“Dude!” Rudy exclaims, thundering out of his room like the Odyssey Cyclops leaving his sheep cave. The walls shake.”

“Arthur finally winds up just linking his arm through mine, real tight, and we walk really slow. There are other people around, but I don’t think it really matters. Dudes used to walk around arm in arm all the time. That just meant they were classy. Classy like Lassie. It’s like, we just so happen to be fellows of style and refinement. We are gentlemen.“We,” I tell Arthur, “are so gentlemanly.”

“Well,” he says; a smile curves his mouth, promising wonderful acts of misbehavior, “in that case—”And, well. I like my body when it’s with his body.”

“I feel stupidly flustered right now. “Okay, well, he’s still just like – and then there’s his friggin’ eyelashes—”“You noticed his eyelashes?” Amber asks, like it’s weird to do.It is, I realize with a horrible sinking feeling. It’s weird to notice somebody’s eyelashes.”

“He gives me a slight smile. I simultaneously want to, like, build shrines to it and punch it off his face. It’s complicated.”

“Howie?” Arthur says. “What?” “Why do you want me to freak out?” He asks it sort of gently, which makes it worse somehow.“Because you make me freak out all the time.” Maybe I’m not so totally chill, but whatever, whatever, I’m sick of it. “Like, honestly, I’m pretty sure I’ve started doing it professionally. Maybe you should start considering paying me extra. ‘Cause seriously, dude, when it comes to freaking out about you, I am the master. I am friggin’ incomparable, I got mad skills all over the place. And I don’t think this is exactly mutual freaking out, like, I don’t get the sense that I make you want to wither and die and explode. And that’s okay. That’s cool. I’m kind of going through a thing here that you probably went through a long time ago, unless you didn’t go through it at all because you’re just all together, like, you popped out of the womb, all, ‘Thanks for squeezing me out, Mom; no more pussy for me.”

“Mitch is perhaps the most reassuring sight of all. He’s sitting up really straight – like, somebody put a leather-bound tome on his head, because this guy’s posture is ace.”