Free Never Been Kissed by Molly O'Keefe

rolled up next to what looked like part of a boat engine. Big water stains damaged the white walls and the dark hardwood floor in the corner, from the time the roof leaked during the 2001 storms.
    Empty kegs were stacked against the far wall of the living space and boxes of napkins were piled on top of the old wicker rocking chair left over from his mom’s wicker phase. Old and broken neon signs sat stacked in a pile on what little kitchen counter space there was, next to some old pictures and other junk that Sean had rescued from The Pour House before he renovated.
    Or, Brody corrected, before Brody and their friend Jackson renovated and Sean bossed them around. Hecrossed the small room to lean over the old porcelain kitchen sink, stained brown and yellow from the iron content in Bishop’s water supply, and lifted the window.
    A thin hot breeze blew in through the screen, smelling like the river and sun. The sounds of the outside world came in too, a car honked, some kids yelled. He could hear a sprinkler running in a backyard.
    Next to the door into the bedroom, he pulled open another window; this one didn’t have a screen and it would only be a matter of time before they had bugs in the place, but that was the lesser of two evils. In the bathroom, he pried open the small window over the toilet with one hand.
    It was still too hot.
    Ashley’s sheets last night had been wet with her sweat. And no doubt the heat and humidity would bleed into her nightmares.
    What they needed was a cross-breeze.
    Finally he walked over to the apartment door and opened it. Only to find Sean, holding two cups of coffee and a grease-stained paper bag.
    “Hey, man, I was about to knock.” Sean looked older in the harsh light of day. The years had worn away that air of perpetual juvenile delinquency. Now he was unmistakably a man and Brody had never said that about his little brother.
    “You said noon. Last night? You said come back at noon.”
    “Right.” Brody realized he was staring. “Just, ah … give me a second.” He was conspicuously aware of his nudity and that visible slice of brown leg in the bedroom behind him and he didn’t want Sean thinking what he was no doubt thinking.
    “Let me get some clothes,” he whispered, “and I’ll meet you on the roof.”
    Sean brightened at the mention of the roof, his blue eyes sparkling as if they might water bomb neighbors.
    Brody closed the door. Beside the futon he’d collapsed into last night were his jeans, which he pulled on. He left the shirt on the floor, as well as his boots, and grabbed his sunglasses from the small table pushed into the corner.
    Outside the door to the apartment was a small metal balcony and instead of going down the rickety staircase to his left, he turned right, pulled himself to the railing, and crawled up onto the roof.
    Sean was at the peak, his back to Brody. The edge of his blue shirt had caught some wind and billowed out from his body, only to be pressed back in as the wind twisted around them.
    Sean was wiry, and when his shirt pressed against his body, it revealed muscles people would never assume he had. Brody had known guys like him in the Corps. Wiry guys who could hump two times their weight for ten miles, drink him under the table, fight their way out of the bar, and go another ten miles.
    Brody collapsed next to Sean, wishing he had worn his shoes.
    Wordlessly, Sean handed him a coffee and shoved over the grease-stained bag, but Brody was more interested in coffee. Ashley, however, would probably like what Sean had brought. She used to have a sweet tooth.
    “Thanks,” he said.
    “I haven’t been up here in years,” Sean said. “Forgot about the view.”
    The way Sean said it, you’d think they were staring down at the Rift Valley, the Kashmir Pass. But it was just a town. Like a million others.
    To his left was the square, the town center. City Hall, the commons area, Cora’s. Trees, flowers, a playground, and now even some kind of