“Dilemma”
When the Carmichael family moved in next door, I only saw Mr. and Mrs. Carmichael and their two year old daughter Jasmine for the first week. It wasn’t until the following weekend that their sixteen year old twin sons Jamari and Jabari showed up. The moment I laid eyes on them, I knew they were gonna be trouble. They were both extremely cute. They weren’t identical; Jamari was like an inch shorter than Jabari and Jabari had waves in his hair but Jamari didn’t. Both of them identified as bisexual on their Facebook accounts, but I’d only witnessed them flirting with girls at school our entire eleventh grade year. My mama and their mama hit it off immediately so we were practically forced to hang out with each other, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. However, it did turn bad one day near the end of the school year.
“Wassup, Tory,” Jamari said to me as he stepped into my yard. I was busy fixing my little brother’s bike on the front porch.
“Hey,” I said back. “Where’s your brother?”
“I don’t know. He’s somewhere around here.” He sat down beside me on my porch. “That’s Tyler’s bike?”
“Yeah. I don’t know how he messed it up like this. He might have to get my dad to get him a new one.”
“Let me see it.” He took the bike from me and examined it for a second. “Ah, I see what’s wrong.” He unscrewed some little bolt and lined something up before screwing the bolt back in. “There, he should be good to go.”
“How did you do that?”
“I fix stuff all the time.” He wiped his hands on his shorts and then asked, “So, what are you doing later?”
“How much later?”
“Like at around…seven o’clock.”
“Probably eating dinner with my family. Why?”
“There’s this new scary movie out and I wanna go see it but…I don’t have anybody to see it with. I was hoping maybe we could go together and then grab something to eat afterwards. My brother doesn’t have dibs on the car tonight so we won’t have to take the bus.”
“Jamari, I don’t know. I mean, my parents rarely let me go anywhere at night since I’m technically still on punishment for staying out too late. They took my iPhone from me until next month and they got me using this old phone that barely works.” I pulled the phone out and showed him.
Me (Tory Gibson)
He laughed before asking, “Damn, you got those strict until you’re eighteen type parents, huh?”
“Pretty much.”
“Well ask them if it’s cool and then get back to me. I’ve been wanting to ask you out on a date for a minute.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You’re the cutest boy in the neighborhood.”
I could feel myself blushing as I replied, “You’re cute, too.”
“Well if you’re cute and I’m cute, maybe we can be cute together.” He smiled the cutest smile at me. “What do you say about that?”
“We’ll see.” I watched him as he stood up and walked out of my yard.
I waited until he was inside his house before I leaped in the air with joy. After calming myself, I headed back inside my house. I went straight up to my bedroom and picked out several different outfits that I could wear just in case my parents let me go out. While trying to make a decision on which outfit I wanted to wear the most, there was a knock at the door. I went back downstairs to see it was Jabari. Immediately, my heart started to pound in my chest.
Jamari & Jabari Carmichael
“Hey, Jabari,” I said to him as I opened the screen door.
“Can I come in?” he asked me. “I need to talk to you about something.”
“Oh, I don’t know. My parents are still at work and I’m not supposed to let any friends in while they’re not here. I’m still on punishment.”
“It’ll only be for a second. Please.”
“Okay, but only for a second.” I let him into the house and closed the door once he was inside. “What do you need to talk to me about?”
He licked his lips before telling me, “I like you.”
“Oh, well I like you, too.”
“Nah, I really like you.”
“Jabari, I really like you, too.”
“Tory, I’m trying to tell you that…” He paused and took a deep breath before grabbing me and pressing his lips against mine.
The kiss only lasted for a few seconds, but it was enough to make me feel like I was about to float away. He had this big smile on his face and I started blushing. After a few moments of silence, I stared into his eyes and asked, “What was that all about?”
“I’ve been wanting to do that for a minute. It was everything I thought it would be.” He licked his lips again before asking, “So, you wanna kick it with me tonight? My brother’s gonna have the car tonight so we’ll have to take the bus, but I know we’ll still have fun. We can go see a movie and then grab a bite to eat at In-N-Out Burger.”
“I want to, but I’d have to ask my parents. I’m on punishment, remember?”
He laughed and asked, “Damn, you got those strict until you’re eighteen type parents, huh?”
It wasn’t until he asked me that that I remembered Jamari had asked me out on a date, too. He’d asked me the same exact thing about my parents that his brother had asked. That kiss he gave me made me forget all about his brother. What in the world was going on? Why were they both now showing an interest in me beyond friendship all of a sudden?
“They both asked you out?” my best friend Riley asked me over the phone later that day in my room.
“Yep,” I told him. “First, Jamari walked over while I was fixing my brother’s bike and asked me on a date. Then, Jabari came over and I let him inside for a second and not only did he ask me out…he kissed me.”
“No way! Oh my God! Tory, you need to go out with Jabari.”
“Why him and not his brother?”
“Because he kissed you. That means he likes you more than Jamari does.”
“No, it doesn’t. Maybe it means Jabari just wants one thing from me and Jamari actually wants to be my boyfriend.”
“I cannot believe this. All of the cute gay and bi boys only ask you and white boys out while the rest are straight and only talk to girls. I never get asked out by anybody and I’m cuter than you.”
I laughed and joked, “Maybe I can talk one of the twins into dating you so we could double date.”
“Ooh, for real?”
“Nah, for play. They both want me, not you.”
“Bitch.”
I laughed again before asking, “Seriously Riley, what am I going to do? I like them both. I’ve been talking to both of them since they moved in next door last year.”
“Which one do you like the most?”
“That’s the thing; I like different things about each one. Jamari is nicer to people in general while Jabari is kind of blunt at times and says what’s on his mind no matter how it effects people. But on the other hand, I learned today that Jabari is very physical and I do like that.”
“Yeah, he did kiss you.”
“Exactly. They’re both cool boys. I don’t think I could choose between them.”
“I think you should go on a date with one and then go on a date with the other tomorrow.”
“No, I’m not doing that.”
“What other options do you have?”
“I don’t know, but I’m not gonna date both of them. That would be wrong.”
“Not really. They’re twins. After sixteen years, they should be used to sharing things.”
“Riley, sharing something like a car isn’t the same as sharing a boyfriend. They’d start fighting and…”
“Ooh, two sexy boys fighting over you. I would do anything to see that while eating some popcorn; especially if they’re shirtless and only wearing basketball shorts.”
I laughed once again and told him, “That would be nice to watch, but I don’t want them fighting over me. I don’t know what I’m going to do. How could I choose one without upsetting the other? It’s impossible.”
“Well, my vote is still for Jabari. He has that bad boy streak and that’s always a winner.”
“All I know is…”
“Tory,” my little brother Tyler said while walking into my room, “mommy said you have to sit outside and watch me ride my bike up the sidewalk when she’s not here.”
“Okay, Tyler. Dang.” I put the phone back up to my ear and told Riley, “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Alright.”
“Bye.” I ended the call and hopped off my bed to go back downstairs with my little brother.
While I was outside watching Tyler ride his little bike—he’d just gotten the training wheels taken off—up and down the sidewalk, I heard the sound of a basketball bouncing nearby. It took me a few seconds to remember Jamari and Jabari had a basketball goal in their backyard. I listened closely and heard both of them talking. It was the perfect time for me to talk to both of them so that I could avoid any problems.
“Tyler, come back in the house,” I called out to my brother.
“But I just got out here,” he said back.
“I’ll make you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”
That was all I needed to say because he brought that bike back into our yard and ran into the house. I made him a quick peanut butter and jelly sandwich and poured some milk into a glass for him. I then let him sit in the living room and eat while watching TV. I was only going next door, so I told him to just watch TV until I get back and to call out for me if he needed anything. After going back outside, I walked around my house to the backyard to see the twins playing one-on-one in their backyard.
“Jamari, Jabari,” I called out, catching their attention. “Can you come here for a second?”
They both smiled as they paused their game and walked over to the fence that separated my backyard from theirs. Jabari leaned on the fence and asked me, “Did you already ask your parents?”
“Ask his parents what?” Jamari asked him.
“Before this goes horribly wrong,” I interjected, “please know that I like you both.”
“Him?” they both asked in unison, pointing to each other.
“I know this is probably weird for you guys, but…”
“This is why I can’t stand your ass!” Jabari shouted at Jamari. “You always want what I got.”
Jamari sucked his teeth loudly and countered, “You don’t have shit! Besides, I liked him first so you need to back off.”
“You liked him first? I’ve liked him since the day we first met him.”
“So have I!”
“Well, I kissed him and he kissed me back.”
When he told Jamari that, Jamari’s eyes opened wide. He looked at me and asked, “You kissed my brother?”
“He kissed me,” I explained. “But I was caught off guard. Look, I really do like you both. Jabari, there are things that I like about you, and Jamari, there are other things that I like about you.”
Jabari stared into my eyes and asked, “So, which one of us do you like more? Which one do you choose? I’m obviously better looking.”
“Man, shut up!”
“Make me, bruh.”
“Stop,” I told them. “See, this is why I’m gonna have to shut this whole thing down.”
They both looked back at me and Jamari asked, “What do you mean?”
“I can’t choose one of you without hurting the other one or making you be against one another, so I’m choosing neither of you.”
“No, that’s not what I want,” said Jamari.
“Me either,” Jabari agreed. “How about you spend time with me on Thursdays through Sundays and you spend time with Jamari on Mondays through Wednesdays?”
“That’s not fair. You get to be his boyfriend for four days and I’ll only get to spend time with him for three days. And you get the weekend.”
“Okay, Wednesday will be an off day. I still get Thursday, Friday and Saturday and you…”
“Guys, I’m not some object that you can share,” I told them. “I think the best thing to do in this situation is remain friends. We can all hang out and have a good time…as friends.”
They looked at each other for a while and then Jabari suggested, “We could play another one-on-one game and whoever makes it to twenty points first gets you, Tory.”
“Nope,” I said to him while shaking my head. “You two are brothers and I’m not going to do it. So, are you two both cool with being my friends?”
They looked at one another again before looking back at me and replying in unison, “Yes.”
“But since Jabari got to kiss you,” said Jamari while leaning over the fence. “I’m owed this.” He pressed his lips to mine and kissed me.
“Alright, that’s enough,” said Jabari, pulling his brother away from me after a few seconds.
After talking to them a little longer, I went back inside to babysit my brother until my parents came home. To be honest, it hurt a little not being able to date one of the twins; especially since the summer was right around the corner. Now they were probably going to end up with girls and that would be a total loss. Still, I feel like I made the right decision. With a dilemma that unique, it’s better to stay away from drama. The last thing I needed was to cause drama and end up on punishment for longer than I already was.
[Disclaimer]: Pictures used do not reflect the sexuality or personality of people in the pictures. They only serve as visual examples of the characters.
© D.A. Morrison 2017