Winger (13 page)

“No fair, Annie.”

“Seriously?”

“Serious.”

“I wished for you to get your wish.”

AFTER DINNER, JOEY AND I
walked to the library with our Calculus books to meet Megan. I guess I didn’t feel right after seeing Annie out in the woods, like maybe I’d said too much and it was going to ruin our friendship now, so I was a little depressed and didn’t say anything to Joey.

I kept picturing those circles in my head. I hoped I’d made sense to Annie, that I didn’t sound like a whiny little crybaby. And I thought about Joey too, and how bad and terribly lonely he must feel sometimes; and that’s why I tried to always go out of my way to not notice the thing about him you couldn’t notice anyway.

We stayed in the library until they kicked us out, at nine forty-five. Megan looked so deliciously good, and she smiled so broadly when it finally all started coming back to her. I guess Joey and I counteracted the brain-loss effect caused by Chas Becker’s brilliance.

Megan walked us back to O-Hall, between Joey and me, with her arms locked inside each of ours. I will admit that twice I feigned tripping on a rock just so my right arm would brush against her breast, and that was awesome.

The performance artist was on the mark that day.

When we got back to O-Hall, Joey and I said good night to Megan and started for the door.

“Thank you boys so much for helping me,” Megan said. “You are such good friends, and I love you both.”

“No problem,” Joey said.

“Yeah.”

Then Megan stepped up to Joey and kissed him on the cheek, and I could see he kissed her back too, all suave and mannered, like he did that kind of stuff all the time. He pulled open the door to the mudroom, and Megan turned to me.

I thought I was actually going to die. Megan Renshaw, in all her smoking five-out-of-five-habanero hotness, was going to kiss me, Ryan Dean Never-Been-Kissed-by-Anyone-Who-Wasn’t-Alive-When-Sputnik-Got-Launched West.

I closed my eyes.

She put her hands on the sides of my jaw.

She kissed me right on the mouth.

AND SHE STAYED THERE.

I think she actually had to hold me up when she slipped her tongue past my lips.

Then she put her face to my ear and whispered, “I think you are really adorable.”

Okay . . . I’ll admit I no longer hated that word.

Then she whirled around and left us there.

In the stairwell, I gave Joey the all-time-record-breaking gay-straight high five.

And he said, “You don’t have to worry about me. I won’t tell Chas about you making out with Megan. He’s a douche bag, anyway, and you know he’d kill you for it.”

BY THE FIRST WEEK OF
october, it was freezing cold up there in the Cascades at Pine Mountain Academy. And things just continued along from day to day in their usual way.

We’d played poker a couple more times, always on Sunday nights, because that’s when the guys got back from their weekends. But I never drank beer again after that first time. Chas tried to make me do it, and I thought I was actually going to get into a certain-death-for-Ryan-Dean-West fistfight over it, but Joey got between us and let Chas know that he was ready to fight him about it too. I even lost again, the second time we played, and that time the guys made me swim across the lake in the middle of the night wearing only my boxers. It was so cold, I could hardly breathe, and I was convinced as I paddled through that liquid hell that Mrs. Singer was going to turn herself into a multitentacled monster and drag me down to her icy black lair.

In Lit class, we had finished reading
Billy Budd, Foretopman
, and I was convinced by that time that Mr. Wellins was some sort of pervert, because he believed that everything we read had something to do with sex. According to him, “Rappaccini’s Daughter” was about incest, and, he argued,
Billy Budd
was about homosexuality. Mr. Wellins said it didn’t matter what a writer intended his work to mean, that the only thing that mattered was what it meant to the reader, and I guess I could see
his point, but I still thought he was a creepy old pervert. Anyway, I just thought Melville wrote a good story, but what do I know?

And by mid-October, Coach M had pretty much named the first fifteen on the rugby team. I kept my spot and my nickname, at number eleven, JP made fullback, Seanie made scrum half, and the rest of the team were the returning seniors from last year, including Chas, Kevin, and Joey. We were also getting ready to play our first preseason friendly match against Sacred Heart Catholic School in Salem. So, with that game coming up, we were all pretty damned excited and nervous.

And, on the topic of being excited and nervous, that night during the first week of school—the night I’d made out with Megan Renshaw—I remember that when I got back to my room, I could hardly face Chas. I felt like I had stolen something, but I felt damned good about it too. And after that, anytime Chas laid it on thick with his put-downs and threats, I’d just smirk and think to myself,
Your girlfriend puts her tongue in my mouth and she likes it
, and my smirk would piss off Chas even more because he had no idea why I had suddenly become so confident around him.

Megan Renshaw and I flirted constantly in Calc and Econ, and sometimes we’d get kind of perverted about it. Joey just watched it and laughed at us, and he never said anything to anyone, because that was the kind of guy Joey Cosentino was. But I was still kind of afraid of Megan, and had no misconceptions as to who was holding the power in our quirky relationship.

One time, she even followed me out of class when I left for the
bathroom, and we made out for about thirty nonstop and frenzied seconds in a drinking fountain alcove, and then she just left me there, completely unable to walk to the bathroom, much less back to class.

I felt really weird about the whole fooling-around-with-steaming-hot-Megan-Renshaw thing. First of all, and I’ll be honest, I felt really guilty before and afterward. It was during, though, that I didn’t feel anything even close to guilt—when Megan had her mouth all over mine and let me slip my hand up inside her sweater. When that was going on, it definitely was
not
guilt that occupied my mind.

When I was away from her—and could think sanely, that is—if I wasn’t having any perverted fantasies about airline stewardesses or Halloween costumes, I felt terrible, because I knew I was being the same kind of asshole to Chas Becker that he was to everyone else; and I tried to do anything I could to
not
think about how Annie would feel if she found out about us.

It tore me up, except for the couple minutes here and there when Megan would sneak off and get that nasty-policewoman-who-wants-to-arrest-bad-Ryan-Dean look in her eyes, but I felt like there was nobody I could talk to about it. If I talked to JP and Seanie, everyone else would know. Shit, Seanie would make a website about it. I definitely couldn’t talk to Annie, because I knew I was being bad and doing something that was just plain wrong (even if I liked the occasional chance to play Bad Ryan Dean). The only person I could talk to about it, of course, was Joey, who was gay.

I tried asking Megan about it, but she played me off. I got the
impression she really
did
like me, which made me feel worse about Annie. In the end, it just seemed to me that Megan Renshaw was the kind of girl who only wanted a Chas Becker trophy mate because all the other girls at Pine Mountain wanted him. It was a game to Megan, and I felt sorry for how sad and lonely she was going to end up.

The Monday before the team took the bus to Salem to play, Joey and I walked back to O-Hall together after practice.

“Oh. I’ve been meaning to ask you, Ryan Dean,” Joey began, “what’s the deal with that Casey Palmer website? I didn’t think he was so . . . extroverted, I guess, but I could be wrong.”

Score. I had succeeded in making Joey look at Seanie’s balls.

This was, indeed, the stuff of future epic sonnets.

“I only heard about it,” I said. “I haven’t seen it.”

“Oh, sure,” he said, and laughed, like he didn’t believe me. “Then why are there so many comments posted by
you
on there about how gay Casey is?”

Seanie. Even when you think you’ve caught up with him, you realize he’s always pushing it a step further.

“Seanie Flaherty’s a dick,” I said.

Joey laughed.

I sighed.

And Joey said, “You guys shouldn’t mess around with Casey Palmer’s ego. I’ve seen that guy do some pretty crazy shit.”

“Like what?” I said.

“He flips out. He can hurt guys,” Joey said.

“Oh.” I shrugged. “I’ll tell Seanie to lay off. He won’t listen, though.”

“Seanie never does.”

“Joey, I need to ask you. You’re the only guy I can talk to about this,
and it’s really bugging me. What do
you
think I should do about Megan?”

“You’re going to do whatever you want to do, it looks like. Or, whatever
she
wants you to do,” Joey said.

“Someone’s going to find out.”

“Bound to,” he agreed.

“Really. I don’t care what Chas does to me if he finds out, ’cause I do deserve it. I just think it’s unfair to treat a guy like that, even if it’s Chas, but especially if we’re on the same team. But I really do like Megan. She’s supersmart. And she is so freakin’ hot.”

“Ryan Dean, I know you’d feel terrible if someone you care about ended up getting hurt over this.”

“Like Annie.”

“Exactly. And, anyway, don’t you love Annie or something?” Joey asked.

“Dude, I am so insanely in love with Annie Altman that I can’t even think straight. No gay pun intended.”

Joey smiled.

“Well, obviously you can’t think, straight or otherwise,” Joey said. “That’s why you’re messing around with Megan.”

Then Joey stopped walking, and he looked directly at me. He looked pissed off, too. “It’s one thing to be an asshole to Betch. He deserves it. But why would you hurt Annie? Why don’t you fucking grow up, Ryan Dean? At the very least, you have to talk to Annie about it. She is your best friend, isn’t she?”

I stopped in my tracks.

I had never been told off like that by Joey.

It stung.

And he said, “Sorry.”

“No, Joe. You’re right.” I sighed.

We started walking again. “How come
you
don’t have these problems?”

“Are you
fucking stupid
, Ryan Dean?”

I pushed him. “Just kidding, Joey.”

Joey smiled, and I said, “But you know, I really don’t get this liking-boys-better-than-girls thing. No offense, ’cause you know I’d like you the same, no matter what. I just don’t get it.”

“Ryan Dean?”

“What?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Okay.”

I am such a loser.

No matter what Megan offered, or tempted me with, I never got over being totally crazy for the totally hot Annie Altman. And playing with Megan was like playing with a rattlesnake. Well, a smoking-hot rattlesnake. With incredible boobs. That Ryan Dean West had actually touched.

I knew Joey was right.

I had to stop.

ANNIE KEPT THE PROMISE SHE’D
made that day we told each other our wishes at Stonehenge. Her parents had spoken to mine, so Annie and I got tickets to fly up to Seattle together on Friday after school. I was going to spend the weekend at my best friend’s house. And every time I’d almost get up enough courage to ask where I’d be sleeping (and what I should wear, since I don’t have any drop-seat pajamas with feet on them—in fact, I don’t have any pajamas at all), hoping she’d say something ultrahot like, “On the couch in my room,” to which she might add, parenthetically, “And I believe that sleep is something that should only be done while completely naked,” my throat knotted up and my ears turned red. God! What a dork I am.