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Cath was the queen of houseparties.
Her parents owned a huge house and led busy lives, which meant she had the house to herself a lot.
This meant that Weekends At Cath's was a common occurance and that Cath was very much the most popular girl in school.
Everybody knew it. She knew it.
Cath had a brilliant mind, that was busy scheming 24/7 and the outcome could be depended upon to be entertaining. It gave her a certain kind of power, that she was not afraid to use for evil. People were willing to do a lot of things, if they could expect a fun time to come out of it.
It was another Saturday in Cath's family den.
The room was emptier than usual. There were two birthday parties happening across town and the promise of a change of scenery had lured many of the regulars away.
It was Cath's core group of friends that had stuck with her.
The cousins were bickering over a video game. Max was giving a pained-looking Kamekona a lecture on something, probably gross. Danny was chatting animatedly with Lori, with Steve sitting at the sideline, making a constipated face.
Cath observed her friends from the recliner, not unlike a queen surveying her people.
It had been fun, watching Steve dance around Danny, never quite daring to make a move.
But it had been going on for weeks now and it was getting old.
Cath decided to get the ball rolling.
“Listen up!”, immediately the room fell silent.
Cath continued: “It's time for a little Truth or Dare, house rules."
An excited murmur rose up around the room. Truth or Dare was a pretty common party game, but house rules were only brought up on special occasions.
House rules meant that Cath was the one deciding on all the truths and dares, including the picking of the askee/daree. They'd had some of their wildest times thanks to house rules.
Max paled, probably remembering that time he'd had to tell everybody about his most fucked up dream. Cath made a mental note to only ever give him dares, the world was just not ready for Max Bergman's inner workings yet.
No one spoke up though, which meant that everybody silently consented to being a part of the game.
An unholy glee shone from Cath's eyes as she looked at them all in turn.
“Well, well. Who shall go first?”
Kamekona had first turn and had to tell them all about who he was crushing on. Lori nearly fell out of her chair when he said her name.
Kono did a fantastic job drinking a cup of vodka/oj while upside down, held by Steve and Kamekona.
Steve nearly laughed his ass off as Kono painted Chin's lips with her lipstick and then donned some herself and kissed him on both cheeks for good measure.
He wasn't laughing so much, when Kono's turn meant she had to sit in Danny's lap. Danny looked like he was pretty happy about it though, which only seemed to make Steve more miserable.
Max' turn involved playing 'twinkle twinkle little star' on the piano between taking shots.
Jenna confessed that out of all the people in the room, she'd most like to kiss Cath. Which Cath had not seen coming and made her blush furiously.
Slightly out of it, she ordered Danny to sit in Steve's lap, which ended in them attempting to pile both Danny and Kono on poor Steve, who seemed literally crushed.
Cath was quick to amend that Kono was fine to get off Danny, which was predictably met with an “how about she get Danny off, instead?” from Kamekona and the no less predictable answering threat of physical violence from Chin.
Cath put a stop to the impending smackdown, by getting Chin to braid Jenna's hair. The result was surprisingly not terrible.
And so the evening continued. Cath was very careful, while making sure everybody got approximately the same level of drunk, that Danny never strayed from Steve's lap.
When Danny went to take a leak, she just gave him a meaningful look and without complaint he settled down on the couch with Steve again.
Danny seemed to take it all in stride, after sitting down gingerly at first, he was now full-on lounging, moving Steve around like a bunch of throw pillows on a diwan.
Steve in turn, looked carefully thrilled. Also terrified. It was kind of hilarious. Steve was their quarterback, 6 ft of muscle and dedication, but when he was around Danny he became this unsure, vulnerable creature. He reminded her of a baby bird, kind of fragile.
She stopped herself there. Some thoughts should just not. They just shouldn't.
She decided to be graceful and dared Jenna to kiss her. When she came up for air 5 minutes later, gasping for air but reluctant to let go, she realized that maybe she'd been a bit more self-serving than she cared to admit.
Jenna looked pleased though, that was all that mattered.
Steve was looking unbearably smug too, which instantly killed all thoughts of fragile baby birds.
“So,” Cath looked Steve dead in the eye, making an expansive gesture to her left: “time for seven minutes in heaven”.
Excited murmurs erupted around the room, as all the colour drained from Steve's face.
Danny looked pretty bemused, it took Cath a second to realize that was because Steve had tightened his arms around him.
When Steve realized what he'd been doing, he flushed an appealing shade of scarlet. Danny had taken to giving Steve's arm a consoling pat and whispering something to him that made Steve blush even harder. It gave Cath LIFE.
She got a little distracted, when she noticed that Jenna had also blushed prettily.
Where had this even come from, she wondered briefly, preferring to turn her attention back on the target.
She sent a grinning Chin and a cocky Lori in first and enjoyed the anxiety levels rocketing up in Steve, who had seemingly started to sweat.
Jenna had somehow come to sit very close to Cath.
Cath told herself that it had no effect on her.
By the time Kono and Max came out (looking surprisingly pleased with themselves) Jenna's pleading eyes were so intense that Cath felt like she was probably sweating more than Steve.
When she let her eyes roam over her eager-looking, at this point rather drunk, buddies – she decided to carpe diem this bitch.
Raising her voice dramatically she declared the next couple: “Jenna and.... me”.
Jenna's face lit up like a christmas tree.
Things got a bit hazy after that.
But the plan remained in her mind.
Cath started paying closer attention to Steve and Danny's interactions throughout the day.
She often shared classes with one of them, sometimes both, and simply moved her seat in the cafeteria closer to them.
It was always 'them'. She realized quickly, that it was very much unheard of for them to spend their lunch breaks apart.
They had a little routine, it was kind of cute.
Steve would order the healthiest thing available and Danny the unhealthiest.
They would then proceed to eat their food, Danny proceeding to exclaim about how delicious his food was and Steve droning on about the health benefits of his own meal.
About halfway through the meal one of them would snap, and take a pointed forkful of the other's plate. They would then proceed to eat off each other's plate and continue their good-natured ribbing until both plates were empty.
When Cath pointed that out to Jenna for the first time, her eyes grew the size of saucers and she was staring at them open-mouthed. “Have they always done this?” she asked, wonder in her voice.
“Apparently.” Cath shrugged, and used Jenna's distraction to steal her grapes.
Jenna didn't notice till the end of lunch break, so entranced was she by their display.
When they shared a class, they would always sit as close to each other as possible and drive their teachers up the wall with how much they talked to each other. Eventually they'd be seated at different sides of the classroom, but always they'd start the next lesson sitting next to each other again.
They seemed so close and at ease with each other, it almost seemed like the tiniest thing would set things in motion and end with them being together and ecstatic.
But that thing never seemed to happen.
There were idiosyncrasies too: Danny went to all of Steve's games, but from what Chin told her, Steve never went to watch any of Danny's baseball games. They spent nearly all their time in school together, but they never seemed to meet up outside of school.
There seemed to be an invisible wall somewhere and Cath was determined to tear it down.
Luckily her friends were nearly as eager as her to put Steve out of his misery.
Because they all agreed it was him, who suffered more.
Steve, who was still rocking the kicked puppy dog eyes whenever he thought Danny wasn't looking at him, seemed infinitely worse off than Danny, who just seemed confused sometimes.
It was understandable.
One minute they'd be talking, and then the next Steve would shut down completely, turn around and walk off.
Or they'd be joking around and then from one minute to the next Steve's smile would freeze on his face and turn into a grimace.
These occasions were often enough that they were noticed by their friends, who had one by one come around to the mission of getting these two happiness.
It was about two weeks into their observation that Kono stated “He thinks Danny's straight.” like a fact.
They looked first at Kono, then at the two of them, where Steve's smile had just gained an edge of madness and he was quickly gathering his things and leaving.
“I'm pretty sure they were talking about the dance next week” the others accepted this without question, because Kono had the uncanny ability to read people's lips from half-way across a room.
“Danny just said 'I wonder who Kono's going with' and Steve went all 'I have to go, I have an important dentist appointment', can you believe these guys?” Kono scoffed.
“As if Danny'd ever be straight. I mean.” she hesitated for a moment. “We were all pretty sure he was bi or something? Did anyone ever actually ask him?”
An awkward murmur rose around the table.
Turns out no-one had.
“Poor bradda” Kamekona sighed after Steve's retreating back.
A resounding murmur of agreement nearly drowned out Danny's “Hey guys, what are we talking about?”, as he plonked himself down at their table.
“Nothing” Cath told him through her teeth “We've been bored to death, please save us”.
Danny accepted this with grace and started telling stories of little league.
Immediately, everybody started to relax. Danny had a ton of these stories, he could keep going for hours.
Cath' and Kono's eyes met over the table, they gave tight, almost imperceptible nods.
They were going to learn the truth and hopefully Steve would never have to pull the face he did earlier again.
Max tried the direct approach: he asked.
Of course, Max being Max, he asked in such a way that Danny had no idea what he was talking about and launched into a good 20 minutes rant about how 'batting for the other team' could really damage the morale. “Like, you may think it's not a big deal. It's happened, historically, that one guy batted for the other team, because their batters were all injured and the game had to go on. BUT DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH IT MESSED WITH THE PLAYERS TO SEE THEIR OWN GUY PLAYING FOR THE OTHER TEAM? LIKE! That level of betrayal! I wouldn't expect you to understand, but as the great player himself-” and on and on and on.
If Cath hadn't been so invested in this thing, she would have found that exchange hilarious, especially Max' gobsmacked expression throughout Danny's monologue.
Jenna was their next try. With her sweet, honest face and to-the-point speech they had high hopes.
Jenna went over to Danny's house, to speak to him in private and returned three hours later, none the wiser.
“I was asking him about his exes, y'know? I thought that'd be a surefire way to know. But I couldn't have been more wrong. I mean, he told me everything. And I mean 'everything'. I know things about Danny that I never wanted to know, including the first time someone else touched his dick and that time someone in summer camp sneezed in his mouth when he was trying to kiss them. THEM. That's the word he used. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. he was speaking about an ex, he used 'they' and 'them', hell, he could have been talking about Christmas Trees for all I know. That boy gave nothing away. My head was spinning by the end, I don't feel like a real person anymore” she sighed dramatically and draped herself over Cath's side.
Cath rolled her eyes fondly and gave this some consideration.
It could mean many things. Maybe Danny didn't want to talk about his relationships on a deeper level, maybe he didn't trust Jenna, maybe he didn't remember?
There were too many unknown variables.
There was going to have to be more recon.
Effort put into learning more about Danny and his home-life, his friends, the company he kept, his hobbies, maybe as far back as his last school.
She considered this, sitting as she was with a sleepy Jenna tucked into her side, thinking about the scheming, the planning, the time that would have to go into it.
'Fuck it!' she thought.
She fished her phone out of her pocket and dialled Danny's number.
She didn't have to wait long.
“Hey Cath, howz-” she stopped him mid-word.
“Are you straight?” she asked, in a businesslike tone.
She ignored Jenna's horrified gasp in favour of Danny's gasp of outrage.
“ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW??? AM I STRAIGHT??? What the fuck does that even mean?” Danny was practically shouting.
Cath held the phone a little ways away from her ear.
“It means what I said, are you or are you not straight?” she repeated, beginning to feel impatient.
She was greeted with a beeping sound: Danny had hung up on her.
“That went well”, Jenna observed drily.
“Shut up”, Cath replied, bitter in light of her own failure to produce.
Danny made a point not to speak to her for the rest of the week and Steve was torn between looking confused and giving Cath the stink-eye out of solidarity.
It was both tragic and hilarious at the same time.
Cath spent the weekend surfing with Kono, Jenna half watching them-half reading a book on the beach. She didn't spend a lot of time thinking about Danny, but occasionally something like guilt flitted through her thoughts.
Danny had been very upset.
But the sun was shining and Jenna was wearing a very cute bikini and so she didn't dwell on it.
Monday brought her concerns back, more pressing.
Danny had ignored her through AP chemistry, Steve had ignored her during PE and finally they had combined forces and joint-ignored her in English Literature.
Everybody else was as nice to her as they'd always been, Jenna tried to raise her spirits during their shared classes, but the silence weighed on Cath.
By lunch break she was capital d Done with the silent treatment.
Cath was sitting with her usual group of friends chattering animatedly around her, but all she could hear was the absense of noise from where Danny and Steve would have usually joined them and would be sitting and bickering about their food right now.
She was just about to get up, when Danny and Steve picked up their plates and made their way over to them, stone-faced.
“I have been thinking”, Danny declared to the table at large, not lifting his eyes off his lasagna.
“There is a chance that I may have reacted a little badly, rather, that I may have overreacted a bit about that thing.” He was met with several nodding heads.
“You all know?”, he seemed puzzled and slightly embarassed. Steve used his distraction to switch Danny's lasagna for his salad.
“Yeah brah, we do” Kamekona told Danny, smiling with a lot of teeth
“Not that we wanted to”, Chin added: “but the drama seemed inescapable”.
“Inescapable, my ass”, Danny muttered to himself.
Kono talked over him: “Don't break your tongue, cuz, using big words like that. We might think you're too smart for us”
Chin gave her a serene smile “You know I'm too smart for you lot”.
The bickering went on for a little while longer, until a deep sigh stopped them in their tracks.
“I'm not, okay?” Danny said into the newly-created silence.
He was met with matching stares of confusion.
“I'm not straight, okay?” Danny said, colour rising to his cheeks. “I'm not. So. Now you know. I. I gotta go!” and with that he bolted from his chair.
Excited chatter started up immediately, but Cath only had eyes for Steve.
Steve, who was sitting, unblinking, staring after Danny with a gobsmacked expression.
He opened his mouth, and closed it again.
Steve managed to look exhilarated, terrified and angry at the same time.
Cath finally took her eyes off him when the tugging at her sleeve got more insistent.
“Hey,” Jenna whispered in her ear: “should someone go after him, do you think?”
Cath got a tiny bit distracted by the breath of hot air against her hair, but managed to get her thoughts in order enough to be able to answer.
“I don't think so. If anyone should go after him, it's Steve. But look at him, he's in no position to do anything.” she nudged her head in his direction and Jenna had to agree.
Steve wasn't even pretending to take in what was happening around him. He was deep in thought, fork stuck in the plate of congealing lasagna.
“Should we-” Jenna started.
Cath shook her head. “Let them work it out themselves.”
“I really just want them to get their heads out of their asses” Lori piped in.
Chin elbowed her gently, Lori glared at him at first, but then turned to Steve with a guilty expression. She needn't have bothered, Steve didn't react at all. He was still staring off in space, vaguely in the direction Danny had left in.
Kamekona, never one for awkward silences, broke out in a tale of a Luau he'd gone to at the weekend.
As the rest of the group listened to his boisterous tale, Cath felt Jenna lean further into her side.
“I'm glad we're not as bad as them” she whispered.
Cath fumbled around under the table until she found Jenna's hand and squeezed it.
“Me too.” she whispered back.
None of them saw Danny for the rest of the day, he didn't show up to any of his classes.
What they did see, was Steve looking more and more agitated, hardly able to sit through his own classes.
By the time the final bell rang, he was bouncing with nervous energy.
They watched him all but sprint off in the direction of his house, but there was no doubt in their mind, that he was going to go to Danny's later on.
So convinced were they of this, and the inevitable making up and getting together, that when the two of them arrived in school separately the next morning and acted like nothing at all had happened between them, that their friends were starting to have second thoughts.
The two of them stood together, seemingly talking animatedly. But they were a good two feet away from each other and it seemed that their smiles were not quite reaching their eyes.
Jenna and Cath were watching them from a distance, half hidden behind a convenient tree.
Jenna crossed her arms over her chest and squinted at them like she was trying to peer directly in their souls.
“So”, she started conversationally: “what exactly are we going to do with them? I'm no expert, but I don't think they've managed to get anywhere on their own. Again. Or should I say 'still'?, I mean, how long has it been now? It's starting to get on my nerves, to be honest with you.”
Cath silently agreed. It was kind of a shitshow.
Then she stopped in her tracks, berating herself for not having thought of it earlier.
“Jenna, my dear, I think it's time we had a little get-together, wouldn't you say?” she asked, eyes sparkling.
Jenna understood immediately: “House rules?”
“Yep.” and with that, cackling manically, they made their way to their first class of the day.
Cath and Jenna had talked a lot back and forth about whether they should specifically invite Danny and Steve, or just trust them to show up.
They usually turned up at Cath's house every weekend she had it to herself, but with how weird they'd been acting lately, they didn't want to take risks in making them suspicious.
Danny and Steve had eaten together all week, but they hadn't stolen each other's food as freely as they'd done before, there was always a note of hesitation. An air of 'am I allowed to do this?' unspoken to all their actions.
They were still sitting together in class, but they didn't talk very much anymore, which ironically meant they got to keep sitting together since they were no distraction to each other.
This, of course, had been observed closely by countless eyes.
Whenever more than one of their gang was assembled they talked over in minute detail any and all of the interactions they had witnessed.
Kono was especially eager and when she heard about the upcoming houseparty, she had an unholy glee in her eyes.
“About time we did something!” she said and Cath had to agree. Mostly because she was worried about what Kono would do if left to her own devices. She'd heard her talk about locking them up in a closet, and she knew her well enough by now to know that she was dead serious.
Friday came around, and Cath eagerly waited for her parents to pack their bags and leave.
It felt like forever, till she finally got to stand on the front porch and wave after them, as they drove off into the sunset. Figuratively. It was 1 pm. The sun was still out.
Jenna was there in less than 15 minutes and they set about planning the evening.
Turned out, that that hadn't been the most efficient plan of all time.
They ended up mostly making out until they realized with growing terror, that the sun was (actually this time) setting and the guests were sure to arrive soon.
Cath dashed to grab some chips and drinks from her secret storage. Jenna pragmatically put away some of the more valuable/breakable objects in the room.
When Cath returned, arms laden precariously, Jenna had just finished moving all the house plants to a secure location(the broom cupboard) and managed to catch the bottle of vodka that made a heroic dive for the den's tile floor.
Cath gave an impressed whistle through her teeth. “Not bad, girl. Not bad at all”.
“Shut up”, Jenna blushed and helped her artfully arrange the bottles and chip bags for maximum effect.
In a surprising turn of events, Danny was their first guest of the night.
Bursting into the room with a 1000 watt smile, carrying a six pack of beer that only god knew where he got it from, and immediately started stuffing his face with handfuls of pork rinds.
“I can't see what Steve sees in him” Kono whispered, having come in shortly after Danny.
She gave him a look of mild disgust, which he answered with a bright grin that showed the content of his mouth.
Kono pretended to gag.
Cath and Jenna giggled in chorus. The corners of Kono's mouth twitched and inevitably she started laughing too.
“Can't resist that Jersey charm, eh?” Danny called from where he and the pork rinds had taken a more relaxed position reclining on the couch. He saluted them with his beer and gave them an exaggerated wink.
The girls rolled their eyes in unison, arms crossing like one.
Thankfully the arrival of Lori and Chin distracted them, with Lori pulling the girls aside excitedly, to tell them that Chin had finally asked her to be his girlfriend.
Chin sat down next to Danny, ignoring the squeals coming from the gaggle of girls.
They started chatting about baseball, something Danny was very passionate about and Chin was carefully fascinated with.
As their conversation went down a well-trodden path, past added challenges of baseball in a hot climate and pitching through the years, the room started to fill.
Kamekona quickly took over the turntables (Cath's laptop) and started blasting something that sounded like ukulele screamo, his hulking frame and serene smile daring anyone to question his choice in music.
Their friend Jerry started a lip sync battle with another kid in one corner of the room, while the other corner became the designated dance zone.
It was more a flailing of limbs, but the people there seemed pretty into it.
Cath kept half an eye on them, silently thanking Jenna for her foresight.
It would not do for one of her mother's sacred vases to take a dive.
Time passed, drinks flowed and the mood settled on 'pleasantly drunk and kind of lazy'. This was the moment Cath had waited for. Unfortunately, a key piece of her plan was missing.
She'd kept Danny in her line of sight for the entire night, expecting Steve to appear at his side any minute. But no such luck.
Danny remained alone.
Not 'alone' alone. Chin was still sitting with him (if slightly distracted by Lori curled into his side) and Max had joined them and currently seemed mid-lecture on – piano keys? - cat litter? Who even knew?
But there was a distinct absence of 'Steve' at his side.
She went and pointed that out to Jenna, who looked at her like she was crazy.
“Babe, how much did you drink?”, she seemed genuinely concerned: “Steve's right over there?” and she pointed towards the window, where Steve was indeed lurking, leaning against the wall.
Cath blinked. But yeah, it was definitely him. The burning stare was a dead giveaway.
Kono squeezed between Danny and Chin on the couch, practically onto Danny's lap and Cath was sure Steve was going to ruin his molars. She could see him grinding his teeth from across the room.
She could feel a panicky laugh climb her throat.
This was going to be better than she had imagined.
Cath startled, when Jenna took her hand and squeezed her fingers.
“Shall we get started?”she asked.
Cath's could see her own excitement reflected in Jenna's eyes.
Unable to shake the giddiness from her voice she agreed.
“Let's do this!”
Stepping on the armchair, she clapped her hands to draw everybody's attention to her.
“You guys! We're going to have a little fun. It's time for truth or dare.” she made a dramatic pause “...it's House Rules”.
This was met with a couple of whoops and a bunch of excited chatter.
A couple of people started gathering their things and saying their goodbyes.
Nobody had to join in. There were no hard feelings, if someone didn't want to play. But there were no spectator seats. If you wanted to watch the spectacle, you had to be a part of it.
They waited for the room to clear, Cath getting in her seat of power -the recliner.
Jenna simply sat down on her lap, no hesitation.
And off they went.