Page 64 of Ours
Derek sighed. This wasn’t going to end well. He spent the next couple of hours trying to figure out just what was going on and where the rumors were coming from. On top of Nic freaking out and running away, Derek also didn’t see Cory in their chemistry class and also worried what that meant. If people were giving Nic shit, who knows what they were doing to Cory.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t terribly easy to get information out of anyone in the middle of the school day. He did his best, but aside from some very, very light info he managed to overhear, he was forced to wait until lunch to do any real legwork. Once the bell rang, he started his search, trying to find people who had already heard the rumor without spreading it further. Derek really had to be careful about who he asked, not wanting to draw more attention to the rumors, or even worse, confirm them.
Eventually, Derek was also able to trace it back to the cheerleading team. Lunch was almost over, and he was seated, trying to figure out the best way to talk to the cheerleaders about this. The football players and cheerleaders were naturally very close, not to mention that Nic was dating their captain. The wrong question could get back to the wrong person, and if Nic was freaking out already, he might well have an aneurysm if Derek somehow made things worse.
“Hey, there you are.” Derek looked up to see Cory speaking to him, looking no worse for wear. “Been looking for you all lunch.”
“Oh, yeah, sorry.” Derek wasn’t sure what, if anything, Cory knew about. “Trying to figure some stuff out. What’s up?”
“Well—” Cory was cut off by the bell signaling the end of lunch. “Crap. Can we talk after school? It’s important.”
“Everything okay?”Maybe he did hear about it?
“Yeah, it’s just … not stuff to talk about at school.” Cory started toward his next class. “See ya fifth period?”
“Yeah, Cor. Sure.”Maybe not.“See you then.”
As Cory turned and walked away, Derek hoped he hadn’t noticed the few people who were watching them, talking to each other in hushed whispers. This was going to be a long day.
“Nic, baby, you have to calm down!”
Amy and Nic were sitting in a park not far from school. After Amy, who had heard but did not believe the rumors, saw how badly Nic was reacting to them, she took him off-campus to cool down. It didn’t seem to be helping much, though.
“I can’t. This is driving me nuts.” Nic was pacing back and forth in front of the bench Amy was sitting on.
“They’re just rumors, babe,” Amy reassured him. “You know I don’t believe them. In a week or two, no one will even remember this.”
“That’s easy for you to say!” Nic exclaimed. “It’s not your reputation on the line.”
“Why do you care so much about this?” Amy sighed. “It’s just a stupid rumor. They go around school all the time!”
“Yeah becauseyourteammates spread them around!” Nic accused.
“Hey, that’s not fair; they don’tstartthem!” Amy defended. “No one else on the team believes it either. I even told Jenna that Steve was probably just saying it because he was still pissed off at you over something stupid.”
“Steve?Steve!?” Nic stopped dead in his tracks at the mention of that name, fuming. “I’m going to kick his fucking ass!”
“I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you’d dothis.” Amy sighed again. “Will you just sit down and chill out for a second?”
“No, fuck that.” Nic was already making his way back toward the high school. “He’s fuckingdead.”
“So what did you want to talk about?” Derek asked as he and Cory walked toward his car from their fifth period chemistry class. The rest of the day had been surprisingly quiet, though that probably had something to do with there being no sign of Nic anywhere since that morning.
“Well, it’s about the stuff between you, me, and Nic.” Cory was understandably nervous to bring things up.
“Damn, I guess youdidhear the rumors going around then,” Derek said as he unlocked his car, throwing his backpack in the backseat. “Sorry, boy. They’ll blow over soon enough though. Just stupid high school bullshit.”
“Uh, what rumors?” Cory had no idea what Derek was talking about as he climbed into the passenger seat. “What’s going on with Nic? I didn’t see him all day.”
“Shit,” Derek cursed and started the car. “Okay, keep in mind that dumb stuff like this gets said all the time, and it always fizzles out, but … someone is saying they saw you and Nic having sex at the party after the game last weekend.”
“What!?” Cory squawked. “Who’s saying that!?”
“Don’t know yet. That’s what I was trying to figure out at lunch.” Derek pulled out of the school parking lot and headed toward home. “It came from the cheerleaders, like it usually does, but because it’s about Nic…”
“Asking them about it might make things worse,” Cory finished Derek’s thought.
“Right,” Derek confirmed. “Nic found me after first period this morning, totally freaking out, but I haven’t seen him since. He wasn’t at lunch or in gym.”
