When I’d bought the suit, I’d almost asked the lady in the student store where the rest of it was, but I didn’t. She wouldn’t get my joke. No one ever got my jokes, except Liam. I'm too weird. Sometimes I think my brain is just broken.
I somehow resisted the urge to cover myself with my towel. None of the other guys were acting freaked out by the swimwear. Of course, they’d been on the team longer, so they had gotten used to it by now. Also, every one of them looked better in it than I did. Especially Jimmy—he even had the beginnings of a six-pack. I’d gone to elementary school with Jimmy, but we’d never said a word to each other because he was cool and I was me.
There were fifteen other guys, and they all seemed good friends. They laughed and shoved at each other the ways guys do. I stood apart, not wanting to intrude. As I’d figured, even on a team I was still going to be the odd man out.
“All right, settle down,” Lancaster said.
As far as I could see, that had no effect. Jimmy yanked the back of Chad’s suit down, which caused a small scuffle and a lot of laughter. I scooted further away and checked again to be sure the drawstring on my suit was secure.
The coach ignored them. “Today, we’re working on endurance instead of speed. I just want to see how many laps you can do.”
The guys ignored him because Jimmy was making farting noises with his armpit and that was hilarious. Sometimes I wondered if I was an alien being who had been sent to live among these primitives. If that were the case, I was going to have to have a very serious chat with my parents when I got back to Weirdonia or wherever I was from.
I went to the mark I was sent to and prayed to the Flying Spaghetti Monster that my suit didn’t come off when I dove in. It just didn't feel very secure. Or, rather, it barely felt like it was on at all. At some point though, I really did have to catch a break. I was just sure of it.
At the whistle, I dove in and thankfully everything stayed in place. I shot forward like an arrow, and I noticed how much less drag the Speedo had. It made me want to see how fast I could go, but then I remembered the coach’s instructions. I set a modest pace instead, hoping I could do enough laps that I wouldn’t embarrass myself too much.
I noticed Jimmy in the lane next to me racing along at top speed. My heart sank. Of course there were going to be athletes like Captain Sexy there who would smoke me and do like a hundred laps and the coach would be disappointed and I would be kicked off the team and
still
be out my birthday money because life is just like that.
At least the whole stupid team experiment would be over.
I was beginning to tire on my fourth lap. It was then that I noticed Jimmy wasn’t in the lane next to me anymore, it was Bailey. He was also zipping along at top speed, though I guessed he would lose in a race against Jimmy.
I suddenly realized the pack of idiots had been so busy horsing around that they hadn’t heard the coach’s instructions. Maybe, then, I wasn’t doomed to be the worst swimmer on the team. Optimism wasn’t a philosophy I had much use for, though.
After practice, which I have to admit I kind of enjoyed, Lancaster pulled me aside. I wilted, looking down at my toes as I walked over to him.
“Look, I know what you’re going to say. I wasn’t being a team player. I should have tried to make friends with the guys. I told you, I’m no good at teams.”
Was Lancaster actually smiling? “I was going to say, great work today. Thanks for actually listening.”
I stared at him. “Huh?”
“The toughest thing about making a team is getting them to listen to me. I’m happy that you’ve already got that part down.”
I felt a very warm tingling of pride. “Er, thanks, coach.”
“There was just one thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Your friend there, Liam? I know his kind. I just have to warn you, I don’t put up with drug use on my team.”
“Huh? Oh! No, I don’t do drugs.”
I get stupid enough without them.
“Good, because we do random screenings.”
“All right, but like I said, nothing to worry about with me.”
I showered off, mulling over practice. I’d slipped on the wet cement, but stayed on my feet. I had managed to avoid losing my suit in the water. I’d made the coach happy. All in all, I thought things went great. Maybe this wouldn’t all end in disaster.
“Hey, matchstick.”
It was Jimmy. I glanced over at him as I buttoned up my jeans. The narrow-eyed look on his face told me I was in trouble. The fact that he was flanked by Javier and Kent told my highly-tuned bully-sense that I was in for it.
“It takes more to make this team than being the coach’s pet,” Jimmy told me with a sneer.
I looked down, very sad that a good-looking guy could be such a dick. “It’s not my fault you’re so busy yanking other kids’ suits down that you can’t hear what you’re being told.”
It was about a second before I realized my inner monologue had become a very badly-timed vocalization. Liam really was having a bad influence on me. I was getting so comfortable that I was letting my guard down.
“Excuse me?”
As I’ve said, sometimes I don’t know when to back down. “I said, if you weren’t so busy checking out Chad’s ass then you would have heard the instructions.”
Jimmy stared coldly at me for a long moment, giving me plenty of time to apologize to my bones for the breaks they were about to receive. Then he suddenly broke out in a (pretty cute) grin and elbowed his friends.
“Funny guy.” He walked past me, shoving me into the lockers. “Maybe you’re not so bad after all.”
I stared after him as he and his friends walked away, completely shocked. Had I actually survived the encounter without a scratch? It didn’t seem possible. But somehow, I’d given Jimmy the idea that I wasn’t a total loser. Now I just had to somehow keep that going.
“So,” Liam said as we walked to his house. “How does it feel to be one of the jocks?”
I shook my head. “No one would ever mistake me for a jock. My arms are like noodles.”
“But you’re
in
, man,” Liam said. “That’s got to feel awesome.”
“It’s not awesome.”
“What went wrong?”
“Oh, no, nothing. It’s just…. Okay, this is stupid, but I’ve been trying to not use the word awesome unless it really is.”
“Oh, sorry, professor.”
I shrugged, smiling in a way that felt like it was radiating up from my toes. “It was pretty cool, that’s for sure.”
“Okay, but now for the really important question. Who’s the hottest guy on the team?”
“Jimmy,” I said without hesitation.
“Really? With that nose?”
“What’s wrong with his nose?”
“It looks like a hawk’s beak.”
“If you say so.”
“I would think Marcus would be the better choice—you know, if you were into dudes.”
I blushed, thinking of Marcus in the shower. “He’s pretty cute. Jimmy has a cuter butt though.”
“Oh, an ass man, I see.”
I really couldn’t believe I was talking to Liam about guys I thought were hot. It was completely surreal.
“How about mine? Do I have a cute butt?”
“Oh Jesus,” I sighed. I was in such a good mood, though, that I found myself daringly craning back around to check out his ass. “Very nice.”
Liam laughed happily. “That’ll go great on my dating profile—cute butt certified by genuine gay guy.”
“Maybe even with a stamp of approval, like the USDA beef thing.”
That made Liam laugh even harder. “So, are you going to ask Jimmy out?”
I gaped at him. “Are you insane?”
“Sometimes. Why? Don’t you want to go out with him?”
“Kinda, sorta, but that’s not all there is to it. He’s probably straight.”
“So, he might say no? Dude, that’s not a good reason to not ask someone out.”
“It’s not about him saying no.” Though, of course, even that idea was crushing. “It’s about him beating the crap out of me for thinking he could be gay.”
Liam looked troubled by that. “Anyone who would do that is a moron. I’d be totally flattered if some gay guy asked me out.”
“Well, most guys aren’t like that.”
“Are you sure?”
Where did he keep getting these confounding questions? “Pretty sure, and I’m too much of a coward to find out otherwise.”
“Look, dude, I know this sounds morbid coming from me, but you can’t live your life being afraid. Live every day, you know? Tomorrow you could get hit by a bus or whatever.”
That brought us back around to the subject we’d been avoiding. I decided to avoid it a little bit longer.
“If I was just going to ask some dude out, like, just out of the blue—which I totally am not—it wouldn’t be Jimmy.”
“Ah ha!” he crowed. “So, who’s the lucky dude who has your eye?”
I wasn’t sure he could be trusted with my crush, but I supposed I had to stop thinking that way about everything. “This guy in my science class, Zach.”
“Zach Snyder?”
“Ew, gross.” Snyder was a mouth-breathing Neanderthal who was always picking his nose in class—when he wasn’t scratching his crotch. “I have better taste than
that
, come on!”
“Then which Zach is it? I can name like five—no, six—guys with that name.”
“Beal.”
Liam’s eyes lit up. “A senior! Wow, you really do go all out with a crush.”
My cheeks were burning. “He’s just this really fantastic guy—like, a really nice person, you know?”
“And the fact that he’s smoking hot doesn’t have anything to do with it?”
I fidgeted. “You think he’s hot too?”
“Dude, the guy is so good looking even straight guys want to do him.”
I snorted laughter. “You’re awful.”
“So ask him out.”
“Okay, no. I prefer admiring from afar—really far.”
Liam elbowed me. “Homecoming isn’t far off. You should ask him.”
He said it in this sing-song voice that didn’t make the idea sound any smarter. “For one, he’s a senior and I’m a freshman,” I said, ticking the irrefutable points off on my fingers. “For two, he’s so far out of my league that I don’t have the slightest chance. For three, if I tried, I’d have some kind of seizure and die. And fourth, oh yeah, he’s
straight.
”
Liam grinned at me. “One, two and especially three are lame. I’m throwing them out. So, let’s talk about four. How do you know he’s straight?”
It was a very bad idea to even consider the idea that Zach was gay. That could take my crush into places that could totally wreck me. But I knew Liam well enough by now to know he doesn’t let things go. So I really had no choice but to answer him.
“He talks about girls all the time. And I think I saw him flirting with Brenda.”
“Weak sauce,” Liam argued. “He might be covering, trying to keep his orientation a secret. Or, hey, he could be bi. He could just be waiting for you to make a move.”
I remembered Hawaii saying the same thing about Liam. Did bi people really exist? I’d never met one—or had I? Totally confused, I just shook my head because no matter what Liam said, I was never going on a date with Zach—not the Beal one anyway.
“Who are
you
taking to Homecoming, Mr. Player?”
Liam’s expression told me the Zach conversation would be revisited later. He could be really stubborn about the worst things.
“I’m keeping my options open.”
“Oh no, you’re not going to do me that way,” I argued. “I told you who I wanted to go with, now you have to fess up.”
“Bitch.”
“And a half.”
Liam actually blushed a little bit, which was a surprise and totally adorable. “There’s a girl in my bio class, Aolani, but she has a boyfriend.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah….”
What I didn’t tell him, because it would have sounded weird, was that she’d be a lucky girl if she went out with him. In spite of every single warning sign, he was turning out to be a great guy. I was really lucky he had picked me to be friends with. Who would have guessed I even knew how to get that lucky? I sure didn’t.
Chapter 8
L
IAM’S ROOM WAS WAY CLEANER
than any teenage guy’s room had a right to be, which was strange since he had said it was a disaster just a couple of days ago. But seeing the various medical devices around, none of which I could name, I guessed there had been reasons for him not wanting me in his room other than tidiness. If I kept my room half as clean as his, it would stop one of the regular fights I had with my mom. Sunlight streamed in from the window, pouring over the well-made bed. An old TV sat atop a battered dresser, and beside it was a player and a stack of DVDs.
The walls were lined with photos—some just color mementos of happy times with his family, while most were very artistic-seeming black and whites. The subjects ranged from landscapes to average people to discarded objects like tires.
“I like to take pictures.”
“You did these?” I stared at him. “Seriously?”
“Why? Are they lame?”
“Dude, they’re totally fantastic. Trust me, I know pictures. I look at a lot of them online. I know when a photo is good.”
He looked pleased by that. “When I was really sick, I spent a lot of time just watching the world go by, you know? It all seemed so amazing to me, all these people in their lives doing their things. This really cool nurse gave me her camera and asked me to show her the world that I see. So I started taking pictures. I guess I’ve gotten better at it over time.”
Liam wasn’t given to self-pity, but there was no hiding the twinge of melancholy in those words. I couldn’t imagine growing up with a serious disease, wondering how long I was going to live, what I was going to miss out on. It made me sad.
“Uh oh, Lou’s in the room.”
It seemed unkind to make him talk about his illness. He probably spent a lot of time trying to not even think about it. But it also seemed like it might make me a bad friend if I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to seem like I didn’t care.
Liam didn’t let me dangle, though. “At first, it seemed like I was going to be one of the lucky ones. I went into remission—that’s like, where the disease goes on vacation—a year after my diagnosis. But then it came back when I was eleven. It got pretty bad, then, to the point where my dad wanted to take me to Mexico for some crazy-ass treatment. But then I got a second remission.”