Perfection Is Overrated
by Bradley Scott

 

Chapter 3
Kyle

The alarm went off.

Kyle grasped wildly for the snooze button and tumbled out of bed, landing with a thump on the floor, that jerked his formerly glued shut eyes wide open.

“OUCH!” Dammit, he thought, it’s Saturday – why don’t I turn that thing off during the weekends? He quickly answered himself: Because I’m always drunk and fucking on Friday nights, and forget, duh.

He untangled himself from the sheet that had wrapped themselves around him in the fall. He stood up – slowly, because his head was pounding horribly. He groaned.

Then he noticed he was naked. Did he…?

He looked back to his bed. Nope, empty. That was weird – he normally did. He thought he had gotten action last night. Yeah, he must’ve – he was naked, after all. That was sort of his litmus for whether he’d hooked up or not. Guess the guy left. Pity he couldn’t remember what the guy-

Oh wait. THAT guy. In the club last night. Sexy as hell, with this fuck-me-now-stare. Smooth, soft brown curls, deep chocolate colored eyes. And oh my god, his body, those muscles, that skin. Kyle bit his lip. The guy was pissed off his rocker – it looked as if he had been drinking most of the night. But, for a drunk guy, he seemed to know what he was doing. Wow. They had even had a conversation. The guy and him pulled into a booth, and he had talked about… music and poetry and shit. Really deep stuff. Kyle spent a few minutes remembering it fondly. The guy had said something weird, and then told Kyle it was from Shakespeare. Kyle smiled. So random. And so hot.

He slipped on some boxers and looked at himself in the mirror. Nice. God, I’m hot. He winked at his reflection, and made his way out his room to the kitchen. His stomach was growling, and at least he wasn’t nauseous. It was just the headache.

“Morning,” said Ted. Kyle was almost a bit offended that Ted didn’t check out his body, but he guessed Ted saw him in his underwear – or even out of it – so much that it probably got boring. Plus, anything sexual that could have developed between the two of them died a long time ago. Which, he supposed was his fault, but hey, he was young and stupid at the time.

And Ted, as great as he would have been in bed, was a really amazing friend. They’d been through so much, and they went so far back. And, for all the hell Kyle gave him and the… horrible thing… he’d done once, Ted always took him back.

Kyle liked Ted, even back then, on the first day he met him. Kyle sort of got through most things on out-of-control confidence, that was really more a show than anything else. Kyle had made a bunch of friends that day, because of this. People just ate it up. But Ted was the only one who was luke warm to him. It made him interested.

“Mm.” Kyle moaned, cringing at Ted’s loud and cheery greeting. He needed food. Cereal. That’d do. Milk. Coffee. Couple of Aspirin. Mmmmmm…

“So, how was last night?” Ted smiled with a smug look on his face.

“Mm-mm.” Kyle mumbled with a mouthful of cereal. What had happened with that guy last night? Cute, definitely. Well, hopefully cute. Nine times out of ten Kyle woke up with a cute guy. And very rarely did he bring the ugly ones home. When that happened, he was usually too drunk to even speak – hence the low standards.

“Good, huh?” Ted laughed. “I met Darren.”

“Really?” Kyle almost choked on his cereal. Yes, Darren, that was it! The cute, deep guy from last night. Darren! Talking… yeah, he talked a hell of a lot. He was really drunk, really early. Kyle was surprised the guy hadn’t puked. Kyle was glad he hadn’t. He liked kissing during sex, but he never kissed the guys who puked. It was disgusting. Kyle had actually almost puked. But he didn’t – it was something he prided himself on, when really drunk. The hangovers were crappy, but he hadn’t puked since high school, early high school.

“Uh-huh.”

“So? CUTE right? And he was like, all deep and stuff. He reads. Like, books and stuff. And he plays guitar. And GOD, he’s good in bed.”

“Okay…” Ted blushed bright red.

“At least I think he is… No, wait, trying to remember…. Yes, definitely good in bed… SO?!? Did he say anything? About me, I mean?” Kyle waited impatiently for the answer, dancing on the spot a bit.

“Um… well. He… couldn’t remember your name.” Ted said slowly, “And… he was kinda miffed that you lied about playing guitar, but he didn’t seem overly pissed off.”

“Oh. My bad.” Kyle grimaced. “He told me he played guitar, and I kind of… um… said I did too, and when he asked me what songs I could play I told him the ones I was good at on guitar hero.”

Ted just shook his head and laughed. Kyle joined him.

“Okay, so maybe I’ve fucked up my chances for that one… It was a damn good night though.” He chuckled, the rest of it was coming back to him now. Hmmm, DAMN, damn good. “You know, on the way in, I ripped his shirt- Hey, did he go home topless? Wow, that’s hot.”

“No.” Ted looked away. “I lent him an old top.” He finished the last part in a mumble, hoping Kyle wouldn’t hear him.

“You mean you GAVE him a top – since, after what I did, I doubt we’ll be seeing him again.” He winked at Ted, the smile stretching across his face. “SO! I guess I owe you a top, and you know what THAT means…” He raised his eyebrow’s expectantly.

“Oh god, please no.” Ted knew what was coming. “It was only an old-”

“SHOPPING! My treat. Get dressed, Loser. We’re going out!”

Ted sighed and turned back to the TV. Kyle knew he wouldn’t argue. He had stopped putting up a fight a long time ago. There wasn’t any point. Kyle had his purpose, and he was going to stick to it. e had made it his duty to save Ted from the void of self-neglect. The boy just didn’t seem to care about how he looked when he went out in public.

Kyle’s parents were rich. Like very rich. Old money, something boring like that. Kyle had tried to find out what their net-worth was, but it was impossible. The family study was a mess of lawyer’s letters and property deeds and stuff like that. As far as he knew, they had infinite money.

And his parents were so happy he had gone to college, rather than, say… running off with a hot sailor or something, that they showered him with all the money they could give him.

They let him keep his platinum card, with the gigantic limit, and his parents were fine with his massive shopping sprees, which he had only monthly – restricting himself out of guilt, and fear that if he spent too much too often, they’d take it away.

But he usually could get whatever he wanted, and then more, and they didn’t mind. So, he made it his project to share the wealth, and use it for a charitable cause – Ted’s non-existent sense of fashion being that cause.

It was an ongoing project, that had started back in high school. Ted was a hopeless little nerd. Cute, and definitely brimming with potential. But he needed help.

Within the first week of their friendship, Kyle had dragged Ted to the mall on a serious makeover-mission. First, they went to an optometrist, where they got contact lenses for Ted. Then, Kyle snapped Ted’s glasses and threw them away, because Ted was whining. Then Kyle took Ted him to the salon which Mrs. Duminy always went to, and he got Ted a haircut and a facial, a massage, a manicure and pedicure. Ted acted weird through the salon thing – blushing and stuttering. He said to Kyle he felt like he shouldn’t be in a salon, because he was a guy.

Kyle had remembered saying to him – “Dude. You kiss guys. I think it’s too late for you to give a shit about being macho.” Which had only really made Ted blush and stutter more, but they had a good laugh about it afterwards.

Then had come the clothes. And that had kept on keeping on – Ted had a knack for wearing a combination of clothes that would always make him look weird. Kyle even started picking clothes for Ted in a way that he could be sure Ted wouldn’t screw them up. Whenever he bought new clothes for Ted, he threw out any of Ted’s old stuff that would clash with it.

So Kyle could rest easy, knowing that Ted always looked good – or okay, at the very least. And, when he wanted to go out clubbing with Ted, he dressed the guy himself – just to make sure.

Despite Ted’s protests, and how much he complained while they were shopping, they always both had a lot of fun. Ted would go off to see computer games and parts to improve his desktop, and accessories and stuff for his lap-top. If Kyle saw that he wanted them enough, he’d buy them for Ted, which usually stopped him whining about all the clothes he had to try on.

Kyle had finished his cereal. He rinsed out the bowl, put it on the rack to dry, and walked off to the bathroom to get showered and ready for a mall-run, leaving Ted sitting on the couch, with a painful expression.

 

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