Carter ended up leaving Chapters, sans Mike.

“What a kind and supportive friend you have been,” Mike said, flipping through some print-out as he waited for the manager. “What’s your excuse? I’ll be sure to remember it the next time you need booze.”

Carter didn’t even hesitate, “Important stuff to do. Research.” A thinly veiled code for I need to Facebook-stalk a certain someone right now so I need to go home to access the internet because my cellphone is about as advanced as a walkie talkie.

Mike didn’t pick up on Carter’s hint, and Carter didn’t bother to spell it out for him. “I’ll make it up to you,” he added. “Just not now.”

And with that, he hurried off home.

Priorities sure seemed to shift when hormones were involved, and Carter sure had hormone flare-up ever since this discovery. It was like an algae bloom, a resurgence of hope and a potential cure for his blue balls. Yes, there was someone else out there who was as potentially desperate as he was.

Carter didn’t know Adrian that well, but he couldn’t believe he had never caught wind of the fact that the guy was gay. The number of out kids in their school was slim, never mind their grade, and Carter had always assumed that his connections provided him a pretty accurate picture on their numbers.

How he missed Adrian, he wasn’t sure. It wasn’t as if they knew each other especially well, but Carter figured that somewhere he would have caught wind of Adrian’s gayness.

But maybe their social circles were just too far apart. Different friends, different interests.

As it turned out, they were not as far apart as they could be.

When Carter finally got home and logged onto Facebook, he was slightly stunned to see not one, but fourteen of his 300-ish facebook friends were mutual friends with Adrian. While this further baffled Carter, it did give him access to Adrian’s otherwise screened Facebook profile.

Carter did a preliminary profile check first. Single, looking, and he had listed his attraction to males right on his Facebook page. Not only that, but according to said profile he was also a member of the Centennial Musical Theatre club.

Carter had to sit back in his chair for that. He drummed his fingers on the desk, wondering how his gossip circle had failed so hard that an Out-on-Facebook, single-and-looking theatre kid had slipped under their collective gaydar.

He felt like messaging his 300+ network. You should be ashamed at your pathetic grapevine powers. But he didn’t. Carter had other things to do, the least included scouring Adrian’s profile page for more information. Commonalities. Something that may come up useful in conversation.

Which was precisely the moment that the door creaked and Carter heard his sister slink into the room.

Carter realized, belatedly, that his head was not large nor square enough to completely block the view of the screen from his sister. He punched the button to turn off the screen and whipped his head around to see her leering right at him.

“Facebook stalking then?”

“Why. Are. You. Here.”

She was holding a DS cartridge. “Taking back my Pokemon from your clutches. But it appears that I interrupted something more…”

“Potentially entertaining?”

Rebecca smiled, pranced over to his bed and sat down.

Like many thirteen year old girls, Rebecca wasn’t the typical hedonistic mall rat which thirteen year old girls are often stereotyped as. She was more of an intellect. A blossoming debater for her middle school. Voted “Most likely to discover new species of fungi” in her Grade 6 graduation booklet. Slightly addicted to Harry Potter.

But going along with the stereotype, she did enjoy talking about boys. A lot.

“So”, she said, swinging her legs a bit. “Tell me about him”

Carter sat back in his chair.. “He’s gay and seventeen and single.”

She whistled.

“Ray of hope then?”

Carter was trying not to grin, but really he couldn’t help himself.

“Looking like it.”