Boy Toy
| Boy Toy | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Chapter | 87 of 129 (list of chapters) |
| Published | February 25, 2015 |
| Page count | 32 |
| Major characters | Paulo, Mike, Rachel, Matt |
| Minor characters | Daisy, Abbey, Amaya, David, Haley, Chris |
| Locations | Roseville High School, Roseville cinema, Mike’s house, Roseville neighborhood |
| Collected in | Volume Five |
| Chapter navigation | |
| ← Trapped | Casual Outing → |
| Read chapter | |
Paulo plants a joke kiss on Abbey’s forehead and then spends the whole chapter unable to laugh it off. Between a beach-house invitation from Rachel’s friend Matt and one very honest question asked late at night in Mike’s bedroom, Paulo starts wondering whether the joke was really a joke, and by the end he still doesn’t have an answer.
Synopsis
The trouble starts at the lockers, where Daisy is fussing over Paulo’s recovery and Abbey marches up with a glare.[1] Paulo ends their silent stare-down by planting a chaste peck on Abbey’s forehead, leaving him trembling with rage as Daisy leads Paulo away.[2] Mike hears about the kiss later and remarks that kissing is a pretty intimate thing, “Even with guys... Unless you’re like, okay being intimate with other guys.” Paulo goes off like a firecracker. He insists he was joking, shoves Mike, and storms away.[3]
Paulo barely has time to cool off before Matt bounces up with an invitation to a summer trip at his aunt’s beach house, reasoning that “since you ARE Rachel’s boy toy, you’re totally invited.”[4] Paulo snaps at him, then accepts under the heat of Rachel’s furious glare. Once Matt leaves, Rachel yanks Paulo’s ear and tells him Matt deals with far more than he knows, leaving Paulo thoroughly ashamed.[5] When Daisy tries to check on him after school, he blurts that he’s going to the movies alone and sprints off.[6]
The theater doesn’t do much to calm him down. In the lobby, Paulo glares at a poster for a gay romance and grumbles about “all this gay shit being shoved in my face”, then wheels around and yells at a nearby kissing couple, who are, in fact, a boy and a girl.[7] The noir thriller he actually wants to see turns out to be NC-17, and Amaya refuses him with a pleasant smile and a firm thumbs-down.[8]
Mike catches up with him at sunset, fuming because Paulo forgot he’d asked to be tutored tonight.[9] Not much studying gets done. Mike is glued to his phone because Sandy hasn’t replied in days, and he’s convinced his own neediness is the problem.[10] Paulo tells him bluntly that wanting attention from your girlfriend isn’t selfish, and that Sandy is either part of Mike’s life or she isn’t, and she has to make that decision. Mike thanks him for the advice.[11]
In the quiet afterward, Paulo works up the nerve to ask: “You ever liked a guy before?”[12] Mike thinks he’s being mocked at first. Once Paulo begs to be taken seriously, though, he gives a careful answer, saying he likes guys, just never that way, not yet anyway, and that you can’t control who you have feelings for.[13] When Paulo quietly asks whether Mike thinks he’s weird, Mike reassures him it wouldn’t be weird at all, and the two part on a fond smile.[14]
The next day, a somber Paulo asks Rachel to meet him after school.[15] He owns up to being a jerk, says he talked it over with Mike, and admits Matt made him think some things he hadn’t thought of before.[16] He still hasn’t figured it out. All he can say is that he needs more time, and that he just doesn’t know. Rachel hugs him under the falling leaves, tells him there’s nothing wrong with him, and then breaks the tension her way: “Now let’s bang.” “Knock it off.”[17]
Character dynamics
- Paulo and Mike: The old rivalry now has a genuine friendship underneath it. Paulo and Mike were first this sincere with each other in the hospital room in Total Recall,[18] and they’re just as honest with each other here. Paulo is the one who gets Mike to admit how much Sandy’s silence hurts,[10] and Mike repays him by treating his question with complete seriousness and kindness.[13] The teasing never quite stops, but by the end of the night they’re trusting each other with things neither would tell anyone else.[14]
- Paulo and Rachel: Their arrangement has been explicitly not-dating since Take Heart,[19] but in practice they’re a good deal warmer. Rachel is the one person allowed to discipline Paulo, and she’s the one he seeks out when he finally has something real to confess. As she puts it herself, “Sometimes I think you love just a little too much.”[17]
- Paulo and Matt: Paulo and Matt barely know each other, and Paulo’s hostility toward Matt runs entirely on Paulo’s own insecurity. Matt stays friendly through all of it, saying he just thinks it would be cool to get to know Paulo better.[5] Paulo never apologizes to him on panel, but he ends the chapter admitting that Matt made him think about things he’d never considered before.[16]
- Paulo and Abbey: The same old antagonism with a new button to push. Paulo has worked out that a peck on the forehead riles Abbey up at least as well as any insult, and Abbey does plenty of glaring at him from a distance afterward.[2][6] Nothing between them really changes here. It’s the same friction as ever, just turned up a notch.
Trivia & observations
- Matt’s “boy toy” line is the chapter’s title drop, and it’s the only time the phrase appears anywhere in the comic.[4]
- The theater employee Paulo bowls over is never named in the chapter’s dialogue. The authors later confirmed on Tumblr that her name is Emma, and this is her first appearance in the series.[20][21]
- Amaya gets through the entire chapter without a word, handling Paulo with smiles, a thumbs-down, and a broom.[8][22] Her verdict has changed since Back and Forth, where the same pleading earned a thumbs-up into an R-rated movie. An NC-17 rating is apparently where she draws the line.[23]
- Veronica’s commentary calls the chapter “sort of difficult to write” and says she “put quite a bit of myself in some parts of this chapter.”[1]
- Paulo’s shove was originally more violent, pushing Mike up against the lockers. Per Veronica’s commentary, Oliver suggested playing it frantic and defensive instead, and she agreed.[3]
- Veronica’s commentary points out a “vague mia cameo” hidden in the theater lobby, included because fans “WON’T STOP ASKING ABOUT IT ON TUMBLR”.[24]
- Rachel’s closing line was one Veronica blurted out as a tension-breaker while writing. The page was “originally a lot more sappy”, and it was Oliver who insisted the line stay in.[17]
Related chapters
- Total Recall: The prom-night car crash that landed Paulo in the hospital happens here, along with the hospital-room exchange where Mike tells Paulo he’s one of his oldest friends and he cares about him.[18] During the tutoring night in this chapter, Paulo and Mike pick up right where that conversation left off.
- Casual Outing: In the very next chapter, Daisy asks Paulo point-blank whether he might like guys too, and he admits “kind of”.[25]
- Golden Hour: The July trip to Matt’s aunt’s beach house happens here, with Rachel and Paulo among the guests.[26]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chapter 87: Boy Toy, page 1
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Chapter 87: Boy Toy, page 2
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Chapter 87: Boy Toy, page 3
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Chapter 87: Boy Toy, page 5
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Chapter 87: Boy Toy, page 6
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Chapter 87: Boy Toy, page 8
- ↑ Chapter 87: Boy Toy, page 12
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Chapter 87: Boy Toy, page 13
- ↑ Chapter 87: Boy Toy, page 17
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Chapter 87: Boy Toy, page 22
- ↑ Chapter 87: Boy Toy, page 24
- ↑ Chapter 87: Boy Toy, page 26
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Chapter 87: Boy Toy, page 27
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Chapter 87: Boy Toy, page 29
- ↑ Chapter 87: Boy Toy, page 30
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 Chapter 87: Boy Toy, page 31
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 Chapter 87: Boy Toy, page 32
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 37
- ↑ Chapter 81: Take Heart, page 5
- ↑ Chapter 87: Boy Toy, page 14
- ↑ “Ask response naming the cinema girl from Boy Toy”. 2016-06-13.
- ↑ Chapter 87: Boy Toy, page 16
- ↑ Chapter 54: Back and Forth, page 23
- ↑ Chapter 87: Boy Toy, page 11
- ↑ Casual Outing, page 1
- ↑ Chapter 90: Golden Hour, page 11