Whatever.

by S. J. Goslee

  It pours, sheets of cold, heavy rain, and Mike has trouble seeing past the end of his nose, hair hanging lank in his eyes.

  It doesn’t matter, though. Even with the home run sending two other runners to home plate, the Bobcats are still ahead by four. Higgins ends up calling the game, disgruntled and looking like a drowned rat, and that’s it. The Bobcats are undefeated, and Mo leaps at Mike with a loud whoop.

  He almost drops her, but instead she wraps her legs around his waist, tilts her head back and yells up into the rain.

  She’s kind of awesome. It sucks that Mike feels next to nothing for her.

  He slides her back down to her feet just in time for them both to be tackled by the rest of their team, and Mike goes down face-first into the mud, laughing.

  * * *

  Going out for pizza is the time-honored, postgame tradition of winning baseball teams everywhere, but they let the Slugs tag along, too. They’re soaked to the bone, muddy and triumphant—or muddy and halfway resentful—and they fill up at least half the restaurant, rowdy enough to get glared at by the waitresses but not enough to get kicked out the door, despite tracking dirt everywhere.

  Mike gets shoved into a booth next to Omar. He’s twisted so his back is pressed against the wall so they can pack three on the bench, which is next to impossible, even if one of them is tiny and Mo.

  “Nice hit,” Mike says across the table to Weedy Jim, who is comically squished between Dotty and Cam. Cam’s got an arm around Jim’s shoulders, and the kid’s got a nervous-mouse expression on his face, hands clasped together and knuckles white.

  “Thanks,” Jim says tightly.

  Cam calls him his “little buddy,” and settles his visor on Jim’s head—apparently Cam lost his lip wig somewhere out on the field, thank god. Jim seems torn between pleased and oh god, he’s going to eat me; Cam sometimes has that effect on people.

  Mike eats five slices of pizza and feels like he’s going to throw up, but it’s still a good kind of full. He actually feels normal for once, like he’s not overanalyzing every scrap of thought in his brain, the way his thigh is pressed warm next to Omar’s, the way Dotty keeps kicking at his feet, the way Cam laughs with his head tipped toward Jim.

  His shoulders are loose and there’s a swing in his step when they leave the restaurant, so it figures that Omar falls in next to him on the way over to his van and says, “So what’s going on with you?”

  Mike shrugs. It sucks that Omar’s always so perceptive. Omar’s also probably the least judgmental of all of them, but when Mike opens his mouth all that comes out is, “Nothing.”

  Omar arches his eyebrow, because Mike always tries that shit with Omar, and it never ever works. This time, though, Mike doesn’t actually want to talk about it.

  Omar’s still looking at him, though, so Mike says, “Okay, not nothing, but I’m good with keeping it to myself right now.” He actually is. He’s even content, at that exact moment, to have some sort of homosexual earworm vibrating its way through his cochlea toward his brain, where it’ll probably set up house and pick out curtains and fuck men. Why not?

  It’s still drizzling, and Mike flips wet hair off his forehead before grinning at Omar.

  Omar nods, a single, slow dip, eyes focused on Mike’s face. His mouth pulls up on one side into a smile, and he says, “All right, fine.”

  * * *

  It’s kind of a letdown, going to school the next day and realizing that intramural baseball is over. Mike passes a few Bobcats in the hall, people he normally wouldn’t have associated with, and feels a weird kind of Breakfast Club solidarity with them. It’ll fade, there’s no way Parth, deputy editor of the school newspaper and a complete control freak, will continue to fist bump him indefinitely, and he’s probably only got a week left of exchanging bobcat growls.

  Melancholia follows him all through classes and into the next Homecoming committee meeting, and Dotty takes one look at his face and gives him an understanding hug. And then she punches him on the shoulder and says, “Buck up, camper, we won.” Dotty has a seriously mean right hook.

  “Hell, yeah, we won,” Mike says. “We’re the Bobcats!” He very carefully doesn’t rub the soreness out of his arm, because that’s just sad.

  Lenny makes a growly sound and giggles, and Mike glares at her a little, because Lenny isn’t a Bobcat, but that just makes Lenny roll her eyes.

  Mike gets no respect.

  “Good for you,” Wallace says, and Mike really, really wants that to be sarcastic, but it’s not. Wallace is lounging back in his chair, head tipped back to smile up at him. It’s not even a practiced, look-at-me sprawl, it’s an I’m-really-fucking-exhausted sprawl, pale-faced with faint smudges under his eyes, and yet he still manages to look genuinely happy for Mike.

  Wallace, Mike thinks, takes up a lot of space. He’s not huge, like Meckles, but he’s got a weird fucking presence for an eleventh grader. He’s got motherfucking confidence; it’s enough to make Mike want to punch him in the mouth, mess him up a little. It’s just not normal. Mike’s itching in his own skin—how can Wallace be so different?

  Mike says, “Thanks,” because he can totally be polite.

  Wallace’s grin gets brighter and he pushes out the chair next to him with his foot. “Come on, sit, let’s get this meeting rolling.” Then he yawns and says, “Fuck, I’m ready for bed.”

  Mike eyes him warily as he sits down.

  Something in his stomach is unsettled, but he can’t tell what or why. Then he remembers with a jolt that Wallace has some really damning dirt on him. Involving J. J.

  Mike tenses, jerking his head down to stare very hard at the table in front of him.

  Wallace nudges his arm and says, “Hey, you all right?”

  Mike swallows hard and says, “Yeah.” He’s definitely not all right; he’s basically waiting for Wallace to humiliate him, but whatever.

  And then one of the seniors strolls in with a huge whiteboard and Mike actually pays attention for once, just so he doesn’t have to think about anything else.

  * * *

  Friday morning, Mike isn’t surprised when Wallace gets a Junior Court nomination. He isn’t surprised when Lenny, Dotty, and Leoni get nominated, too, or even Judge, because he’s the closest the school has to a football star, or Carina Constantinides, because she’s got huge boobs.

  He is surprised when they call Mo’s name, because Mo has two lip rings and a tattoo of a mermaid on her left forearm and, despite being good friends with Dotty, she doesn’t really hang around the kind of kids who think Homecoming is worth anything at all.

  He’s also really shocked to hear his own name said over the loudspeaker in homeroom.

  “What the hell?” Mike says. He’s staring up at the speaker attached to the wall above the door, like maybe his brain went crazy and he just heard that wrong. At the meetings, they’d decided that a nom’s only accepted if it’s been seconded and thirded, so there are at least three people out there who want to torture Mike with a corsage and a suit. When Mike finds out who they are he’s going to kick them in the groin.

  “Huh,” Cam says. He looks genuinely bewildered and surprised when Mike looks over at him, so his balls are currently safe. From Mike, at least.

  This is, Mike thinks, the worst thing that could have ever happened. It’s bad enough that he has to be on a planning committee for it, and that Lisa probably would’ve bullied him into attending the actual dance, but now, if he remembers correctly, he’ll have to have a date, and he’ll have to be presented at the pep rally, and if there was any way he could get out of this without having Lisa attack him like a jackal, he would.

  Seriously, he’s such a total pushover. He’d blame Lisa, except it’s very obvious that he’s always been this way. Lisa’s not even the first one to use this power over him for evil; Mike’s broken all his limbs at least once because of Cam and Cam’s pout and his manic desire to throw himself off roofs and bike ramps and trees. Thank god he has Deanna now, and Deanna’
s willpower, and if Cam doesn’t always listen to her, at least he no longer drags Mike down with him. Most of the time.

  “Sucks to be you, man,” Cam says.

  Yes, it certainly does.

  ten.

  Cam’s end-of-the-summer blowouts are trumped only by Cam’s Halloween blowouts. The sucky thing is that costumes aren’t requested, but required. For a while there, when they were thirteen and fourteen, it wasn’t cool to dress up. Mike loves and misses those times.

  There’s nothing that Mike hates more than picking out a Halloween costume, but he’s basically the only one. Cam, Deanna, and Meckles are filled with little-kid glee, and even Omar’s getting into the spirit of the holiday.

  Now, Dotty, Lenny, and Mo are happily spending their fourth period study hall in the library making a list of everything that Mike can put together without actually buying anything—that had been his stipulation. He wouldn’t be caught dead in Halloween Adventure.

  Dotty looks at him thoughtfully. “You know, we’re about the same size.”

  Mike doesn’t like where this is going.

  First of all, it’s pretty crappy when a girl cheerleader in perfect athletic shape says you’re the same size. Mike might be batting for the other team, but that doesn’t mean he is, or wants to be, a girl.

  Second of all—Dotty is a girl cheerleader.

  “You seriously want me to go in drag?” Mike says, most parts of him horrified and just a tiny, quiet part of him intrigued.

  “Well,” Dotty says, “no.”

  Mo says, “You’d look pretty hot in a skirt,” not helping matters at all. Her eyes say she’s enjoying every minute of this.

  “It isn’t necessarily drag,” Dotty says, tapping her forefinger to her bottom lip. “You’d be a guy in my cheer outfit.”

  Mike doesn’t exactly see what the difference is. He’d be a guy in a skirt. Which is good for a laugh, maybe, if you weren’t overly sensitive about your sexuality. Mike’s totally touchy about that right now.

  Lenny snaps her gum. She says, “I like it. No boobs, though.”

  “Totally not,” Dotty says, nodding. “And I’m not giving him my spankies.” She makes a face.

  Mike isn’t sure he wants to know what spankies are, or that he’d want them even if Dotty was offering. He makes a face of his own.

  Mo looks like she’s on the verge of cracking up. “Oh my god,” she says. “Guys, you can’t be serious.”

  Mike points at Mo. “Yeah, see, what she said.”

  “I’m not saying he shouldn’t wear underwear,” Dotty says, and Mo loses it, stuffs both her hands over her mouth to help stifle her giggles, because Ms. Horton, the librarian, is glaring unhappily in their direction.

  Lenny flips her dark hair over a shoulder and says, completely straight-faced, “He’ll have to shave his legs.”

  Mo practically falls out of her chair, half sprawling all over Mike in helpless laughter, and in Mike’s somewhat mad scramble to get away from her—it’s a knee-jerk reaction, he’s not proud of it—he accidentally kicks the table they’re sitting at, tipping it over. Lenny and Dotty yelp, their books and papers go everywhere.

  They all end up getting detention, and Mike has a horrible feeling he’s just lost a battle that’ll cost him the war.

  * * *

  “Why do you hate fun?” Cam says. It’s more of a whine than a question.

  They’re in Meckles’ basement, trying to decide what they’re going to play the next night at Cam’s party.

  “I don’t,” Mike says, not bothering to look up from his guitar. “I hate you.”

  Cam can badger him all he wants, but there’s no way Mike’s telling him about his costume. He’s still got a halfhearted notion that he can somehow stop Dotty and Lenny from storming his house tomorrow with razors and tweezers and cheerleading outfits.

  “I told you what I’m going to be,” Cam says.

  “You told everyone,” Omar says, and Cam pouts even more.

  Cam’s going to be Magnum, P.I. The lip wig from intramural baseball had been a trial run.

  Mike has weird friends.

  “We need a set list,” Meckles says.

  “Just pick a bunch of Halloween songs. Jay can noodle a Blade Runner electronica solo,” Cam says, lounging back on the couch. “‘Thriller,’ Scooby-Doo, some Voltaire, Tim Burton miscellanea, ‘King Tut,’ ‘The Monster Mash.’” He hooks his ankle around the mic stand and tips it over to land between his spread legs. He flicks the microphone on and says in his best mad scientist voice, “I was working in the lab, late one night—”

  Meckles groans and covers his face, but Jason feeds the beast and starts playing along.

  Cam says, “I need background voices, you pussies! Who wants to be Dracula?”

  They’re the same songs they play every year, but you really can’t beat the Halloween classics. Mike joins Omar and Jason on the vocals and tries not to think about how there’s a solid chance he’ll be flashing the crowd tomorrow under his cheerleading skirt. It’s a good thing he has such a nice ass.

  * * *

  Mike can’t figure out what Rosie’s supposed to be. She’s got a gauzy purple skirt on over a pair of jeans, and her face is painted like a cat’s. She has spangle bracelets up to her elbows and a blue-and-red Phillies cap on backward. When Mike asks her what she is, Rosie just says, “I’m dressed up.”

  Mike wishes he could get away with that.

  Mom has a tall witch’s hat pulled down to her ears, her wild, honey-brown curls eating up the brim. She cackles at Rosie and chases her around the kitchen table, and it’s times like these that remind Mike that his mom’s pretty amazing.

  Mike’ll be long gone by the time they get back from the pumpkin festival at the community center, and he’s waiting until the very last minute to get dressed. There’s no way he’s letting his mom see his costume before she leaves.

  Dotty and Lenny are doing something scary in his room. He’s not ready to face them yet.

  When Rosie runs off to find her plastic pumpkin bucket, Mom leans a hip against the kitchen counter, sips at her hot chocolate, and says, “So, Michael. Anything you want to tell me?”

  Mike blinks. His mom isn’t exactly the heart-to-heart type. She’s always been big on letting him learn by screwing up, and he mostly cleans his own messes. Not that she isn’t supportive, but she sets out guidelines, not rules, and she tries to make sure Mike’s as informed as possible. No set curfew, no parental controls on the cable box or their computers. So thanks, Mom, for all the exploratory gay porn.

  “Mike?” she says. She taps the tip of his nose with a finger.

  Mike clears his throat and says, “No?”

  Mom takes another sip of cocoa, watching him coolly. “You know, just because I can be a lax parent doesn’t mean I don’t check up on you.”

  “Oh god,” Mike says. Hot fear licks up his spine. He deleted his browser history, but Mom has freaky computer skills for an old lady. He never thought she’d use her powers for evil.

  “Junior Class Vice President?” She grins, tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “I’m proud of you. Confused,” she concedes, “but proud.”

  “Um.” Mike feels so light-headed and flushed, he might pass out from the sudden rush of relief. “It’s Lisa’s fault.”

  “I’m sure,” she says. “Lisa’s a nice girl.”

  Mike wouldn’t exactly call her nice, but whatever. He nods. His neck feels a little wobbly and his breathing still isn’t quite right.

  She sets her mug down and says, way too nonchalantly, “Of course, I’m sure you can find lots of nice boys, too.”

  Crap. The second spike of adrenaline might kill him, he isn’t sure.

  There’s a sly twist to her mouth that has no business being on any mom’s face.

  Mike says, “Mom, it’s not,” and stops. He truly has no idea what to say to her. His back is so tight his muscles are throbbing, and he crosses his arms over his chest, tucks his chin down to st
are so hard at the counter he has to blink rapidly to keep his eyes from watering. “I mean. Yeah.”

  She reaches out and squeezes his shoulder, then presses a kiss to his forehead. And then Rosie skips in, swinging her bucket back and forth.

  “Ready?” Mom asks.

  Rosie gives her a thumbs-up. She’d added about ten multicolored beaded necklaces to her ensemble while she was on her bucket hunt. There’s a purple pony sticker on the apple of her cheek.

  Mom ruffles Mike’s hair and says, “Be good tonight,” before ushering Rosie out of the kitchen and toward the front door. Rosie is singing “trick-or-treat” off-key at the top of her lungs.

  Mike’s frozen in the middle of the room. His skin feels too tight, there’s a cold sweat covering his whole body. His mom knows he likes dick. His mom probably found out that he likes dick by watching some choice videos that pretty much scarred Mike for life. He kind of wants to hide in his room for the rest of forever.

  On the bright side, though, he just sort of came out to his mom and it went pretty fucking great.

  * * *

  Dotty is a pirate.

  Dotty is a fantastic pirate, and in the spirit of fair play, Mike guesses, Dotty is a male pirate, complete with a mustache and beard.

  It’s not exactly an eye-for-an-eye thing, considering Mike actually has to shave his legs—all the way up. They let him do most of it himself, locked in the bathroom. He only nicks himself twice, around his knees, but they insist on helping him with the back of his thighs. It’s something Mike never wants to experience again.

  “Perfect,” Lenny says. Mike’s pretty sure she’s supposed to be a hooker, but he doesn’t say anything, because sometimes girls can be sensitive about things like that. Then she holds up Dotty’s uniform—white, gold, and maroon and way shorter than Mike remembers.

  Mike says, “No.”

  “Don’t be a baby,” Dotty says. “This’ll be awesome.”

  “This’ll be a disaster. I can’t even wear my boxers with that, do you know what that means?”

  “You’re wearing it,” Dotty says, in a tone that isn’t taking no for an answer. When did Dotty get so fucking scary? “So you better find some underwear that’ll work.” She cocks her head, eyeing his crotch. “Otherwise, it’ll just about cover you.”