Read Online Adam by Ariel Schrag - Free Book Online Page A

thirty percent drunker.” She guzzled her beer.
    â€œWhat are you up to tonight?” June asked Adam. Adam shrugged.
What was he up to? How the hell was he supposed to know?
    Casey stood up, wobbled a little, and walked toward the faint music coming from Ethan’s closed door. She paused and gave June a teeth-clenched nervous grin. June mirrored the grin back. Casey knocked lightly on the door.
    â€œWhat’s up?” said Ethan, poking his head out.
    â€œUh, we’re going to an, um,
L Word
party over on Lorimer Street . . . if you wanna come?”
    Ethan does not want to go to a fucking
L Word
party
, thought Adam. He imagined Ethan stepping out, declining the invitation, then mentioning a hot club in the city he was going to tonight and saying,
“They don’t card. Adam, you wanna come with?”
    Ethan gave his customary little chuckle. “No thanks. I’m gonna stay in tonight.” And he shut the door.
    Fuck.
Was Adam just supposed to stay here in the apartment while Ethan was in his room with the door locked? That just seemed so awkward . . . so pathetic. Whatever Ethan was doing in his room was definitely cool, but the only thing Adam could think to do alone in his room was surf Internet porn. And, the truth was, he was too scared to go out into the city alone. He wouldn’t even know where to go. Adam saw Casey looking at him. He could never hide how he felt from her.
    â€œYou wanna come?” she asked. “I know you like
The L Word
—even if it’s for the wrong reasons.”
    Adam liked
The L Word
because it showed hot girls making out. Isn’t that why Casey and all her friends liked it too? He glanced back at Ethan’s closed door.
    â€œUh, sure, whatever,” he said. And he started to chug his beer, too.
    ***
    Outside, the warm New York night spread out exciting and exposed. Police cars with their sirens blared by, and groups of older guys slouched and murmured in the corners. Adam wondered if they were drug dealers. He imagined a phone call to Brad back home.
“Yeah, picked up an ounce from the guys on the corner. 
.
 . 
.
Naw, they give me a good deal. Neighborhood price. It’s gonna blow when I get back to the Bay and have to pay regular again.”
Brad had mentioned coming to visit him for a week, but Adam wasn’t so sure. Everything would have to be perfect. He’d need to have a girlfriend, all new clothes, and a gang of cool dudes he hung with that were not Casey’s lesbian friends. He imagined Brad being jealous of Ethan.
    â€œWhat, so now this guy’s your best friend?”
    â€œWe live together; you just get super tight that way.”
    â€œIsn’t he, like, twenty-one? Why’s he hanging out with a seventeen-year-old?”
    â€œHe, like, didn’t even know how old I was for a couple months . 
.
 . He was totally shocked when I told him.”
    A man pushing a ratty ice-cream cart jostled up next to them. Casey and June bought Chocolate Eclairs, and Adam got a Cherry Bomb pop. He took a sweet, icy bite, and as he swallowed was hit, blindsided really, by a sudden, momentary elation. For those two seconds, he knew—he just
knew
—everything in New York was going to turn out exactly as he dreamed.
    Â 
    â€œHola,”
said a lesbian, opening the door. Schuyler wasn’t far from how Adam had imagined her. Short cropped hair with bleached tips, lip ring, boy’s clothes.
    â€œThis is my brother, Adam,” said Casey.
    Schuyler looked Adam over. “Nice lipstick.”
    Casey looked at him. “The popsicle.”
    Adam quickly rubbed at his mouth with his fist.
    Inside, a bunch of other typical-looking lesbians lounged around on a couch and pillows on the floor. No one seemed to notice them walk in.
    â€œYou guys want some beers . . . whiskey . . . water?” asked Schuyler. “Roxanne’s not here yet.”
    Adam saw Casey