About a week and a half later I was in the school library during lunch break, in the middle of a particularly steamy sex scene in the slash fanfic I was reading, when I was interrupted by a text from Jethro.

Do you want to go to Janie’s birthday party with me? It’s next weekend.

Janie was one of Jethro’s friends. He talked about her sometimes.

That might be weird for her since she doesn’t know me, I sent back.

It was her idea.

Then it might be weird for me since I didn’t know her. But I didn’t send that.

Did I want to go to a stranger’s birthday party? Not particularly. Sounded awkward and bad. Did I want an excuse to spend more time with Jethro? Fuck yes I did.

OK, sounds fun.

And so commenced a week and a half in which I attempted to pry Jethro for all the information my anxious brain demanded while pretending to be, like, totally chill about this whole going to a strangers party thing.

What should I wear to the party? I asked him while staring helplessly into my wardrobe.

Whatever you want. It’s just a casual thing. 

Yeah, sure, buddy, and what’s your definition of casual? The guy wore eyeliner to school on a regular basis.

Like, jeans casual?

Yup, jeans are fine.

But were they, though? Were they? Ugh.

And then there was another issue…

What should I get Janie for her birthday?

Don’t worry about it. She won’t expect you to get her anything.

Yeah, but what if she did. Or she didn’t but like, everyone else got her something and it was really awkward. 

I want to get her something anyway. What does she like?

Chocolate, cute decorative items, just about anything you buy at the front counter of a junk shop, etc.

So I took to eBay and I found the best gift. The lettuce dog. It was a cute little porcelain dog that reminded me of Pippi, only it was… lettuce leaves. A lettuce dog. 

And then there was the tactical question of how I would actually get to the party. Jethro said my dad could drop me at his place and then we’d go together, so that one was covered.

The rest of my worries were less easily put into reasonable questions. What did people our age even do at parties? Drink alcohol, maybe? Or was this another fairy bread situation? Maybe the two weren’t mutually exclusive.

So by the day of the party I was super prepared in every way I could be prepared and underprepared in general because, hey, I’m a mess. I managed to avoid my dad following me in and being awkward when he dropped me off at Jethro’s, so we were already off to a good start.

Jethro was waiting for me outside and I could tell immediately that he wasn’t dressed for the party yet. With the way this guy dressed on a daily basis, there was no way he was wearing cargo shorts to a party.

But I was dressed for the party. I was wearing my good jeans again and a black skull and crossbones T-shirt that fit a bit nicer than most of my other shirts. And, of course, the necklace Jethro had given me.

“Is what I’m wearing okay?” I asked as he led the way up to his room.

“Yeah, you look great.” He gave me another look over once we reached the top of the stairs, turning his head to the side. “Maybe a different necklace, though. It’s a bit of an odd match.”

“This is literally the only accessory I own.”

Jethro laughed. “Yeah, I figured. Here, I’ve got something here you can wear…”

Jethro opened up a small chest on his desk that turned out to be full of little drawers and compartments with jewelry in them. He searched through it for a few moments before retrieving a silver chain.

“Here,” Jethro said as he stepped behind me to switch out the necklaces. I liked it when he did that. I’d never known I was so into having my neck touched until I met him.

I watched as he set my necklace down on the desk. “I’d better be getting that back after.”

Jethro laughed again. “You know, it makes me really happy that you like it. I thought you didn’t like me when we first met, but then I saw you again and you were still wearing the necklace.”

“Well, I thought you were just talking to me out of some sense of festive charity, so I was sort of not so into all that.”

“Oh, shit, I hadn’t even thought of that.” By now the whole thing was funny to me, but Jethro looked genuinely upset by this revelation. “I was just looking for a break from the main event and you looked like someone I could chill with. Which I was right about, by the way, it just takes a bit of work to get there.”

“Nobody can chill with me. I can’t even chill with me. It’s impossible.”

“Uh huh.” 

Jethro started to take his shirt off and it took me one heart pounding moment of confusion to realise he was getting changed, not… well, whatever. I turned around. This time I had hesitated long enough to get a good look at his lean chest, though, and I wouldn’t be letting go of that image any time soon.

Today Jethro was wearing a blue tie dye shirt and tight fitting jeans. I sat down on the edge of his bed and watched as he put eyeliner and lip gloss on. He didn’t do much with his hair today — just put some product in it and combed it out. Then he came over and messed with my hair a little, because as we both well knew he had magic and could always get it looking nicer than I could.

And then we were both ready and it was time for the party and I would have rather just stayed here and hung out, but that wasn’t really an option. I hoped Jethro would still like me even if his friends decided they hated me.

Things were awkward before we even got to the party, though, because Jethro’s mum was driving us. Don’t get me wrong, she was a perfectly nice lady, but I’d come to the baseless assumption that she knew I was into her son. I sort of just assumed everyone knew that, except maybe Jethro. That was just one reason this party would likely destroy me.

Jethro’s mum dropped us off in front of the house and Jethro didn’t even bother with the front door, instead leading us around the side of the house. It felt kind of weird to be doing this, even if they were good friends. Like we were trespassing or something.

The whole back garden was done up in streamers and balloons, which was kind of weird but also kind of a comfort because I knew what to do at that kind of a party. I’d been to a few when I was, like, seven, when kids were still doing that thing where they invited everyone in their class.

I’d been sort of hoping that if I stood one step behind Jethro nobody would really notice me because, well, his shirt was quite bright. No such luck. Janie barely gave Jethro a glance before zeroing in on me.

“Casper, right? It’s so nice to meet you!”

Janie was a freckled, red haired girl with a big smile and now also her arms around me, which, well, okay. I wasn’t so much into that from a complete stranger who I didn’t even want to bone, but I appreciated the gesture.

When she pulled away, I pushed my poorly wrapped present towards her. “Gift.”

Yes, I just said ‘gift’. Not, like, any of the acceptable greeting things I could have said. Just...  ‘gift’. 

“Oh, thank you so much!” she said, apparently unphased by me being a complete weirdo. Maybe Jethro had warned her. “Can I open it now?”

“Yup.”

Fuck, I was awkward. Coming here was a mistake. I was a mistake.

But Janie didn’t seem to mind. Janie was focussed on opening her gift.

“Oh my God,” Janie said as she looked at the image on the front of Lettuce Dog’s box. “I love it! Thank you!”

“Holy shit, that’s so cool,” Jethro said as he helped her open the box. “I want one.”

“They had other ones,” I said. “Like a potato cow and a sheep cauliflower. The dog one’s the best, though, obviously, because it reminds me of my dog.”

“You better have pictures of your cute dog,” Janie said. “You can’t say something like that and then not show me pictures.”

“Uh, sure, okay.”

So we headed over to where everyone else was and I sat on a bench next to Jethro and showed everyone pictures of my dog. That was my ideal form of communication, really, so… cool. This was cool. This was fine.

But then the topic inevitably changed and fine turned to awkward as I had nothing to contribute. I really hoped Jethro wasn’t surprised by this. I hoped I had made it blindingly obvious from the first day we met that I would never be good at this shit.

And then, without pausing in the conversation he was having, Jethro intertwined our fingers.

My brain short circuited. What. Was he just…? I looked down at our linked hands. No, this wasn’t a platonic gesture. He was holding my hand. None of his friends had reacted at all. What the fuck was going on.

It took me several minutes of utter confusion to figure out what was happening. To remember what he’d said when he had invited me to the party. He’d asked me to go with him. Which, sure, absolutely had platonic interpretations, but here we were, so…

Were we on a date? Were we on a fucking date right now and I hadn’t even noticed? He brushed his thumb over my knuckles. What the fuck. I gave his hand a gentle squeeze because, like, I was into it. I was totally into it. Just, like, what the fuck. This hadn’t been on my freak out schedule for the day.

I didn’t even care that I was awkwardly not participating in the conversation anymore. Fuck talking. I was holding Jethro’s hand and that was way more important. I was very grateful right now that my internal emotions rarely showed on the outside.

I had kind of expected that Jethro would abandon me at some point in favour of his friends and I’d sit off to the side somewhere and, well, probably read slash fanfic on my phone, to be honest. But that didn’t happen. Jethro was taking this date thing seriously and making sure I was included.

And, honestly, the sweetness of the act had more value than the utility of the action. Like how with gifts it’s the thought that counts. I wasn’t someone who needed or even particularly wanted to be a part of things all the time. Or, like, much of the time at all. But the fact that he didn’t want to ditch me to chill with his fun friends instead? That was sweet.

I did my best to talk to people like a normal human being when he introduced me to them, and I’m gonna say I mostly fucked it up. Like fuck, dude, what do I do in my free time? Read, I guess. What do I read? Well, I can’t tell this practical stranger about the Stucky kick I’ve been on so I guess I’m going to uncomfortably dodge around that topic and then fifteen minutes later realise I could have just mentioned a few of the many real books I had actually read at some point in my life.

“Hey, Cas.” Jethro nudged my shoulder. “Eat some fairy bread. It’ll get you in the party spirit.”

“Ah, so that’s the secret.” I bit into a little triangle of white bread covered in Hundreds and Thousands. Fuck, it was good. “All this time I thought it was about having like… social skills and mental stamina and coordination. For, you know, the dancing. But nope. Turns out sugary bread was the answer all along.”

“I for one am glad sugary bread turned out to be the answer. What a relief.”

“I know, right? I’m just gonna stand here and slam a loaf of this until my crippling social anxiety goes away.”

Jethro laughed around a slice of fairy bread. “Okay but for real though, are you holding up okay? I know you get a bit burnt out on the social stuff sometimes.”

Oh, haha, yeah, sometimes. Sometimes.

“Damn, I was supposed to be concealing that under a thick layer of defensive snark so that you’d never truly know where my weaknesses lie. What else did I let slip?”

“Not as much as I’d like. You’re hard to understand sometimes.”

“Yeah, see, the key to being just inscrutable as fuck is to act irrationally most of the time, but in unpredictable ways. Will I have a problem with whatever dumb shit? I don’t know, man. That’s an adventure we’re going to have to go on together. But probably yes.”

“Hey… thanks for coming with me even though this whole thing isn’t really your jam. I really wanted my friends to meet you. I guess taking a guy somewhere he doesn’t want to go for your first date isn’t exactly the best strat, though…”

That was the first time he’d actually said it out loud, which was kind of a relief. I mean I was pretty sure a date was what was going on here, but man was it good to have verbal confirmation on these things.

“Nah,” I said as I picked up another slice of fairy bread. “It’s really not so bad.”