Chapter Text
Everyone was surprised when they heard about Troy's termination the next day. Chad knew the bare minimum but enough to know that it was in relation to Ryan finally being out to his parents. With this particular end result, it wasn't hard even for Jason to figure out that it wasn't a 'coming out' that was taken well.
"But... the coach and his missus was pretty cool about Troy dating Ryan," Jason frowned, looking confused... As usual. "Shouldn't the Evans be chill about it, too?"
Chad rolled his eyes upward and let it stay there, "Jason," he started, "Shut up, man."
"Not like he doesn't have a point..." Martha mumbled, a hand on the dishwasher's shoulder.
Chad didn't say Jason was wrong. Rather, it was the ideal. But even he knew that it's not a total surprise that not everyone would be okay about certain things. It definitely sucked that it led to Troy's termination, especially when he got them the gig in the first place. It was only some small grace that Vance Evans didn't terminate them all.
Chad felt bad since he had no idea how he could help in this situation, if he could help at all. He was pretty much game for anything, but usually that was by following Troy's lead. Of course, his best friend couldn't think of everything even when he was the playmaker of the team. But Chad always made sure to have his back and fill in on his blind spots. The two of them worked well together because they could cover for whatever the other was lacking at the moment.
In this case, Troy has a bad case of the broken heart and as much as he'd like to help, Chad knew he wasn't the one who held the other half to make it whole again.