It's hot. Ninety degrees in the shade and feeling worse as the sun sinks lower in the sky. I've been sitting out in the yard all day long, surrounded by some friends and Jay's family, but mostly the humidity. I'm sticky and sweating and uncomfortable. But, I conclude as I look down at my dark arms, I'm tanned. The day has not been a total loss.

"Adam!"

I hear my name being called over the stereo behind me that's been blaring U2 into my ear for the past half hour. Looking around, I realize that the yard is starting to clear out. The sun is getting ready for bed; it's time for the family to go home. Jason is standing by the gate of the fence, waving me over to say goodbye to his various cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents - all of whom I'd essentially grown up with myself.

I grin and help him dispose of the guests until all that remains on his back porch are the two of us and our friends: Val, Chris, Lance, Matt, and Jeff. We sit for a while, pondering what to do tonight for the fireworks, before all five of our guests mysteriously disappear into the house. Jason and I are left alone and confused on the porch railing.

He looks at me with a glint of worry in his hazy blue eyes. "Is it safe to leave them to their own devices?"

I grin and ponder momentarily. "Nope."

"Maybe they're eating all of my macaroni salad."

"...I really doubt that's what's happening right now."

"Yeah," He grins. "Me too."

Before anything else can be said, our friends are barreling out of the house like green berets on D-Day and lifting both Jay and I from our secure positions on the porch. I flail out as I'm being thrown over Val's shoulder and immediately voice my protest. Jay is kicking up his own fight beside me, planting his feet securely on the frame of the porch's entranceway as Matt, Jeff, and Lance try to get him down into the yard.

We're headed for the pool. Why hadn't I thought of the foot thing?

Chris is holding my legs to keep me from kicking and the load of us are in hysterics. Chris is laughing so hard he can barely walk. Jay is yelling out obscenities that I didn't even know existed as they finally get him to the yard and from there it's just a straight-out run to the in-ground pool at the other end of the property. I try getting some sort of hold on Val's neck but he doesn't even hesitate. Jay and I are tossed into the icy water like rotten sacks of potatoes. I gasp as I hit the water, jolting back to the surface and making sure that everyone above us knows how FUCKING cold it is.

Another Fourth of July tradition under the belt. Last year it was the Hardy boys, and the year before that it was Lance and Chris. Val's just too damn big and stubborn.

I meet Jay's eyes and we laugh, both of us shivering slightly. If anything, the water is a welcome change to the heat and sweat I've been suffocating in all day. At least I don't smell like a wallowing pig anymore.

I'm about to say something about my new watch being ruined when Jay dunks me underwater and proceeds to kick me down as far as he can get me. What a bitch. I grab his ankles and grope back up his body, breaking the water's surface and flipping him up over my head by his waist in some sort of demented suplex. Our friends are laughing as the struggle continues; Jay leaps onto my back and dunks me under again unexpectedly. I catch a mouthful of chlorine and come up sputtering so fast that I don't see where I am and nail Jason in the jaw with the top of my head.

"Ow, Fuck!" We both yell simultaneously before breaking into another round of laughter. Actual pain has been inflicted, so we climb out of the pool with our heavy denim shorts and saturated muscle shirts. Ringing out our clothes, the rest of the boys are just joking around when Val stupidly comments on the fact that he has yet to be thrown into the drink. Jay and I simply look at each other and grin before spinning and leaping at Val as he stands at the pool's edge. The three of us hit the water with a tidal wave.

He was asking for it.

*

Val changes pretty quickly, but Jay and I sit in our wet clothes as the group of us occupy a lawn table as we wait for the sun to sink lower. After five minutes of Chris and his Jerky Boys impersonations, Jay and I decide to tactfully excuse ourselves to change: "This is out."

As we get up, Chris protests over how we aren't finding his antics entertaining. Jeff pats Chris on the shoulder, calming explaining that Wet Best Friend Sex was always more entertaining than the Jerky Boys.

Jay raises his eyebrow at the comment and gives Jeff our group's patented comeback line. "You wanna fuck this, Jeff?" He asks, pointing to his ass.

"No, but I'll take Adam's any day," He replies with an appreciative nod to me.

Jay laughs and wraps his arms around my waist, covering my backside with his body and haughtily stating that it is his and his alone. There's a collective laugh as Jeff feigns hurt but then stealthily slides his arm around Lance, who sits beside him. Jason and I turn and head for the house.

I continue up to Jay's room as he stops in the kitchen for a drink. Once upstairs, I close Jay's door again behind me and breathe a sigh of relief as a wave of cool air hits my skin. An air conditioner buzzes from a window by his unmade bed, immediately bringing many a summer night to my memory. I look fondly to the futon on the other side of the room, where I sleep when the Florida nights are just too hot for my eight year old window fan. Last night had actually been one of those nights.

Stripping off my wet shirt and shorts, I look around for the towel I had left in the room after my shower this morning. I find it hanging on the doorknob of the closet and use it to dry up quickly as I hunt around in Jason's drawers for something to wear. I pull out a pair of cargo shorts, a teeshirt that is most definitely mine, and the pair of Jay's boxers that I always wear when I'm at a loss; the flap has coins shooting out of it and it says "Jackpot!" on the elastic rim.

I peel off my own underwear, cursing as it sticks to my thighs, and toss them into the basket as I dry off my lower body. I'm just dropping the towel and grabbing the Jackpot boxers when the bedroom door opens.

I look up quickly to meet the eyes of my best friend, who hesitates in the doorframe as he takes in the sight before him. "Oh, sorry dude, I didn't know you were in here."

My nakedness feels like an eternity, his gaze feels like an eternity and my fear feels like an eternity before I finally pull my boxers on. I smile at him, first uttering that it was alright before adding something about how if he wanted a peepshow all he had to do was ask.

He laughs awkwardly, and I suppose that it wasn't the best joke to crack given our situation. We'd seen a lot of ass in our day, but neither I nor Jason had ever seen each other's full-on frontal nudity before. Using the word awkward at this point is an understatement; we don't really know if we should give each other privacy, or if we'd known each other too long to care.

How is it that, in almost twenty years, this situation had never come up before?

Wow, I've never seen Jay naked before. The thought kind of comes as a surprise and I ponder it as I dress. Here I am, thinking that I know everything there is to know about my best friend when I haven't even seen his whole body. I mean, I know that in a conventional sense that's normal, but just going with the thought - that you know somebody entirely, inside and out - how can you say that when you've never seen the one thing that's in front of you every day?

I guess he's got one up on me, then.

Or, maybe not.

As I finished getting dressed, I watch as Jay strips out of all his clothes, towels off, and walks over to the bureau to get something dry. I blink in surprise but he's totally nonchalant about it as he pulls out some underwear and redresses. He comments with a smile that now we're even. I think it's supposed to be a joking one but that's not really how it comes off as I stare at him. It's definitely a scared, nervous smile.



I just smile back and tell him to put some goddamn clothes on and we leave the room. Unfortunately, the awkward moment tags along behind.

*

Outside, more jokes are cracked on how long it took us to get changed. Jason and I smile and humor our friends but somehow, it's not such a great joke anymore. I feel uneasy, and looking over at Jay I can see that he is too. He smiles a different way when he doesn't mean it.

Heading out to the cars, Chris nudges me and we drop back from the group a bit. "What happened upstairs?" He asks. He must have seen the change in both me and Jay when we came back.

I sigh. Chris is the only human on this great Earth that understands me and Jason better than we do. He sees the eggshells that we try to ignore, and he knows that while we are the best of friends, we also scare the shit out of each other. There's a kind of tension between us that's always been present, but we've learned to ignore it and we get along just great. Ignoring it doesn't make it go away, though, and so there are always moments where we don't really know what's right when we're together.

Can I put my head on his knee? Can I put my arm around him, do other best friends to that? Can I tell him that he looks really good in those pants, can I get him something at the mall just because it reminds me of him? It feels like such a thin line to cross; sometimes I want to do stuff with him but I don't know if it's okay, or if it will come off as me trying to make a move on him. I know it happens with him too. I see him tense, or I listen as a word trips over his tongue on the way out, and I know he was second-guessing himself too.

I think Chris is the only one out of the three of us that realizes and chooses to acknowledge that it's sexual tension.

He's looking at me pointedly and I realize that he's still waiting for an answer. Biting my lip, I reply softly. "There was some naked. He walked in on me changing, and then he stripped down right in front of me and said we were even."

As I glance at him, I see his eyes widen impossibly while he realizes the significance of that. "Then what?"

"What do you mean, then what? Then we got dressed and came outside."

His shoulders slump and then he gives me a heated glare. "You guys are something else."

"What?" I ask defensively. "What were we supposed to do? What was supposed to happen?"

He shakes his head and then we're with the rest of the group, who's stopped in front of the four cars we have between us: mine, Jason's, Matt's, and Val's. We decide to take Jay's truck so that we can sit in the bed for fireworks, leaving him and me in the two-seater. The rest agree to pile into Val's SUV, and we break.

I watch Jay climb into the truck and see that he's back to normal - grinning like nothing in the world is wrong and genuinely so. For a second, staring at him in that old beat up Ford with his elbow hanging out the window and his hair all tied back and smoothed out of his face, he looks like someone I wouldn't want to be just friends with.

Then I blink, and it's gone, and I climb up into the cab next to him. The ride out to Bell Hill, where we watch the fireworks every year, is nothing special or different in light of what's happened. I slip off my sandals and rest my feet on the dashboard and he complains about a sudden foul odor and we listen to some Zeppelin on the radio. I'm trying to be happy about the fact that nothing's wrong, but something in the back of my head is gnawing and won't let me.

I want there to be awkward silence. I want him to shift uncomfortably in his seat and not be able to make eye contact with me. At least that would mean that something really happened and I'm not making everything up in a fluster of hope and prayer.

Oh what the fuck, I'll admit it - I want him.

Bet that came as a surprise.

I don't really know what got me thinking about it. I think it was all the jokes. Our circle of friends makes a hell of a lot of cracks about being gay, and we make fake passes at one another, and even though it's all in good fun, at the end of the day I find myself asking "Did he mean it?"

I don't ask that if Chris grabs my ass, or if Matt whispers huskily that he wants to help me with my suntan lotion, but I ask that when Jason's trailing a teasing finger down my arm, or telling everyone that I'm most ticklish at night while we're in bed together. To everyone else, it's just more bullshit, but it makes me jump out of my skin. I realize that I ask myself about his intentions because I want his intentions to be bad. I want him to want me.

Like I want him.

And I can see why Chris gets frustrated, because it must look so easy from the outside. I want to act differently with Jay, and he wants to act differently with me, so what's the problem? Why don't we just do it? Why don't we just take it seriously when we crack a joke like that, because we both know we like it?

Because I've known the guy since I was seven and right up until about five years ago he's been like my brother, that's why.

It's very difficult to think of someone both as your relative and as someone you'd want to make out with beneath a comforter on a particularly cold winter morning. Conflicted doesn't even begin to describe the way I feel, and terrified doesn't even begin to describe the emotions that course through me when I think about bridging that tiny gap we've carefully maintained for so long. What if I read him wrong? What if he's really just joking and I do something stupid and nothing is ever the same again?

What if someday, I'm eighty years old and I still look back on my life having to say that it was my fault the greatest relationship I'd ever had was over?

"You alright over there?"

I hear Jason's voice distantly and look over to him, disrupting my heavy thoughts. He smiles and gives me a sideways glance. "I saw the smoke and I got nervous."

I laugh lightly, pushing all of my seriousness away. "I was just trying to figure out the square root of 659."

He grins. "Math never was your better subject."

The smile on my face flickers at the comment and I struggle to keep it from disappearing completely. I stretch to shove a toe in his face and he swats me and then I'm free of any sort of serious questioning. I lean my head against the window and go back to thinking.

I hate when he says things like that, when he says things about me that no one else would ever know. He knows how fundamental algebra was almost my downfall in college, how I actually like shoveling snow, how I always put my left shoe on first and how I crave tomatoes when I get really hungry. He always has the perfect birthday presents to get me and he knows my order for at least six different fast food restaurants. He knows me, he knows who I am and I hate it, because that's why I want to love him.

He's as close to a soul-mate as I will ever have. Scary? Yes.

*

The hill is fairly empty when we get there but then again, it always is. It's one of those local gems that no one knows about; everyone goes to the big parks with their lawn chairs and blankets, or to the crowded open fields of the high schools and colleges, but no one ever comes up here and no one knows that it's the most perfect spot in the whole city for nights like this.

The sky is brilliantly colored as we park side by side in a small lot right at the top of the hill. Jay backs the truck in so that we'll face the open sky when we crash. Chris and Val drag a cooler from the SUV and we place it in the back of the bed to one corner. Blankets are spread out before we all pile into the truck - I plop down next to Jay as he's handing out drinks from the cooler - and we settle to watch the sunset.

The conversation is somewhat rambunctious but slowly quiets as the world gets darker. Jay closes the cooler for a final time and settles back against the cab of the truck where I sit and we're shoulder to shoulder. We get onto the topic of 9/11 and after some thoughts of disbelief, there's a respectful moment of silence as we all just stare out at the skyline. Shadows overtake what used to be a friendly hilltop and I feel Jay's head plop down on my shoulder. I sigh heavily and lean my head on top of his.

Chris looks back at us and smiles lightly before turning away again to check his watch. "Should be any minute now," He announces softly.

As if they were simply waiting for Chris' voice, the fireworks begin with three quick bursts into the air - red, white, and blue. That single message captures everyone's attention and we fall silent, suddenly so aware of how much this holiday should mean to us. Fireworks had always amazed me, and now that the purpose of this night is so clear to me, I sit more wide-eyed and - I'll reluctantly admit - more emotional than I've ever been before.

I kind of feel silly at first, but as I catch glimpses of my friends' faces amidst bursts of red and gold and green, I can see that they feel the same way. There's nothing but complete awe, as this is one of the most special nights any of us will ever experience. I'm happy that I'm with them, and mostly I'm happy that I'm with Jason.

Turning my head slightly, I feel the unquenchable urge to kiss his forehead. When I do, he lifts his head to look me level in the eye and as the color bursts overhead, I can see the surprise clearly written on his face. That small gesture and we're suddenly both at attention, hearts racing with whether or not we'd just crossed that line between friendship and something that a couple would do. Can we do that? Our reactions alone should have been an obvious giveaway to what we were truly feeling.

His eyes never waver from my face, questioning everything all at once. What are you doing? Can we do that? Did I like it? Did you like it? Are you going to do it again? Are best friends allowed to kiss each others' foreheads? Are you being a friend or are you being friendly? Are you asking for something more, do you want something else to happen? What should I do?

He leans in kind of halfway, hesitating and making my heart leap into my throat. It's hammering so hard and fast and thick that I can't breathe around it. Our eyes are locked and for a moment I think that maybe he's realized what I have - that this is not just a friendship anymore. This is something that we're pretending is friendship when it's really just shy, passive flirting and then darting away in fear of rejection.

He drops his head to my chest then, pulling up his legs and curling into my lap. I could melt here, feeling him so close to me while the Fourth of July sings around me in a chorus of loud booms and vivid color. It's such a perfect moment. I wrap my arms around him and pull him closer into me. He takes my hands, lacing our fingers together, and holds them against his stomach like a security blanket.

Like I'm protecting him.

I feel like my heart is going to explode as I hold him. He sighs deeply, contentedly as he stares up at the sky in pure amazement. I squeeze his hands and he squeezes back and I drop my head down close to his ear to whisper. "This is the best night of my life."

He turns to look up at me and instead of the fear I'm used to seeing on his face, he simply smiles at me. He pulls one of my hands up to his mouth and kisses my knuckles and I can't take it. I almost feel tears on my cheeks, celebrating the first Independence Day since that fateful Tuesday morning and at the same time feeling so much love, the love that I've been hoping for since that unidentifiable day five years ago when I met a new Jason Reso and fell for him utterly and completely. My insides are exploding.

His eyes are still focused on mine, his smile widening as he sees the tears betraying me. Reaching up, he brushes them away with a soft whisper. "Don't, not right now. Right now is too perfect for those."

Beneath a grand finale, an explosion of light and sound and sense, I lean down and kiss my best friend with everything that I can muster from inside of me. He's not surprised in the least and reaches up to place hands on both sides of my head, pulling me harder against his mouth. His lips are soft and hot against my own, sucking and prodding lightly until my tongue brushes against his teeth. We stay like that forever beneath the colorful sky, kissing hungrily like we'd been waiting for it our whole lives. It's magical.

The fireworks wind down to stray bursts and I pull away from Jason slowly, regretfully. He kisses me quickly once, twice, and then three times; small butterfly kisses against my lips that make me dizzy. We sit, grinning at each other in the silence.

Silence?

"They finally did it," I hear Val state quietly.

Looking up, Jay and I see every face in the bed of the truck grinning stupidly at us. I immediately turn red and I feel Jay's face burrow into my shirt with a stifled, embarrassed laugh. I wait for the gay sex jokes to kick in from any or all of my friends, but there's nothing funny about the situation. It's a surprise, to say the least; when we're all together like this, it's hard for anything to remain serious. The looks on the faces I see before me are all enchantment and pride. Ew, God, they think we're cute.

"What," I ask. "Did everybody know about this?"

"Apparently everyone but you two dumbasses," Lance grins, stretching to kick me in the foot. "We thought you'd never do it."

I glare at Chris. "Did you tell them?"

"What the hell could I tell them?" He laughs, defending himself. "You didn't tell me anything; you never said anything real official or anythin'. I was just going on assumption and apparently you're friends with a lot of perceptive guys, because it looks like they picked up on it too. You're a regular Casanova, tiger."

I roll my eyes and find myself lightly stroking Jason's hair, who refuses to unearth himself from my body. There's more stupid grinning directed to me and I finally laugh. "GOD, will you stop looking at us like a baby that just made a gurgle noise?"

But," Jeff stuttered melodramatically, grinning. "But, we've been waiting for this ALL YEAR!"

"Oh, for Christ's sake," I mumble. I try to act all macho and annoyed but I'm really way too happy to truly play the part. I want to leap up to stand on the roof of the truck and dance and scream so loud that my throat goes numb. I probably would do that, but being curled up in a corner with Jason like this makes me never want to go anywhere again.

"Well I suppose we'll leave you two ALONE back here," Chris states haughtily and the others follow suite as he climbs out of the truck bed, taking the cooler with him. "I suppose I can play chauffer for one measly night."

I grin and thank him and he clasps my hand quickly before climbing into the cab and starting the truck. Jay finally looks up at me and he grins as we slide farther down into the bed, out of sight. He pulls my mouth down and kisses me softly before wrapping himself up with my arms again. "I'm glad this happened."

"Me too," I reply, squeezing him tight against me.

He pauses long enough for the quiet to settle in around us. "I think maybe I love you. Is that bad?"

It takes a minute to soak in and then I have to smile, kissing his cheek lightly. "No, it's not bad. I think maybe I love you too. I think I've maybe loved you for a long time now."

He grins. "Me too." Then, "I saw you naked."

I laugh, cozying up to lay my head against his. "It probably won't be the last time."