The first time that I really started loathing Adam Kavinsky was when we were kids, Both of us had gotten stuck in a class for children attempting to get placed into Backwater Elementary, a real shit school. Some of us hadn't been able to speak English, other kids couldn't focus right. There were even kids in there that threw up all the time because they were scared.
Like I said, shit school.
I hadn't thought much of Adam at first, he'd been this little kid from a faraway place, and all I remember is him having a big nose and me trying to steal his homework so that I could cheat and pass the class. We'd only fought after he ripped his paper away and yelled,
"I'm gonna kith you, Kevin Quinn!"
Everyone had laughed at us, so I'd punched his glasses off and ended up having to retake the class. It was only later that I'd realized that someone had told him that the word Kiss actually meant, Kill, and that Adam hadn't wanted to kiss me at all. He'd wanted to beat the actual fuck out of me.
"My mom brought me to the U.S to get away from my dad," Adam explains to me as we sit in the front seats of the van and suck on our candy. "He never hit us, we always had food and everything we wanted. But he did a lot of illegal stuff in Europe and I guess she was afraid of me being dragged into that when I grew up."
"Oh, shit," I reply, and that's all I can really say, because what the hell did someone say to that?
"Yeah," Adam looks down at his candy, but he doesn't try eating it or anything. "So I kind of know how Baby feels. How scared he must be coming to a new place to get away from a bad situation. That's why I get so mad when you pick on him."
"I don't pick on him," I scoff, and then I look away and watch some old lady load groceries into her cart. "I'm just giving him a taste of the real world."
"He doesn't need a taste of the real world!" Adam argues, "When you were getting the shit kicked out of you, Baby told me that Asahrith annihilated his family. He didn't just run away because he was scared of getting married, Kevin."
"Hold up..." I turn to Adam this time, feeling sick to my stomach but pushing it down, "Why didn't he tell me any of that earlier?"
"Because you're hard to talk to, and you hate listening," Adam rolls his eyes and it's his turn to look away. "Anyway, it was his idea to go find you. He was worried about you."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The whole time that I'd been upset, Blue Boy had been worrying about me when it was his life at risk.
But I didn't want it.
I didn't want him worrying about me and putting himself at risk of being found out.
Me and Kavinsky don't say anything for a long time. Meanwhile, Baby's in the back making these tiny snoring sounds and he's all curled up across the torn seat, his skinny arm tucked under his head.
"Can I see your hand? I'm pretty good about patching people up," Adam tells me once the silence gets to be too much. "Heh. I've never told anyone this, but I was a boy scout for a few years, so..."
"Wow. What do you take me for? A wuss?" I scowl a little, and then I glance around the parking lot to make sure no one's looking before I let him take my hand.
His fingers are hot and slightly damp like he was nervous or something. But he was gentle, and I'd never felt anything like that before. Not with another guy, and for sure not with Adam Kavinsky. So naturally, I was a little freaked out with the whole touching thing.
"How did it feel getting stabbed?" Adam asks me gently, and then he turns my hand around and he reaches for the bag of bandages and gauze. My fingers looked embarrassingly skinny compared to his sausage hands. "You're lucky that the knife didn't go all the way through," He says.
I think he was trying to make small talk or something.
"It felt exactly like what you think getting stabbed feels like, Kavinsky," I sneer, and I watch him out of the corner of my eye to make sure he didn't pull anything funny. "How about next time I let them tackle you and ram a steak knife through your ass so you can see how it feels?"
"You're an asshole, you know that?" Adam states and then he pours a little alcohol onto my wound.
"Jesus fuck!" I scream when pain rockets through my palm like fire and I jerk my hand back in an instant. "That hurts you piece of shit!"
"Seriously? It can't hurt that bad!"
"You just poured a bottle of alcohol into a hole in my hand!" I holler. "Of course it fucking hurts!"
"Ah! Are we engaging in bonding rituals now?" Baby's voice filters in from the back seat, and suddenly he's leaning in between us, all sleepy-eyed and rumpled hair. "On my planet, it's common for us to engage in battle and or offend each other before having intercourse."
"Oh my fucking god," I mutter, and I crack open a bottle of Fruitopia to sip on. "Just throw me out of the goddamn van."
"So how does it work?" Adam asks Baby, and I feel him take my hand again and start bandaging it up. "Do you have people with male and female parts like on our planet? Or is everyone just the same?"
"Oh!" Baby seems excited now, his voice rising, "You must be asking me if I have a penis or a vagina!"
I spit out my drink and immediately start coughing.
"No, Baby. I...I wasn't asking that!" Adam sputters, and he turns bright red, and that's all he can say.
"Alright," I sigh, and I start up the van, "I'm really not in the mood to talk about blue alien dick right now. So I'm getting us out of here before shit gets too weird."
I mean, I was kind of curious, though.
What the hell was under there if Bahz wasn't human?
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