Short Stories - Chapter 16: Chapter 16

It was eight that night when Isaac called me and Callie on Houseparty.
"I have an idea," was the first thing he said. "About Berkeley."
"Ooh," I said, clasping my hands underneath my chin. "Do tell. Wait. No. Don't. I wanna hear it in person. I'm coming over."
Isaac nodded. "Callie?"
"Oh, hun." She was pouting. "Can it wait thirty minutes? I've gotta put on a face mask."
"No ma'am," I answered for him. "Urgent business. Time to haul ass."
With a reluctant groan, she said, "Fine. I'll drop everything for you shit-weasels. But I'm bringing the mask."
"Fair enough," I grinned. "See you in fifteen."
"See you," Isaac said, and I could hear the anticipation in his voice.
"See ya," Callie chirped, and the screen went black.
I left right away, mostly because I wanted to get there before Callie did. When I saw no cars in the driveway beyond the closed garage, I pumped my fist triumphantly to myself.
I knocked obnoxiously on the door, continuing even after I heard Isaac's shouted I'm coming, which was followed by a holy mother of Christ you're loud, and my favorite: shut the fucking fuck up or you're staying out there all night.
"Hey—woah," I broke off as the door opened to reveal Isaac's—annoyed—form staring at me. Staring down at me.
Fastened to his arms with bands that circled his wrists like fat bracelets were two long sticks—sort-of crutches, maybe walking sticks—that were keeping him upright. "Since when is this a thing?" I asked curiously.
"Years," Isaac shrugged. "But they're not really conventional for places like school where I'm using my hands all the time—opening this door is pretty much the peak of my abilities right now—and they're not too comfortable, so they're reserved for around-the-house occasions."
I nodded in understanding. Clearly, I had much left to learn. "Cool. Well, greetings and salutations, good sir."
Isaac chuckled, stepping aside so I could enter and pushing the door shut behind me. "Hi. What's up?"
"Oh, nothing much," I said with an overly careless shrug. "You know, just chilling. Silently envying your hair"—because his hair was always goddamn perfect—"Waiting for you to kiss me."
I didn't have to wait much longer.
At the sound of the door opening behind us, we broke apart to see Callie entering. With our faces inches apart and an annoyed eye-roll from me, it was pretty easy for her to figure out what we'd been doing.
"Tsk tsk, children," she sighed, shaking her head. As promised, she had a face mask in one hand, a small brush in the other. She waved the brush at us in mock disappointment. "You simply cannot control yourselves, can you?"
"Nope," I grinned, giving Isaac a quick kiss just to gross her out. "Nothing but hormones and boners here."
"Jesus," Isaac breathed, hanging his head in a laugh. "Who made you?"
"The Las Vegas resident god of underaged drinking and unprotected sex."
Callie scoffed. "Explains a lot."
We settled in Isaac's bedroom, with him sat in the middle between me and Callie. She insisted on putting the face mask not just on herself but on both of us as well, and it wasn't until she finished that Isaac began to share his plan, but not before leaving to grab something for us to eat. So there we were, waiting for our face masks to dry, chomping on Cheez-Its and red velvet Oreos, and plotting the demise of our enemies.
Isaac started with, "We know that Luke Freeman had the IQ of a cement block, right? And we know his brain is located in his dick. So . . ."
When he was done, Callie and I were both gaping. "This is a lesbian's nightmare," she breathed.
"Cal, you're bi," I pointed out.
"Well it's sure as hell enough to make me question that," she grimaced. "I feel like an unpaid prostitute."
"An unpaid prostitute with a cause," Isaac corrected cheekily.
"This better work," Callie said, and we nodded in agreement. It had to work. And fast—prom was in a few weeks, and we needed to have some form of security before we made the appointment to get the temporary prosthetic. After that, he'd be set for months—after all, temporary prosthetics were used as new amputees healed and adjusted to walking again after their surgeries. We were so close to a solution that would last us long enough to figure the rest of our shit out, and if all went well, we'd soon be even closer.
The plan would be set in action on Friday. Which meant that until then, the three of us were jumpy with nerves. The only outlet I had for all of my pent up energy was the basketball court, so for those next two days of practice, Calum and Luke got back everything they'd been giving me. I went hard, and though this may be the sadistic part of me talking, it was cathartic as hell.
I was waiting anxiously by my phone on Friday night. When it buzzed with a text at nearly one in the morning, I practically jumped to my feet.
Isaac's house, now
— Cal-pal my sexy gal 💦💦
So I banged on my dad's door to wake him up—which he wasn't very happy about, but he'd have to suck it up—and told him where I was going so he wouldn't kill me when I came back.
I was at Isaac's house fifteen minutes later. When I knocked on the door, his mom was the one to open it. "Oh, hey, Lonnie," I said, surprised that she was still up. But then I saw the culprit displayed on the TV. "I don't know if Isaac told you, but—"
"I know why you're here, hun," she said kindly. "You boys better praise your friend big-time for what she's doing, the poor thing."
"Oh believe me," I nodded, "We will." I glanced back over at the TV. "You watch Game of Thrones?"
She smiled sheepishly. "Friday night binging is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine," she admitted.
Pointing at her purposefully, I said, "We'll talk about this later," before taking the familiar route to Isaac's room. "Hello," I sang, poking my head through the door. Isaac was on his bed, sat up against the headboard. "Is it me you're looking for?"
Laughing, he said, "'Course it is," and opened his arms for me. I practically jumped into them, causing us to roll over on the sheets a few time, laughing all the while.
I ended up on top, grinning down at Isaac with a leg on either side of his hips. "How are you?" I asked.
He sat up, propping himself on his wrists. With a grin still on his lips, he said, "I'm okay. I missed this."
"I did, too," I said, and I meant it. For the last few days, I'd had to settle with nothing more than exchanged glances and knee bumps. Maybe three days didn't seem like a long time, but when you and the boy you were hardcore crushing on finally got somewhere past the friend-zone, having to keep that to yourself was deserving of being called a form of torture.
He closed the space between us, and I could feel him smiling as he kissed me. In the middle of this shit-storm of drama we were dealing with, it was nice to have a short moment where there was nothing to worry about. No Calum or Luke, no superintendent Anderson or doctor's appointments. We could just be ourselves, do our thing—we could hug and kiss and laugh and not focus on what it all meant, or what came next, or the world behind his closed door.
All I knew was that I was crazy into him, and he was just as into me. What the hell else mattered?
Isaac kissed my cheek, then my neck, then my lips again, his arms wrapping loosely around my hips. "I like this," he said absentmindedly.
"What?" I scoffed. "Making out?"
He rolled his eyes. "I mean just being with you. Alone. But yeah, that too."
I ran my hand through the front of his hair, pushing it momentarily from his face and watching the curls straighten between my fingers, before curling against his forehead again the moment they slipped through my grasp. "I love it," I said softly, letting my finger slide down his cheek to trace his jaw, then over his lips. I looked at his grey eyes, his eyebrows, his nose, his chin. Not a single flaw. At least, not to me. "These last few days have been killing me."
I was about to kiss him again when the door swung open, and I looked over my shoulder to see Callie standing there with a hand covering her eyes. "Are you both fully clothed?" she demanded.
"Yessir," Isaac said with a chuckle.
"Are you no longer in the process of kissing, groping, grinding, or all of the above?"
"Yessir."
"Is there at least a foot of space separating you?"
"No sir," Isaac said shamelessly. "And I don't think that's gonna change, so you'll have to deal with it."
"Fine," she said, removing her hand. "You know, now that you two are a closet power-couple, you need a name."
Isaac blinked. "A . . . name?"
"You know," Callie said, gesturing unhelpfully with her hands. "Like, a ship name. You can be Rysaac. Or . . . or Iyan." Her eyes lit up, which was a sure-fire sign that she was about to say something ridiculous. "And then, whenever one of you catches someone checking out your boy, you can be like, 'Oi, thot, why you Iyan my mans?'"
Isaac stared at her, dumbfounded, and I burst out laughing, both at his expression and her idiocy. "Callie, why the hell are you like this?" I sighed.
"Would you want me to be any other way?" She smirked. "Correct answer: no. Some may call me a genius, which I'm sure you'll agree with once you hear what I've found out."
Knowing that this was her form of a segway into the tale of tonight's events, I excitedly said, "Yes, yes, yes," and turned my body around to face her, forcing Isaac to adjust behind me. "Spill."
She leapt onto the bed, taking hold of a pillow that she propped her elbows on and resting her chin in her hands. "You guys know the preface. I asked Lucas if he wanted to hang out, his dumb ass said yes because he's too slow to process that it may be fishy for me, your friend, to be into him. So I go over to his house today and he's already tipsy. Which was perfect. We go to his room—which is, like, the size of my house—and he's got this mini-fridge full of beer cans and vodka bottles. Also perfect.
"The boy didn't waste a second. He went straight for it, and Jesus, he went hard. So we're making out for, like, a while—not gonna lie, he's a good kisser, but he tasted like alcohol, so it was kinda gross. Anyway, so I keep egging him on to drink more, and he does because he's a goddamn idiot. And when he's super drunk, I try to start asking questions, but he gets kinda suspicious and I realize I've got to fry his brain a bit more. Two more shots and a hand-job later, I get him to spill."
"Holy shit," I breathed. "That's dedication."
Callie huffed. "Tell me about it. Jacking off his micropenis is something I'd have loved to live my life without experiencing. But it's cool, because he was so out of it afterward, and he spilled like crazy. Here's what I found out:
"Anderson paid the workers in charge of the tape to switch it with footage from a different day, with a bit of editing of course to change the date, and give him the tape for safekeeping."
"Oh my god," Isaac said, shaking his head angrily. "Piece of shit."
"The biggest piece of shit," Callie agreed. "But that's not it. With a little more prying, I got Luke to tell me that Anderson had the tape put onto one of those old VHS things—you know, those big black things our parents use to watch ancient shit-quality videos—and stuffed into a safe in his house. Calum's house."
"But how would we get into it?" I asked. "There's gotta be a password."
"Let me finish and I'll get there," she said pointedly. "Luke wouldn't shut the hell up at this point, and he mentioned that Anderson, and I quote, 'isn't that smart for a superintendent. His memory is total shit.' So he has the password written on a bunch of slips of paper, and one of them is in his office. So once we get it, we just have to find the safe. And I already have a plan for that."
"Do tell," Isaac said, resting his chin on my shoulder from behind. He sounded as excited as I felt. We were making progress.
"So, you know how you guys totally pimped me out? Well, I don't think we're done using sex appeal to win our battles just yet. There's one more little tidbit I found out about Calum tonight," Callie said, smirking. "And Luke. And what they do when they hang out."
My jaw must've touched the floor. The suggestive tone of her voice was enough for Isaac and I to put the pieces together in our minds, and I even heard him gasp softly behind me. "No way," I said.
Callie nodded smugly. "Turns out, Calum swings both ways—but Luke told me he's into guys more than he's into girls. And Luke, well, he'll fuck anything human. But we don't really care about him anymore. My sights are set on Calum."
"So . . ." I said slowly, "You're saying we should send a guy after Calum to figure out where the safe is?"
"Aren't you a smart little cookie?" Callie teased.
"But . . . who would we use?"
Callie stared at me, her eyebrows raised. So I stared right back at her, confused. Then I got it.
"Oh, you can't be serious," I groaned.
"If I could do it, you can, too," Callie quipped. "Plus, Luke told me Calum thinks you're, like, crazy hot. It's why he likes pissing you off so much. So it shouldn't be that hard."
"But he won't believe it," I tried. "He's smarter than Luke. He knows I hate him, and if I start trying to get in his pants all of a sudden, he'll see right through it. We'll just make it obvious that we're up to something."
"You've taken theater all throughout high school," Callie said dryly. "Figure it out. I love you guys, but you can't expect me to do all of the dirty work. Not when you're also perfectly capable."
With a sigh, I realized she was right. I knew I could make it work if I tried hard enough, and it wasn't fair to ask her to touch another nasty fuckboy wiener. "Fine," I conceded. "I'll do it."
"I'd like to make a comment," Isaac said suddenly, and I turned to see him raising his hand. "I really don't like this idea."
"It's not like it's real," I reminded him. "Just a show."
Isaac frowned. "Yeah, but what if he tried to, you know, kiss you, or more?"
"Oh, he will," Callie said, and he paled. "And Ryan will have to act like he enjoys it for a while. I think he can handle himself."
Isaac looked ready to argue, but I cut him off; my mind was set. I'd do it. "Before we can even get to finding the safe, don't we have to find the password? How're we gonna do that? We can't just break into his office."
She rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. "Haven't figured that part out yet."
She didn't need to. Already, a scene was beginning to form in my head. One that would involve a good bit of chaos—my specialty. "I think I might have an idea. Isaac, call the superintendent first thing tomorrow. Book the closest appointment you can."
As it turned out, the closest appointment wasn't until next Saturday. Although that left us with some anxiety—prom was creeping nearer and nearer—it also left us with time. We had all of spring break to plan.
Having a week off gave us time to do other things, too. Things that normal teenagers—who weren't stressing about prosthetic legs and deadlines—did. We hung out—sometimes as a group, sometimes as pairs. I saw Isaac every single day of the break, and I could honestly say that each and every minute was as close to perfect as possible.
Sometimes, we'd be at his house, and we'd work on schoolwork and play intense one-on-one games of Uno and make out and talk about life and cuddle up on the couch to watch old movies—Lonnie had a collection of classics. Other times, we'd be at my house, and we'd watch funny videos on YouTube and make out and tease each other relentlessly and sing together with my guitar and take Apollo for walks.
There was never nothing to do when I was with him, even if we were doing nothing—just being in his company made reading a book, or thinking to myself, or dozing off, something I did with a smile on my face.
And good lord, I was falling. Fast and hard.
On Friday evening—the night before the meeting with the superintendent—Isaac and I were in my room after finally having that dinner Lonnie had wanted weeks ago. She was in the living room with my dad, who was still following a strict zero-romance rule.
The door was shut; I remembered the first time when Isaac had come over, when we'd gone to my room and I'd jokingly called out to my dad, "Aren't you gonna tell us to keep the door open?" only to receive the response, "As if that would do anything but force me to hear whatever goes on in there."
My dad was awesome.
Today, though, Isaac and I weren't doing anything worth worrying about. He was sat against the headboard of my bed and I was nestled between his leg, scrolling through my instagram explore page—which was currently a cosmopolitan arena of tweets and textposts, Infinity War memes, cute pictures of dogs, and makeup videos (they were strangely addicting, okay?).
Isaac's chin rested on my shoulder and he gazed at the screen with me, his hair tickling my neck every time he laughed. With his arms hugging my waist, I felt like a very lucky teddy bear.
"Can you pass me a strawberry?" I asked, and he reached for the bowl of fruits on his bedside table, pulling out a massive, bright red strawberry.
He held it to my lips and I ate it in one bite, leaving nothing but the white and leafy part, which he made a show of shooting into his small trash bin as if it were a very small, very oddly-shaped basketball. It landed perfectly in the center of the bin, and with a laugh, I clapped and said, "He's still got it, folks."
Isaac, grinning triumphantly, slid his hand up my chest to hold my jaw. I leaned back against his shoulder, allowing him to bend forward and kiss me.
"Do I taste like strawberries?" I muttered cheekily as he pulled away.
"You taste like Ryan," he said. Then his eyes movies to the screen of my phone. "Callie tagged you in something."
I turned to my phone as well and, just as he'd said, saw a notification across the top of my screen that Callie had tagged me in a picture on her spam account. So I tapped the notification and, with a yelp, shoved my phone screen-first into the bedsheet.
I'd seen the picture for less than a second, and just by the color alone, I'd recognized it.
"What is it?" Isaac asked. "Let me see."
"I think I'd rather die," I said bluntly, and he laughed.
"It can't be that bad."
"Oh, it can."
The picture was of me in the seventh grade. I was smiling big for the camera—clearly twelve-year-old me didn't know how to smile properly—showing off a mouth full of highlighter-yellow braces and spinach in my teeth, the cause of which was the salad you could see on the table in front of me. My hair was in a horrendous bowl-cut that unfortunately failed to cover my eyebrows, which at the time had been just as blonde as my hair—meaning they were indistinguishable from my pale face, giving me the constant impression of being surprised.
To this day, I didn't know how Callie had gotten the picture—it was taken far before I'd moved here. But she'd been tormenting me with it since we became close, and occasionally, she did something like this.
"Come on," Isaac laughed, trying to grab at my phone from behind me. With a triumphant ha!, I locked it, figuring I'd just saved myself heaps of embarrassment. Isaac's own phone was all the way on the chair in the corner of my room, and I'd be damned if he got to it.
"You don't know my password," I said smugly.
"I bet it's, like, your birthday or something, because you're an idiot."
I realized too late that he'd been joking. He'd already caught my change in expression and, with a disbelieving laugh, began trying to pry the phone from my hands. When I wouldn't let go, he tickled my side and I, with a shriek, rolled off of him onto my bed, the phone dropping form my grip.
"Dirty move, bitch," I laughed, and when his fingers wrapped around my phone, I made a desperate move—I swatted it from his grasp, sending it rolling to the edge of the bed where it nearly fell off, and tackled him from behind, wrapping both my legs and my arms around him to keep him in place.
I thought I had him, but then he fell forcibly back onto the bed, squashing poor me beneath him, and rolled over so he could pin me down with his arms. I struggled against his grip, but it was useless—Isaac was stronger than I was.
We were both breathing heavily, laughing at our own stupid antics. Not only that—we were both stuck. I couldn't move for obvious reasons. But Isaac wasn't much better off, either—to get the phone, he'd have to let go, and he wouldn't be able to keep me down with one hand.
So I presented a deal—or at least I tried to, through my giggles. "How about a compromise? You can look at that picture for as long as you want, and laugh at me for ages—as soon as you leave."
"I don't see how that's much of a compromise on your part," Isaac said, since he could've easily done that anyways, "But fine, since I'm nice."
I showed my gratitude through a kiss, rolling us over so that he was below me. Remembering something I'd noticed out of the corner of my eye during our scuffle, I leaned back to say, "So when are you gonna tell me about those?"
I nodded toward a stack of envelopes next to the fruit bowl. From here, I could read that the sender of the top one was the University of Denver.
He followed my gaze, his expression brightening when he saw what I was looking at. "Oh yeah," he said with an excited sort of smile. "I got some acceptance letters this week. Totally slipped my mind."
My eyes rounded incredulously. "How the hell do acceptance letters slip your mind?"
"I guess you have that effect on me," he joked as I sat up and stretched my arm to take hold of the stack.
"Wouldn't surprise me," I said with a smirk, shuffling through the envelopes until the address of one caught my eye. "You got into all of these, right?"
"Mhm," he hummed, and I did a little mental happy dance.
"Well, not that I'm trying to sway your decision at all," I said slowly, "but I happen to know that a certain blonde-haired someone whom you are rather close to will be attending the University of Colorado Denver come fall."
His eyes twinkling, Isaac said, "Oh, Callie got into CU?"
To which I smacked his arm softly and gave an indignant "Fuck you."
Isaac was laughing as he said, "So what you're saying is that I should be inclined to choose CU Denver because you're going there."
"Is that what I said?" I asked innocently.
Isaac rolled his eyes playfully. "Well," he continued, knowing that was exactly what I was saying, "I don't know about you, but I don't often hear about people picking a college just because their friend is going there."
"Do you kiss all of your friends like this?" I teased, completely ignoring his point. When he raised his eyebrows at me, I gave in and said, "I suppose it is a bit strange, hm? It's more likely for someone to, hypothetically speaking, choose their college for a . . . significant other."
Isaac nodded. "Like a—hypothetical—boyfriend."
"So if I want you to come to CU Denver with me, I have to be your boyfriend," I pondered, keeping my tone business-like. "Makes sense."
Isaac was smiling. "It's only appropriate," he said, sitting up and wrapping his arms around my hips. "Dontcha think?"
And of course I was smiling, too, because I was feeling all kinds of stupid-happy in that moment. "Well, you heard it here first, folks!" I said loudly, dropping my serious demanor and looking around at an imaginary audience. "Ryan Matthews has a boyfriend!"
"There's no one here," Isaac laughed, and I ignored him entirely.
"You hear that, everyone? I am dating the Isaac Bernstein, also known as the six-foot-four-dimpled-Jewish-sex-on-legs!"
"Is that what they call me?"
"At last, the boy is mine!" I cheered, raising my fists triumphantly.
Isaac seemed to enjoy my antics, as he was still laughing as he leaned his head forward against my chest. "You're crazy," he said, and something in his voice made butterflies go bat-shit in my stomach. "I love it."
Love. I liked the sound of that.
I could feel myself laughing along with him, the kind of laughter that wasn't related to anything funny, but instead stemmed from that giddy feeling I got throughout my entire body as I beamed down at my boyfriend.
He raised his chin, and I knew exactly what he was asking for, so I cupped his face with my hands, leaned down, and gave it to him.
"Nice to see you two again."
Isaac and I plastered big, fake smiles on our faces for Mr. Anderson. "Thank you for agreeing to meet us," Isaac said politely. "So, we came here to . . . um, sir?"
Mr. Anderson raised his eyebrows in question. Isaac and I were both staring past him, through the floor-length mirrors against his back wall. "What is it?"
"Do you know what's going on outside?" I asked him; he clearly didn't, because he turned to look, then stood and walked over to his window.
Isaac and I exchanged a grin behind his back. Out there, down on the ground, was a group of thirty or so teenagers, led by a tall blonde girl with a large sign in her hands that read, Andy Anderson Protects His Students.
"Andy Anderson," I scoffed quietly. "What a name."
Among the group, there were several other signs in the air, all claiming different praises of the superintendent. Not a word could be heard from up here, but the kids were clearly yelling, announcing their appreciation to the gathered spectators. That tall blonde girl at the front—the one and only Callie Dodger—had a guitar strapped around her chest.
When Mr. Anderson turned back to us, he was clearly pleased. "You boys wouldn't mind giving me a minute, would you?"
"'Course not," Isaac said, all too happy to see him leave. "You sure do have a lot of fans, sir."
Smiling proudly, the superintendent said, "Seems I do, doesn't it?"
The moment he was gone, Isaac and I went to work.
We hurried around to the other side of his desk, pulling at drawers and cabinets, looking under folders. Isaac handled everything level, and I did the crouching and tiptoeing. We found a set of keys underneath a decorative plant and used it to get into each of the locked drawers. We shuffled through files, pulled out papers, and more or less dissected the office, all-the-while occasionally looking out the window to make sure Anderson was still downstairs. I'd made sure to accidentally nudge the security camera next to the door with my hand as I walked in with a big yawn and stretch, so it was currently pointing uselessly up at the ceiling. The superintendent had seemed to appalled by the fact that I was yawning rudely in his office to notice the change. As long as nobody walked in, we were golden.
It was frustrating. There was so much shit in the office, and we didn't even know what exactly we were looking for. Was it a small piece of paper? A big one? Was the password a set of numbers, or letters? Would we even know if we came across it, or would it look like everything else we'd seen?
The situation seemed hopeless. Time was our biggest opponent, and it was beginning to weigh down on us. I could tell as I looked out the window that Callie was running out of ideas to keep Anderson engaged—from the looks of it, she'd already gone through an improvised speech and several songs. The other music club members kept glancing up the building, no doubt wondering if we were having any luck. The answer was no, and I was starting to think it would stay that way when—
"Aha!" Isaac cheered triumphantly, holding up a tiny slip of paper that looked as though it had been torn from a notebook sheet. "Check it out." Excited, I hurried over to him, hovering over his shoulder, to look at what the paper said.
There was no doubt about it. Clearly, the superintendent didn't think that perhaps he should be more discreet, because scribbled across the torn edge were the words SAFE PASS: 110401
"Isaac, you beautiful boy!" I grinned, pulling his face to mine in a congratulatory kiss.
He took a picture of the password and put it back where he'd found it—stuffed inconspicuously in the middle of a folder labeled Legal Cases. The folder went back in its drawer, and so began the rush to put everything back as we'd found it.
And in good timing, too. I'd only just sat back down in my guest seat when the door was pushed open to reveal a beaming Mr. Anderson. "So," he said, "Where did we leave off?"
Isaac and I tried to wrap the meeting up as soon as possible; a few more minutes were spent with pointless discussion that really only served to reiterate everything the superintendent already new, and then we were gone—after I kindly pointed out to him that his camera was, for some reason, lopsided. We hurried away, down the elevator and out of the building, trying to keep the bounce from showing through in our steps.
When we got out, Callie and the rest of the club were waiting a block away from the building, crammed onto a stretch of sidewalk. I gave two thumbs up as we approached, and the group burst out into cheers.
The next phase began during practice the following Monday. Or, at least, in the locker room before practice.
Timing was everything. I changed in the locker row across from Calum, keeping a watch on him out of the corner of my eye. Once his shirt was lifted off over his head, I turned to glance at him, my eyes moving quickly up and down. As I'd hoped, he caught me, surprise written on his face, and I quickly looked away, pretending not to have noticed.
That was just the beginning. I was planting a seed, so to speak.
The most important part began during practice itself. The separation of myself from Isaac.
Instead of instantly approaching him as I usually would after leaving the locker room, I hung back instead, talking to some other boys on the team. When warm-ups began, Isaac didn't hesitate to bark at me, telling me to pick up my pace, to hustle, that I was lagging behind. I bit back every time, even going as far as to once say, "At least I can run!"
It only got worse as practice continued. We engaged in a power struggle—captain vs. assistant coach—that we were both intent on winning.
I could tell that the change in dynamic threw Calum way off, because he wasn't as brutal as usual. Luke continued with his typical fuck-shit, of course, because he wouldn't notice the difference if it slapped him across the face with a holographic dildo, but I hardly got a shove out of Calum.
The real surprise came when I approached him as practice ended, giving him one of those bro-shakes and complimenting his work on the field. "So, about Tuesday's game . . ." I began; the following Tuesday night, we would have our final match of the season, so I pulled him aside to talk strategy. Which was the first time I'd willingly done so without coaxing from Coach since we were appointed co-captains. Only took all season.
It was a long discussion, too. We talked even as we were heading into the locker room. Calum really did know a lot about basketball—it was a pity he was such a god-awful person, because otherwise, I'd love having him on the team.
I made sure to sneak another glance as he was changing again, and when Calum stumbled over his words, I knew I'd been caught. As our conversation finally came to a close, I placed a hand on his shoulder that lingered for just a moment too long before walking away. I could feel his eyes on my back as I left.
Calum may have been smarter than Luke, but that didn't make him smart. The bar was pretty low. This was going to work.
The routine repeated the next day. Arguing with Isaac and flirting with Calum, just subtly enough to confuse him. I even upped it a bit, watching him as he played, always making sure to catch his eye after he did something impressive. I could see his frustration clear as day each time he turned away from me—his itty-bitty-brain was trying to figure out how to handle all of this.
He seemed to give in after practice, because he jogged to catch up to me as I walked alone to my car. "Hey, what's up with you and Isaac?"
I rolled my eyes. "I am who I am and Isaac is who he is," was all I said.
"As in . . .?"
"Well aren't you full of questions today?" I quipped. "I don't know if I should say."
Calum nodded, clearly unsatisfied. "Whatever," he said. "Not that I, you know, care. Just curious."
I held back a laugh. He really was a joke. "Right," I said, smirking. "Just curious. Was it curiosity that had you checking me out all practice, too?"
Calum furrowed his eyebrows. "What? Dude, you're the one that was checking me out." His voice was low, and I caught him glancing around as we spoke, but no one was close enough to listen.
With a shrug, I said, "Never said I wasn't."
"But you and Isaac—"
"Isaac," I said pointedly, staring ahead, "is a homophobic piece of shit, and I want nothing to do with a guy like that."
"Really?" Calum looked at me with raised eyebrows. "I never saw him as the type."
"Yeah," I scoffed. "Me neither. Spring Break turned out to be surprisingly revealing, I guess."
Then, hesitantly, he said, ". . . I'm not the type."
"And what does that have to do with me?"
"Well, if you're done hating my guts over Isaac," he said, and I could hear confidence entering his voice, "then come over tonight. I'll be home, and I'll be alone."
There it was. Calum and his horny ass had given in to what seemed like an easy hook up. Honestly, I'd been expecting it to be at least slightly more difficult than that. What an idiot.
"I'll be there," I grinned.
"You know," he said absentmindedly, shoving his hands into his pockets as we reached my car. "I always thought you hated me. Like, before Isaac."
I did. "And I thought you hated me," I said. "Clearly we were both wrong."
I got to Calum's house at ten that night. I knew where it was, of course, because I'd been to a number of his blackout parties. It was a bit of a drive, given it was in the wealthy part of town. A borderline-mansion like his wouldn't fit in our little neighborhoods.
I knew that miles away, Isaac and Callie were both at Isaac's house, waiting by their phones, anxious to know how this went. I was about to find out.
"Hey," Calum grinned as he opened the door, beckoning for me to come in. "Want something to drink?"
"Sure I do," I said, and he led me over to the kitchen, whipping out two cans of beer.
Honestly, there wasn't much to it. We settled down in his living room, talked for, like, a minute, and then his mouth was on mine and we were making out. It was fucking gross, and all I could think about was Isaac, but he was super into it, and that's what mattered.
I stopped at one point, offering to get us something a little stronger. He agreed, allowing me to escape for a moment to the kitchen.
I pulled out two bottles of expensive-looking tequila and, without hesitation, dumped the contents of one into the sink. When it was replaced with water, and after I'd peeled off a bit of the label in a certain spot so I could tell them apart, I found him again on the couch and handed him the one with all the hard liquor.
"Who'd have ever thought," he said, laughing to himself after downing a shot, "that you and I would be making out in my living room someday."
"It's a closet-boy's fantasy," I joked. Then, in order to stall any more nasty shit until he got a bit more tipsy, I offered that we watch a movie. I would need every second I could get, because I knew Calum drank often enough to have a pretty good handle on his alcohol.
He put on Red Sparrow, which was pretty much just a soft-porn thriller starring Jennifer Lawrence. Of course he'd be into it.
To my relief, he kept drinking as the movie went on, taking shot after shot of tequila. I pretended to do so myself, screwing up my face each time I pressed the bottle to my lips and took a gulp.
He would laugh at me each time. "Not a big drinker, are you?"
However, as he got messier, he also got a lot touchier. He eventually gave up on the movie altogether, his lips on my neck, and his hand would have slipped down my pants if I hadn't crawled on top of him in a desperate attempt to save myself from that, pinning him back against the cushions and leaning back with a forced smirk on my face. "You're gonna have to work a little harder than that," I whispered, then pressed my lips against his.
I found a brief escape a few minutes later, pulling back to say, "This couch isn't the comfiest thing it the world, is it?"
He grinned. "My room, then?"
As he led he up his spiraling staircase—I noticed that he was stumbling a lot and had to hold onto the railing for support—I took another swig from the tequila bottle, and he followed my lead.
When we were sat on his bed, I managed to keep us talking for a few more minutes. Calum was definitely very drunk now, and I pretended to be, too, all the while drinking more. His tolerance must be really high, though, because any normal person would have conked out by now.
Then he was kissing me again, and his shirt came off, and so did mine, and I tried not to cringe at the feeling on his hands on my chest. Thankfully, though, I could feel his lips slowing in their movement, and he grew increasingly complacent until I was able to push him down against his sheets. I left his mouth to kiss his neck, and when I came back up, he was passed out.
"Oh, thank god," I breathed. I nudged his side. "Calum? Calum? Calum!"
Yup. He was gone. So I pulled my shirt back on and silently left his room, shutting the door softly behind me. Now came the hard part—finding a safe in a mansion.
There were so many rooms, I didn't know where to start. This could easily take me all night.
And it did. I was about to give up, figuring the safe could be hidden in some secret basement for all I knew, when I found it in the one spot I'd assumed it wouldn't be—Mr. Anderson's room.
It was just too obvious. I'd steered clear of the room for nearly two hours, figuring he would probably have a lot of secrets, being a corrupt superintendent and all, and that he'd know better than to keep things he wanted to hide in the easiest place to find them.
My hands were shaking as I pressed the buttons, I was so excited. The door swung open with a pop, and the first thing my eyes caught was a black VHS tape. Right there, just waiting to be stolen.
I take absolutely no credit for that pun. Only my friend David could come up with such an atrocity