Between Friends by Lou Harper Page A

know about us is that we always looked out for each other. Even Jules. Yeah, we were pretty hard on him, but we never let anyone else touch a hair on his head or say a cross word to him. Nobody—but we were allowed to hassle him. We were a handful and got into plenty scrapes, but whatever happened, we stood by each other.
    Jules didnt make it easy. One evening at family dinner, when he was fifteen, he just put the silverware down and told his parents and Kev, in that calm voice of his, that he was gay. The Reids at first thought it was a bad joke, but they had to accept that their youngest son was serious. It blindsided them, no doubt; they didnt know what to do with it at first. Eventually they came to accept it. They loved him, after all. You could say theyre proud of him even, though I think they were pretty relieved when Kev proposed to his girlfriend, Emily. The Reids wanted those grandkids pretty bad.
    Now, you can imagine the four of us kids were knocked for a loop. Jules had never said anything to us all those years, and wed done all kinds of boy stuff that was put into a different light by this revelation. Johnny was the least troubled, as he was the most easygoing of us. His brother Jon was pretty pissed, though. I felt angry too, I tell you honestly. I didnt even know exactly why. Kev set us all straight. He told us Jules was his little brother, no matter what, and we could either accept Jules the way he was or fuck off. So we accepted him. Yeah, Kev was like that. Hes got three kids now and is a great dad to them.
    So we all got back to the way we were before soon enough. We ribbed the fuck out of Jules, of course, but we also menaced the living daylight out any high school punk whod dare to mess with him. Jules was in school for two more years after the rest of us graduated, but we were still in town, and not above thumping underage assholes. Jules werent a scrawny little thing by then either. Im guessing hanging with us toughened him up. He was into sports, he was fast and strong, and he could take care of himself. He was a good-looking kid too, all blond and blue-eyed: a regular chick magnet. Totally fucking unfair. Not that he was a sissy, not by a mile. I once asked Lizzie Carpenter why they liked hanging around with Jules so much. She said it was because he was just like a regular guy, except he didnt try to get into their panties. Unlike someone like me. She didnt say that, but it was implied. Im not complaining; Ive never had a hard time getting girls. I had a certain “bad-boy” image going on. I had the muscles and the mug for it, and I could do the swagger too. Chicks dig that. It got me into Lizzie Carpenters panties, at any rate.
    Now, you may ask yourself why Im rattling on about all this ancient history when I was supposed to tell you about that bachelor night, but you had to know all the other stuff to understand how things could turn out the way they did.
    It was a Saturday, a week before the wedding, and the four of us were taking Kev out on the town. It was the typical bachelor party stuff: a titty bar and too much drinking. Somewhere long past midnight, we headed back to Johnnys place. He was in construction, did pretty well for himself, and had a nice house, so it was the perfect crash pad. His girlfriend agreed to stay with her parents for the night. Kev passed out in the cab coming back. Wed got him to drink more than we did, and he was a lightweight to begin with. So we put him in the bedroom and let him sleep it off. The rest of us werent ready to crash yet, though, so we sat around the living room listening to music, shooting the shit. Johnny dug out an old joint, and we passed it around.
    Somebody got the idea that we should watch some porn, since Johnny had a few DVDs lying around. So we did. Johnny had some quality porn, you know. None of that skanky stuff, but all top-shelf. So there we were, spread around on the couch, the La-Z-Boy, watching porn, getting hard. Now, you need to