by John Goode
“What is?” Jennifer asked her.
“She says I can’t buy tickets for two guys,” Brad explained.
“And if he buys two tickets and shows up with him,” she said, looking at me. “Then they will be turned away with no refund.”
Jennifer’s face got serious fast. “What the fuck are you talking about, Stacy?”
“It’s school rules,” she said smugly.
“Since when?” Jennifer growled at her.
Stacy looked over at one of the other girls. “Since last week, right, Patty?” Patty nodded at her and smiled. Stacy looked back at Jennifer. “Since last week, you know. When you decided not to show up.”
“This is bullshit,” Brad complained, getting loud.
Of course, that was when Mr. Raymond appeared. Speak of the devil, and he shall appear with cloven hoofs.
“We have a problem here?” he asked out loud, but he was looking right at me.
“Since when can’t I bring my date to prom?” Brad asked.
Raymond looked back at him. “You are more than welcome to take your date, Mr. Greymark, as long as that date is of the opposite sex. This is out of my hands. The prom committee voted on it themselves. I have no power over it.”
Such bullshit.
“You are really going to do this?” I asked him, ignoring everything else around me.
He looked back at me, and I could see the gloating in his eyes. “I am not doing a thing, Mr. Stilleno, but if I was, I would say you were warned. Every action has a consequence. Try to remember that in the future.”
I felt the familiar fire in my chest as the indignity of this shit began to rain down on me.
And then I just felt tired.
“Just fuck it, Brad,” I said, looking away from the petty man. “It’s not worth it.”
Brad looked at me, shocked. “What? You’re going to just take that?”
I sighed and shook my head. “I’m tired of fighting.”
And I was. Raymond had won.
BRAD
JOSH TURNED off the music and looked at me harshly. “Dude, do you want to be the Joey of the group?”
I had no idea what that meant.
Before I could tell him that, he shook his head and tossed me a towel. “Joey Fatone? Of *NSYNC?” Still clueless. “Jesus, every boy band has a member who can’t do the dances as well as the others. Joey Fatone of *NSYNC, Brian Littrell of Backstreet Boys, Donnie Wahlberg for New Kids on the Block. Do you want to be that guy?”
I wiped the sweat off my brow. “I’m more concerned about your encyclopedic knowledge of all things boy band.”
He gave me a look. “What’s wrong with that?”
“You’re straight?”
He flipped me off and cued the One Direction CD up again. “You ready for this?”
I tossed the towel onto my garage floor. “No, but let’s do it.”
We had been practicing this stupid dance for almost a week now, and I wasn’t getting any better at it. The Foster High tradition of the sports guys doing a song and dance to ask their dates out to prom was legendary, and honestly, I never gave it a second thought. If I knew it was going to be this bad, I would have started practicing when I was a freshman. On the other hand, Josh seemed to be the world’s youngest male stripper by the way he bucked and gyrated effortlessly to the music. If I hadn’t met Kyle, I would have found the sight of him dancing around my garage shirtless and sweaty more than a distraction.
Now he was just another guy who wasn’t as hot as Kyle to me.
There were five of us who were going to sing this year, and we decided on “You Don’t Know You’re Beautiful” because it seemed to be the easiest to dance to, and everyone knew it. It took Josh about an hour to teach the other guys the steps we were going to do in front of what promised to be the whole school. A week later, I was no closer to getting it than I had the day he showed me.
I went to try to spin and my feet got tangled up and I almost fell over. The only thing that stopped me was Josh grabbing me before I hit the ground. “Wow, you must suck in bed.”
I pushed off him. “Hey, what the fuck does that mean?”
He chuckled and paused the music again. “You know the saying, if you want to know how a guy is in bed, watch him dance. I’ve seen you naked, so I can’t imagine it can be all that pleasant.”
I sat down to catch my breath. “Dude, do you even hear the words that come out of your mouth, or is it a straight shot from your brain to the outside world?”
He laughed at my criticism and grabbed a couple of waters out of the fridge. “Dude, no one cares what I say. I’m an idiot, remember? Besides, why can’t I mention the fact I’ve seen your dick? We shower together, and I’m secure enough in my sexuality to say it’s an impressive sight.”
“Oh God, please stop talking,” I pleaded, taking the water. “My boyfriend and me don’t talk about our junk as much as you do.”
“That’s ’cause you two are insecure about your sexuality. You’re both good-looking guys who should be proud of what you got.”
“There is ‘secure in his sexuality’ and then there is ‘confused.’ You’re skating that line, Josh.”
He laughed and finished his water. “Nah, I already had my experimental phase, and it wasn’t for me.” He stood up and held out his hand. “You ready to do this?”
I took it and stood up. “You’re really okay with just telling me you fooled around with a guy before?”
He took my empty bottle and shrugged. “Why? Everyone does it, and you’re gay. If I can’t tell you, who can I tell?”
I could not believe he was so cool with it. “How did you even deal being Tony’s friend for so long?”
He actually paused and thought about that for a second. “Tony is okay. He just has so many issues he can’t deal with, so he picks these stupid things to focus on. Like that whole thing with you and Kyle at the diner? That was all his dad. Tony could give a shit, but what was he supposed to do? Let his old man just stand there and look like a dick? You could tell his heart wasn’t in it. He was ready to drop it until….”
And he stopped talking.
“Until Kelly attacked him at school,” I finished for him.
Josh nodded. “That was why Tony went after Kelly after the video. Spray painting his truck and the dildos, that really didn’t have anything to do with the gay thing—that was Tony trying to get him back for making him look the fool at school.” His voice got really sad. “Can’t help but wonder how it would have gone down if Kelly hadn’t done that.”
The mood was depressing as shit, so I decided to change it.
“So we going to dance or what?”
He gave me a grin and moved toward the CD player. “Well, I’m going to dance. You’re going to make a fool of yourself.”
And he was right—I did.
So I asked Kyle to the prom, didn’t fall on my face and crack my nose in front of everyone, and even managed to get him to wear my ring again. And Josh grew the balls to ask Jennifer out. All in all a good day. Which was canceled out by how horrible it was the day I tried to buy our tickets.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I raged as the bitch behind the table told me I couldn’t bring Kyle to the prom.
She gave me a sour look like she had never heard that word before. “I’m sorry, but those are the rules.”
“What the fuck?” I made sure to use the word again just to piss her off. “Since when?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Doesn’t matter. It’s the rules.”
Jennifer had been selling Josh his tickets and looked over. “What is?”
“She says I can’t buy tickets for two guys,” I explained.
“And if he buys two tickets and shows up with him,” she said, looking at Kyle, “then they will be turned away with no refund.”
I took a step back as I saw a bad look cross Jennifer’s face. Every other time I had seen that look, someone was getting Tased. “What the fuck are you talking a
bout, Stacy?”
They started to argue, but I watched Kyle’s face. I kept waiting for him to jump in and say something, kept waiting for him to stand up for himself.
Instead he said nothing.
“This is bullshit,” I complained, not just talking about the ticket thing. I looked over and saw Tony standing there off to the side. I expected to see a shit-eating grin on his face, but instead he was just watching everything. Scowling.
I had known these two broads for nearly forever, and I knew they didn’t have the brains to pull something like this off, not over Jennifer. It wasn’t until Mr. Raymond walked out that I understood what was really going on.
“We have a problem here?” he asked, but he was looking right at Kyle, who still hadn’t said a word.
I moved a little in front of Kyle. “Since when can’t I bring my date to prom?”
Raymond looked back at me, and I felt the urge to punch him pass through my body. “You are more than welcome to take your date, Mr. Greymark, as long as that date is of the opposite sex. This is out of my hands. The prom committee voted on it themselves. I have no power over it.”
Lying piece of….
“You’re really going to do this?” Kyle asked him, like they had been in the middle of a whole other conversation.
The urge to hit him grew as he said to Kyle, “I am not doing a thing, Mr. Stilleno, but if I was, I would say you were warned. Every action has a consequence. Try to remember that in the future.”
This was it. This was when Kyle let him have it. I almost smiled as I felt it coming.
And then, out of nowhere, Kyle looked at me and said, “Just fuck it, Brad. It’s not worth it.”
I almost choked, I was so shocked. “What? You’re going to just take that?”
He sounded so sad when he answered. “I’m tired of fighting.”
And just like that, Mr. Raymond won.
He began to walk away as people behind us started to talk among themselves. No doubt laughing that the fags got what was coming to them once again. I caught up to Kyle. “Hey, we don’t have to take that,” I assured him. “That asshole can’t just….”
He spun on me, and I could see he was on the verge of tears. “I don’t want to go, Brad. Seriously, if every single thing in life is going to be a fucking fight, then I’m done. It’s a fucking dance with a bunch of assholes. I’d rather just stay home instead of forcing my way into my own prom.” He wiped away an angry tear, and I felt my brain erupt in fiery anger. “We’re gone in a month. I just want to leave.”
He walked away, but there was no way I was going to let this one go.
After practice, I headed over to Tyler’s since Kyle said he needed some alone time after school. When I walked in, Tyler was in the middle of helping someone, so I went in the back and grabbed a Coke and tried to calm down some. Once I heard the customer walk out, I came back in and instantly started to complain.
“Do you know what they’re doing to us now?”
He closed the cash register and sat down on the stool. “By ‘us’ you mean you and Kyle and not you and me, right? Because I’m sure no one is doing anything against you and me.”
I went over everything he just said and shook my head in frustration. “I mean Kyle and me. Do you know what they’re doing now?”
“‘They’ being?” Tyler asked.
“The school,” I almost yelled. “They won’t let us go to prom together.”
His face got serious, and I could tell now he was paying attention. “They’re what?”
“They said a guy and a guy can’t go, and that if I buy tickets and take Kyle, they’ll kick us out. Can they do that?”
I saw him open his mouth to answer “no” but he paused. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted and pulled out his cell phone.
Twenty minutes later Matt was there, and he wasn’t sure either. “I think they can,” he answered after some thought. “I mean, I’ve heard them do it at other schools.”
“That’s crap,” I spat, trying to find some way around this. “What did they do at the other schools?”
Matt was looking over something on his laptop. “Well, a couple got lawsuits brought against them. Others just had a gay prom for themselves at another location.” He paused and then added, “But it’s important to note that none of those kids actually got to go to their prom. These articles are more about what happened after.”
“Why don’t we do that?” Tyler suggested. “Have a gay prom the same night?”
I tried to keep the anger out of my voice. “So what, the entire school goes to their prom and, like, five people stand around and wish they were at the real thing? I don’t want to force people to choose between going to their prom and making a statement.” And I was suddenly starting to get why Kyle was tired of fighting all the time. “I really thought this shit was done with.”
Matt closed his laptop. “I don’t think you have many choices here, Brad. The only possible way this could get changed is if all the parents were to protest it, but we all know that for every family who would stand up against this, there are two ready to defend the school’s choice. That’s just how it is.”
“Well, it fucking sucks,” I said, not trusting myself to look at both of them.
“I took Kyle’s mom to the prom,” Tyler admitted. “Maybe you guys take friends and go as two couples? It’s not perfect, but you aren’t missing the prom at least.”
I understood what Tyler was saying, but I already knew Kyle’s answer as I asked that night.
“Do you know what would be worse than not being able to go to prom with you?” Kyle asked over the phone. “It would be going to the prom and not being able to dance with you. It’s just a dance, Brad. I don’t care anymore. I just want to graduate and leave, okay?”
It wasn’t okay, but I let it go because it was obviously just making him miserable, and I needed to focus on the last games of the year.
It was a four-day series of games at Round Rock that went from playoff to championship—if you got that far. We had been here before as a team, but this was my first time as a captain. I had seen a little game tape on the other teams, and we were in for a pretty serious fight. There’s no such thing as lucky teams when you get this far. It all came down to blood, sweat, and determination. The entire game could simply come down to the team who wanted it more since they were evenly matched in skills.
And I wanted it very bad.
We checked into our hotel and got our stuff stowed away for practice. Games started the next afternoon, which meant we had a couple of hours in the morning and then nothing but playing for our lives the next few days. I knew we could win this. I had no doubt that as a team we were the best there this year. The key was keeping the team from turning confidence into cockiness.
That meant spending that night going over what we were still coming up short on and making the guys aware the only way we were in this was if we all worked together. I’m pretty sure they just wanted to order room service and watch pay-per-view, but I kept them focused for most of the night, which made me feel a little better.
I was sharing a room with Josh, which meant I spent most of the night listening to him talk to Jennifer in a baby voice that made me want to claw my ears out. Luckily I had Kyle and FaceTime, which meant I could ignore that train wreck altogether.
“Is he talking like a baby?” Kyle asked me as I lay in the hotel bed with my headphones on.
I nodded and rolled my eyes. “Yeah. Lovely, isn’t it?”
“We don’t do that, do we?” he asked.
I had to pause and think about it. “Well, if we do, it’s not in front of other people.”
He nodded and smiled. “That works for me.”
“When do you get here?” I asked him, knowing he was driving up with Tyler and his mom to watch the games.
“Tomorrow morning. We went and got food for tailgating before the first game. Are we really going to cook stuff and eat it in a parking lot?”
T
he look on his face was priceless. “Dude, tailgate food is the best,” I tried to convince him. “Nothing else like it.”
“Yes there is. A ton of food is like it, except it’s made inside, with washed hands and stuff.”
That made me laugh. “Trust me, when you take a bite of a tailgate hot dog, your life will change.”
“Food poisoning?” he asked.
I burst out laughing.
“Hey, man,” Josh said from the next bed. “Can you keep it down? People are trying to talk.”
I glanced at Kyle, and he gave me that small grin of his back. Looking over at Josh, I said, “Oh, is wittle Joshy upset he can’t hear his wuvey-dovey?”
I could hear Jennifer’s voice scream from his phone. “You didn’t say he was in the room with you!”
Josh immediately forgot me and tried to calm Jennifer down.
“You’re bad,” Kyle commented.
“So… lots of things we can do with a video phone,” I said, arching an eyebrow at him.
He got red and looked around like there was someone in his room. “Brad, we can’t… not over the phone.”
“Wanna bet?” I said suggestively.
Which was when someone knocked on our door.
“Damn,” I said, sitting up. “I’ll call you back?”
“I’ll see you tomorrow. I need to get some sleep so I can be awake when Tyler gets here.”
“But what about the video phone?”
He winked at me. “Use your imagination.” And hung up.
Son of a bitch.
I adjusted myself as I opened the door.
Shayne Fuller was standing there.
There is no easy way to explain Shayne Fuller to you without sounding like I’m a stuck-up asshole, so let’s just pretend you know me better and know I don’t believe everything I’m about to tell you but am using it as reference so you can understand, okay?
Shayne Fuller was Granada’s version of me.
We were the same age, grew up playing baseball against each other just about everywhere we went, and we were both playing our hearts out for our senior year. He was taller than me with darker hair, but we had that same build most baseball players had—part muscle, part lean runner, all of it necessary for what we need to do. Where my arms were big from batting, his looked like carved cables from continuous pitching. The only difference was that he wasn’t gay, least as far as I knew. I mean, he had a girlfriend, but so did I for a few years, so what does that mean in the long run? Either way, he was what Kyle would call the Bizarro version of me, and he was knocking on my door.
