Everything about them was a secret. Hidden kisses behind stairwells, make-out sessions in the back of the school. Always looking over their shoulders. Always getting cricks and pains from constantly craning their necks to make sure that no one saw them. Always fevered whispers of 'is anyone coming?' and other variations on that theme. There was the secret sex in the bedroom, always short for convenience and never wild with passion for fear that somebody, anybody, could overhear them. It was enough to drive someone insane. A short drive for them both. It was strange that in a high school nicknamed Homo High, they would have to hide their relationship behind closed doors. But they did and it was slowly grinding down on Michael Newcomb's last nerve. He knew that once that nerve was hit, he would prove once again why his nickname was Skittery. Why he needed to go into rehab twice in freshmen year, almost back to back. And it was all Oscar's fault. That stupid, closet-case, parental-fearing, psychopathic asshole was the one keeping them from going public so he could keep his reputation as the Psycho from Sicily. Why he wanted to keep the moniker eluded Skittery. Of course, he didn't understand the way his mind worked. It wasn't like he could psychologically look into his mind like the string of therapists he had gone to had allowed him to look in his own. They weren't much alike outside the fact that they both had seen Heathers five times. Oscar was a ball of threats and violence, always hurting and harsh. Skittery was dry humor and compassion. They were the odd couple all around but if it worked for other people—read: the uncontested king of the school and his much more levelheaded boyfriend—it could work for them. But they had to hide it unlike all of the other boys in school.

That night…God, it was such a hot night. It had been an unusually warm March in Manhattan for which everyone blamed on global warming. That night, maybe it was the music, maybe it was the weather but it was different. Something was different. Oscar's crowded-with-shit apartment seemed different when they walked in well past midnight. Quieter. No one yelling in Italian, no one complaining about how everything they owned fell off of a truck. Nothing. It was almost perfect that no one was even home. They were alone. It was like they were the only ones in the world.

"You were good," Skittery commented, sitting on the couch and fanning himself with a copy of Good Housekeeping.

Oscar tossed his guitar case to the ground and sneered. "No I wasn't. I fucked up. I don't know why I ever bothered to learn this fucking cunt-ass, cock-sucking thing."

He was the foulest mouthed boy Skittery had ever met.

"Because you've integrated trying to show up your cousin Luca into your everyday life so much that it just comes naturally," he reminded him as though they hadn't had this conversation dozens of times before.

Oscar sat down next to him, smirking.

"I love it when you psychobabble," he muttered huskily, nuzzling his neck a little before, not unlike a meerkat, jerking his head up. "You hear that?"

Skittery groaned inwardly. "No, I didn't. It's nothing. We're alone."

He hoped that he'd get the message. That he'd understand that they were alone and when sexually active couples were alone they had, well, sex.

"For how long?" he snapped. "I don't want to risk—"

"I have this speech memorized by now," Skittery cut him off, throwing the magazine back on the table with more malice than he meant. "About how you can't risk coming out to your parents because they'll disown you and how no one will respect you. Newsflash, people fear you, they don't respect you. They run away when you come by because you are a horrible, hateful person who is such a fucking closet-case that he can't even make out with his own boyfriend without having fifty anxiety attacks."

The knot of his own anxiety began to unravel in his chest as he took several deep breaths to calm himself down.

"I didn't know you…" he smirked as if he didn't know what else to do.

Skittery shrugged. "Well now you do."

They didn't speak for a little while, the hot air heavy with heat and the words just spoken.

"So Oscar," he said, crossing his arms. "What are you going to do now?"

He expected him to hit him. He expected him to swear and throw five hundred fits. He didn't expect him to grab him by the front of his shirt and kiss him. It was hard and heavy and different from the other kisses. It was urgent and Skittery worked his arms around his shoulders and, with a groan, opened his mouth to gain entrance. Their tongues didn't act how they usually did, like some bizarre, floppy swordfight with both boys looking for domination. It was heated and soft, almost like a blanket as their tongues lightly touched and teased each other. Oscar disengaged their mouths.

"There," he said. "That's what I'm going to do now."

Skittery was at a loss for words. Even though Oscar fancied himself the more aggressive and dominate one in their relationship, Skittery always had to initiate all kisses.

"There," he repeated. "Now come on."

"What?"

"I said come on," he snapped. "To my room."

What happened in the next few moments before they got to the bedroom was so useless that it didn't matter. What mattered was that they were on Oscar's bed under the crudely carved O on the headboard, kissing and touching like a proper couple. There was no glancing, no anxiety, nothing. The only indication that they were hiding was the knot of tension at the small of Oscar's back. Still, he inched Skittery's sweaty and damp t-shirt over his head, kissing the skin that was exposed, sticking his tongue into his belly button in a way that made him squirm and convulse. He hooked his own fingers in the sweaty fabric at the hem of Oscar's uniform wife beater that he always wore, tugging and yanking at it. Oscar lifted his arms momentarily so the offending garment could be removed. He trailed his tongue down Skittery's skin until he got to the waistband of his pants. He tugged animalistically at the button until it unhooked. With practiced ease, he rolled the jeans down without Skittery having to arch his back. He felt himself straining and almost could've sworn that he heard a BOING when he slid them over his penis. He began to pull of his own pants, yanking the boxers down with them. There was now nothing, no offending fabrics, between their two bodies. They seemed to light up the whole bed with heat and Skittery found his hair being matted down to his forehead. Their lips touched again in fiery passion. Passion. For once, there was passion and no worrying between them. They rolled like sun-kissed children in a field, not caring where they landed so long as they were together. Oscar's skin was damp in his hands…or maybe it was his palms that were all hot and sticky but it didn't matter and he had no time to be squicked out because they were finally, finally doing it. The wild love thing. No quick, in-and-out-wham-bam sex they usually had out of anxiety. It was actual, long and languid, lovemaking.

"We aren't going to do any weird, kinky shit right?" Oscar asked.

It took Skittery a minute to answer him. He had been so enthralled that he had let his mind just be without worrying.

"What?" he shook his head. "No. Not if you don't want to."

He wanted to get back how they had just been, where no words were needed. Oscar kissed him again and he let out a sigh of relief inwardly. When there was finally contact, Skittery moaned and groaned and whimpered and let out sounds that he never thought he could make. For once, he wasn't shushed. It felt amazing. Afterwards, they lay together, on top of one another, on the bed. Even though he was taller, Skittery rested his head on his shoulder.

"Secret, secret, I've gotta secret," Oscar sang softly. "So that's what that's like."

"Yeah," Skittery breathed.

He was about to say more when the door to the apartment opened.

"She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes!" Morris's drunken voice slurred jovially.

Skittery was suddenly on the floor.

"You know the drill," Oscar hissed. "Under the bed."

He grabbed his clothes and rolled under the mattress as he was told. Had he imagined it? Was everything still the same? The secrets were driving them insane.

"Short drive," Skittery muttered.