“Which there is nothing wrong with.”
“If you want to smell like the boys’ changing rooms after year eight PE.”
He chuckles, and his hands snake round my waist and inside my dinner jacket, and he pulls me into him. Him taking the initiative like this is a new thing. Dylan came out at the beginning of year eleven, causing a major stir because he doesn’t just play football, he is – wait for it – captain of the goddamn football team, oh, yes, he is! So basically he was the first person in school to come out who wasn’t instantly hated and bullied, because Dylan is adored as a sportsman – he’s like this hero that even the straight boys check out (in fairness, he looks so hot in his footy kit, anyone would lose their shit), and suddenly gay was cool. Now, obviously that annoys me – anyone should be able to come out and not take crap for it – but on the plus side, it did mean quite a few people found the courage to come out too, so I’m glad for that. And literally, from the LGBTQ+ society having a membership of five, it’s now up to fifteen. Next year, I get to be president and plan to double it. Next year is going to be so gay. It’s totally going to piss off Mrs Nunn, the evangelical RE teacher.
But I digress. I was sitting by myself one lunchtime as usual, and Dylan strode right up to me, with such a sense of purpose I seriously thought he was going to hit me.
“What are you doing?” he said as I cowered behind the bench.
I just stared at him.
He sighed. “I came to apologize.” He looked down at the ground, then back up at me. “About the year nine thing. In PE.”
The mention of it made my stomach turn to lead. But also the thing happened two years previously, so why was he apologizing now? The story was this: I’d just come out, and some of the boys in my year responded by refusing to get changed with me in PE because I made them feel “uncomfortable”. Their ignorant parents got involved too, backing their stupid kids up, like parents of those sorts of kids always do. After a lot of arguing, the school suggested that maybe I’d prefer to get changed in the disabled toilet – dressing the whole thing up like it was a privilege, my own personal changing room, when really they’d just yielded to the bigots because it was easier.
“It was really shitty,” Dylan said.
I shrugged. “You weren’t part of it.”
“But I didn’t stand up for you. Not one of us stood up for you.”
“Well, when you’re the only gay boy in the year, it goes with the territory.”
Then he looked me right in the eye, his bottom lip wobbling slightly. “You’re not the only gay boy.”
Obviously, I couldn’t believe it at first. Dylan Hooper. Gay. But over the weeks that followed we started hanging out more and actually enjoying one another’s company. Now, it’s true there wasn’t (isn’t!) a wealth of options in terms of gay kids to hang out with. In our year, to start with, it was just me and him. Afterwards, thanks to the Dylan Makes Gay OK Factor, there was Theo, who’s bi and seeing a girl in the year above, and then Tariq. Tariq’s super sweet, super geeky, and has a rich dad who runs an app company, so if any of those appeal, he’s your boy. He’s now on the LGBTQ+ society committee with me, and next year, he’s going to be my deputy. Honestly, he’s such a sweet lad, so utterly wholesome, he must be protected at all costs, but I guess he just didn’t do it for Dylan. The sixth formers are all in very serious and committed relationships with each other, and apart from a collection of very marvellous girls, that only leaves a couple of lads in year eight and nine, and, well, no. However, I did eventually shake off the idea that Dylan was only hanging out with me due to a lack of other options, and started to entertain the idea that he possibly actually quite liked me, and so I took the bull by the horns and asked him if he wanted to come back to mine to start the history homework together. At which he was all,
“Er, um, I guess, yes? OK, then?”
And just as we got to mine, he added,
“You do know I don’t study history, don’t you?”
And I smirked at him. “I do know that, Dylan, yes.” Bless.
To start with, whenever we would “do history homework” together it was always me suggesting it. But after a while (at least until exams got in the way and literally everything was put on hold), it would be him. It’s always been behind closed doors, usually his bedroom, which is a monument to dreary masculinity, with its simple, functional decoration and pungent smell of Deep Heat (a far cry from my own fairy light, scatter cushion, lavender pillow mist kingdom), but he seems a bit more comfortable in his own skin these days. It’s nice.
We break away from the kiss. “We should get some pics,” I say.
“For Instagram.” Dylan does not like Instagram. He reluctantly lets me post pictures of us, but he refuses to be involved – doesn’t even have an account. That’s the reason I haven’t told him that any pictures of him always get significantly more likes than anything I post without him. And the comments are something else. But I don’t want his head to get big, so blissful ignorance is best.
I take a few selfies of us, a few of him looking all smouldering and James Bond, and then a bit of video of me romping around the garden with my gay cape, before he checks the time on his phone and suggests we make a move, because god knows it would be catastrophic if we got there so late the non-alcoholic punch had run out.
But this is the bit I’m most looking forward to actually. Dylan has a motorbike. Not only that, he has passed his test and is legally allowed to ride it with a pillion passenger – aka me. Which means I am going to roar into the schoolyard for the year eleven prom on the back of a motorcycle driven by a massive hunk, like some glorious moment in an American coming-of-age movie circa 1985. If he also does the Dirty Dancing lift with me, like I’ve made him promise, the prom is going to be so kitsch and camp it will literally explode into confetti.
We walk towards my front door. “Are we technically supposed to be wearing motorbike leathers for this?” I ask.
“You do know it’s a moped, right? Not a motorbike,” Dylan replies.
“I mean, what’s the actual difference?”
And then he opens the door, I step outside and I see the thing.
CHAPTER TWO
NATE
I’m pretty sure prom is something you’re meant to look forward to, but somehow I’ve made sure I’m not. Which is me all over. I’m really good at making sure I don’t have a good time.
Elements of Dread in Ascending Order of Dreadfulness
1.My outfit. My tux is hired because money is tight and we couldn’t afford to buy one that you can get altered. That’s no one’s fault, but it’s classic bad luck that the hire shop didn’t have anything left in my size. So now I look like a year seven kid on the first day of term, all dressed up in an oversized blazer and trousers that are slightly too long.
2.The speech. Oh god, the speech. “Someone’s got to do it, Nate!” the head merrily told me. “And you’re the spokesman for your year!” I mean, I’m really not. I was voted senior prefect, but it wasn’t a vote of popularity or respect – it was malicious. The title confers no benefits whatsoever, only loads of horrible responsibilities, like monitoring the lunch queue, putting away chairs after assembly and giving speeches to people who are just waiting for you to fail, preferably hilariously, so they can upload it somewhere.