Royally Crushed (31 page)

And the best part is that David really seems to like doing this too. Maybe, after dating super-popular types for so long, he’s gotten sick of having to show up at all their parties and put on a show for their friends.

Maybe.

I try to shake the feeling something’s off and just enjoy myself as we answer the next few questions. We’re in second place, behind the seniors. I know it’s them,
because David says he’s seen them playing here before and they always use the same team name: MONSTER. In all caps. To make them extra scary or something, I suppose.

There’s a break in the game, and a couple of the guys from the other table walk by on their way to the restroom and say hey to David.

“They’re on the rugby team,” he explains after they pass. “Well, some of them. I don’t recognize the two guys on the end.”

“Oh.”

I look over and instantly get why I’m feeling so uncomfortable. The guys who are still in the booth are staring at me, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible while they either peek out from behind their menus or pretend they’re watching basketball on the TV behind me.

All except for this one guy with long brown hair who’s fidgeting with the plastic-encased menu that shows all the desserts. He puts it down and shoves his hair back from his face, and I realize it’s John.

PFLAG John.

He’s ditched the Kenny Chesney shirt for a navy blue NYU shirt that’s actually kind of cool. But more than the shirt or the fact that his hair looks cleaner than the last time I saw him, it’s his attitude that’s setting off my inner
alarms. The way he’s intentionally not looking this way when all the other guys are.

Did he tell them about me? That my mom is gay? Is that why they keep looking over here?

I don’t think we’re supposed to talk about the stuff that comes up in meetings, and John didn’t strike me as the type who
would
tell, even if there’s no rule against it.

But if he did, will the rugby guys turn around and tell David?

Should I say something first? Make a pre-emptive strike?

Before I can decide, David (who’s totally oblivious to the fact that the MONSTER guys are watching us) starts talking about what’s going on at school—who’s going out with whom and all the other gossip I’ve missed since I transferred. I’m interested, but I have a hard time keeping up because, on the inside, I’m totally freaked about what the rugby guys may or may not know. Then David gets off on a tangent talking about Christie and Jeremy and whether they’ve done it.

I know for certain they
haven’t
. There hasn’t even been any south-of-the-border action. But from the way David is talking, Jeremy hasn’t confirmed the occurrence of full-blown sex one way or another to any of the guys, so they’re all starting to make assumptions. Assumptions I
know Christie—who quietly prides herself on being a good Catholic girl—would not want them to make.

“So what about you, Val?” David asks.

“What about me what?”

“What do you think about the whole sex-before-marriage thing?”

“Why, you wanna do it on the table right now or something?” I try to sound funny instead of defensive, but I’m not sure I succeed. I mean, where did
that
question come from?

Guess I’m really more worried about David’s opinions on sex between women at the moment.

Oh, ick. I can’t believe I just thought that.

He raises an eyebrow. “You making the invitation?”

I don’t say anything (what can I possibly say?), and just grin like I made a big joke.

“Seriously, Winslow. Give me your ten-second opinion.”

Is he trying to get me into bed? After, like, a date and a half?

“I don’t have a problem with it.” How can I have a problem if it’s never even come up? “The whole sex-before-marriage thing, that is. Not the sex here on the table thing. That, I cannot do. Sorry.”

He laughs. “Same with me.”

“Which part?”

“Both.”

The way he says it makes me think he’s testing me, though. Like there’s a question behind his question.

“Why do you want to know?” Maybe I’m misreading the I-want-a-relationship vibe that’s coming from him, which is usually different (or so Christie and Jules tell me) from the I-just-wanna-get-laid vibe. Besides, he can basically point to any of the girls in school and they’d be happy to give it up to him if all he wanted was a quickie hookup. No point in pursuing me, in that case.

“Well, I heard about that guy you’ve been seeing in Schwerinborg, and I just . . . I guess I wanted to know what your expectations would be if you decided you wanted to go out with me instead.”

Come again? “I don’t get it.”

“Well, I imagine Prince Georg what’s-his-name is the type who has certain expectations when he’s going out with someone. Right?”

He’s so
not
that kind of guy, but I’m not going to tell David that. I want to know his point. “And?”

“And you know what my father does for a living.” He lowers his voice, as if he’s embarrassed. Or worried someone might overhear. “I just can’t—I can’t risk doing anything that’s going to reflect badly on him. So I wanted to let you know that up front. He’s on Capitol Hill this week lobbying
to take condoms out of public schools, since he thinks they encourage teenagers to have sex, and next week he has a meeting with two senators to discuss the gay marriage issue.”

He reaches past me to punch the D button on the trivia pad, because while I was listening to him, a new question has popped up on the television screen.

He looks back at me. “It’s not that I have a problem with condoms in schools. Or Christie and Jeremy doing whatever they do. Or even if you did it with that guy in Schwerinborg. I figure that’s your business, you know?”

“I guess—”

“It’s just that it’s really important for my dad to be successful in his job. To encourage Congress to support President Carew and his policies, which will help him get reelected. So I can’t go around using the condoms from school, if you catch my meaning.”

Uh-huh. “You’re saying it’ll undermine his work if anyone finds out. And the wrong people
always
find out.”

“Exactly.” He gives me a flirty grin, but I have no idea how to interpret it.

I can’t believe I’m having
two
relationships where the guy’s dad’s job is a major impediment to my happiness. But Georg, who has a lot more pressure on him than David does, seems to handle it way better.

And it’s pissing me off.

“So you think I’m here with you because I want to get busy? That’s a pretty freaking big assumption you’re making.” Even if I have lusted after him for years and he knows it. (I’m guessing Jeremy’s told him about my mondo crush, since I know Christie’s told Jeremy.)

His face gets completely red. “That’s not what I’m saying. It’s just that I like you a lot and I don’t want you to think . . . well, I just want you to know where I’m coming from. I’m in kind of a weird position. Plus, my dad’s trying to line up an internship for me in the Senate this summer. I can’t ruin that opportunity.”

He moves his hand to play with my hair where it’s hanging down my back. “But I don’t want to ruin this opportunity either. Even if you are going back to Schwerinborg in a few days, I know you’ll be back for good after the elections, right? At least, that’s what Christie told Jeremy—that your dad plans to come back to the White House then.”

“Well, it’s not a firm plan or anything.” I don’t know why, but I feel like I shouldn’t give him a straight answer. I mean, as far as I know, the whole Dad-returning-to-the-White-House thing isn’t supposed to be public knowledge.

“So you understand?”

“Yeah.” I understand better than he knows. It’s like Georg, Take Two.

“So why did your dad leave the White House in the first place, if he’s considering coming back after the election? There had to be a reason—something political, I’d guess—that might’ve made him want to leave for a while?”

He sounds totally casual about it, but I give him the Valerie Shrug. I’m not about to tell him my dad was temporarily “placed” with Prince Manfred because President Carew thought having an adviser going through a divorce from a lesbian could be an election-year liability.

I reach over to hit the A button on the trivia pad for
Michelangelo
(person who painted the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel), since—while I wasn’t even paying attention—we moved into first place ahead of MONSTER, and now I don’t want to lose the game.

I glance over at John. He’s still not paying attention to me.

Once David and I answer the next question with
John Glenn
, I turn and ask him what’s really on my mind: “So your dad’s dealing with the gay-marriage issue next week?”

“Yeah.”

I’m not even really sure how I feel about it—I think I’ll hurl if Mom gets married to Gabrielle—but I ask anyway. “What do you think about all that?”

“About gay marriage?” He glances sideways at me. “Why, are you for it?”

Okay, I cannot believe I’m having this discussion on, like, our second date. But since I kind of started it, I say, “I haven’t really thought about it. I’m not up on politics as much as you are. But I don’t think someone who’s gay should be discriminated against.”

“It’s not discrimination. It undermines the whole institution of marriage to allow gay couples to marry.” He makes quotemarks in the air with his fingers as he says the word “marry.” “I mean, where do you draw the line? What happens when these so-called married couples have kids? Will those kids grow up to marry the opposite sex? Will they think marriage is a joke?”

“A joke?”

He makes a face of disgust. “You bet. If gay marriage is legitimized, a hundred years from now marriage as we know it will cease to exist.”

“I don’t think that would happen.” Geez, but this is a weird conversation. And freaking uncomfortable.

“Sure it will. Marriage wouldn’t be valued anymore.” He doesn’t sound judgmental at all, just very matter-of-fact. “Think about it. We’d be changing thousands and thousands of years of history by legitimizing homosexuality. If we, as a nation, say that anyone can marry anyone else, man or woman, then what’s special about marriage?”

Plenty, I want to tell him. But I don’t. He sounds so sure of himself, and frankly, I’m not sure at all. About any of it.

And it’s creeping me out to have PFLAG John only a few tables away while David and I are having this discussion.

“Hey,” David says, taking his arm off the back of my chair and pointing to the screen, “I think we’re about to win again. MONSTER missed that one entirely. Look!”

Sure enough, they did. The next question appears at the same time the waitress drops our check on the table. It’s about Pickett’s Charge, which we studied last semester in Mrs. Bennett’s class.

David picks the correct answer, then gives me a killer smile that makes me want to ignore our entire discussion about gay marriage. How can he possibly be so hot and so smart but so set on ideas that maybe aren’t so cut-and-dried?

“We make an awesome team, Winslow.” He gives me another quick kiss before grabbing the bill.

Unfortunately, we miss the last trivia question—about an obscure 1960s football player—and end up in a tie with MONSTER. Probably for the best. I really don’t want to tick them off.

After we put on our coats to leave, David pulls me over to their table. He introduces me, but instantly gets into a conversation about rugby. John looks up—since it’d be rude not to, I think—and he gives me a nod that lets me know he wants to say hello but that he’s not going to acknowledge that he knows me. Or, at least, from where.

I give him a little smile of thanks when no one’s looking. Then, when all the other guys start high-fiving one another over some big rugby play they made in their last game, John mouths, “No problem.”

As grungy and strange as he is, I decide right then and there that John’s a good guy.

But the something’s-not-right-here feeling is still sticking in my gut, like I shouldn’t be doing what I’m doing. But since we’re about to leave, I force myself to ignore it.

After a few more minutes of rugby reminiscing, David puts his hand on my back and steers me out of TGI Friday’s, since it’s time for his brother and his brother’s girlfriend to pick us up. David has them drop us off at the entrance to the apartment complex instead of at the door, so we can talk for a while as he walks me home.

And, I can tell, because he wants to kiss me again without his brother seeing. His brother gives us an
I know what you’re doing
look, but I notice he’s not exactly protesting
having to wait for David. It gives him a few more minutes alone with his girlfriend, presumably to do the same thing.

As we start down the sidewalk, David grabs my hand. “I didn’t want to say anything at dinner, but the guys at the other table were staring at you the whole time.”

“Really?” So he did see.

“Yeah. One of them was trying to set me up with a friend of his, and I told them I couldn’t—that someone I really liked was coming to town and that I thought I might be otherwise occupied.”

“Oh.”

“I just wanted to tell you in case you were wondering why they were staring. They were probably curious.”

We get to one of the darker places on the sidewalk, in between the glow of two streetlights, and he stops walking and pulls me right into his arms. “Thanks for keeping me otherwise occupied.”

I let him kiss me. This time, since we’re alone, it’s finally a real kiss.

And after all these years of dreaming about it—of dying every time he looked at me or slowed down on the walk to school so I could catch up to him and his friends—the whole kissing-David thing just doesn’t do it for me.

“You’re the best, you know that, Valerie?”

“Thanks.” I want him not to say any more. It’s making me feel horrid.

“I always thought we’d be good together, you know? I kind of suspected you might have a thing for me, but I didn’t know for sure until Christie told me a few weeks ago.”

The blessing of a friend with a big mouth. At least she didn’t tell him I’ve wanted him like mad since I was five. Geez, I hope she had that much sense.