“Come and sit down Rodney. We’ll both be sleeping in this bed tonight.”

I had never slept in a bed with somebody else. But I knew my parents both slept in the same bed so I guess it would be all right.

As soon as my butt hit the mattress David put his arm around me again. “Why are you doing that?”

“I thought you’d like it since we’re friends and everything.”

I knew I did and left his arm around my shoulder. I’d never told David how I thought he was the best looking boy I had ever seen and I don’t know what made me tell him then, but I did. The way he smiled and looked at me did something to my insides like I had never felt before. I leaned over and put my lips against his.

It wasn’t like you see in the movies or anything. It was just two twelve year-old boys kissing like they thought twelve year old boys would. We didn’t know if boys were supposed to kiss each other. We had never seen any. But we had seen our parents kiss because they liked each other. David and I knew we liked each other so we thought kissing must be OK.

I still wasn’t sure what was gonna happen when we went to bed. There was something going on inside me that couldn’t wait and I thought about us sleeping together more and more as the evening went on.

I didn’t know what time we’d have to go to bed. But I figured since it was Friday it might be as late as ten or eleven o’clock. I was surprised when at nine o’clock David asked me if I was ready for bed. I wasn’t tired but my insides told me what to say.

“Yeah, sure.”

We said goodnight to his parents and raced each other up the steps as I thought about what I was going to wear.

When we got in his room David jumped on the bed and rolled over on his back.

“Come on Rodney jump. See if you can’t land right along side of me.”

As my  legs pushed off I didn’t think I was gonna make it until David gave me that look again, like he did before we kissed. My body landed right on the spot his hand was padding.

“Good jump Rodney!”

I felt proud of myself as I turned over.