Free Holding on to Hope by Sid Love Page A

Leslie grew impatient as time passed, but she still decided to give him another moment or two.
    However, when he didn’t speak, she yelled. “God! Spill it already!”
    Brad crawled to sit by the edge of his bed and looked her in the eye. His eyes showed a lot of things in that moment. He seemed excited, that was for sure. But Leslie also picked up on a few other emotions that kept flicking through his face. His eyes stared at her vacantly at one point, while another time, they twinkled like never before. She had also caught him blushing at times. Leslie pondered, making all sorts of deductions in her mind to figure out his changed demeanor, and she still had nothing. So, she waited, though a bit annoyed, for Brad to speak up.
    “Okay, remember how I said it is huge?” Brad finally spoke, and Leslie nodded her head to let him know she was all ears. “Well, it is. Last night, something happened, something unimaginable… beyond any of my wildest dreams. I never thought….”
    “Brad.” Leslie yawned. “To the point, please. I don’t have all day.”
    “Okay, all right! What happened is….” He paused, plastering a big grin on his face. She tried very hard not to roll her eyes, letting him tell her at his own pace. “Last night, my dear, I finally got laid!”
    When he broke the news to her, Leslie’s subsequent yawn was cut short by the initial shock she went through. Her body jerked forward, now fully awakened. There wasn’t any amount of caffeine that would have made her feel as lively as she felt at that moment.
    This was definitely huge, and not just for Brad.
    Over the years, Leslie had constantly tried and consequently failed in hooking him up with several guys. Bradley Joseph Parker had the arrogance of a drag queen, she thought. He was too picky when it came to dating and relationships; never wishing to settle for anything less. He dreamt of a guy whose mere presence would take his breath away, who would be so handsome that every girl and every gay guy in the world would yearn to have him in their lives.
    “Such a guy would only belong to me, holding my hand in a roomful of envious people,” he would say with a smirk. “I would look around and say to them ‘Suck it up, bitches! He is mine!’”
    Brad had wasted years with these stupid fantasies, and he had remained a virgin. So Leslie never thought the day would come when Brad’s whining would ever end.
    But it had. And Leslie thought she would faint, even with the adrenaline rushing through her veins.
    “Wha—?” She became aware of the fact that she had left her mouth hanging open for too long and shut it immediately. A smile crept across her lips, getting bigger by the second, and it turned into a cheek-hurting grin. “Oh my God! Shut up. Seriously?” She quickly sat up, hopping on the bed to cross her legs.
    “Very seriously, Les.” Brad’s cute face beamed with wonder and excitement. Leslie couldn’t blame him. She remembered the day she had had sex for the first time, and even though it was a while back, she couldn’t forget the bliss she’d felt after finally losing her virginity or the hunger she felt for getting some more. Leslie was ready to bet that Brad was experiencing similar whirls of emotions in him.
    “Last night, on Valentine’s Day…?” she asked.
    Brad gave a nod. “On Valentine’s Day.”
    “That’s so funny.” Leslie laughed out loud. Even though Valentine’s Day never meant anything to her, something this huge happening to her best friend did force her to consider it a special day. “Okay, you have to tell me everything, dude! Don’t leave out a single detail. I don’t care if it’s too much information. I just have to know. How long has this been going on between you two?”
    Brad laughed. “Not too long. I just met him yesterday.”
    “And you slept with him already?” Leslie’s mind was drawing up the picture of the perfect guy in her imagination, a guy who had managed to entice someone like