Page 43 of Home Field Advantage

It doesn’t escape me that she knows the show well enough to know exactly which song I’m referring to. Why is a secret nerdy side so damn hot? “Oh, but I can!” And I can, in myembarrassingly white girl way. No one’s ever heard me do it other than Sage and Morgan—Morgan is a huuuuge nerd for the show and Lin-Manuel Miranda in general—but I have an inexplicable urge to perform it right now.

I stand up straight and give her a nod, and she laughs as she yells, “Lafayette!”

Boom—I’m off, and watching her jaw drop is so damn gratifying, I sail right through the rapid-fire verses, even letting my limbs dance a little, all thoughts of shame and shyness forgotten. When I’m done, I give a sweeping bow, and she rises up on her knees and gives me a round of hollering applause. Morgan would be so proud.

I have kind of a ridiculous thought, then—what if we FaceTimed with Sage and Morgan? It sucks that Amber’s image of me here is as someone with no friends. It’d be cool to actually get to introduce her to some.

But… as what? Is she my girlfriend? Are we technically dating if we can’t even go on dates by ourselves? If I’m sitting at home on Saturday while she goes to the dance without me on another guy’s arm? A gay guy with a boyfriend, yeah, but a guy nevertheless. Besides, everyone else is sure they’re boning, so thinking of her as mine feels even more ridiculous.

“Earth to Jack. What are you spacing about?”

Do I tell her? I look at her, sitting back on her heels on the bed, perfect brown waves disheveled from rolling around with me, blue-green eyes tinged with concern, freckles dusting her little ski jump of a nose. She’s not meant to be an outcast. She’s notgoingto risk being an outcast, for me or anyone else, andI’mnot going to risk losing the one good thing I have here.

Time to go back to playing games.

“So, are you gay or bi or… what?”

She purses her lips. “Why?”

“Just curious,” I assure her. “Not a judgment. Promise. It doesn’t matter to me.”

She scrutinizes my face as if trying to see whether there’s a lie behind it, but she isn’t going to find one. I really don’t care which genders she likes, as long as she likesme.

Finally, she exhales. “I don’t know. For a while I thought pansexual was the right label for me, but I just… can’t seem to get into cis boys. Girls? Very much! Nonbinary people? Definitely! Trans guys? Absolutely. But then a cis guy flirts with me, even a really rare good guy like Austin Barrett, and I am so, so not into it.” Her fingers twist around each other like she needs something to do with her hands, and I think about reaching out to take one, but it feels like she needs her space to process. “According to the wisdom of the Internet, ‘polysexual’ is the best fit, so that’s what I’m trying on right now. In my head, anyway.”

“And? How’s it feel?”

“Like it’d be nice if more people knew what it meant,” she says with a twitch of a smile. “But I think I like it. And I’malso good with ‘queer.’ And really, I just know what I find hot when I see it.”

“Meaning… me?” I ask with a grin.

A fucking adorable pink flush creeps into her cheeks. “Well… yeah.”

I laugh and lean over to peck her on the mouth. “You are cute as hell, you know that?”

“Shut up,” she says, swatting me away, her skin flaming. “What about you? Gay or bi or… what?”

“Oh, I’m super fucking gay.” At that, she cracks up, and so do I. “I mean.” I gesture down at my flannel shirt and cargo shorts. “I’m definitely not fooling anyone who doesn’t wanna be fooled. The only thing that could maybe make me look gayer is an undercut, which I wanna do eventually. A full-on mohawk, maybe. Super short on the sides and soft and spiky on top. I think that’d look cool.”

She smiles. “I think so too. So why don’t you just do it? Like you said, it’s not like you’re in the closet.”

I tug my upper lip between my teeth. “There’s a difference between being visibly but quietly queer and putting it all out there. You’d be amazed by how much people can ignore if they want to. There are literally people who assume I’m in this just to see guys naked in the locker room, because they can’t imagine a girl could have zero interest in boys. And while I categorically do not give a shit about them, I don’t feel like giving people one more thing about me to tear apart. Besides, I don’t need to reinforce anyone’s stereotypical bullshit, either.I’m not good at football because I’m a lesbian; I’m good at football, and I’m a lesbian.”

“I hear that,” she says on a sigh, fiddling with the ends of her hair. “I don’t wanna hear any of that ‘But you’re a cheerleader!’ crap. Like, yeah, I am—what the hell is your point?”

“Oh my God, you’re Natasha Lyonne.”

“Who?”

I drop into her desk chair. “There’s an old movie calledBut I’m a Cheerleaderabout a cheerleader who gets sent to gay conversion camp. She’s played by that actress fromRussian Doll. We should watch it.”

“Like, on a date?” she asks, waggling her eyebrows. “A date of just the two of us?”

“Exactly like that.” I roll the chair toward her bed and wrap a pinkie around hers. “Is that cool?”

“Yeah, I guess that’d be all right,” she says, and laughs. I love her laugh. I lovemakingher laugh.

“Hey, this is me playing hard to get,” I say seriously. “Please note my very casual invite.”

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