Free Love Over Matter by Maggie Bloom

I
propose.
    “ I’m listening.”
    “ Whoever gets the most
bull’s-eyes wins. Loser buys tacos.”
    We shake on it. “It’s a
deal.”
    We bang through half a bucketful of
balls each, my arm aching from the repetitive motion. “How many’s
that?” I ask as he nails the target once again.
    “ Eight.”
    We’re on the honor system, so I don’t
challenge him. “Seven more than me,” I complain. My next shot is a
doozy, though, sailing for the finish line as if drawn by a
magnetic pull.
    “ Way to go,” comments
Muscle Man on my shocking precision.
    I give him a perfunctory nod.
“Thanks.”
    Three or four balls later, Muscle Man
packs it in, leaving Ian and me to bask in our newfound solitude.
“You know, if you bend your knees a little, you’ll be in a more
neutral stance,” he tells me. “And you’ll get some extra spin on
the ball.”
    He sounds like he knows
what he’s talking about, so I follow his advice and
. . . miss the ball
completely! I start listing toward him, and
he throws an arm out to steady me. And for a fraction of a second,
there’s a spark between us. A chemical reaction I’m sure is a
product of our shared sense of loss over George, Ian’s father’s
recent demise, and this intoxicating summer day.
    “ Whoa!” he says as I
straighten up, employing the same club that almost toppled me as a
crutch. He chuckles. “I think you might’ve overshot that one,
Tiger.”
    My ego is bruised, which explains (if
not excuses) my snippiness. “No duh.”
    His gaze travels from my bucket to
his; we’ve got a quarter of the balls to go. “Wanna call it a
draw?” he proposes.
    “ And let you win? No, thank
you.”
    He shakes his head, fighting a smile.
“I wish George were here,” he says out of nowhere.
    I somehow gulp, even though my mouth
feels like dried cotton. After an awkward pause, I respond, “Yeah,
me too.”
    “ You miss him a lot, don’t
you?”
    Why is he asking me this? He must
already know the answer. “He was my best friend,” I say, my stomach
gurgling with acid.
    “ He liked you, you know,
even if he never told you.”
    What I’m about to spill is a secret.
“He did.”
    He crinkles his brow.
“Really?”
    My legs go to mush; I curl
up on the ground, lay the club across my thighs. “About two months
before the accident, ” I explain, “we were painting his room. His parents had
finally agreed to let him cover that soft baby blue with
orange-and-black racing stripes to match his
skateboard.”
    Ian drops to a squat, gives
an understanding nod that says: Go
on.
    “ We worked all day, taping
the stripe pattern onto the walls, painting one section and waiting
for it to dry. By five o’clock, we were starving. He ordered a
pizza—a large—and we ate the whole thing in about ten seconds
flat.”
    “ He always was a bit of a
hog,” Ian says, shrugging.
    “ Really? I never noticed .
. .” I could stop the story here, let the memory of that day fade
away. But I’m afraid of erasing George. “So anyway,” I say, “we
finished the painting around midnight. His parents were asleep, so
we snuck downstairs and put on a movie: Aladdin. ”
    “ That’s a good
movie.”
    “ I know. But I only lasted
fifteen minutes before drifting off.” Out of the corner of my eye,
I notice a robust woman decked in head-to-toe white shopping for a
slot. She takes one two spots down from me and starts chipping
away. “I wasn’t asleep asleep, though,” I continue. “I was in and out. Plus, I could
feel his fingers mesh with mine and his breath in my
ear.”
    Ian’s eyes widen.
    “ He was whispering,” I go
on, “but it didn’t make any difference. I heard every word.” I poke
at the dirt with the head of the club. “He said he was in love with
me, that he wanted us to be together, that he didn’t know how to
tell me.”
    Ian shifts to a sitting position,
crosses his legs to mimic mine. “That’s deep,” he says, doing the
worst stoner impression I’ve ever