"You're good at a lot of things, Mateo—"
"Teacher, coach—" I interrupt.
"But you're shit at casual jealousy," he snaps back. It's gentle, mostly. An admonishment not meant to sting for more than a moment. I think I flinch anyway, barely looking at him when he goes on. "I haven't seen her since the banquet."
"She seemed interested in seeing plenty of you."
"She was," Jamie says.
"You didn't seemuninterested."
Jamie goes back to eating, but I think I've had enough. I set my paper plate on the grass and close my eyes, the many sounds of the carnival giving me something to focus on while I scrape the rest of anargument off my tongue. We don't get to spend much time together, our long wait for each other crowded with distance. It would be stupid to waste this chance we've got.
He touches me, a careful, barely-there thing, and it’s a lot like his pinky reaching across a blanket at the beach. I’m at least as far gone now as I was then.
"Does the Scrambler count as a big-kid ride?" Jamie asks.
I look at him again when I playfully shove him away. A minute later, we're walking across the fair to the chaos we'd left behind, and I'm as excited to get back to this as he is. If the Scrambler is a bad idea with a stomach full of funnel cake, neither of us worries about it now, but maybe we should've worried about the physics of the ride itself. Once it hits full speed, we're pressed together with no finesse at all, and the giggles consume us before and after Jamie uses his stuffed penguin to block the next unintentional hip check.
We go from there to the giant slide and a pile of burlap sacks, a couple of small children the only reason we’re careful not to race. Then it's off to darts and underinflated balloons, and a few more tries with wiffle balls, even more ridiculous about our competition now. Jamie's earlier win remains the only one of the day, and he taunts me with it because he knows he can. After we wander a while longer, I point to another ride.
"How do you feel about Ferris wheels?"
"Sitting next to you while we enjoy fresh air and a nice view?" he asks. "It's familiar."
I glance toward the sky, then return to him. "It's certainly something."
Whether it feels good to joke around the hollow ache in my chest, I don't know, but Jamie is studying me as if he might figure it out. It won't do either of us any good to stand here though, and I walk toward the line because I know he'll follow. Within minutes, we'retugging on the lap bar and ignoring instructions we don't need, then moving further from the ground to a hard rock soundtrack that fades as we rise. It's all start and stop for as long as it takes to load several more riders, and I'm lulled by the rhythm of it.
We become nearly invisible the higher we go, and I hold his hand because I break my own rules sometimes.
He lets me, but I think he’s crossed lines since people learned his name.
“Tell me more about your family,” he says, his voice just louder than the music.
“It’s a longer story than we have time for up here,” I warn, frowning a little because I know it’s the opposite for him, an only child who sought off-ice comfort at a bar owned by his best friend’s dad.
Jamie squeezes my hand. “The short version?”
“Ah, let’s see. My mom was young when she had me, and she didn’t know my biological father. Not even his name. She met my dad just before I turned five. He and his mother—my grandmother—took me in as their own from the very beginning. His father never really has.”
“What'd he have against you? You werefive.”
“I wasn’t his family,” I shrug, the Ferris wheel finally full and moving without interruption. “Worse than that, I was clingy with my mom. Soft-spoken. Weak. He’s every macho stereotype, and I wasn’t someone he thought worthy of being my dad’s firstborn—literally or otherwise. Once I started school, and my sisters came along, I adjusted to being around more people and I changed, but he never stopped thinking of me as a mama’s boy—or calling me that outright.”
Jamie nods. “And being gay didn’t help.”
“No. So, I’ve lived my life, but I’ve also kept a low profile. No trouble. No reason for anyone to regret making my mom and mepart of their family.”
“Boring as self-defense.”
“Something like that,” I agree.
“But you’re close to your sisters.”
“Very. I’m close to everyone else, really. My grandmother, my parents, my sisters, their husbands and kids. I have no complaints about my life. I really don’t.”
Unspoken rebuttals stay that way, and Jamie lets go of my hand. Untethered, we enjoy the fresh air and the nice view as we go around and around, music and laughter louder on every downswing, and then quieting again. I push away most of the noise in my head and appreciate where I am, stupidly grateful he stashed the penguin on his other side while we're in no danger of crashing into each other.