"So I don't know what's worse," Jake complained. "My grandmother screaming that I'll go to hell for my promiscuous ways or my mother sobbing over stuffing."

Snoddy listened, enraptured. Well, he was watching Jake's adorable, sensuous lips as he talked but he was listening too. Apparently, Jake's family had just found out about all of the sex he had with all of the different girls. Needless to say, they were none too pleased.

"So how was your Thanksgiving?" he asked, leaning forward and toying with a loose string on that ski cap Snoddy hated.

He shrugged. "Same 'ol, same 'ol. Mom saying I'm never going to get anyone because I'm not attractive enough, dad ignoring me and Chase throwing mashed potatoes at my face. A regular Thanksgiving at the Flannery house. My grandparents didn't even show up. They're all ashamed of me."

Jake put an arm around him.

"They'll come around," he promised.

He nearly melted.

If only you would…

"Okay," Jake smiled suddenly. "Here's what we're going to do. We are going to go out, get wasted and then I'm going to crash at your place."

"It's a school night."

"So?"

This was why he loved Jake.

--

"My Thanksgiving sucked," Blink lamented. "My mother invited one of her barely legal 'friends' over. I swear that he graduated when we were freshmen."

"Total Preston?"

"Total. Anyway, they all but fuck on our table after the cranberry and then I just excuse myself and sit in my room listening to Third-Eye Blind."

Snitch aired himself with his Friday the 13th t-shirt.

"That's nothing. We don't even celebrate Thanksgiving," he stated. "My dad left my mom that day and we've never celebrated it. Of course, I think he left her because she named me Nero."

David noted a hint of sadness in his voice under the joke. Obviously, this particular holiday made him depressed.

"My dad and his newest boyfriend were over," Skittery said with a shrug.

"Family," David shrugged himself. "Nothing major. I mostly hung out with Jack."

Snitch elbowed him, any sadness gone. "I bet you did."

"Jealous!" Blink shouted.

"Damn right I am," he stated. "Everyone has a boyfriend but me. Itey is totally not in any of my classes."

Blink pouted exaggeratedly. "Awwww. Poor Snitchy-poo."

David laughed as Snitch tackled Blink to the ground. He felt warm and giggly. He'd say something to them about it but he didn't want to have to exchange his penis for a set of ovaries.

--

"Did you hear?" a boy kneeled down by his friend. "Jack Kelly is totally going to break it off with that new boy."

"Saw it coming," the friend, a girl named Tina Hooper, hooked a piece of brown hair behind her ear. "Never understood why they were together in the first place. I'd want Jack if he weren't gay."

"I'm gay," the first boy, Harvey Dawson, said. "But yeah, I know. But his second-in-commands are fucking each other."

"Saw it coming," Tina Hooper repeated. "But speaking of sexual orientation, who else thinks Jake Mathers is in the closet?"

"Word," Harvey said. "I mean, he hangs around with Sean Flannery, the biggest gay in school."

She nodded. "Yeah. But, ohmigod! Perry Palanski. Did you see him?"

Harvey nodded. "Yeah, total doper! What happened?"

"He's such a freak now!" she hooted. "Right up there with Juan Perez. I feel bad for Noah. Although they put up with his food habits all the time."

Harvey nodded.

"Shit!" he squeaked. "Here comes Jack!"

They scattered as he and his little Jew boyfriend came by, holding hands.

"Hi Jack!" they chorused.

He ignored them. David waved.

--

The ambient temperature of the hallway went up at least ten degrees as Sarah felt the dial of a locker hit her square in the back. She worked her arms around Morris's neck and felt his hands settle themselves on her ass. This had to be the closest thing on earth to sex without actually having sex. It was positively heavenly. The way his hands seems to form perfectly over her body, the way his tongue explored her mouth and how good it felt to be kissed in front of pretty much every girl he's slept with in the school was almost orgasmic. Then someone cleared their throat. What the hell? Did her mother follow her to school? Sarah's heart sped up. Then she realized it was only vice principal Snyder. Which, in some ways, wasn't as bad but in other ways, was worse. He was tapping one wing tip on the ground and clicking his tongue.

"How's it goin', Snyder?" Morris asked, an easy grin on his face.

"My office," he commanded. "Now."

Sarah did her best to keep from hyperventilating.

--

David couldn't believe how uncomfortable he felt with Jack. Just before break, their bodies fit together like two perfect puzzle pieces and they were in love. Now, he was feeling almost repulsed at his kiss. What was wrong with him? Well, Jack certainly wasn't helping things. He was sprawled out on the couch in his living room, watching American Psycho for not the first, not the second but the third time that night. If David had to watch Patrick Bateman run naked down a hallway, drenched in blood and wielding a chainsaw one more time, he was going to reenact that scene on Jack. Plus, the fact that the actor looked uncannily like the goofily grinning boy who claimed to be his boyfriend sitting next to him was not lost on David. The problem was, their relationship wasn't going anywhere. After they had sex, they slept apart. There were no more hallway make-outs. They had hit a plateau. David didn't even know if Jack loved him back.

But there was a way he could test it.

Surreptiously, David fake-sneezed into his hand. No reaction. Well, maybe Jack couldn't hear him over the hooker's screams and the whir of the chainsaw onscreen. He tried again. Still nothing. This time, he let loose an explosive sneeze.

"Shhh!" Jack hissed.

That did it. David marched resolutely over to the television and flicked it off.

"Hey!" Jack shouted.

"Hey yourself! We're breaking up!" David shot back before storming away.

He tripped a little over his feet but he hoped that it didn't lessen the dramatics and intensity of his exit.

"Huh?" Jack asked the blank, still buzzing screen. "What'd I do?"

--

Jake opened his eyes Tuesday morning and was aware of two things: he had an erection and said erection was pressing against Snoddy's thigh. Shit. He had heard about these things happening, hell, he had heard Jack Kelly telling Spot and Racetrack in the bathroom that David got one after the first time they had sex. However, David was gay. Jake was not. He was straight. He had had sex with countless amounts of girls and he never, ever felt lust towards a male. Let alone Snoddy. He stared at the room around him. He had been in Snoddy's bedroom for, roughly, one third of his entire life. They had met at the Y during swim lessons. Fuck, there was a picture of them in their swimsuits and wingies on the nightstand next to him. He had been the first person Snoddy had come out to. Snoddy had been the first person Jake told when he lost his virginity when his mother's friend Susan pretty much mauled him at the tender age of thirteen. They had spent nights fast asleep in the same bed for years and Jake had never felt anything. He even had his own drawer full of pants and t-shirts.

Maybe it wasn't a lust erection, he probably just really had to piss. He felt his bladder strain and let out a sigh of relief. Phew. Yeah, he just had to piss. However, that didn't really seem to matter.

What mattered was that he was packing wood in Snoddy's bed and that he was a very, very bad boy.

Of course, the minute Jake tried to break free and haul ass to the bathroom was when Snoddy gave a little snort and rolled over so that his penis was now jabbing him in the stomach as if to say 'Good morning, Sean. How you doing?'

"Snod," he hissed. "I gotta get up."

He grunted in a surprisingly manly way and nestled against him tighter, which made the whole situation a bit more uncomfortable. Or embarrassing. Or, for the most accurate one, potentially disastrous.

Jake inched away a little more, feeling himself break free of Snoddy's Vulcan grip of stop-Jake-from-pissing-his-erection-away.

"Jake…what is that poking me in the stomach?" he mumbled sleepily.

"Well, don't be alarmed. There's nothing to worry about…but that's my penis."

"Oh. Wait…WHAT!" Snoddy shot up from the bed, letting out peals of 'ewwwwwwww's and other things to express his disgust.

It was strange coming from a boy who not only had a penis but liked other boys with penises. While he was having a meltdown, Jake excused himself to the bathroom and peed his heart out.

"That better had been just for piss," Snoddy accused. "And that you didn't leave my toilet seat up. Because, like, you didn't masturbate in the shower or whatever, right?"

Snoddy had dropped out of biology.

"I peed," Jake promised. "Because it had nothing to do with being in close proximity to your godlike form, Snodster."

He stretched and yawned before getting out of bed.

"Whatever, I'm going to shower," he announced.

--

As the hot water rushed over Snoddy's body, he couldn't help but singing gleefully. Jake had come around. He had had a boner in his bed! He loved him! He loved him! Snoddy had been in love with Jake for eons. At one point, he was sad when he was sad, happy when he was happy, and willing to jump in a snake pit naked if Jake had asked him too. But now, now he had his little Jakey. He was almost euphoric. If only he didn't have to go to school with a hangover.

"Wake me up, before you go-go!" he sang joyously, squirting Glisten shampoo over his soaked locks.