Coda 02 -A to Z

interruptin’ me. He’s not yellin’, but his face is red, and he’s definitely flustered. “Stop talking about him like that!”
    “Like what?” I ask, innocent as I can manage.

    He sort of stumbles for a second, tryin’ to figure out what to say. Finally he blurts out, “Have you been checking him out?”
    I have to laugh. “’Course I have. So what?”
“So—stay the hell away from him!”
“I’m just lookin’.”
“Well, stop looking!”
“You worried I’m gonna steal him away from you?”
    He turns back to the field, hunches down in his seat and doesn’t say anything. I’m fightin’ hard to keep from laughin’. Jared comes back then. He looks back and forth between the two of us— me, grinnin’ at him, and Matt, who practically has steam comin’ out of his ears—and says, “What’s going on?”
    “I was just tellin’ Matt that—”

    “Nothing!” Matt snaps.

    Jared looks back at me, and I just smile at him. “Guess it’s nothin’.”
    Jared looks kind of amused at that, but he hands us each a beer and starts to sit down in his seat in between us. Matt jumps to his feet like a fuckin’ jack-in-the-box and says, “No!”
    Jared freezes, halfway in his seat, and this time I really do laugh. “What’s wrong?”
    I can tell Matt regrets his outburst a little, but he might as well say somethin’ now. “You sit over here,” he says to Jared, pointin’ to his seat. “I want to sit next to Angelo.”
    Jared looks a little confused, and who can blame him? Matt’s obviously pissed at me, but now he wants to sit next to me? But Jared doesn’t argue, and they switch seats.
    Matt scowls at me as he sits down. He’s makin’ a point of not talkin’ to me, and I don’t push it. I just sit there, drinkin’ my beer and waitin’.
    I don’t have to wait long. Pretty soon, I can see him watchin’ Jared. He’s lookin’ at him kind of sideways, out of the corner of his eyes. Jared’s watchin’ the field, where the players are comin’ back out and doesn’t notice. But I see it. I see when Matt starts to get that amazed look on his face again, like he always does when he suddenly remembers how much he loves him. Finally he leans over to Jared, grabs a handful of his hair and whispers somethin’ in his ear. Jared smiles and blushes up to his hairline, which, to tell you the truth, is pretty damn cute to see, and then Matt lets go of him and leans back in his seat next to me.
    He sighs and glances warily over at me. “You’re an asshole,” he says, but his tone’s at least halfway jokin’. I can tell he’s gettin’ back to normal.
    “I know,” I say. I leave him alone for a couple of minutes. Wait for him to relax a little more, then say, “You know I was just fuckin’ with you, right?”
    He sighs, and then says in resignation, “I know.”
“You totally took my bait.”
He rolls his eyes. “I know.”
    “You know Jared’s so fuckin’ crazy over you, he’d never even look at another guy, right?”

    He smiles just a tiny bit. “Yeah.”
    “You know you outweigh me by like three hundred pounds and could probably beat the shit out of me if I ever tried anything, right?”
    He finally looks over at me and smiles. “What do you mean, ‘probably’?”
    I laugh at that. “So, we’re cool?” ’Cause as much as I may like seein’ him all flustered, the truth is, I don’t really want him mad at me.
    “Yeah,” he says, as he turns back to the game. “We’re cool.” He’s quiet for a minute, drinkin’ his beer, and then he nudges me with his elbow. “Hey, Angelo, by the way?”
    “Yeah?”

    “Not many freckles. But he has a big tattoo between his shoulder blades. Bigger than yours, even.”
    “ Jared does?” I ask in disbelief.
“Yep.”
“Of what?”
He grins wickedly over at me. “I’m not telling.”
I have to laugh. “But it’s hot, right?”
He winks at me and says, “You have no idea!”
    And so the second half of the game starts. But now I got Matt to talk to. And that, of course, is what I wanted all along.
    A FTER the game Matt drives home. Jared lets me have the front seat. He drank more than Matt or me at the game. He lays down as much as he can manage in the back seat and goes to sleep before we’re even outta Denver.
    “Are you and Zach coming to Lizzy’s for Thanksgiving?” Matt asks me.
    Lizzy’s been invitin’ us over for dinner at least once a week since we moved to Coda. I hated it at first. Sittin’ there with