Read Online One Man Guy by Michael Barakiva - Free Book Online

on the floor above him, then climbing the steps to the second floor of the house. Alek sat for a moment, unsure of what to do. He poured the rest of his Diet Dr Pepper down the basement sink, then tossed the can in the Boyces’ recycling bin. He climbed up to the main floor of the house intending to continue up to Becky’s room to bang on her door until she let him in. But then he saw she’d hung his book bag on the front doorknob. He got the message.
    Alek made sure the door locked behind him.
    *   *   *
    The next day at lunch, Alek decided the cafeteria was the room he hated most in the world. The relentless fluorescent lighting gave everything a flat greenish hue, and even without the terrible school food being served, the place still smelled like wet socks. At least during the school year he had Becky to sit with and discuss the minutiae of their lives. But that kiss had changed everything.
    Alek didn’t know why it had unnerved him so much. He had kissed girls before. Maybe not recently, but that’s because all of the freshman girls wanted to date upperclassmen boys, and the upperclassmen girls wouldn’t even look at a freshman. In middle school, he’d had two girlfriends—Gail in seventh grade and Linsay in eighth. He had kissed Gail a few times and had made out with Linsay pretty seriously after Spring Fling. He still remembered the way she smelled that night, like flowers and sweat.
    When his parents decided he couldn’t try out for the tennis team, Alek promised to practice every day anyway. He hadn’t kept his promise as religiously as he had wanted to, but more often than not, he’d made the time to hit against the wall in the basketball courts, run through his drills, or even get Jason or Matthew to volley with him. He missed tennis so much that he created the opportunity to have it in his life.
    But that’s not how he felt about kissing girls. It just wasn’t something that he’d spent any time thinking about in high school. And when he asked himself why, he couldn’t come up with a good reason. Probably, like everything else, it was another side effect of the misery that the last year had been. When high school stopped being a living hell, Alek figured, he’d get back to dating.
    “What’re you eating, dude? That shit smells funky.”
    Alek looked up and saw Ethan leaning on the other side of the cafeteria table, his blue eyes staring at him intensely. Alek’s heart started racing.
    “What?” He choked.
    “I said, what’re you eating? That’s no hoagie.”
    Alek wanted to die. Finally, Ethan was talking to him, and the first thing they were going to discuss was the weird food his parents packed him.
    “This is Armenian string cheese,” Alek said, holding up a long braid of white cheese flecked with black spots.
    “Like Polly-O?”
    “Um, sorta. You unwrap it like this.” Alek demonstrated by unpeeling a strip of the cheese down the length of its spiral braid. He was grateful to have something to do.
    “What’s that black shit?”
    “The specks? They’re spices. They give it a little kick.”
    “Lemme see.” Ethan shone a miniature LED bulb attached to one of the chains looped around his low-hanging cargo shorts and used it to examine the cheese.
    “You come prepared, don’t you?” Alek observed.
    “Jewelers use these lights to inspect diamonds. They’re perfect for when you’re clubbing, and it’s dark and the music’s blasting, but you need to see. You know?”
    Alek nodded his head knowingly, although he’d never actually been clubbing.
    “And more importantly,” Ethan continued, “they’re perfect for investigating unidentified speckled cheese. Can I try it?” he asked solemnly.
    “Go for it,” Alek answered with an equal amount of solemnity.
    After a few attempts, Ethan got the hang of unraveling the cheese. “This tastes pretty awesome, man. Definitely better than the shitty slices of American my dad picks up at the supermarket.”
    Alek felt a wave