The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

A Jock's Gratitude

Previously: "A Favor and Its Follow-Up" 

There seems to be a meaningful cast to the gleam in his eye as Joe asks if your dad works at Salopek, but you've no idea what that meaning can be. You just confirm that he does.

"Thought so," says Joe. "I remember hearing the name and the place. But come on, I gotta go show Frank I got my wallet back. Er, you remembered to bring it, right?"

You pull it from your pocket and hand it to him. He prances like a show pony as he pulls you out the other side of the kitchen and into a nearly windowless den.

His brother is stretched out on a dumpy sofa, a pencil in his mouth as he reads the math book he's got balanced on his chest. He looks over the top of it at you, and his brow lowers.

"Veil yourself, Joe," he says after taking the pencil from his mouth.

"What? Oh. But look what I got, Frank, look what I freaking got and what you freaking said I was never going to freaking see again!" He leans over his brother and shakes the wallet in his face.

"Congratulations, now you don't have to go get a new driver's license made. Thanks, man," he says to you.

"Blokjok jingwat jokjok-wa!" At least, that's what it sounds like what Joe jeers at him.

"You don't say," Frank replies after regarding him dubiously for a moment. His eyes flick back to you. "Interesting."

A cloud seems to have gone over the sun outside, for the den has darkened since you stepped into it, but you're still able to get a good look at these guys, and to notice how different they are from each other. Frank you already had a good look at last night. He is long and lean and strong, and there is a kind of panther-like grace to the way he is stretched out—in a gray t-shirt and charcoal-gray workout shorts—on the sofa. He is very still, but you have the impression he could move very quickly—that he could throw himself almost instantly into motion—if he had to.

Joe is much more lively, shifting restlessly on his feet as he swaggers and preens over Frank. He is in jeans and a loose-fitting muscle shirt, showing off brawny, golden arms and rounded shoulders. He has a strong face, like his brother's, with similarly pronounced brow and nose and jaw and chin, but his shaggy blonde hair, which curls over his brow and ears and the nape of his neck, is like a golden halo setting off the bright tan of his face. His blue eyes dance and glint, and a white grin shifts liquidly across his face, never disappearing for long.

"My brother said I was fucked," he exclaims as he throws his arm around your shoulders again. "Said I was gonna have to go all the way back home and get a whole new license made, 'cos I was never gonna see this one again!"

"Home?" you query.

"Back where we last lived." He sticks his tongue out at Frank. "Who's the clumsy dumbass now, Frank?"

He takes a step back, trips over his heels, and falls onto his ass. With surprising grace, though, he turns it into a backward tumble, rolls his heels over his head, and pops back onto his feet with a sour smirk.

"Yeah, it all worked out," Frank says, "better than we hoped. How do you want to celebrate?" Again, his eye flicks over to you.

Joe draws in a long, deep breath. It sounds like a bellows sucking oxygen into a furnace. Then he shouts at the top of his lungs, "Party!"

* * * * *

Their dad is out of town for the week, they explain, and their mom lives elsewhere. So as long as they don't burn the house down, they have the entire week for the use and the run of the house to do whatever they want.

"You don't understand what a big fucking deal this is," Joe jabbers excitedly when you're back in the kitchen with him. (It's like he can't stand to be in one room for too long before he has to go roam through another one.) He is tapping frenziedly at his phone as he talks. "Dad left last Friday and he'll be back next Friday, so I thought we were gonna have the weekend to party, like, a three-day binge when we were gonna have people in and out and in and out, never a moment when someone wasn't here or crashing or doing something, but Frank the Party-killing Freak told me no, we had to be responsible!" He rolls his eyes and grimaces at the ceiling. "We had to show Dad we could be trusted!" He flings his hands at the ceiling in a gesture of supplication and exasperation. "And I'm, like, what's the point of showing Dad we can be trusted if we can't do something fun with that trust? Like, do we want him trusting us that we'll sit around and do our fucking homework," he screams, "if he leaves us alone for a week? We do that when he's here! Only thing Frank would let us do was go out and have fun on a Saturday night. Oh, d'ju have fun last night?" He looks up from his phone long enough to squint at you.

"Uh ... I guess."

"Cool, you're gonna have to tell me all about it," he says as he ducks back over his phone, "so we can get all the girls you made out with out here so you can make out with them all over again."

His head shoots up, and he looks about with a very alert expression. Then he creeps over to peer around the corner into the den. When he rejoins you, he whispers in your ear:

"If you need the bedroom to, you know, finish what you started last night, just let me know. Least I can do for you getting me my wallet back." He pats your chest, and gives you a meaningful look.

You cinch your jaw back up after you realize it has fallen open.

He remains quiet as he returns to concentrating on his phone, so you wander back into the den. Frank is still on the sofa, his face hidden behind the book, but he lowers it when he hears you come in.

"You gonna be able to make it out?" he asks. You're grounded, but you nod because it is less awkward than confessing that you can't. "Good. Joe lives for parties, and ninety percent of this one is for him. But ten percent of it's for you."

"Me?"

"That's not just for show, the way he's prancing around you. He's really grateful you found his wallet. This party is practically in your honor."

You wince a little in embarrassment, and glance back toward the kitchen.

Frank's unwinking gaze is still upon you when you turn to him.

"He's gonna offer you every favor he can think of," he says, and this assertion seems pregnant with meaning. "Think of what you really want, Prescott," he adds as he raises the book to hide his face again. "My brother sometimes thinks he's the fucking genie from Aladdin."

* * * * *

True to his earlier promise, Joe when he rejoins you asks who you hung out with last night at the Warehouse, or who you know that you want coming to the party. With some trepidation, you tell him and Frank about Justine and Trixie.

"Trixie Belden?" Joe asks. He grins at his brother.

"Her last name is Hays," Frank retorts.

"You know what I mean. But Trixie, huh?" Joe slaps you in the stomach with the back of his hand, hard enough you actually gasp. "Sure we can get her out. Her and Justine both."

But Frank frowns. "Justine Callendar?" he asks you. You shrug. "Friends with Trixie, has dark hair, was wearing a dark dress with a hair clip here?" He points to the side of his head.

"Ooh!" Joe jeers at him as you nod. "Look who was being all fucking observant last night, practicing his observing skills!"

"I'm gonna fuck you up after Will's gone," Frank tells him. "But I'll tell you something else I observed, she was hanging off'a Derek Macy all night."

"Macy?" Joe makes a face. "What's Macy got 'cept a black leather jacket to go with his pus-face personality?"

"'Pus-face personality'," Frank muses. "That's surprisingly well-spoken for you, Joe. But I'm just saying what I 'observed' last night. You don't want to promise Prescott something you can't deliver."

"Oh, I can deliver," Joe says. "I can deliver anything Prescott wants! You believe in me, don't you?" He turns his gleaming gaze upon you.

I don't know you, you want to say, but you shrug.

"Well, you just give me a chance. I'll have both of them out here, give you a chance with both of them, either of them, you take your pick. And I'll make sure pus face—" He glares at Frank. "Isn't there."

Then he wraps an arm around your shoulders and steers you back through the kitchen and out the back door onto a covered patio, where he does some chin-ups on an exercise bar while puffing out questions to you: about your tastes in girls and your dating history; what you like to do at parties; and what you like to do for fun. It's with some embarrassment that you tell him about your bad experience with Lisa, and about how you don't go out much for parties but prefer to hang out with close friends. Joe is sympathetic about the former, and surprisingly empathetic about the latter.

"Yeah, and I know how that makes it tough at parties and stuff," he says. He's been resting between sets of reps, and now leaps up to grasp the bar again. "So don't feel like you gotta be the center of attention Wednesday night."

He strains through the last of what must be the fifth set of ten reps before dropping back to his feet.

"In fact," he pants, "bring out your own friends, if you want, we can always have more."

* To try to find a way to sneak out: "A Trixie Escape" 
* To confess that you're grounded: "Unexpected Windfalls" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"