Raina just fakes a retch. "I'm gonna be sick."
Kyle snorts. "You're such a prude, Raina."
"I'm not a prude! It's just—who licks balls? No one! You just end up with pubes in your mouth." She makes a disgusted face, shaking her head. "No thanks. Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt, and burned it."
"That's because you don't actuallylickthem," Thomas says. "It's more like a nice, soft suckling motion. Right, honey?" He nuzzles into Colin.
Colin blushes. "Who wants another round?"
Thomas just giggles again. "You're so predictable. You can take the boy out of church, but you can't take the church out of the boy, even if he is gayer than Elton John."
Noelle moves from her chair to perch on the edge of the bench beside me, leaning into me. "My friends are perverts, Bear. I hope you're not easily offended."
I shift over to give her more room, but she only follows me, shoving herself against my side. "They're funny."
"Thanks for handling those two jerks.”
"My pleasure."
"Is that how everyone reacts to you?" She looks up at me as she asks the question, all of her attention focused on me.
That too-tight feeling comes back, and my mouth goes dry again. "Usually. I scare people."
"You don't scare me," she says.
I don't know what to say. "Probably should." It's the wrong thing to say, but it's the truth.
"Why? Because of your size? Or because of whatever it was you wrote down on the form?"
"Both."
"Well, I'm not afraid of you."
"You don't know anything about me."
She smiles. "Nope. Not yet. How about you tell me something?"
"Like what?"
She touches my left forearm, where I had a tattoo blacked out. "Like what was under here."
Hesitating for a moment, I sigh. "A bad tattoo."
“Bad in terms of content or quality?"
"Both."
"What was it?" Curiosity, interest—no judgment.
"Gang affiliation." It's as much as I can manage, right now.
She examines me, searching my face with those bright green eyes. "And you're not in the gang anymore, so you covered it up?"
"Right."
"What kind of a gang was it?"
"The bad kind." That's only partially true.
