Beyond Clueless by Linas Alsenas

Author:Linas Alsenas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2015-06-24T04:00:00+00:00

That night Kirby was . . . being Kirby.

He was driving us—me, Xiang, and Oliver—to God-knows-where for God-knows-what reason. The original plan was for all of us to hang out, Jimmy and Derek included, but then they dropped out at the last minute to go do boyfriend-y things.

And when Jimmy had called to announce that they were dropping out of the plans, I’d assumed that Kirby and Oliver would want to do their own thing.

“Oh, no,” Jimmy had said hurriedly. “You have to go. Derek insists that you go, or he’ll feel bad about ruining it for everyone else. He was crazy-adamant about it.”

“Well, then, come along!”

“Marty, come on. I need to spend time with Derek.”

No, you don’t, I wanted to say. You need to spend time with me! But Jimmy was doing the whole assistant-stage-manager thing, and he’d passed my little loyalty test about keeping Felix secret, so I couldn’t exactly argue with him about his commitment to our friendship.

“You wouldn’t want me to show up every time you meet up with Felix,” he said.

OK, that was another good point. (Although, technically speaking, that was exactly what was already happening.)

“And, anyway,” he continued, “Kirby and Oliver are really fun! I don’t see why I’m even having to convince you. You’ll have a great time.”

So this was going to be the first time Xiang and I were going out with friends of friends. Like, without Jimmy as a connection, it felt totally weird getting into a car with two older guys from a completely different part of the Cleveland area. OK, they weren’t random guys, as we had hung out a couple times before. But, still. Thank goodness they were gay; otherwise it would have totally felt like a date.

So it didn’t ease any of the awkwardness that Kirby refused to tell us (Oliver, too!) where we were going; he just gave us explicit instructions to bring “sexy-hot” clothes. We feared he was taking us to a strip club or a sex shop or something. Xiang and I both slipped out of our parent-friendly sweats as soon as we got into the car. (My parents gave me a suspicious look as we left the house “to go to Jimmy’s”—they must have noticed the odd lumps in the sweats—but they didn’t say anything.) Kirby kept smirking and humming along to the dance radio station as we tried to coax the destination out of him. Eventually, we pulled into the parking lot of what looked to be a warehouse.

Xiang was the first to see the sign. “Bowling? Hells no.”

“Ah, ah, ah,” Kirby said, pulling into a spot. “Disco bowling. Don’t be talkin’ smack about Ohio’s favorite pastime. It’s a very enriching and enjoyable sport.”

He took the key out of the ignition and proceeded to put on mirrored aviator sunglasses. “Best to try to blend with the locals as much as we can,” he explained. Then he flashed a wicked smile. “Plus, my uncle owns this place, so I think we’ll be able to score some pitchers of beer.

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