilliant pass by Sam in the second quarter—Pastor Ray finally introduces the boy. "Sam, I'd like you to meet my son, Blaine. He's going to be starting at the high school on Monday. He was going to school in Brentwood, but..."
"But I've missed him too much," Miss Lila says. "I know it's silly, but next year he'll be going away to college, maybe out of state, so..."
"It's nice to meet you, Blaine." Sam holds out his hand, hoping it's not too sweaty. It is—it's a little sweaty and a little clammy, and Blaine's feels so warm and smooth in comparison. He has so many questions he doesn't even know where to start, and anyway he doesn't get a chance because his mother has come out of the kitchen and now all the adults are chattering, and the kids are there too now, asking who this new person is and when they can have a cookie, and it's all kind of chaos.
Miss Lila helps Sam's mother bring the tea and cookies out from the kitchen, and everyone gathers in the parlor. It's a small room for so many people, and the children have nowhere to sit but the arms of the sofa (strictly forbidden) or the floor (definitely frowned upon when company is present) so they stand. And fidget. And—when they're not asking tactless questions about Blaine that everyone ignores—tussle with each other. Sam sees that his mother is very close to exasperation, and he also sees that it has finally stopped raining. "Why don't I take them outside?" he suggests quietly.
"Yes, thank you," his mother says, squeezing his arm.
Sam stands, and Blaine rises too. "Mind if I join you?"
Sam just smiles at him in response.
The younger generation exits through the back door, and Stevie and Stacey immediately make a break for it, running off toward the town park. "Don't go too close to the river!" Sam yells after them, because it's probably swollen after all the rain they've had.
Sam and Blaine walk slowly through the back yard, ignoring the mud collecting on their shoes. "So..." Now that he finally has a chance to ask all the questions in his head, Sam still doesn't know where to start. Like...he knew the pastor and his wife had a son, but he thought he was already in college. That is, he thought he'd been in college a few years ago, so if he'd stopped to wonder about him since then (which he hadn't), he probably would have assumed he'd already graduated.
"You didn't know I existed, did you?" Blaine asks.
"Well, I sort of did. I just..."
"I'm surprised they mentioned me at all. They're ashamed of me."
"What!?" That is something Sam can't believe at all, not for a second. "No, they're not! I mean, why would they..."
"Because they think I'm gay."
"Oh," Sam says softly. Because that...yeah. The people in Sam's church don't find that particularly acceptable. To put it mildly. Which is why—well, one of the reasons why—Sam hasn't told anyone that he thinks he might possibly be.
It's not like he's ever done anything with a boy! Not that no boy has ever tried. There was that boy from the Englewood football team just a couple weeks ago, for example, who came up to him in the parking lot after the game. And he was cute, but Sam told him he wasn't interested. And anyway he had a date with Lucy Quinn that night so...
"Aren't you going to ask if I am?" Blaine prods him.
"No, of course not," Sam says. It seems way too personal. But of course if Blaine wanted to share... "I mean, unless you feel like telling me if you are or not. I mean, I don't care...Well, I mean, I don't think it's a big deal if someone is. I don't think...and I mean, no offense to your father, or anything, but I don't think it's something someone can really help, anyway."
"Well, he doesn't agree with you there. But don't worry, I'm not offended that you can think for yourself. And the answer is: Yes, I am."
And Sam can only smile at the Yes, I am.
The pastor starts to visit a lot more frequently, always with his wife still, and now always with his son as well. Blaine always manages to get Sam out of the house, which his father doesn't try to discourage. If anything he seems to encourage the two spending time alone together. Sam remarks on this once when they're out walking, and Blaine says, "Of course. He wants you to take me under your wing."
"But you're a year older than me!" Sam objects.
"Maybe, but you're the star quarterback. You're butch. No one thinks you're a pansy."
"No one thinks you're a pansy," Sam says. He hasn't told anyone Blaine's secret, and he hasn't heard anyone at school suggest it. Everyone seems to accept the story that Miss Lila missed him and pulled him out of that private Christian academy so he could live at home. Blaine told Sam the truth—that he got caught making out with another boy and they were both expelled—but of course Sam wouldn't breathe a word of that to anyone.
Sam thinks of that story often, the story he thinks of as Blaine and the Other Boy. He doesn't even know the other boy's name or anything about him—what he looks like or anything—and he doesn't ever ask because he doesn't want to know. When he thinks of Blaine and the Other Boy at night, in his bed, he pictures Blaine, shirtless, hovering over the other boy, breathing on his neck, slowly lowering himself until their bodies press against each other. And that's usually as far as his imagining gets before he's touching himself, pretending that the hand under his boxers is Blaine's.
When he thinks of Blaine and the Other Boy in the daytime, though...he's glad the other boy is faceless in his mind, because he just wants to punch him. How dare he? he can't help but think. He's not sure what the other boy dared to do that he finds so outrageous. Except, obviously, for knowing Blaine first. For being the first one...Did Blaine look in the other boy's eyes the way he looks in Sam's? Did he smile at him the same way? Did he...when they were in church and there weren't enough hymnals and they had to share, did Blaine let his hand graze the other boy's the way he lets his hand graze Sam's? Sam can't bear to think about these questions, and he tries not to.
It's the week before Thanksgiving the first time it happens.
They're out walking while their parents talk in the parlor, and all of a sudden they realize it's getting dark and they'd better go find Stevie and Stacey. They're walking toward the park, and with the sun gone now it's chilly. And Blaine just...he just takes Sam's hand. And Sam is stunned. So stunned that he stops walking and just looks at their hands together. And Blaine says, "I just thought maybe it was cold," and he sounds apologetic, and he tries to pull his hand away.
But Sam won't let him pull it away. He does look around, but there's no one else out, and anyway it's dark. He holds Blaine's hand back, tight, and says, "Thanks. It was cold."
It was, but it's certainly not now. Now it feels like it's on fire. Sam's whole body feels that way...now.
Blaine squeezes his hand and starts walking faster. Not toward the park—Sam doesn't know where he's going, but he follows unquestioningly. Blaine leads him to the abandoned gas station—specifically, to the lot behind the abandoned gas station. And that's where Sam gets his first kiss. (His first real kiss, anyway, because Lucy's nice and everything, but...) Like countless Dutchman's Breeches teenagers before him, he gets his first kiss pressed up against the crumbling brick wall of Will's Discount Gas, but unlike any of them he gets his first kiss from Blaine, who cups his face so tenderly and looks in his eyes so sweetly...Blaine, whose lips are so soft despite being chapped, and trembling, as if from nerves, even though he doesn't act tentative or unsure in the least...Blaine, who doesn't even open his eyes again right away afterward, as they're both gasping for air.
And then Blaine takes half a step backwards and says, "Sam. I'm sorry."
"You're sorry?" Sam asks, confused.
"I didn't mean to presume anything, and you've been so...so decent, being a friend to me, even though you know I'm gay, and...and I love hanging out with you, don't get me wrong, it's just so hard to hang out with you and not touch you when you're so...so gorgeous, and sexy and..."
Sam blushes, and he's glad it's dark so that maybe Blaine won't notice. He's not sure how to say what he needs to, and it comes out garbled, something like: "So don't..not touch."
"So...?"
"So...I'm gay too." The last few weeks of hanging out with Blaine have made that much perfectly clear to him. He's actually surprised it wasn't equally clear to Blaine. "I'm gay too, and I liked that, so...you don't have to keep not doing it."
"Oh, thank God," Blaine says, right before Sam gets his second real kiss pressed up against the crumbling brick wall of Will's Discount Gas.