Love Is the Higher Law by David Levithan Read Free Book Online

Pizza boxes lie open-mouthed with congealed leftovers and petrified crusts still inside them. There’s a forest of Snapple bottles settled with tea sediment, and a gaggle of magazines left haphazardly across the furniture—even though there’s a couch and two armchairs, at first there’s nowhere for me to sit. “Sorry, sorry,” Jasper says, jumping in and clearing off the couch by moving everything into a makeshift pile on one of the armchairs. “I never did get that housekeeping merit badge.” “You were a Boy Scout?” I ask. He nods. “An Eagle, actually. But without the housekeeping badge.” He asks me if I want something to drink, and I tell him water would be great. And then he says, “No, I mean something to drink,” and I say I’ll have whatever he’s having. He goes to the kitchen and brings back two bottles of OB beer. “OB?” I ask. And he says, “It’s like Korean Budweiser. That way, if my parents catch me drunk, at least they’ll think I’m reaffirming my heritage.” Jasper turns on the TV, and of course it’s the news, and all of a sudden we’re sitting on the couch watching it, sipping our beers. Or at least I’m sipping; Jasper gulps. “Did you see Peter Jennings by the end of the day yesterday?” he says. “I swear, the man was up for forty-eight hours straight, trying to explain this unexplainable thing. If it weren’t for him and Brokaw and Dan Rather, I think we would’ve had riots in the streets. They’re the ones who calm us down. Not our fake of a president.” “I’ll drinkto that,” I say. He raises his beer. “To Peter Jennings!” “To Peter Jennings!” And then we clank our bottles, and I wonder whether this is the most contact we’ll have tonight, because we go back to watching the news and all the talk about the Taliban and Osama bin Laden and what America’s response should be. It’s not very romantic, except maybe if you take the long view and say that the two of us on the couch despite everything going on is itself a romantic statement. If we don’t go out on dates, then the terrorists will have won . After about an hour of CNN and ABC and NBC and CBS, with us providing our own commentary, Jasper (by now finishing his third beer, with me slowly imbibing my second) slaps his hand to his forehead and says, “Cabaret !” He digs up the DVD and puts it into the DVD player. “Is it okay if we leave the lights on?” he asks. “Or do you like it better in the dark?” And I say either way is fine. Truth is, I’m not really that interested in watching a movie. It’s getting late, and my mind is slipping into its usual Clash refrain: Stay? Go? The movie starts, and Liza Minnelli’s in pre-Nazi Germany, and it’s a little weird because everyone seems to think she’s amazing, but really she’s not that attractive, but I’m afraid of saying anything, because for all I know, Liza Minnelli is Jasper’s favorite actress ever, and even though I’m pretty new at this, I know that coming between a gay boy and his diva is a very serious offense. I personally don’t have a diva, unless Rufus Wainwright and Morrissey count, which maybe they do. It’s starting to feel like I’m over at a friend’s house, which isn’t a bad thing for a seventh date, but is pretty discouraging for a first. But there’s no way I’m going to make amove without him giving me some indication that he wants me to make a move—which I guess is a way of me saying that he has to make the move, since indications are, in general, also moves. I try to motivate myself to take that first step, but the fact that it’s his house and the fact that he’s older and the fact that he’s clearly more experienced than I am—well, it all just shuts me up, until I find a dull and neutral fact to send in his direction, to see what kind of response it gets. “It’s almost midnight,” I say after the British bisexual has stopped singing. And Jasper says, “You can stay over, you know. I