I was wrong. Mr. Dimmitz did introduce Dennis and embarrassed him by making him tell us about himself, where he came from and how he liked Oak Ridge High School so far. I mean, how’s a guy who just arrived less than a half hour ago going to have any opinion about Oak Ridge High? Our nickname for our homeroom teacher really fit.

At the end of homeroom I grabbed Dennis away from eight or nine girls who had him surrounded, trying to chat him up. “Sorry, girls, we have to get to our next class. You can talk to Dennis later.”

There was a chorus of girls each vocalizing a singsong “Bye, Dennis” and gazing at him either with a dreamy expression or with a look of pure lust on their face as we left the room.

When we got away from Dimwits’ homeroom, I was laughing so hard I could barely talk. When I calmed down I looked at him. “I told you so, didn’t I? Didn’t I?”

Now Dennis started laughing. “Yes. Yes, you did. Jeez, most of the guys here must be real Quasimodos to have the girls coming after someone new on their first day.”

“Quasi… oh, yeah, I get it. Quasimodo, that ugly troll or whatever he was in ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ — right?”

“Yup, that’s him.”

“Well, I’ll have you know most guys here are good looking dudes. Like yours truly.” I pointed to myself with both index fingers and started laughing. I noticed that we were attracting curious glances from the kids we were walking past in the hall. “Dennis, you are so freakin’ spectacular looking that everyone’s looking at you. Not to totally freak you out, but as we’re walking down this hall to your locker, every girl and almost every guy is staring at you. I’ve actually seen two crashes between people who were looking at you and not looking where they were walking.” I started laughing again.

Dennis looked around, paying attention to the masses moving around us. After a few seconds he shook his head. “You’re right. I don’t get it. No one at Greyson ever gave me a second glance.”

“That’s because they all knew you, probably for what, four years or more? Maybe even eleven?” Dennis nodded. “Here, you’re someone new, but not just someone new, someone new who looks like a freakin’ movie star. Mackenyu, move over! Dennis Liu is about to bump you out of your career! And he looks a hell of a lot younger and sexier!”

“Whoa, Kevin. That’s the second time you’ve said I look sexy. Calm down, boy! We don’t want you to bust your britches!” Dennis burst out laughing, attracting even more attention from the passing throng.

“Hey, my britches are just fine. I’m just calling ‘em as I see ‘em. Sexy is as sexy looks. And you, Dennis Liu, have the looks. And the lock.” We’d stopped in front of a bank of lockers.

“Huh? What do you mean, ‘and the lock’?”

“Your locker awaits, sir.” I pointed to the locker with ID number 1705. “Fortunately it’s one of the upper lockers. You would have had to get down on your knees to work the combinations on the lower ones.”

“Sounds good,” Dennis replied. “Are you sure it’s mine?”

“Here, on your schedule.” I pointed to the box at the bottom of the schedule sheet. “The locker number and combination are at the bottom. See, number seventeen-oh-five, and,” pointing to the number plate on the locker, “Seventeen-oh-five. Now, try the combination. What you do is turn the dial clockwise past the first number and then around to the first number again and stop; then counterclockwise past the first number and to the second number and stop; then, despite the instructions on the form — which are erroneous, incorrect, and even wrong — turn clockwise to the third number and stop. Your locker should open.”

“Shit, this seems more complicated than our lockers at home. Okay, lemme see.”

Dennis got the combination to work after only two tries. I congratulated him, and he checked out the locker for any leftovers from the prior student. Nothing. So he closed the locker and looked at me, really looked at me.

I felt sort of tingly in my nether reaches, and I really needed to break up this moment. “Okay, first period beckons. AP Calculus. I assume you’ve been taking AP Calc at Greyson High?”

“You know, you’re a really good looking guy, Kevin,” Dennis said out of nowhere and without answering my question.

Where the fuck did THAT come from! Dennis was grinning. It, unfortunately, was contagious, and I started grinning too. Jeez, was Dennis coming on to me? I could only wish!

“Kevin, you should be taking drama, be in the school plays. You’d be great as an actor. You have the looks, and you have the voice. You ever think of acting?”

“Uhh, no, not at all. And all I’m thinking about right now is that we’ve only got about 3 minutes to get to our first class of the day, Advanced Placement Calculus AB and BC. Let’s join the crush, man, or we’ll be late and Mrs. Pasternak will have words with us in front of the class. You don’t want to be embarrassed on your first day here, do you?”

“No, embarrassment is something I’m sure I’ll suffer from enough without…” he looked at his schedule, “…without Mrs. Pasternak being the first to inflict it.”

We arrived at room B106 with about 30 seconds to spare, and we grabbed two seats next to each other in the back. There was no Mrs. Pasternak. Instead we had a substitute teacher who announced that Mrs. Pasternak was called away because of an emergency, that his name was Mr. Boyce, and that we would be having our quiz as planned and prepared by Mrs. Pasternak. As the sub handed out the quiz sheets, I turned to Dennis.

“You want to skip this quiz? It’s not fair to make you take a quiz the first minute you’re in a class, especially in AP Calc.”

He shook his head. “Nah, no problem. I was doing okay, actually better than okay, in AP Calc at Greyson, and if I feel the quiz’s covering stuff we hadn’t covered yet, then I can talk to Mrs. Pasternak when she gets back. Or with this substitute if he’s still here tomorrow and he gives us our quiz grades.”

I guess I was prepared for the quiz, because afterwards I felt really good about it. Dennis said he felt the same way, too, and we headed to our 2nd period class, AP Human Geography. I introduced him to some of my friends who were in that class. Ditto 3rd period, AP English 4. That’s three AP classes, college level material, back to back. First thing in the morning. Crazy, I thought.

After AP English 4 we talked about our afternoon classes, and how Oak Ridge handled lunch for so many students. “You can have lunch 4th or 5th period. Each of those has two cafeteria sessions, an early and a late. We both have 4th-late lunch. That means we have about 25 minutes of free time at the beginning of 4th period, then we go to the cafeteria the last 25 minutes of the period. If you don’t use the cafeteria, you can eat anytime during your lunch period. There’s a snack shop where you can get milk and juice, chips, packaged sandwiches, nuked burritos, not very good pizza, that sort of stuff. It’s open all period long for everyone who has that period for lunch. I usually bring my lunch so I don’t have to get in line in the cafeteria. The snack shop lines are long, too, but not as long as the cafeteria.”

“I didn’t bring a lunch today, Kevin. I guess I’ll have to get in line at the cafeteria.”

“I figured I’d have to guide you through the morass of the cafeteria, so I didn’t bring a lunch from home today, either. Did they issue you a cafeteria card?”

“Yeah, this is it, right?”

Dennis showed me his cafeteria card, and it matched what was on his schedule. “You’re okay. For some reason, half the time the cafeteria cards have the wrong lunch info, like late instead of early. You’d think that with computers that wouldn’t happen, but the school probably uses the kind with a hand crank on the side, so we’re lucky we get cafeteria cards at all.”

I guided Dennis to the cafeteria quad and saw a bunch of my friends. Dennis seemed comfortable talking with everybody when I introduced him, and with those he’d met earlier. Everyone seemed to like him. I noticed that he kept close to me, and would look at me every so often, and smile. He and I always seemed to be in the same conversations. I liked that a lot. It was like we were best friends. I realized that I wanted to be Dennis’s best friend. I really liked that idea.

Those of us who were going to eat in the cafeteria eventually migrated in that direction — when it was time for 4th period late lunch — and got in line. For some reason, the lunch line was shorter than usual and we got something to eat about five minutes after getting in line. I got a chicken salad. Salads were the best thing to eat in our cafeteria. Dennis was about to pick up an egg salad sandwich but I warned him off. He got a BLT instead.

We went back outside and I guided Dennis to the table where I usually sat with my buds and introduced him around. Everyone seemed overly interested in him, staring at him a lot and making him start to blush. I grinned, because I thought that was funny, and because blushing made Dennis look even sexier. While we sat there, a bunch of girls and a couple of guys came over to chat up Dennis. He seemed to enjoy the attention. I felt myself getting a little jealous, and that made me feel weird.

The girls at our table were the worst. For God’s sake, Heather was actually drooling, sitting there leaning her chin on her fists, looking at Dennis — no, ogling Dennis. He handled it like it was something that happened to him every day, and by the time lunch was over I think every one of the girls was close to being in love with him. Just like the girls in our homeroom, when the bell rang and we stood to leave, all the girls did the singsong “Bye, Dennis” bit. I was like totally busting up as we walked to our 5th period class. He looked at me with disgusted expression, which just made me laugh harder.

The rest of the day was normal. Dennis and I left our 5th period AP Geology class and went to his locker. Yeah, another AP class. Then we had different classes 6th and 7th periods. And I didn’t even mention that we were also taking AP Psych with Linda 8th period. All three classes were fine, no surprise quizzes. Of course, Linda almost panted out loud when she met Dennis. Funny how her schedule and mine were completely different except for 8th period.

By the time classes were over for the day I was very ready to get out and head home.

I turned to Dennis and grinned. “You know, I never asked where you live.”

“157 Menden Court.”

“I’m not sure where that is. I live at 54 Poppy Court. That’s east, about a fifteen minute walk from school.”

“Lemme see, I printed a map off the internet. Here it is. Hey!” Dennis looked up from the map, grinned, and looked down and pointed. “Here’s school, Poppy Court’s here, and Menden Court’s here, just two blocks further down Windermere and two blocks over.”

“Oh, okay, I know where that is. That’s the brand new townhouse development. Their sales office opened a few months ago.”

He looked at me and grinned. “Cool. We’re neighbors. We can get together to study and do stuff.” His grin faded a little. “Uhh, if you want to, that is.”

I smiled, and put my hand on his shoulder. “I want to. I think that would be great. Since we have almost all of our classes together, it makes sense for us to study together. And just hang or do whatever, ‘stuff’ included.”

“Okay, you want to come over now? You can meet my mom, and see my room which is a total mess. I’m not finished unpacking. Just don’t get the wrong idea about me; I’m sort of a neat freak. Everything’ll be unpacked and cleaned up by the end of the week.”

“Sounds great. Let’s stop by my place on the way, you can meet my mom, I can let her know I’m going to your place, and I can change from my school clothes. When we get to your house we can do our homework using your books. Oh, do you have any Sociology homework or reading you have to do tonight?”

“Nah. Mrs. Armington spent the entire class having us do interviews of each other. I need to write it up from my notes, but it’s not due until Thursday. I think the only tough homework we have is Calc, right?” I nodded and he continued, “We can do it together tonight. I can do the odd numbered problems and you can do the even ones.”

“Okay. But Dennis, why did you say you get the odd numbered problems? You like odd stuff, or something?” I was trying hard to keep from laughing, but I was grinning.

Dennis had a completely serious expression. He looked at me, staring into my eyes, like he was staring right into my mind. Then he smiled. “We’ll have to look into that. Maybe, maybe not. Me to know, you to find out. Let’s get going, Kevin!”

Dennis had been given his books as he went to each class, and they were in his backpack. We went to my locker where I dropped off all of my books. No point in carrying some twenty-five-plus pounds of books home just to bring them back tomorrow morning, unopened.

“How about I take half your books?” I asked.

“Hey, Kev, thanks! Uhh, is it okay if I call you ‘Kev’? He started unloading the books from his backpack.

“Sure. Everyone at school calls me ‘Kevin’, but I like ‘Kev’. You have special permission to call me Kev.”

His smile sort of lit up the hallway, or at least that was my impression, and he looked really happy. I was sure as hell happy! I realized that I was starting to have feelings for this guy, and even though that was totally weird, totally off the wall, I didn’t give a damn. I liked Dennis, really liked him.

I packed the books he gave me, and we headed home. I lived about a mile and a half from school, Dennis was about a quarter mile further. There were no school busses for high school students in Los Robles. We had to hoof it, ride our bikes, drive if we have a car and a license, or get a ride from someone. I was in the ‘hoof it’ group. But I loved to walk, and to hike, so the half hour it took me to walk to and from school was no problem. Unless it rained; then I got a ride, sometimes with friends, sometimes from my dad or mom.

There’s a range of hills that backed onto the Oak Ridge High School campus, and we both lived at the top of that ridge. There’s a footbridge that crossed Post Boulevard which ran along that side of the campus. We walked across campus, across Post on the footbridge, and up Dawkins to San Miguel toward home. We were talking about the normal sorts of things teens do. You know, music, TV, movies, books, that sort of thing.

I mentioned that I’d asked Linda to the Senior Ball, and that I’d gone out with other girls on a regular basis. I noticed that Dennis didn’t mention girls, not once. I started wondering if maybe he might be gay. That thought sure got my heart beating faster. I thought about that. Of course I wanted him to be gay. I thought about that. I did want him to be gay. But I wasn’t going to do anything about it. I’d made up my mind to stay in the closet, just like Jared had recommended. Just like I’d already decided.

So, Dennis and I spent the rest of our senior year being best friends. Just best friends. We went to the Senior Ball. I went with my other best friend, Linda. Dennis broke the hearts of dozens of girls when he asked Heather Lewis and she accepted.

I learned that Dennis planned to go to the University of Texas at San Antonio. Made sense; he’d lived there all his life before he moved to Los Robles. He had lots of friends in that city. I had always planned to go to the University of California, Berkeley. Both of us applied to other colleges as well. I received five acceptance letters, but the only one that counted had a Berkeley, California, return address. Dennis told me that he received four acceptance letters, including the one from the University of Texas at San Antonio. We were both happy campers, but I was more than a little disappointed that we were going to different schools.

We agreed to keep in touch. He sent me messages with an @utsa.edu email address. I replied with my @berkeley.edu email address. I told him about my weird roommate situation. He told me about the hot and humid weather in San Antonio.

I always felt a little lonely after reading one of his email messages.