December 9, 2015

Mitch:

"R."

"You're a whore, Mitch."

"I thought you already knew that." I toss him the basketball back and he makes it on the first shot, like always. I suck almost as much at basketball as he does at soccer and I should have known better than to play him for dinner. I already have three letters and he has none, and I really don't want to eat pizza or chicken strips for dinner again. I would even take Chipotle at this point – at least that pretends to have healthy ingredients. I already have ten pounds to lose after gorging myself over the past three weeks and the last thing I want is more grease and more fake meat. He tosses the ball back to me and hops down from his spot on the side of the hot tub, trying not to look surprised when I actually manage to make the shot. I can lob the fucking ball twice as far as he can, I can run five miles when he can't run one, I can do two hundred push-ups while he stands to the side and stares at my ass... I just can't beat him at basketball, or apparently beer pong. It must be from all of those hours spent tossing trash into the trash can, unwilling to move from the warm butt imprint on the chair in front of his computer monitors. This is what I get for just letting mine stack up on the desk.

"Maybe we should play 'chicken' instead of 'horse.' It'd give ya a few extra tries." He grins at me deviously and takes a step to the side, unwilling to move back farther from our crooked hoop. If I miss this shot or shoot it too hard, the ball will probably go in the pool again. Leave it to the skeletal, wiry computer hacker to use me being in shape against me.

"You just want to watch me humiliate myself even more. You're a terrible man."

"You didn't think I was terrible last night." I love that ugly creep smirk; I just love wiping it off of his face even more.

"No, you're a great man as long as your mouth is nice and occupied. Last night, you were a great man." I miss the shot, sending the ball spiralling into the hot tub. At least it won't be that hard to fish out. "S."

"He likes him some whores. Good to know. And because you're not the only one who can hit below the belt..." He pulls the dirtiest trick in the book and walks to the other side of the basket to make the same shot, just from the left hand side. This is why no one should ever trust a Bacca. "Suck on that big one." He tosses me the ball with a knowing look on his face, plotting out his dinner order in his head. I am already having buyer's remorse over this basketball hoop and we just bought it yesterday.

"This is how legends are made. I'll see you suckers... on the other side." Knowing that I have a low chance of making the shot and next to zero chance of winning the game, I balance the ball on the top of my foot and try to chuck it in that way. If this works, it will be worth buying him dinner. It bounces off of the corner of the backboard and hops down the sideyard, rolling right into the stack of pool cleaning supplies and sending everything to the ground with a loud crash. He snickers loudly and claps me on the back in sympathy.

"Fan-tastic. But last time I checked, we weren't bowling. Ten outta ten. Best game 2015."

"There's the E. 'Horse.' "

"Now I just need a saddle so I can ride you. Giddy-up, Meetch." He runs up behind me and grabs my hips, pretending to hump me while he screeches like a wild animal. If our neighbors had a way to evict us, I'm sure they would have by now. It is dark outside on a Sunday evening in Old-and-Goldie Town in Florida, and we are playing basketball, screaming, moaning, and yelling about whores. We might offend the cats' fragile sensibilities, oh no. I think we might move back up north somewhere when our company rep contract expires next year; he hates the climate and the wildlife, and I hate the people. I have seen enough angry old women and wrinkly old asses since I signed the paperwork for this house to last the rest of my life, or until I have an angry, wrinkly Jerome trying to give me a lap dance. At least I have fifty years to prepare for that sight. He squeezes my crotch one last time and he hurries inside the house, grabbing the spare keys from the junk drawer. He is losing no time tonight.

"What do you want, O Great One?"

"Cheeken." He is already opening the garage door before I can say anything else, so I turn and lock the patio door and follow him out to the car, slipping on a pair of pink bunny slippers on the way out to meet him. He seems surprised that I decided to come with him, a tacky grin spreading across his face as I lock the inside door and hop into the car. "Nice you could make it. Thought I was gonna be rammin' around by myself while you pulled a Dondo."

"I'm not that fucking lazy." Which reminds me: Alex is passed out upstairs, and he isn't the best safeguard against robbery when he is awake. I set the security alarm from my phone as he pulls out of the driveway, and off we go to one of Jerome's usual haunts. This is probably the most privacy we're going to have for a while, so we should make the most of it. "There was another reason I came with you. I need to talk to you... I can't lie anymore."

"Can't lie about what, Mitch?" His eyes look stony for a few seconds before his face falls and he pulls over to the side of the road, staring down at the steering wheel. "You aren't breaking up with me, are you?"

"No. No, of course not. That's not what this is about."

"Then what is it about? Why so serious?"

"I can't take the lying anymore. I don't want to take Abby home for Christmas. They already know that something is up because they kept commenting on how much I was texting you when I was up there for Thanksgiving. Why bother lying about us going out when all of them are blackballed into silence?" He just nods before he checks the rearview mirror and pulls away from the curb, his face still uncertain. "Why did you think I was breaking up with you?"

"I just thought after you saw how easy it was with Abby..."

"I don't like Abby. I love you, you dumbass."

"I love you, too. But it's debatable about who's the dumbass in this relationship. I told you a month ago we shoulda gone together and just told 'em the truth. They all woulda been over it by now and we wouldn't've had to deal with any shit during Christmas or the ski trip."

"Now isn't that a lie. As long as it's you and me that we're talking about, someone somewhere is always going to have something really fucked up to say. I'm like a three-dimensional rainbow-"

"And I'm the six-legged roach-a-corn riding you. Got it." He gets another one of his trademark shitty grins as a wave of relief starts to wash over him. He actually thought I was going to break it off with him, even though both of us are more than happy with how things are now. I wish he had a little more faith in me. "I'm still gettin' cheeken."

"Go get your fucking chicken. We all know how much you love to choke your chicken." His only answer is an extremely long, wet slurp.

---

December 20, 2015

Jerome:

"Are you ready for this, Biggums?" he asks with a sarcastic grin while I lift the last suitcase off the bag carousel and pop the pully handle out so I can drag it behind me like a second grader. He throws his backpack on and slides my laptop bag up on his shoulder like a good little pack mule before he pulls out his phone to text his dad. They don't know I'm coming so this's gonna be interesting. I didn't think I'd be this nervous about telling our families. Fuck. "He said he parked in Lot E7. I don't know about you, but I'm not dragging all of this crap up seven flights of stairs, so start looking for an elevator."

"Gotcha. So are we gonna tell him first and your mom later? How's this gonna go?" All of a sudden, he darts behind a metal pillar and pulls me by my arm to follow him. There's a small army of people holding fluorescent poster board signs and Minecraft heads at the end of the gate. God dammit. Every damn time.

"I don't see a way around them, dood. It wouldn't look good if they caught us trying to avoid them, and there aren't any doors we can sneak out through. We can do it, Jerome." He looks at me sternly and I glare at him, wishing for once we could just have a normal fucking trip. For someone who hates kids and public events, he's awful understanding.

"Dammit, Mitch."

"You're just pissy because you know I'm right. I'll buy you a coffee when we go pick up presents this afternoon." He knows how to play me like a fucking card. I could go for some caffeine, not gonna lie, so I just groan and plaster on a smile and follow him. As usual, I let him take care of most of the awkward pleasantries and shit and before I know it, I'm holding signs so they can take pictures with us. Nothing good can come of this. I can feel the Photoshop already. Fifteen minutes later, I'm the one dragging his ass out towards the parking garage. He's too fucking nice for his own good and his poor dad's been waiting for two hours already because of the flight delays.

"We gotta go, Benj. Your family's already gonna be tellin' you to dump me and they don't even know I'm here yet."

"You had better watch what you say in public, Big Mouth."

"Name's Big Nose. Get it right. Speaking of big mouths, you bring the pee sticks?"

"Who could forget the pee sticks, Jerome? They're right here with the Sharpies, if you want to take a whiff or five." He jerks his thumb back towards his backpack and raises his eyebrows in his usual smartass smile. This prank's gonna start us off on the right foot – the smelliest fucking foot in the state of Pennsylvania. And I didn't even come up with this one. "Whoever gets the backseat has to read the instructions and set everything up."

"Sounds like a deal. And you said kitchen trash?"

"Yeah, right in the top corner where it looks like she tried to hide it but where they can still see it. If it doesn't work this time, we'll pick up some more when we go to the store." We finally make it to the elevator by the E garage and I can still hear the chattering behind us from Mitch's groupies. We almost push each other into the elevator and I make a show of smashing the button to shut the doors behind us. Then the fun begins. I press every single floor so they won't know where we're going. All ten of 'em. I wasn't born yesterday, kiddos. We get enough of the realest stalker shit and I'm not gonna encourage you to join the bandwagon.

"I say you take the front seat. I need a break from socializing until I can get that coffee." He waits until the door closes again after stopping at the second floor before he leans over and kisses me quickly. Even though I'm only running on two hours of shitty plane sleep and I can't get my caffeine fix fast enough, I couldn't be happier to be here right now.

---

December 20, 2015

Mitch:

"Marley?!" There's a long pause after the scream before we hear "Kyleigh?!" I have to grab one of the pillows off of the bed and smash it against Jerome's face so they won't hear him laughing like a lunatic from all the way downstairs. I put the two laptops on standby, knowing that he will have to put his insane series of paranoia-inducing passwords in when we come back upstairs. This show will be worth it, though. We wait until we hear two sets of feet pad down the carpeted hallway and down the stairs, then I silently open the door to my old room and we sneak down to our eavesdropping spot right above the landing. It's just like in the good old days back in high school when we would spend almost every vacation moving between each other's houses, causing havoc and laughing our asses off. We look like vultures, biding our time until our next meal while the horrified parents swarm below. This is what they all get for sabotaging so many of my challenge video recordings over the Thanksgiving weekend. Four failures inspired one epic failure for them.

"Now, we don't know which one of you it belongs to-"

" 'They.' There were two, Terri."

"Fine, 'they.' We don't know who they belong to, but someone needs to start talking. Our family doesn't keep secrets."

"What are you talking about?" Kyleigh sounds worried, like she might be hiding something. It looks like we have our work cut out for us for the three days we're here. Now that I have the Bacca here to back me up, we have an infinite source of entertainment.

"Your dad found something very... shocking. We aren't mad, but we need to know whose these are." There is the sound of crinkling plastic and we hear a cardboard box being pushed across the table. There is a long, thick silence downstairs, and the only sound in the house is Connor pounding on the keyboard in the office. I can only imagine the thoughts flying through their heads right now. "We aren't angry. We just want to help."

"It's not mine. I'm not seeing anybody," Kyleigh exclaims and we can feel the air go still as all eyes shift to Marley. She is going to be so pissed off after this.

"Sweetie, we just want to help you. This is your life and you get to make your own choices, but you need to tell Mike. You can't-"

"Oh, no. Nuh-uh. I'm not knocked up. Those aren't mine."

"They sure as hell aren't mine."

"Ky, watch the language. We need both of you to tell us the truth so we can work out a plan. Whose tests are these?" Dad sounds really freaked out right now, even though he is trying his best to hold it together. If we hadn't spent our childhood putting pencil shavings in Marley's diet shake powder, making it seem like Kyleigh had taken the car for a joyride, and planting evidence that Connor had shit his pants at school, we might have felt bad. Judging by the way that Jerome is looking at me right now, he knows that the joke is about up, too. No one aside from Dad knows he's here yet, so this prank will be doubly shocking.

"I know you don't want to talk about it but we can't have secrets like this. Who took the tests?"

"How do you know it wasn't Mitchell?"

"Honey, you know it isn't his. You can't say things like that."

"That's not what I mean, Mom. This is Mitch we're talking about." It sounds like it is starting to sink in.

"Wait for it," Jerome whispers with an evil smile, holding his hand up in the air and counting down on his fingers. He only gets to three.

"MITCH!" I take his hat off and slip my Benja hoodie off, quickly swapping our clothes in a last minute change to our master plan. He silently creeps his way downstairs next to me while I intentionally make it so they can hear me coming. I put my hand on his lower back and steer him toward the diplomacy meeting in the kitchen, staying just out of sight next to the stairs.

"Yes, Mother?" I say just as Jerome walks around the corner and leans against the wall in an impersonation of me. Kyleigh looks up at him and frowns, trying to make sense of it while Dad holds up one of the white plastic sticks with a plastic bag as a glove, examining the falsified test.

"I knew it! I can hear it in his voice!" Marley looks so smug and sure of herself, but she doesn't notice that I'm not the one standing there. I wish I could get this on camera, for the laughs if nothing else.

"Mitch, did you...?" Mom stops as soon as she looks up and realizes that she isn't lecturing me; with the expression on her face, you would think that she just saw an elephant fly.

"Hey, Mama. How's it goin'?" I can hear the cheesy smile in his voice as Mom steps forward to give him a confused, awkward hug and Marley groans and dramatically covers her face with her hands. Her worst nightmare just came true.

"Everything's fine, honey. When did you get here? Mitch, come out. We know you're out there." I walk around the corner to join him, leaning back against the other side of the doorway. Kyleigh doesn't look like she believes I'm really here, even when I take Jerome's hat off and slide it back on his head.

"You should know by now that he never leaves," I joke as I motion with my head toward him while he adjusts his precious snapback.

"Yeah. I've been livin' up in the attic for the last two months and no one's noticed. Pretty sweet deal." He frowns down at the table and steps forward just enough to look at the two pink lines at the end of the second fake pregnancy test that Dad isn't still holding. "Looks like someone had fun. This what you wanted to tell us earlier, Marley?" He's just good enough of an actor that he can still send them into a tailspin, and all eyes turn back to Marley. She buries her crimson red face in her hands

"I'm going to kill both of you."

"Why? We didn't take the tests. You know how I do on tests, and it ain't that positive." He points down at the little plastic stick, basking in the looks of disbelief and uncertainty surrounding him. Alex could do some amazing editing on this if we were recording it. It's times like this when I really miss ASF and the higher tolerance level for Jerome's personal brand of insanity.

"If you and Mitch didn't put those there, then who did? Huh?" Marley huffs, like her annoyance has any effect on him. Jerome shrugs and, like the truest of champions, picks the fake pregnancy test up off of the table and slows moves it up toward his nose, wafting it under his nostrils like it is a fine cigar. Mom and Kyleigh look away in horror while Marley rolls her eyes at his antics. Dad, on the other hand, decides to give it a try, too.

"Kevin! That's disgusting!"

"It smells like marker. Did you two...?" Mom snatches the test away from him and carefully drops it back on the table, trying to let it touch her hand as little as possible.

"Oh, for god's sakes. You've been home for less than two hours and you're already trying to give us a heart attack!"

"You two," Dad points between Marley and Kyleigh, "stay here." Marley rolls her eyes and slumps down in her chair while poor Kyleigh just sits back and watches, helpless. He turns to us, trying to hide an amused grin. "We would tell you two to go up to your room, but we all know nothing good is going to come from that. Go... go sit on the couch or something."

"Yes, Dad." Jerome puts on a big, ugly frown and bows his head, slinking through the house to the couch like a scared puppy. He curls up in a little ball and puts his forehead on his knees, rocking gently back and forth. Mom doesn't look impressed with our grand entrance and I follow Jerome into the living room and sit next to him, wrapping my arms around him in pretend comfort.

"Got eem," I whisper, and the only thing louder than his stifled laughter is Marley's indignant ranting at the other end of the house. The harpy is going to be on our case all day, every day until we leave on the twenty-third to drive over to Jerome's parents' house. Even though it had been for the comedy show, it feels nice to be this close to him. I pull away and he looks over at me questioningly. "There has to be something else we can do before they come in and give us a stern talking-to."

"You wanna tell 'em when they come in?"

"We probably should, yeah. How should we do it?" He takes a second to think before he puts his feet on the floor and starts stripping his clothes off. He tosses his hat so it rolls down the short hallway to the dining room, followed by my hoodie and his sneakers. I slide my shirt off and add it to the pile in the middle of the floor so they will see it before they walk into the room, then I reach over and unbuckle his belt, sliding his jeans down by his ankles.

"He did say 'or something.' Come here, Mitch. Come sit on ol' Santy Bac's lap." He stumbles over to Mom's armchair and rolls his boxers up so it will look like he is stark ass naked, and I walk over and crawl sideways up on his lap, draping my legs over the arm closest to the doorway. "And now we wait."

"Do you want me to do a little dance for you, Biggums?"

"Sounds like the worst idea ever. Maybe at three in the morning, but there're children around, Mitch. You can't do that to Santy Bac in broad daylight." I almost wish we could get a good picture of this from the other side of the room, just so we could post it under a pseudonym and watch it circulate. All we would have to do is say that it was Photoshopped and no one would believe it was real. Imagine the looks on everyone's faces. Adam would get a nosebleed. "Your mom's gonna be so pissed at us."

"We had better make it worth it, then." I lean down and capture his lips, pulling away just when we hear feet creaking on the wood floor in the kitchen. He moves his hand a little farther up so it is resting on my hip, with the other on my lower back. I can't let him beat me. I unwrap one arm from his neck and put it on his bare chest, turning to grin at him so it will look like we are still making out.

"Three, two..."

"Jesus Christ."

"No. Break it up, boys." I turn and see Mom bending over to start chucking pieces of clothing at us, trying not to stare at the exhibit in her reading chair. Dad is leaning his head against the wall, rubbing his eyes to try to keep himself from laughing. After all of these years, how can these people still take anything we do seriously? "Enough. Get up and get dressed before we... Just get up."

"Were you going to threat to call his parents?" I ask, and I can't help but laugh as I swing my legs off of the chair and bend over to grab his hat off of the floor, putting it backward on his head so we can watch him try to put his shirt back on over it like a dumbass.

"We have to do something to control you two and your god awful practical jokes. Jerome, please pull your pants up." She seems at a loss for words for a few seconds as she walks across the room to sit in Dad's chair. Something tells me she is going to be breaking out the upholstery cleaner tonight. "What would you have done if Connor or Kyleigh walked in on you two doing that?"

"Mom, I think Kyleigh is old enough to see two shirtless guys. If you want to see some scary stuff, go take a look at her computer sometime. This guy can help with that." I toss Jerome his shirt back and, true to form, he tries to put it on without taking his hat off. "Besides, I'm pretty sure both of them could recognize a joke when they see one."

"So it was a joke?" Dad looks more interested now, even though his face is deathly red from him trying not to laugh.

"We wouldn't get it on in the living room where people could walk in on us. We aren't as stupid as you think we are." Mom crosses her arms pointedly, daring me to press that point. I slide my shirt on and grab my hoodie off of the floor before I walk over to perch on the end of the couch closest to Jerome's sex throne, their eyes following my every movement. I don't think anything else needs to be said.

"So it was a joke, and it wasn't a joke."

"Yes," Jerome answers loudly as he finally pulls his shirt down and adjusts his hat

"It took you two long enough. Eleven years. It took you eleven years! And here we were, worrying about it not being legal for you to get married here-"

"Married?" I can feel my face turning pink and Dad just nods along. This is moving even faster than it does in Jerome's head.

"-and you spent all that time pretending you didn't like each other. It's like a fucking soap opera."

"Kevin. Watch the language."

"They aren't kids anymore, honey. They cussed more than we did back when they first met."

"So you ship it?" Jerome asks with a toothy grin that looks more like something you would expect to find in a Halloween store than it should. He is a walking, breathing emoticon.

"I don't know what that is, but if it means 'like,' of course we like it. Right?" He looks over at Mom and she pinches the bridge of her nose, weighing her options.

"I would say we were very happy you two finally worked it out, but that would mean that this," she makes a circle in the air in front of her, "would happen even more than it does now." Dad guffaws before he walks across the living room and stands in front of Jerome, who looks like is about to be probed by an alien. He grabs him by the hand and pulls him into the most awkward hug I have ever seen.

"Welcome to the family, son."

"Dad, we aren't getting married."

"Not yet." Mom slowly gets up to join the group hug and I just facepalm while Jerome pats them stiffly on the back, cringing as his hat goes askew again. At least the worst part is out of the way, hopefully. Now we will just have to edit theirs and Marley's side comments out of every future video we do with them, and everything will be great. Two down, two to go.