by Jason June
My mind reeled. If this shusher was the difficult guy, that meant he was the one other Fashion Design gay. Not Damon. So that summer affair I’d made up for him and Max was not a thing, since Damon was straight.
“Good morning, class,” Mr. Bogosian said. He couldn’t even be thirty yet. He just oozed cool as he walked to his worktable at the front of the room. He had olive skin and wore skinny black jeans, a gray T-shirt underneath a gray cardigan, and circular black glasses and had a perfectly flawless bald head. Even the way the light glinted off his smooth scalp was cool.
“For those of you who haven’t met me, I’m Mr. Bogosian. I’m an instructor here at the Seattle Institute of Fashion, where we like to usher in the next generation of talent. That’s why we provide this space to Capitol Hill High students each semester. I’ll help you SIF”—he paused, waggling his eyebrows so much that I worried they might fall off—“through your designs and get you ready for the runway in no time.”
I guess even cool guys tell terrible dad jokes. We were so under his spell, though, that we all laughed. One of the football players even shouted, “Aw, good one, Mr. B!”
“Thank you . . .”
“Julian Dasher, teach,” the footballer finished.
“Thanks, Julian. Now I know you’ve all been waiting on pins and needles”—more eyebrow wiggling—“to find out what we’ll design first. Drumroll, please.” The jocks beat their hands against their worktables, the drumroll sounding way more like an earthquake. “Tote bags!”
Everyone went silent.
“What?” Mr. Bogosian asked. “I thought you’d all be totes excited.”
Julian slapped his table. “You’re on a roll, Mr. B.”
Blond Butthead stretched his hand so high I thought the logo on his sweatshirt would crack. “Reese Buttersworth, sir. It’s just that I was hoping for something more dramatic.”
Mr. Bogosian polished his glasses on his cardigan. “Well, Reese, even the most well-known designers had humble beginnings. The wrap dress wasn’t built in a day, you know. Just because we’re starting with totes doesn’t mean that one of you might not become the next Diane von Furstenburg or Cristóbal Balenciaga.”
Julian threw his hand in the air. “Balenci-what-a?”
“Balenciaga,” Reese said, and rolled his eyes before directing his icy glare back at Mr. Bogosian. “I’m hoping to be able to tailor my own outfit this year for the fall play. I was swimming in my tunic in last spring’s Oliver! I guess the wardrobe kids just didn’t understand how every moment onstage is a time to put your best foot forward.”
I was so glad I hadn’t signed up to help with outfits for the drama department. Reese would have eaten me and my duct tape alive.
“He’s the Diane von Worstenburg,” I whispered to Max.
“HA!” Max’s laugh sounded exactly like the donkey back on the Steiners’ farm in Riverton. I face-palmed as all heads in class whipped our way.
Not surprisingly, the most judgmental of all the looks came from Reese. “You two could use some help putting your best foot forward, if you ask me.”
I wasn’t sure exactly what I had done, but somehow, I had ended up on Reese’s bad side in a span of two minutes. Where was all the gay camaraderie? If watching High School Musical: The Musical: The Series and daydreaming about cute boys serenading me had taught me anything, it was that we were all supposed to be in this together, right?
Mr. Bogosian walked toward a set of double doors in the back of the room. “Now, now, we all express ourselves differently.” He opened the doors to reveal a massive storage closet packed to the ceiling with rolls of fabric in every color of the rainbow. “And the best way to do that is through fashion.” Mr. Bogosian stepped to the side and made a sweeping gesture with his arm. “Pick whichever fabric speaks to you the most for this tote-ally awesome project.”
The room was flooded with the sounds of scraping stools as the football team barreled toward the fabric closet.
“Come on,” Max said. He grabbed my hand and led me to the back of the room. The football team had somehow dismantled the nice and orderly stacks of fabric in a matter of seconds. When we passed Reese’s worktable, I noticed Max tense up and Reese’s blue stare zeroed in on our clasped hands.
“Watch out!” I yanked Max down to avoid being hit by a five-foot-long roll of yellow velvet.
“Sorry,” Julian said. A roll of white material and another of blue were tucked under his arms. “My bad.”
“Take it easy, fellas,” Mr. Bogosian called. “There’s enough fabric to go around. We’ve got whole football fields of this stuff.” He wiggled his eyebrows again, and a football player gave him a high five.
When most of the players had finally left the closet, it was safe enough to pick my material. I wanted to make something for Lu, a sort of pick-me-up tote considering all the crap she was going through. Or maybe it would end up being an I’m Sorry for Being the Worst BFF tote if I had to bail on the hoedown. Nothing says Please forgive me for being a backstabbing best friend like a tote bag, right?
I found a roll of neon green—Lu’s favorite color—but of course it was on the bottom of the fabric mountain the football players had made. I grabbed one end of the roll and tugged. It didn’t budge. I tried again, getting what I thought was a firm grip. “Come on, you fracking—whoa!” My fingers slipped, and I careened backward. Images of cracking my skull open on the nearest worktable flew through my head.
I braced myself for impact, but instead of oozing brains all over the fashion lab, I fell into a set of muscular, dark arms.
“Easy!” I was put on my feet like I weighed nothing at all. It was the first time I had been physically picked up, and I realized that was definitely something I wanted to have happen again. And again. And again.
I turned around to find Damon. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” Damon pointed at the neon-green material still stuck under the fabric mountain. “Need some help with that?”
I nodded, and Damon whipped the roll out of the jumbled mess like it was nothing.
“Here you go,” he said. He propped it up on one end and handed me the other. It was just the two of us in the supply closet, and Damon’s smile seemed so warm and welcoming. I thought now was as good a time as any to try to get to the bottom of the Damon-Max awkwardness.
“What was up back there with you and Max?” I asked.
Damon’s smile vanished instantly. “I don’t know. He hasn’t been the same since the breakup. He’s ignored my calls and my sister Cami’s. That’s how I know he’s not okay. They’ve been best friends since they met in the QSA three years ago. He’d come over to our house every day, and was practically part of the family. Even when Cami left for college in Los Angeles a few weeks back, they still talked constantly. But then he got dumped and fell off the face of the earth. I’m worried. Everybody who knows him is worried.”
That must have been what Max meant about pity votes. If everybody was worried about him, that’s why they didn’t run against him for QSA president, and why they’d be so quick to accept me as their VP when they’d never even met me before. But who could make super-confident Max so distraught that everyone was on high alert about it?
“Who broke up with him?” I asked.
With the worst timing ever, Mr. Bogosian called, “Back to your stations!”
“Listen.” Damon sighed. “Look out for him, okay? I promised Cami I’d keep an eye on him, but he’s not letting me do that right now. At least he’s talking to you.”
“Yeah, of course,” I said.
Damon put his hand out, and I thought he wanted to shake on it. But Damon grabbed my fingers and moved his hand in some cool-kid fist bump that I knew absolutely nothing about. My hand just sat there like a limp noodle. I was completely mortified.
“Ohmigawd. I’m like, the least coolest person who ever existed.”
Damon chuckled, but his smile didn’t light up like it had before. “You’ve got to be all right i
f Max is hanging out with you,” he said. “He could really use a friend.”
My stomach sank while Damon walked away. I’d gone from Spare Tire to Life Vest, and it definitely didn’t help me in choosing which side to pick in the Battle of the Ho’s. If I abandoned Max for the hoedown, I’d be leaving him in a time of need just as badly as if I dumped Lu for homecoming.
“Excuse you,” Reese sneered. “You’re holding up the whole class.” His icy glare followed me the entire way back to my seat.
I couldn’t concentrate as Mr. Bogosian walked us through the basics of sewing machines. Even his cringe-worthy puns (“Isn’t this sew awesome!”) couldn’t snap me out of my funk.
After who knows how long, Max shimmied in front of me, the Backstreet Boys shaking along with him. “Earth to Jay! Are you in there?”
I rattled my head. “Sorry, what?”
“Time to go. Class is over. What are you thinking about?”
I watched Damon and the rest of the football guys leave. Would asking about Max’s breakup make him shut me out like he had to Cami, Damon, and everyone else? I couldn’t lose my Gay Guide before I crossed any more items off the Gay Agenda. I decided to let it go for now, just in case.
Max pointed to my forehead. “That scowl is way too deep for the gift I’m about to give you.” His mischievous grin was back and he looked much happier now that everyone was gone.
“What is it?”
“I noticed that your Gay Agenda is all physical stuff and lacking any real gay culture.” Max led the way out of the classroom, swinging his violet Michael Kors purse as he walked. “Being the magnificent Gay Guide and Libido Liberator that I am, I thought we could combine the two. I’m taking you to your first-ever drag show on Saturday. A drag queen DJ I love is hosting, and I want to hire her for homecoming.”
I couldn’t believe I’d never thought to add See drag live to the Gay Agenda. I’d only watched every single season of Drag Race twice.
“Aaaaand,” Max added, “while we’re there, I’m going to introduce you to a very sexy, very single boy.”
His eyebrow wiggling rivaled Mr. Bogosian’s.
9.
Snag a Ticket to Your First Date
According to Medical News Today, one in four people suffer from halitosis. I prayed to Andy Cohen that I was not one of those people as Albert walked up to me that Friday before lunch. We’d be spending the next hour together, and I did not want to chase him away with some chronic bad breath.
Albert’s head was down, looking at his phone, his glasses slipping dangerously close to the edge of his nose. I was caught between two warring urges—check my breath before Albert took the empty folding chair next to me, or gently nudge those glasses back up so I could touch his face. I decided the latter might be a little too serial killer-y for our first solo hangout. Breath check it was.
My breath was . . . fine. But I definitely wouldn’t be eating the tuna fish sandwich I’d packed for lunch. What the actual frack was I thinking, packing tuna when I’d be within breathing distance of a VSB?
It was Albert’s and my first shift selling homecoming tickets. I’d already grabbed a cashbox from the office and set up a folding table outside the cafeteria. All that was left to do was write people’s names down, take their money, and not embarrass myself in front of Albert. I’d even come up with a list of potential things to get some conversation started:
TOPICS TO CHARM ALBERT
1.R2-D2 and how everybody seems to understand what he’s saying. (Is there some beep-boop robot linguistics course everyone in the Star Wars universe goes to? As the robotics expert, I thought he could enlighten me.)
2.How he chose tortoiseshell as the pattern for his glasses. (It was the perfect fit for him because they really made his eyes pop, and this topic would let me look into them even more.)
3.Costume ideas for Homecoming in Hindsight. (And maybe, just maybe, this would lead into him saying he didn’t have a date and asking if I had a date, which I conveniently didn’t, and yes, I would totally go with him.)
“Hey, Albert,” I said.
He didn’t look up. He kept walking forward, his head still in his phone.
“A-Albert?”
He was dead focused on whatever was on his screen. He took another step, and another, and if he didn’t look up right that second he was going to . . .
BAM!
Albert slammed into the table, sending the cashbox flying. It clattered to the floor, but Albert didn’t give any indication he cared about the commotion or the collision.
“Ow.” Albert said it like he was a robot, an automatic response that he knew he should say for slamming into a table. But he still didn’t take his eyes from his phone.
“Are you okay?” The impact was definitely going to leave a bruise.
“I will be in fourteen steps. I’m so close to hatching this thing.” He waved his phone, and I thought he’d lost his mind.
“Um, your phone’s not going to hatch.”
Albert paced around in a circle and counted to himself. “One, two, three, four . . .”
He had for sure lost his mind.
I walked around the table and snagged the cashbox before Albert tripped over it. I mentally added and crossed Save a VSB from smashing his perfect nose and crushing his adorable glasses off the Gay Agenda.
“. . . thirteen, fourteen.” Albert threw his hands in the air like he’d just scored a touchdown and thrust his hips from side to side. “It’s happening! Look!” He grabbed my shoulder and pulled me toward him. My whole body instantly lit on fire, every atom of my being aware that I was held close to an extremely good-looking boy who might have a thing for me. If firemen came to douse me with water, I’d tell them no, I never wanted to be put out.
“The egg!” Albert said. “What’s it going to be?”
I finally glanced at his phone. Albert hadn’t lost his mind. He was playing Digimals, a huge video game franchise that now had a mobile phone version. A giant orange egg was cracking open on Albert’s phone, ready to hatch into a digital animal.
“Please be Petaliabear.” Albert moved his hips back and forth again. It was like he had no control over his body. He was so carefree and unself-conscious. It was really refreshing to see after obsessing so much over how I should look and act and if my breath smelled too much like canned fish. “Come on, Petaliabear!”
The egg exploded. Lying among the pixel shells was something that looked like a mix between a frog and a duck.
“Noooo!” Albert moaned. “Not Quackcroak. I’ve got like nine million of these things.”
“If only your magic Digimals dance worked,” I said while Albert continued shaking his hips.
“It usually does! Some say it’s superstition, but I swear I’ve caught every Digimal I’ve ever hoped for when I do the Digihips.”
Ohmigawd, he actually gave the dance move a name. Could he be any cuter?
All his hip thrusting made me think of the homecoming dance and what it would be like to thrust hips next to each other. “You may not have caught that Petal Bear or whatever, but you definitely caught my attention.”
Albert’s cheeks immediately bloomed with adorable pink spots, while mine burst into flames. If those firemen came by again to douse me, I’d tell them no, I needed to burn to ash because I couldn’t believe my inner monologue had become an outer monologue.
“Ohmigawd, Albert. I—”
The bell rang, and the hallway was swarmed with students. They saw the “Homecoming Tickets” sign I’d taped behind our table, and before I knew it Albert and I were swept up taking cash and keeping track of who paid for who. I wished I knew more kids at school so I could get lost in the gossip of who was pairing up, namely the drama of some person named Graham breaking up with Forrest and asking Forrest’s best friend, Tara, to the dance instead. But since I had no idea who these people were, I couldn’t stop replaying in my mind that gawdawful moment when I’d told Albert that his hips caught my attention. Seriously? I didn
’t need to worry about being creepy by face-touching because all I had to do was open my mouth.
Despite the hour being so busy, it was excruciatingly slow. I kept glancing at Albert to see if he was skeezed out by me after my Digihips comment. Every time our eyes met, his darted away. I’d freaked him out and he couldn’t even look at me. Not to mention whenever our hands went toward the cashbox or the roll of tickets at the same time, he’d snatch his fingers out of reach so that there was no way my creeper ass could touch him.
I’d totally blown it. Any fantasies of Albert being part of the Gay Agenda needed to be crossed out of my mind in extra-bold mental marker.
The bell rang for the end of lunch period, and I smashed the cashbox shut. I had to get out of there fast. I didn’t want to say or do anything else that would make Albert relinquish his ticket-selling duties so he’d never be anywhere near me again.
“Feel free to head out. I can clean up here,” I said. This time it was me who couldn’t lock eyes. I stared at the linoleum floor like my life depended on it.
“Do you play?”
I tentatively lifted my head. Our eyes finally met, and neither of us looked away. Albert was staring right at me, a smile on his lips.
“Play what?” I asked.
“Digimals. They’re releasing a rare Digimal on Sunday for one day only. I was going to go out and see if I could find it. Would you want to join?” Albert swayed his hips again, that soft blush creeping up his cheeks. “There will be a lot more of this.”
Holy shit. Albert was flirting with me.
I’d seen so many people flirt at Riverton. Lame compliments like in homeroom when Steven Rylie said what great handwriting Ashley Kearn had, or Steph Richardson telling Eric Andrews that his dribbling skills were, like, totally amazing. I’d rolled my eyes every time. But Albert playfully moving his hips at me made me feel more whole than I ever had before.
For years, I had thought of the Gay Agenda as a way to fit in, to be part of the group that could talk about hand-holding and kissing and someday having sex. But seeing Albert look at me like that, flirting with me like that, I realized the Gay Agenda was so much more. It was about connecting with another person. I’d always felt like this overlooked, sexless, invisible thing that just had to stand by while everyone else was noticed. Sure, hand-holding and kissing and coming together all seemed like they would feel good when I eventually got to do those things. But I never knew that I’d feel more like a complete person when someone else recognized me as somebody they could want. Sexually, romantically, flirtingly, all of it. The Gay Agenda made me feel more complete. Like a human being worthy of love and connection instead of some lonely sideshow.
