Chapter Text
“What the heck just happened?”
The baseball game had been, by far, the weirdest experience in Chad’s life; and he had always been one for having bizarre anecdotes to tell his friends with an almost never-ending frequency.
They were…well, playing baseball but…also singing and…did he and Ryan…did they actually end up curled on the field when it finished?
It was like a dream. A dream he had, obviously, never had; nope, never in his entire life.
He kept rolling the whole scene in his mind while he and the other boys showered; being so grateful the bathrooms were made for rich folks, so they had a bit of intimacy. There were…certain parts of his anatomy he wasn’t in control at the moment.
He exited the individual shower, carefully drying all his curls, when he heightened his head…and there he was, only wearing a robe, blonde wet hair stuck to his head.
And he was smiling, but not smiling as if he was just smiling, he smiled directly to HIM.
“So…you can actually dance.”
“Yeah, and you play baseball. Cool, man. Um…gotta go.” He picked up what he thought were his clothes and rushed out of the place still only wearing a towel.
Funny thing, they weren’t his.
-----
Ryan found Chad under a most likely to be fake tree of the golf court, wearing his clothes and staring at the horizon.
“I must say, you have pretty good taste on clothing.” He sat next to him. He had put on the other boy’s clothes. After all, it wasn’t as if he had his own there.
Chad seemed struggling to speak, taking it more than five minutes until he could articulate a coherent sentence.
“Can you…is it normal…? Oh, screw it, would you hate me if I said I think I could, might, actually have crush on you?” Ryan busted into laughter.
“Wasn’t I obvious enough? And I am not talking about right now, I am talking about…last two years? Honestly, the only reason I didn’t say anything was that I wasn’t sure if you swinged both sides…”
“Wait, you can actually do that? Like, being bothsexual?” He seemed relieved.
“The term is bisexual but, yeah, you can. I mean, Kelsie is and she was pretty much a real person last time I checked…but, the thing, have you just said that you have a crush on me?” He titled his head, it was comical, funnier than it should be. The basketball player didn’t know if it was because of his acting skills or just because, well, he was Ryan.
He nodded, smiling a bit.
“And does Taylor know?”
“No…I…she’s great and all and I also like her that way but…less. I know it’s not fair, and that I’m a shitty boyfriend for not telling but…I was scared, I AM scared.”
“I get it. I haven’t told anyone I like boys…not even Sharpay…not that she would listen.” He scoffed and went silent with a sad frown.
The other boy felt immediately frustrated by how blue he had become in an instant. He hated not being able to help.
“Ey, at least, we had admitted it to each other. Maybe, we feel brave enough to tell the others. After all, I am staring a musical show, admitting having a crush on a boy won’t be that bad, will it?”
“Ouch, harmful stereotypes. Plus, look at your friend Troy; I haven’t seen that level of dull heterosexuality in my whole life and he is naturally talented for the stage.”
Both laughed a bit.
“Yeah, I guess you are right.”
Silence took over again for few minutes, though now it felt just natural…fine. Then, Ryan spoke again.
“And…about that crush, what are you going to do about him?”
“Could I kiss him?”
“You definitively should.”
When their lips met, it was like their very first kiss, even though it wasn’t for neither of them, feeling everlasting…
…until it stopped due to external forces.
“I called it.” Taylor’s voice made them get away from each other. Before they could say I thing, she continued. “Don’t worry, Chad. A girl knows these things, I was just enjoying you while it lasted.”
“I told her she was being cruel, but she wouldn’t listen.” Gabriella added, next to her friend.
“I wasn’t being cruel, just practical; you can only be a teenager with a sporty boyfriend once! But don’t mind us, go back to what you were doing.”
So there they went, kissing and getting close enough to make the other two girls turned their heads to give them more intimacy, a bit uncomfortable.
Summer had just gotten a lot better.
By the last week of August, they did much more than just kiss under an abandoned wanna-be tree. When they weren’t together, they were almost certainly thinking about each other.
They discovered they shared more interests and views on different matters they could have ever thought; they also taught each other new things, and argue about those they didn’t agree with.
Plus…the physical part. The kissing, the hand-holding and the next level stuff…Chad had always been kind of scared about how his First Time was going to be but, now that it had gone and passed, he saw there was nothing to be worried about.
Only downfall of having sex with Ryan? None of their parents knew, so they actually had to act like spies from a low-rate movie or asked friends for hiding spot aka parent-free houses. Chaperoning situations were also involved sometimes, getting almost comical results plenty of times.
It wasn’t an ideal situation, but it had to do…unless they came out to their parents, that would be. The idea had crossed both their minds, though none of them had spoken out loud.
Until that Sunday, when they sad, sweaty, next to each other after the first one-against-one basketball game that Chad had ever lost (Troy didn’t count).
“Remember me, why did I taught you how to properly play basketball?”
“Romantic gesture? Exchange for me teaching you how to belt?”
“The thing were I sound SO good?”
“Yeah…I sounded better, though.”
“The Evans modesty gene attacks again!” His boyfriend punched him in the arm at the comment and they both laughed, falling into one of those fulfilling silent moments you only have with those you truly love.
“Ey, I am going with my parents and sister to London until the beginning of next year…I got tickets for…”
“Grease and Hairspray. And you are sooo sorry Parade closed before you could go. You’ve told me a trizillion times. What’s your point?”
“I am gonna tell them, that I’m gay. It’s about time, don’t you think? To grow up and face the music.”
“Are you quoting another musical?”
“That’s a question with no answer. But I am not telling you to do the same, just…I wanted you to know.”
“I am doing the same. I mean, I’m bi not gay but…you get it. I promise, next year, no hiding.”
“It’s a promise.”
“A deal.”
-----
Chad was sitting on the cupboard of his kitchen. He knew both his parents will be arriving any time soon and he just wanted to say the words as quickly as possible, he needed that weight out of his chest.
He felt his hands shaking. He thought about going to get the basketball from his bedroom, but he didn’t trust himself enough not to bounce it too much and break some glasses, so he started playing with some wooden cutlery instead.
“Your cousin Nico had just come out, honey.”
Chad’s mom had usually a very bright smile, but compared to how he saw the one she was ‘wearing’ that day, they would all seem dull.
“So…you ok with that?”
His father, entering the kitchen almost as if it was a pre-staged scene (definitively, he had spent too much time with Ryan –and the rest of the theatre nerds- that summer), nodded in agreement.
“He is still the same…how do you call this days? ‘EMO’ kid. As long as he has his mind clear about what he likes…”
Those words awaken a new fear on him. However, he didn’t want to jump to conclusions too early.
“What do you mean with that?”
His father made a weird face gesture, emphasized with a hand movement.
“You know, those kids that say they like both…that is just vice.”
The teenager almost choked; he tried to find a solution, feeling almost as overdramatic as Troy seemed to feel every time he was on a crossroad since they were six.
What to do?
He pictured Ryan’s smile in his head, was he really going to give that up? He could always lie and say he was just gay, but that felt even more wrong than saying nothing…
…his moment of bravery passed. The part of every teenager that was still a scared little kid took control and he was tragically conscious that he was not going to say anything.
He rushed to the bathroom, seconds from flooding his eyes with tears.
-----
The London trip?
Amazing. As always when they were alone, Sharpay was still bossy but in a manageable just-in-character way that he actually almost thanked as it prevent him for having to take too many decisions; plus, he had missed her in this way…before the trip she had become even more sel-involved than usual (however, he didn’t fool himself: he knew she would went back to not-normal the moment they landed in the USA again). His mother was the abslute best and made up for the permanent absently of his father around him, nothing new there. And London…GOD, who could he love a city so much?
Actually, there was only one thing he could think about he loved more than London…he blushed, remembering the teen basketball player he had waiting for him, back in New Mexico.
But then, as it seems to happen almost every time when things go too well, something happened.
Something that was going to give him nightmares until the end of his life.
There were just having lunch at a Soho Chinese restaurant, both his sister and mother complaining about the lack of class of the place when a young couple –a black woman and her smiling blonde girlfriend- sat next to them and, after ordering their food, started kissing.
A small smile starting to take shape in his lips thinking about how they looked just like a female version of Chad and him…
…until his father spoke. Well, spoke was an understatement; he got up, went to the women’s desk and not very politely told them to leave.
When he came back to their desk, he only had a comment to do before acting as if nothing had happened.
“Those dikes…at least, they weren’t men.”
-----
Last year of high school started. And without even noticing it, both boys were facing the same dilemma.
Continuing with a hidden relationship was not an option, coming out to their parents was out of the picture too and admitting their failure…they didn’t have the strength to do that. After all, they were only a couple of teenagers having to choose between the comfort of what they had always called home and going into the unknown.
They exchanged a single look the first day of classes and they knew.
Things were back to the Status Quo.