Harmon “Waz” Wazelle is a superstar on the football field. By the time he’s sixteen, he knows exactly what his future will be. Redmond “Renny” Hennessey is a musical phenom. Though he’s faced some tragedy, he sees a bright path ahead as well, secure in the fact he has the talent to make it happen.
When a high school prank results in what feels like a bad luck curse just as Waz and Renny start to discover feelings for one another, it seems the only way to turn things around is to take a break after their summer fling.br>Ten years later, high school long over, when Renny and Waz are thrown back together, one has found every bit of success he’d dreamed of, while the other still struggles. Does the dark cloud hang over only one of them, now? What would happen if they tried to be together again? Can bad luck be tricked into turning good?
I’d already thought of something I could do. The only thing. So, I got out of bed and sprung it on him.
“Break up?”
I let the sheet I’d partially drag along to cover myself fall away. “I hexed you.”
Waz looked at me a little while. He didn’t argue. He just stared.
“What?” I reached for the sheet again.
“Don’t. I just like looking at you.” He still didn’t argue.
“What’s different?” Still, I presented my side for at least the tenth time. “Remember when Coach Forrest asked you that? I’m different. We’re different.”
Waz joined me at the door. Now all the way across the room, I wasn’t sure where I was going.
“How can we be anything but different in a good way, Reddy?”
“We’re not good if one of us is miserable all the time.”
“I’ll be better.” Waz took both of my hands. “No more pouting. No more punching.”
His thigh was still splotchy. Maybe better. Maybe worse. I couldn’t tell. Maybe teammates were hitting him there, too. I didn’t want to believe that, and there was certainly no proof of it or even any indication. Why did I imagine it happening, though?
“No more angry pacing, Reddy. I’m here. I’m still.”
Waz’s words made mine harder to say. “I don’t want you to act better, Waz. I want you to feel better, and the only way that’s going to happen is if you get your game back.”
He looked at the floor, but it seemed as if resistance was fading as he released his hold on me. “What if we just take a break?”
My breath caught.
“I don’t even know if I believe in hexes and bad luck and shit,” he said.
I ran down the proof I’d gathered. “I was at the game against Warren. Gail and I made it to see the fourth quarter. I talked to Cesar.”
“He told me.”
“He did?”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
Waz shrugged. “Neither did you. I figured there was a reason.”
I didn’t need to reiterate what the reason was.
“Maybe I’m just ... distracted,” Waz said. “By hormones and missing you, because I’d rather be here every minute of every day than on the football field. That’s a good thing. Unless I need football to get me to the next thing.”
“Yeah.”
“A lot of pros abstain from sex before a game. That could work. We’ll keep our clothes on.”
“We keep our clothes on in school.”
“Yeah, but I know they’re coming off right after.”
“I think it has to be all the way, Waz. Not just sex, but everything. No lunch together, no holding hands, no kissing.”
“A clean break.”
Waz liked that word. Break. I hated it, even if the whole thing had started off as my idea.
“That’s what we’ll do.” Though maybe Waz had thought about it already, too. “To see if ... if anything changes.”
“Right.” Waz was giving me what I wanted -- what I thought I wanted -- so why did it feel so shitty? “Yeah.”
“And if it doesn’t, then we’ll have to think of something else.”
“Right.”
“So...” After a deep breath in, Waz’s exhale made me shiver when it hit my sweaty, naked body. “Now that we’ve decided, how do we do it?” His grip was tighter when he took my hands again.
“Not like that.” I tried to pull away, but he resisted. “You get dressed and ... and go home.” I managed to free myself.
“Right. No more sleeping together.”
“Right.”
“No longing looks or gentle touches between classes.” Waz stalled by running the list again. “No more driving lessons.”
“Hey, your luck’s improving already.”
He put his fingers to my smile. “It’s just a break.”
“Sure.” That didn’t make sense to me. If I was a hex, I was hex. If the mirrors were the cause, well that hex wasn’t going to end anytime soon. We had a decade plus to go. Thirteen years and seven and three quarters of a month. “I won’t even show up at the games. The band will do fine without me.” I grabbed a T-shirt from the floor and wiped off my gut where Waz’s cum had landed.
“It’s almost homecoming. You can’t miss that. You’re a big deal to your bandmates, just like I used to be to the team.”
We were right at the door still, yet no one, neither Waz nor I, made any move to go through it.
“You still are. They’re all mad at me. They’ll be happy the hex has been neutralized.” I tossed him the T-shirt to take care of what I’d left on him one last time.
“I will never let them talk bad about you, Reddy. This right here, they’ll know the break was your idea.”
“The breakup.”
