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Jonas:

Ok. See you later

That was it? He wasn’t going to push for more details?

Whatever. I returned to my conversation with my sister.

Me:

I’ve got a date on Friday but in the unlikely chance I happen to see you, I promise to try not to embarrass you or scare Charlie off

Sophie:

Thanks. You’re the best. I don’t want to mess anything up

Something inside me twisted, and I couldn’t bring myself to reply. Shoving my phone back into my pocket, I did my best to concentrate on my lecture.It was a lost cause, though. The events of the past few weeks played through my mind on a loop.

By the time the lecture ended, I’d come to a decision.

I was going to put some distance between me and Charlie—even more than I had over the past week. The fact was, Charlie liked Sophie. Sophie liked him back. Charlie and I were friends. He was a good guy. Good enough for my sister, and that wasn’t something I thought about many people.

A memory flashed through my mind, completely unbidden.

“I like Ria. Who do you like, Nate?”

I glanced over at my new friends, sprawled out under the shade of the large elm tree on the school field. They’d been discussing the party we’d been at last weekend.

Meeting Mark’s gaze, I shrugged. “Uh…I dunno.”

Alfie rolled his eyes. “You have to like one of them, at least. Is it Amelia? Or Kayla? She kissed Henry, but I know she thinks you’re, like, fit or whatever.”

“What if I don’t like any of them?” My voice came out scratchy, and I swiped my water bottle, downing the contents.

“Any of them? What? You have to like at least one of them.”

“Yeah. That’s weird. You’re not gay or anything, are you?” Alfie and Mark pulled a face at each other, and then Mark sat upright.

“It’s okay to be, uh, gay, or whatever,” he said slowly before exchanging another grimace with Alfie. “But everyone knows football players are straight, though.”

Their faces were too easy to read. It was okay not to be straight, but they’d have a hard time accepting it. Not that I needed to be thinking about that, anyway. I was straight. Noticing other boys didn’t count.

It didn’t.

It couldn’t.

I was a football player, and they were right. It was going to be my career when I grew up, and there were no professional players in the Premier League who were anything but straight. Not openly, anyway.

I wanted to fit in here at this new school, and that meant I needed to act the way they expected me to. It wouldn’t be hard, anyway. I liked girls, a lot. Noticing the odd boy here and there was something I could easily ignore.

“Yeah. Kayla’s alright. Amara’s nice, though, isn’t she?”

The looks of relief on their faces made something clench in my gut, but as they continued talking, it eased up. I had friends. I fit in. I was good at football. I was becoming popular in my school year, and that, in turn, would ease the way for Sophie when she joined the school in September. She’d been struggling since Mum and Dad divorced, and having to move to a new house and school had made her life even harder. As her big brother, it was up to me to make things go as smoothly for her as I could.

That was what was important.

The noise of students packing up their things around me shocked me out of my memory. On autopilot, I gathered everything up, swinging my bag over my shoulder and exiting the lecture hall.

It was only when I was back in my bedroom that I let myself look at my final unread text.