chapter twenty-six - team

chapter twenty-six — team

GIRLS WERE PRETTY. Girls were okay to kiss too. The first girl I kissed had fluffy, brown hair and wore sparkly things. It happened behind the swing set, the rest of our third-grade class spreading the news like cooties-rumors so my teacher knew about it before I'd even realized the gravity of the situation: I'd kissed a girl— I was a man now. She said it made her a princess, and since I kissed her I was her prince. I stayed her prince for two days until I realized princes couldn't play basketball and suddenly being a prince didn't seem that fun.

The first girl I dumped stopped wearing sparkles and didn't kiss another guy until highschool.

Her name was something painfully exotic— something so cool and unique it was entirely forgettable. But, I remembered the little crown-shaped eraser she had at the end of her favorite pencil: it made her a princess. A lot of things made her a princess apparently: sparkles, kisses, and crown-shaped erasers. She shouldn't have needed a prince to continue her rule successfully, but elementary school anarchy struck and her empire crumbled.

Girls were pretty, but they could be mean. Especially to each other.

"So, Roger, you a tits or ass kinda guy?"

And guys could be fucking weird.

Marco slouched against the bleachers, sinking again the icy chill of the metal with a curious grin.

"Me? I'm a personality kind of guy," Roger smiled in tandem with Marco's frown, shallow dimple making a rare appearance as he leaned onto his backpack. He was using it as a makeshift pillow, hood pulled up so it could keep his ears warm as the late November wind tried to steal them.

I wasn't exactly sure who'd decided that meeting up by the football field during the lunch break was a good idea, but judging from the way Marco's eyes flashed like the cold metal cutting into my asscheeks I figured it had something to do with the demonic clown and his smooth brain.

"You sly motherfucker. That's how you get them, isn't it?"

"What? No," Roger squinted in disbelief, turning away from Marco to smash his face further into his backpack, "I don't have enough energy to argue with you"

"That's fine. I have enough energy to argue for us both."

"How about we don't argue?" Lukas suggested helpfully from the bench below mine, his thigh pressed flush against my shins. The tip of his nose was pink, eyes watering every few seconds as he squinted to see in the breeze. My eyes just got dry when it got cold and they would start to go numb if I didn't blink like I was trying to fly away using only my eyelashes.

"Fuck outta here with that pacifist preaching," Marco griped, a smile still plastered on his face as he continued to eat his fries.

"We all know you're not a saint."

A fry dropped to the ground and Marco looked at it with conflict. Roger opened one eye, feigning sleep, and waited to see if the idiot would actually eat the cold potato stick that had fallen on the fucking outdoor bleachers.

"What do you mean he's not a saint?" The words sounded wispy as they left me, but they managed to snap Marco out of his dilemma. He picked up the fry and tossed it in our trash pile, the fallen soldier looking sad and out of place amongst the crumpled napkins.

Roger chuckled into his backpack at my question, turning a lazy, singular-eyed gaze over to where Lukas and I were sitting a few feet away. His shoes had bits of crushed leaves stuck in the crevices of his sole in a weird pattern. They were mostly yellow, but I spotted bits of red leaves. I liked red leaves more than the yellow ones— they seemed cooler. Yellow leaves were plain and they blended in together, but red leaves could stand out and still look just as natural. And brown leaves were just angry and crumbly. Like me.

I wonder where Roger found the red leaves? They were everywhere— autumn was everywhere— but I still had trouble singling them out. Lukas could probably find them easy.

"—has like, no bodies."

"Huh?"

Marco was smirking and I felt my hands twitch to knock that look off his face. Marco had this uncanny ability to look smug for no reason and I hated it. He had a lot of things to be smug about— he was a good basketball player— but he chose to get a big head over the stupidest fucking shit.

"We're talking about our body count," Roger said with distaste, finally sitting upright and hugging his backpack to his chest. He leaned his chin against the top of it, rubbing his eyes tiredly. The bags under his eyes looked like the cracked asphalt in the school parking lot: sizable divots that filled with water and turned rainbow-colored when the sun hit them just right after it rained. It was ugly.

"Which is like, the stupidest thing ever."

"It's only stupid to you 'cause you have like no bodies," Marco grinned lazily, wiping his greasy palms on his pants.

"Hey, I'm saving myself," Roger frowned, flicking a stray pinecone towards Marco, "Nothing wrong with that."

The pinecone bounced off the tip of Marco's nose before clattering down a few rows of bleachers.

"What's a body count?" I scowled, cutting of Marco as he opened his fat mouth to say something stupid in response to Roger. Lukas jerked his head towards me, eyes blown wide and face now pink from things other than the cold. What? I didn't really give a shit about sex-stuff and talking about it in public (except in front of Mum), but I knew exactly what shade of red Lukas would turn if anyone mentioned anything sexual in front of him.

I wonder if Lukas is a tits or ass guy? Knowing Lukas, he was probably a personality guy, just like Roger. I didn't really care about it either way. I was a don't-annoy-me kind of guy. It was hard to find people who didn't annoy me.

"Kieran, you're incredibly innocent sometimes, you know that?" Roger's head tilted to the side curiously and I squinted in confusion. I felt my lips pinch together, chapped skin scraping against itself.

"Like, you're definitely not innocent, but you don't know what a body count is. That's a fucked up kind of innocence, Kieranus," Marco chimed in.

Innocent? "The fuck you mean? And don't call me that."

"A body count," Marco intercepted, a stupid smug smirk growing on his features, "Is the number of bodies you've gotten."

Wait, people have different bodies?

"You guys have more than one body? I just have one." I scowled deeply, scanning my limbs before looking over to Lukas. I expected him to nod in agreement of my severe injustice, but he was lobster-shell red instead, something swirling in his eyes as he stared at me. I knew him well enough to pick out the emotions of embarrassment and amusement, but not the third. It was the same look he got when Rooster socked him across the face— a weird, tired-but-also-happy look.

"Not like that," Marco wheezed, rolling forward to slap his thighs and laugh. Marco laughed like a machine-gun: a deep inhale to reload and then a series of short barks that could either lift a weight off your shoulders or cut into you like bullets. It depended on if he was laughing with you, or laughing at you.

With Marco it could always be either, but never both.

Roger was laughing too, but he was laughing noiselessly and his mouth was covered by his sleeve. And Lukas? Lukas would never laugh at me. Not like others did. Lukas just silently steamed next to me, focusing on his sandwich.

"You're stupid as hell, Kieran."

"Hey—"

"—a body count," Roger cut off Marco and used his arm to push me back onto my bench so I wouldn't choke the hyena of a boy, "Is a count of how many people you've had sex with."

I looked over to Lukas, feeling my ears burn as he pointedly avoided eye contact with me. Lukas chewed on his peanut butter sandwich with determination, tongue running over his teeth as the bread inevitably stuck to the roof of his mouth. Lukas has nice teeth. My teeth were a little crooked and it showed if I smiled.

But I didn't smile much, so it was okay. Lukas smiled a lot though, and it was nice.

Roger hummed in agreement with my surprise, grabbing his water bottle so he could take a sip, "Lame, right?"

Oh, right.

"Yeah, it really is. People keep track of that?"

"Stop pitting Kieran against me, Roger," Marco had finally stopped laughing, edging closer to where the rest of us were sitting, "What's your body count, Keiranus?"

I don't keep track of that shit. Marco sighed all heavy-like, propping his head up with his hand as his elbow rested on his knee. Marco's elbows looked like they could pop balloons, all sharp angles and bone. Sometimes, whenever he took a hard hit from a pick on the basketball court, Marco could fly, but he never fell. Never. His whirring limbs would adjust so he'd use the additional momentum to move even faster and catch up.

"I dunno, same as you guys probably"

"What? You really think that you and Virgin Mary over here have the same body count?" Marco gestured over to Roger who rolled his eyes, already sick of this shit.

"Well, my body count isn't zero," I clarified, stalling. Lukas was abnormally quiet next to me, his peanut butter sandwich traveling down his throat like bricks. The way he swallowed made my throat hurt, the little gasp of air that followed making it seem like someone was forcing him to inhale the dry-ass bread. Why is he doing that? He didn't meet my gaze and distress pooled in my gut.

"If you wanna know mine, it's five," Marco smiled a lot kinder than I thought he would've, lips pressed tight together and a normal, not-batshit-crazy look in his eyes.

"That's..." Lukas finally spoke up, voice scratchy and husky from the absolute nightmare that was a peanut butter sandwich with no water, "... actually a lot less than I thought than I thought you would have."

Roger nodded in agreement while I just shrugged. I didn't make it a habit to pay attention to who my friends' were fucking. That was their business, and unless my Mum was somehow involved I didn't give a shit. But how many people has Lukas been like that with? I could simultaneously see Lukas bagging every human in the world, but also see him being completely flustered the second pants started coming off. He'd probably turn pink, not red, but pink because blood flowed in weird ways in those situations. Lukas looks pretty when he turns pink. But Lukas always looked nice. Not nice like a girl, but nice like a Lukas.

"Since DJ's stuck taking a stupid test retake," Marco bounced off my silence, taking the chance to talk even more, "I might as well let you all know that his body count is only one."

The infamous, smug smile returned and Roger grumbled something under his breath.

'Body count' is such a weird term. Lukas' blush had calmed down a bit, and his Adam's apple bobbed a bit as he tried to flush away the sudden Sahara in the back of his throat. Fuck peanut butter. Lukas didn't love or hate peanut butter, but I could hate it enough for us both at the moment.

"Why do they even call it a body count?" I murmured, looking over to Roger and Marco before fiddling with my shoelaces. I'd tried double-knotting them, but I'd tied the first knot too loose so now my shoes felt all off. The problem of possibly tying them too tight if I tried retying them kept me from trying, so I just flicked the little plastic bits on the end around. They hit the metal bench with dainty pings, bouncing off and flying a little bit before flopping against my shoe uselessly.

"Sounds like you fucking murdered someone."

Lukas snorted harshly, choking on his spit. He leaned over and coughed into his elbow, eyes watering even more as he tried smiling at me with his eyes to let me know that he wasn't about to flop over dead.

"I have no idea how you get so many chicks," Marco chuckled dryly, patting my shoulder before kicking Lukas' knee with the tip of his shoe.

"What about you Brad Pitt, you get bodies?"

"Three," Lukas admitted shyly, scratching at the back of his neck.

"Who?"

Lukas' mouth parted in surprise, hand pausing mid-run through his hair. The blush that had been starting to fade on his face returned full force and I felt my own face mirror it. But I don't get flustered when I talk about this stuff. But that didn't mean I couldn't get curious about others' opinions on it. Mainly Lukas. Really, only Lukas. Lukas was just so Lukas that I couldn't imagine him doing half the shit I'd done before. It just didn't click in my head.

"You wanna know my list?" Marco volunteered with a grin, sticking his legs down the bench so they lay in my lap.

"No thanks," I shoved his legs out of my lap, turning my gaze back to Lukas who still hadn't recovered.

"Who were the three? Do I know them?"

"They were people," Lukas mumbled, not meeting my eyes.

"You, maybe, don't know them? I'm not even sure they go here."

Liar. Why are you lying?

"So, Kieran," Roger cut my interrogation off with his own, eyes blinking sleepily in my general direction, "You figure out your count?"

I did the math in my head, adding up all the bodies I could remember. I wasn't the best at remembering names, but faces I was pretty okay with. Faces were hard to see when the lights were off though. I went off of touch for the most part. I was pretty good at telling girls apart based on the way my hand fit around their waist or other body parts.

"Something like eight, ten, maybe?" I shrugged loosely, "It doesn't really matter."

"Eighty? Holy shit." Marco whistled through his teeth, ducking low when Roger, Lukas, and I all simultaneously chucked pine cones at him. They bounced off his hollow head, clattering down the bleachers with way too much noise.

"Not eighty, eight, you dumb fuck."

Marco cackled, ducking as I lunged at him. The hood of his sweater shirt curled around my hand as I yanked back and slammed him down onto the bench. Roger laughed somewhere off to the side, Marco sticking his tongue out to blow a raspberry right in my face as I leered at him. It was cold enough for puffs of white to curl out of our mouths, the clouds meeting in the middle and trailing off somewhere.

"This is the part where you kiss me."

Marco puckered his lips and my stomach lurched as I shoved off of him, pushing all the air out of his chest in the process.

"Go fuck yourself."

"Maybe I will."

"You're fucking disgusting."

"And you're fucking Lukas," Marco paused to ponder as I blanched.

I'm— I'm what?

"Wait, no, my mistake," Marco shrugged.

How— could boys fuck each other?

Well, duh. Gay people exist. A voice that sounded suspiciously like Michael chided me in the back of my mind.

Gay, gay, gay, gay—

"You don't like boys, right, Keke?"

—I don't like boys? I don't like boys.

"Lukas isn't a boy." I blurted the first thing that came to my mind, mouth clamping down as I tried desperately to shove the words back into my mouth. Roger looked up from his makeshift backpack-pillow with a snort and I can't even look at Lukas. Marco's eyes got all wide, eyebrows pressing together in a way that told me I was most definitely the stupidest fucking person to exist.

"Lukas, why don't you prove how much of a boy you are?"

Marco threw his hands up to block the sudden storm of pinecones rattling down on him.

"Marco, shut the fuck up," Lukas hissed and I finally looked over. His face had turned bright fucking red, and his arms were filled with pine cones. The wind was attempting to play with his hair, but the short strands barely brushed his eyebrows and he swept them back with one hand, eyes meeting mine.

Lukas is most definitely a boy.

Lukas couldn't be a girl— it didn't fit. But he was still nice. Still pretty, somehow. It was one of the many wonders of Lukas, and him being a boy just made sense.

Lukas smiled shyly, hand traveling back through his hair to press against the nape of his neck. The pinecones he'd gathered slipped down, past his arms, and made a little pile by his feet.

"Sorry," My voice was tight with embarrassment. What else can I say?

"It's okay, I know what you meant."

I don't know what I meant. It was fitting that Lukas would know me better than I knew myself.

Because he was Lukas.

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The club room was decidedly less loud than I thought it would be. Not in the sound sense, but the way it looked. I'd expected bright rainbows and explicit... What's gay other than rainbows? I wasn't too sure what I'd been expecting, but the room was unbearably normal. The club advisor seemed normal enough too— a round-looking teacher with short, red hair. She had a loud smile and a shit ton of books on her desk. Oh, an English teacher. And she advised the gay club. Or the gay alliance club. Gay Straight Alliance club? Gays without Straight Alliance Club? Maybe this club wasn't even gay at all. I forgot the name but didn't bother asking Michael again because I wasn't sure I could get the words out of my mouth.

"Were you expecting unicorns and naked men on the walls?"

"Oh, um," I flushed, not quite meeting Michael's gaze when he elbowed me in the side with a chuckle. He was wearing a different shirt today, something band-related I'd maybe seen in Mum's closet before. I focused on the way the handwriting sloped around his chest and traveled down to where his belly button would be. Do gay people have bellybuttons?

Of course they do, you fucking idiot.

"I wish we could have pictures of naked men on the walls," A voice spoke from somewhere over my shoulder and I flinched roughly. Michael caught me by the shoulders, maneuvering so I could use him as a human shield from the random kid who'd decided to whisper into my ear.

"Kai, don't scare him off, please. He literally just got the guts to come inside."

"I'm not a cowa—"

"— I know, I know. You're super brave." Michael tossed a syrupy smile in my direction and I scowled, leaning carefully against the wall so no more people could creep up behind me. I double-checked to make sure I would be leaning up against any sort of poster. Dicks, even two-dimensional ones, weren't exactly what I wanted to lean my back against.

I shivered suddenly, hands rubbing up and down my arms as Michael attempted to steer Kai away from me and towards a seat by the door.

I guess every group has a Marco.

"Why is he here?"

A random freshman chick spoke up from her desk in the corner, one leg propped up on the chair and the other dangling. Her toes barely brushed the floor, bangs poking needles into her eyes as she glared at me. I returned the favor, a small, smug smile growing on my face when she blinked away first. She wasn't wearing a little rainbow pin like Michael did, but then again neither was the boy in the corner where Michael had dropped his stuff.

Michael would avoid a lot of shit if he just took that pin off. Why doesn't he take it off?

The boy in the corner glanced up at me, looking back down at his phone with little interest. I was simultaneously offended and relieved. I'm not interesting.

I'm not interesting?

That's good, yeah?

Larry, Michael had introduced him to me outside the door before the meeting began.

"Kieran is here as an ally." Michael intervened, one small hand wrapping around my bicep to drag me over to where he'd set up camp. Larry waggled his fingers at me, absentmindedly going back to a random game on his phone. His eyes were lined thick with something black— makeup?

Okay, I steeled myself to not rub at my own eyes, the fear of pulling away with black palms all too heavily rooted in my chest. Michael didn't wear makeup. Lukas didn't either. Most guys didn't wear makeup: even Marco with all his headassery had never looked twice at a makeup brushy thing.

"So you're an ally?" Larry looked up suddenly, eyes wide and teasing.

I nodded, throat dry. My hands fumbled for purchase, latching onto the sides of the desk like Larry and his raccoon eyes would somehow suck my soul from me like those black ghosts in the Harry Potter movies. Michael had left me defenseless, flitting around the room like some kind of magical energetic being as he greeted a few more people as they entered the room. The advisor, in all her progressive might, was amicably sipping her at her oversized tea mug and surveying the room with an optimistic light. Gay Straight Alliance, Michael had called it. As far as I could tell, the room looked like an exhibition cage for every shade of the rainbow.

And I was the visitor, nose smushed against the glass.

The teacher didn't meet my gaze, eyes looking right over me before she smiled kindly at Larry and tapped at her computer.

"I'm an ally too," Larry grinned, running a hand through his buzzcut like he'd forgotten he was bald now. The fuzz looked soft under his fingers and I wondered if rubbing his head like a magic eight ball could give me the answers to all my questions like: what the hell am I doing here?

I could feel stares on me from the other side of the room, the girl especially not pleased with Michael's response as she scowled with her friends.

"W-wait, sorry, I can't be an ally then," I shook my head too fast, lip wobbling on the first word like I was about to cry. What the hell is happening to me?

"I'm not..." I gestured uselessly to the room around me, hoping my flailing limbs somehow conveyed the word I couldn't bring myself to say.

"You're not...?" Larry raised his eyebrows, smile lines scrunching as he grinned saccharinely.

Son of a bitch.

"Gay," I whispered in defeat, looking around before leaning closer to the grinning boy who I wanted to sock in the face more and more as the minutes went by. Man, he really reminds me of Marco in the worst way possible. There were way too many Marcos in this club.

"I'm not gay," I got it out a little easier, my shoulders relaxing like I'd just relieved myself of some great burden.

"You bi?"

What's that?

Whatever it was it wasn't straight. Wasn't normal.

Is that offensive to say?

"Uh, n-no. I'm not anything."

"Cool," Larry smiled, teeth too big for his mouth, "Neither am I."

"I'm straight," I clarified in case he hadn't completely understood what I meant. I don't wear makeup.

"Same here, buddy."

"But..." You're wearing makeup. I wanted to grab Larry by the shoulders and shake him until the black smudges by his eyelids melted off.

"But what?" Larry rested his chin on his palm, elbow propped up on the desk. The skin around his elbow pooled out a little and stuck to the desk fondly, like instead of the makeup Larry himself was melting into the floor.

But what?

"Nothing," I sighed, ceasing to pull at my fingers until the joints popped, "Nevermind."

Larry smiled and I attempted some sort of mouth movement in return, feeling my eyebrows pull into angry lines instead.

"Michael," Kai half-screamed from the other side of the room, giggling guiltily when Michael jumped in surprise, "Can we pass out dildos at the Awareness Event?"

"Kai, one more thing, and I'll write you up," The advisor sing-songed from her desk, eyes flashing devilishly when Kai paled and relented.

"Freshmen are so stupid," Larry breathed out next to me, "Not everyone uses dildos."

Discomfort washed over me scarily quick, and I met Michael's radioactive, green gaze with a wild, pleading look of my own.

"Okay, um," Michael pointed at someone in the corner, their hair a shield from prying eyes as they scrawled away in a notebook, "We'll be taking attendance, and then we can continue brainstorming appropriate ideas for our upcoming awareness event, okay?"

The room echoed a collective agreement and Michael hastily made his way over to the desk next to mine, plopping down with a sigh. His hair flounced as he sat down, the thin strands falling too far into his vision. He pursed his lips, blowing slowly and lazily to get the hair out of his face.

"So," Larry cut into my trance, hand reaching out to poke at Michael's shoulder gently, "What's the real reason you brought Mr. Basketball over here?"

"He asked."

Larry looked over at me, impressed as I shrunk into my sweatshirt. Don't say it like that.

I hadn't asked. I had owed.

Michael took pity on me, laughing and pulling at the strings of my hoodie.

"He thought he owed me for something, so I dragged him here. He just asked what he could do to pay me back."

I nodded quickly, my own hair getting into my face as I flushed. I could still feel eyes on me all around the room, not-so-hushed whispers of my name getting tossed around more than I liked.

"You can leave if it's too much," Larry suggested helpfully, "The school doesn't give us enough funds to hold any rallies, and nobody buys from our fundraisers. So, we're not a really serious club, just a safe space."

Safe space?

"Why do you need a safe space?"

The words sounded stupid coming out of my mouth and I thought about the way Michael's name got passed around the locker room in not-so-hushed whispers. Michael was always falling too. Never enough for someone to make it his nickname, but just enough for the stray feet tripping him to be more purposeful than accidental.

I looked over at Michael and he examined his painted nails curiously. The color had started to chip.

"It's not just bullying," Larry's mouth curved into something unpleasant and I watched Michael bite at the color of his fingers, Michael's voice sifting through my ears somehow as he avoided my gaze.

"Some kids are just afraid to act like anything in class. They don't want to be stereotyped, or labeled, or bullied. Half of the people in this club are slackers who don't show up half the time—"

Across the room, Kai cheered obnoxiously at something the girl with the bangs had said and Larry laughed into his palm.

"—but it's fine because if we don't have each others' backs, nobody will."

"Oh, you're like a team then?"

"Sure," Michael finally looked up, smiling small, "We're a team I guess."

"I have to go print a few things, I'll be back in a few," The advisor stood up, bounding over to the door in a light jog before she turned to Kai, "please don't break anything."

"No promises."

She exhaled, pinching the bridge of her nose before running out.

My insides felt all melty-like I was the protagonist in one of Mom's chickflits and I'd had some sort of realization. I couldn't peg the realization, but it was there, warm and heavy in the base of my belly.

The back of my neck felt warm and I used the excuse of Kai being an annoying freshman to survey the room judgmentally. He was rocking back in his chair dangerously, an inch away from falling and smacking his head against the floor. Someone had put their backpack there like they'd predicted the possibility, and another had their foot pressed up against the leg of Kai's chair ready to push and watch him tumble.

Team? It wasn't a team the way I knew it, but I didn't know a lot of things.

There was a dull thud against the window, and everyone's head turned towards the sound.

"Sorry," A muffled voice warbled through the window that was open a crack, "Didn't mean to disturb your meeting."

The silhouettes of a few soccer players crowded outside the windows. One had a ball in his hand, bouncing the checkered thing a few times with hand before—

Thud.

"So that's the game we're playing today? Lame," Larry buried his face in his arms with a yawn, the rest of the room turning away from the window as the ball steadily thud against the window.

Our soccer team sucked, but not enough to miss the practice field goal by ten feet and hit it against that window over and over again.

I waited for Michael to yell at them, but he did nothing, nails tapping at the desk as he gazed determinedly at the whiteboard at the front of the classroom. His eyes looked nice when the sun hit them, the acidity of his stare fading into something a little softer and brighter.

The third thud triggered the girl with bangs and she finally took a break from trying to kill me with her eyes to stalk over to the window. Her skirt billowed a bit as the wind picked up and flew through the window fast. She had tights on under them though, small holes splitting them on the thighs.

"Do that one more time and I swear—"

—Thud.

"What? It's not my fault. It's windy."

The soccer player who'd jogged over to retrieve the ball smiled smugly. Marco smiled like that. It was the kind of smile that traveled all the way up to the eyes, like a happy smile, because it was a happy smile. It was the kind of happy smile that grew when others' frowned.

I hadn't felt myself getting up and walking over, but suddenly I went from watching events unfold at my desk to opening the window wider so I could fit my head through to glare at the soccer guy. The girl with the bangs said something from behind me, hands shoving at me so she could fit her head through the gap too. Jesus, stop shoving.

Who even are you? I needed to start memorizing my classmates.

"Kieran? Bro, what? You're in that club?"

"I'm an ally," I hastily replied.

"The fuck is that?"

"No fucking clue," I answered blankly, "But stop missing the goal you fucknut, you have a game tomorrow."

"I'm not—"

"—So you're doing it on purpose then?"

"No—"

"It's one or the other, dumbass. Either you're missing the goal and hitting this window on purpose 'cause you're a talented-but-sad loser with no purpose in life, or you're missing the goal that badly 'cause you eat turf-turds for breakfast."

"What?" His brows twisted up in confusion, ball squeezed between his hands as he tried to understand what exactly I'd said. I wasn't really sure what I'd said either, but Lukas probably would've been able to decode it. Lukas was perfect like that.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

The soccer captain— he had a shiny lamination on his warm-up jacket— jogged over with a shout.

"This idiot's ball hit the window"

"Oh shit, hey, Kieran," The captain smiled and waved, and I grimaced in response, my head feeling way too cold as it stuck out into the chilly air like a sacrifice.

"Yeah, sorry about that. He's new."

The asshole I'd yelled at fumed quietly, unable to say anything as he bounced the soccer ball in his hands loosely.

"'S fine, just make sure nobody on your team sucks so bad they hit this window anymore, 'kay?"

"Sure!" He laughed, steering the kid off to the side with a weak promise.

"Why the fuck would you kick the ball into that window when Kieran Mogan was there, you idiot?"

The yell carried in the wind and I smiled, finally ducking back inside so I could shut the window.

"That's not gonna stop them, you know? They'll just keep being fucking annoying."

The chick with the bangs stood in front of me, arms crossed and foot tapping. Her bangs had parted in the middle a bit and I fought back the urge to brush the hairs aside like a curtain. She had a nice zit dotting the partition like an angry, red Moses.

"If they don't stop, let me know. I don't know what exactly this club does, but I can help with jerks like that."

"What if they don't listen when you yell?" She eyed me distrustfully.

"I'll beat them u—"

"—Kieran, you're not allowed to beat anyone up." Michael frowned from his seat before getting up and dragging me back to sit next to him.

"But thanks, he was getting annoying."

"Why didn't you tell him off, you're good at that," I grinned, flicking a stray eraser shaving at Michael's arm. The room erupted into a choked fit of laughs, Larry snickering as he slapped at my arm like it was piñata.

"What, and have the captain drag him away?" Michael smirked, meeting my gaze as he quirked an eyebrow up. The sunlight dug into his dimples and cast shadowy lines running across his face.

"The captain was the one who egged the Awareness event we had last month."

Oh.

"Shit."

"Shit," Michael echoed with a chuckle and I felt the force of his exhale flutter across my face.

"I'll beat him u—"

"—Kieran, no."

My chest swelled like I'd hit a three-pointer, Larry's too-big smile and Michael's shadowy dimples making my stomach lurch weird. I thought about Kai, unbalanced in his chair, Roger's fingers stained from paint, Marco flying across the court, and DJ with an apron and oven mitts. I thought of Mum and the way dirt smeared on her nose when she weeded, Fionnuala's hair frizzing when it rained. The way Ms. Keisha's lipstick never smudged and Ezekial's hands grabbed at everything he liked.

I thought about Lukas' hair and the way it looked in the sun, and the way it sprawled across the navy of my couch when he slept over.

I have a good team. I'd just never realized how big it was.

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From the GSANetwork: "GSA clubs, or GSAs for short, are student-run organizations that unite LGBTQ+ and allied youth to build community and organize around issues impacting them in their schools and communities."

Phew, that was a longer chapter than I'd originally meant for it to be. Also, yes, hello! I am alive and well :) Sorry for the superrr long gap between updates (college is kicking my butt) and I hope the length (and/or possibly the quality?) of this chapter make up for it. I was in a meh mood and I wanted something a little light-hearted and mushy so I decided to write this (imo) kinda fluffy chapter. I'm aiming for this story to end around 30 chapters, but it may go a little over, seeing as how things are going a little slower than I'd planned.

After that, I think I'll be taking a little break before starting DJ and Marco's story.

Anyways, how was this chapter? Was it ok? I rewrote this chapter a few times with different ideas and plot points, but ultimately decided on this one, so I hope you all like it! (And please forgive me for the terrible updating!)

As always, thank you for readinging! I appreciate you all :) Have a lovely whatever-amount-of-time-it-takes-for-me-to-update-the-next-chapter and stay safe <3