After School Activities (17 page)

someone expecting to be backed up by the people behind him.

Adam’s mouth was opening and closing, like it knew it should be

talking but his brain hadn’t got en around to supplying it with words yet. I

was a little irrationally jealous of Will. I hadn’t ever gotten Adam to that level of speechlessness. This wouldn’t do, not at al .

“Hey, Alec,” I said calmly, as though I hadn’t just heard that torrent of

homophobic vitriol. “You stil have that SAT prep book I loaned you? This

idiot,” I jerked a thumb at Adam, “convinced me to tutor him too.”

“Um, I think it’s still at my house,” Alec said with a little trepidation,

doing his best to ignore the incredulous stare from Wil . “Where you left it.”

“That’s okay. I think I have another at home,” I said, and Wil ’s eyes

almost popped out of his head as he realized he wasn’t going to be get ing any support from Alec. He turned to Dan expectantly.

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But I beat him to it. “Dan, is Bruce going to be home for Christmas?

Helen gets in the twentieth. My parents have been talking about inviting your family over, for old times’ sake.”

Dan grinned impishly at me. “That sounds like fun. I look forward to

it.” I was bluffing, and he knew it. His brother Bruce and my sister Helen had had kind of a bad breakup. But he also knew Wil was an asshat and probably

enjoyed the look of betrayal on his face as much as I did.

Finally I turned to Will. “Oh, hey there, Wil . I didn’t see you standing

there. Al alone. Were you saying something?” Wil sputtered, no doubt

overextending his rather small brain for some kind of comeback. Narcissistic

douchebags like him could recover from almost anything except being so

completely dismissed. Separate them from their crowd of ego-boosting

followers, and they withered pret y quickly. “Thought not.”

“What just happened?” Adam asked as we walked away.

“Wil needed a quick reminder that no one real y likes him. Besides,

Alec and Dan are not actually jerks, even if they do suffer from a bad case of follow-the-loudest-asshole-in-the-room-itis.”

“But what if that had been Kevin, or Ty? Those guys are even worse

than Will.” Adam was whispering fiercely. I started to realize just how

panicked seeing Will had made him.

“Then I would have thought of something else.”

“And what if you hadn’t?”

I stopped walking, turned to confront Adam. “What are you saying?”

“Nothing. I just…”

“…Never want to be seen with me?” I supplied.

“No! Only, maybe we should be more careful.”

“…About being seen with each other. Okay. Cool. Not like I wanted to

spend time with you anyway.” I started walking again angrily. “You realize

that we have always spent a lot of time together? I used to see you between

most of my classes. You’d shout at me across the lunchroom at least twice a

week. Everyone is used to us interacting. Even fucking Wil . Some people

even think we’re
friends
, despite us landing each other in detention more times than I can count. The only reason anyone would have to even raise an

eyebrow at us is ’cause of
you
acting like I’m your shameful fucking secret.”

“I’m not ashamed of you,” he protested.

“But I’m still a secret?” Adam looked away. “That’s what I thought.”

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We walked in silence from then on. We got outside, into the nearly

empty parking lot. Back by where Adam had parked, a few remaining cars

blocked us from the view of anyone who might be looking from school, and

Adam took that opportunity to grab hold of my hand. It wasn’t exactly an

apology, out there where no one could see, but I appreciated the gesture.

“Don’t think I’m going to let you off that easily,” I muttered.

“I have a few ideas on how I can make it up to you.”

“Do you now?”

“Mmhmm.”

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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“OKAY, SO what’s happening now?”

“The game still hasn’t started yet, Dylan,” Mel said flatly.

“But there’s people all over the field,” Kai remarked from the other

side of Mel.

“They’re warming up.” She was clearly starting to get exasperated.

“When do
we
get to warm up?” I asked. “I’m really cold just sitting

here.” “Yeah,” Kai agreed, “When do we get to jump up and cheer?”

“And what do we cheer
for
?”

“Which team is our team?”

“I think we’re red. Mel, are we red?”

“What even
is
football?”

Mel buried her face in her hands. “Oh my God, you two are the most

hopeless….” Her head snapped up, and she glared at Kai. “Wait, I thought

you watch football all the time?”

“Yeah. I wanted to see how much you would put up with.”

“They don’t kick the football, right?”

Mel laughed. “Nice try, Dylan.”

I guess I’ll just have to wait and find out for myself, then.

IN CASE you were wondering, feet do not play a major role in football.

Seems to me they could have been a little clearer on that front, perhaps

considered a different name entirely.

What
did
play a major role in footbal , however, were piles of men, and no smal amount of ass-slapping. In fact, athleticism practically took a

backseat to the almost staggering amount of man-on-man action taking place

on the field. Up until then I had assumed, naively, that it was either the love of sport or pure masochism that made Adam put up with al the douchebags

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After School Activities

and homophobia of the football team, or at least the demands of a father

desperately trying to relive his glory years. But by the ninth time I saw him under a pile of hot jocks, the truth had become readily apparent.

“Why did no one tell me about this?” I demanded.

“What, football?” Mel said.

“It’s a gay man’s paradise!”

“What,
football
?”

“It’s almost as good as wrestling, but completely without the risk of

awkward erections that everyone can see. Tackled by hot guys, ass-

smacking on the sidelines….”

“You have some really strange sexual appetites,” Kai said wryly.

“An interesting point from a straight guy who likes to get fucked by

another dude,” Mel said.

“Harsh. But fair.”

The game finished pretty quickly after that. We lost, which I needed

explained to me. (“Dude, you do see those giant numbers on that board

with ‘Score’ written on it, right?” “…Shut up, Kai.”). I said my good-byes

to Kai and Mel and hurried over to wait for Adam to get out of the locker

room. I waited outside, at the side exit near the gym, where I knew the

team would be leaving on their way to the parking lot. Parents and friends

of the players stood around me in loose clumps, chatting quietly, subdued

no doubt by the loss. I found a spot out of the way, where I could see

when Adam walked out the door, but where I wouldn’t draw too much

attention.

A shriek split the relatively calm evening. “Oh my
God
!” I turned to

see Tiffany jogging over to me, a clump of other cheerleaders not far

behind. “I can’t believe you came! I’ve been trying to get you to come see

us cheer for
ever
, and you come on the very last game, you bitch!” She was still wearing her tiny cheer outfit as though in defiance of the cold.

I smiled despite myself. Sure, Tiffany was pretty annoying, but her

enthusiasm was also rather infectious. “I couldn’t miss seeing my bitches

cheer, could I?”

“Were we fierce?”

“Superfierce.”

“Beyoncé fierce, or like ‘last few contestants of
So You Think You

Can Dance
when it gets really good’ fierce?”

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Dirk Hunter

“Um….” I had no idea how to respond to that. There were degrees of

fierce? And which one was better? Tiffany, as much as I liked her,

happened to be one of those girls where the vaguest implication of an

insult, or even merely a lackluster compliment, would send her spiraling

into some stygian depths of self-doubt. It would be fascinating if it weren’t quite as terrifying to watch. Luckily, the rest of the cheerleaders caught up to Tiffany and rescued me from having to answer.

“Dylan!” Charlotte’s face broke into a wide grin. “It’s been so long

since we’ve seen you.” The other girls echoed her.

“Oh my God,” Tiffany turned to Charlotte, face lighting up with

even more excitement, as impossible as that seemed. “I have the best idea

ever
. Dylan should come tonight!”

“Oh my God, Tiffany, you are
literally
reading my mind right now!”

Amanda, the bustiest, blondest cheerleader exclaimed. “Can he, Char?”

“Sounds like fun to me,” Charlotte replied, the only presence of calm

in the midst of the tumult of excessively girly excitement. “The girls are

all coming over to my house to sleep over tonight. You want to come?”

“Um….” I looked over at the door where half the team had already

exited, and any second now Adam would walk out.

“We are not taking ‘no’ for an answer!” Tiffany said. “It has been

weeks
since we last hung out. I have so much to tell you.”

Right then, Adam walked out of the school with a few of his

teammates. A group of his friends immediately surrounded him. He

chatted with them distractedly, all the while looking over their heads,

searching the crowd. He finally noticed me, surrounded by the gaggle of

cheerleaders, literally being dragged away by force. His grin split his face

nearly in two at the sight of my plight.

Help me
, I mouthed at him.

He only winked, smiled wider, and turned back to his friends.

So much for Prince Charming, am I right?

CHARLOTTE’S PARENTS weren’t home, which seemed to happen with

almost conspicuous frequency. Sure, I’d only been to her house twice

before, but every time we all had a free run of the place. Three for

three, I’d almost be concerned—if it were anyone other than Charlotte.

Even when the group spread to multiple rooms, which, with nearly a

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dozen teenage girls, happened all too often, she managed to flit

effortlessly between rooms, expertly inserting coasters under drinks and

somehow catching tipped-over snack bowls before the Chex Mix

spilled all over the floor. And that’s not even mentioning her juggling

of the cooking, music playing, and drama-busting. That last one was

especially a marvel to watch. With so many huge personalities in one

room, and all of them made up of popular girls who sometimes seemed

to subsist entirely on narcissism and cattiness, no sooner would an

argument start to think about bubbling than Charlotte would swoop in

and work her magic, easing nerves, soothing egos, and just generally

reminding everyone that they were friends and were supposed to be

having fun.

James P. Hogan should really go into politics, or something that

necessitated huge, expensive galas and the like, because Charlotte seemed

born to run them.

By ten p.m., the party had pretty much wound down. Most of the

cheer squad had dissipated throughout the night, until only five remained,

presumably Charlotte’s closest friends. And me. At this time, pajamas

became the outfit of choice. They even produced a pair for me, an

obnoxiously pink-and-kitten-covered pair of matching bottoms and top,

which Charlotte insisted was the only type she owned, and she convinced

me to wear them in the nicest, politest bout of bullying I have ever had the

pleasure to be on the receiving end of. Later that night, when she appeared

wearing a perfectly plain pair of flannel pajama bottoms and sweatshirt,

she only smiled sweetly (way
too
sweetly) and insisted she had no idea what I was talking about.

We were all sitting in Charlotte’s living room, swaddled in

blankets. We had finished watching a movie—a romantic comedy of

the sappiest variety, of course—and the conversation turned to boys.

“There’s someone I’ve been spending more and more time with

lately,” Tiffany was saying, smiling coyly. “You’ll never guess who.”

“Travis Butler,” said this girl Mary snidely. Travis was one of the

nerdiest guys at school, leader of the physics club, probably the

valedictorian of my class, face covered in pimples and painfully awkward

around girls. He was also really nice, and happy to help anyone who was

struggling in math class, even if that kid had just come out of the closet

and most everyone else at the school still acted like he was some weird

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mix of dinosaur and leper—something they never thought they’d see in

the flesh, and quite possibly dangerous.

It made me pretty uncomfortable to hear him be the butt of a joke. I

looked around for Charlotte, hoping she’d chime in a delicate reprimand

like she had so often already that night, but she was down in the kitchen.

Tiffany’s face screwed up in exaggerated disgust. “Ew, no. I’ll give

you a hint: he’s the hottest guy in school.” I felt a sinking in my stomach

as I started to remember who Tiffany considered to be the hottest guy in

school.

“You don’t mean…!” Amanda said.

“Yes! Adam Anderson! Every day this week he meets me at my