CHAPTER ONE
JACK
“Is this a joke?”
OK, it’s not the reaction I’d hoped for, but coming from Dylan, it’s practically a compliment. I wave my hands up and down my tuxedo in the manner of a game show hostess. “It’s Italian tailoring, one hundred per cent pure wool, with satin trim details.”
He crosses his arms and gives me unimpressed eyes.
“Is it the shoes?” I ask.
“It is not the shoes.”
“Dolce and Gabbana.”
He shakes his head and steps inside like the shoes are nothing, and closes the front door behind him.
I blow my cheeks out, really giving it some serious thought. “Oh!” I say, feigning suddenly remembering. “Do you mean” – I twirl around on the spot, the rainbow flag cloak that’s around my shoulders billowing out like some fabulous gay tornado – “THIS?!”
Dylan still isn’t smiling, which is weird because this has to be the most spectacular thing ever. “Very funny.” He grimaces.
“Thank you, I think, but this is actually my outfit. So.”
Dylan glowers at me. I’m pretty sure this is meant to be one of the most romantic nights of my life, the sort you look back on if you’re lucky enough to make it to eighty, and sigh, and remember it all in gorgeous sepia, but my boyfriend literally looks like he’s going to murder me – and not with something clever and glamorous like cyanide in champagne (surely the weapon of choice for any homosexual with a shred of self-respect?), but violently. With an axe. “I thought we agreed—”
“I know, but I wanted to—”
“It can’t always be about you, Jack.” He stomps through to the kitchen. “Can I get a glass of water?”
“Sure,” I mutter, staying in the hall while he disappears.
So, it’s going well.
“You look nice!” I shout through to him. And he does. He looks fricking gorgeous.
The sound of a tap running.
“There’s a bottle of Evian in the fridge if you prefer not to drink piss water. I know it’s environmentally less friendly but since we’re all going to die in the apocalypse anyway, I say DRINK THE GOOD STUFF, BABY!”
Silence.
He’s pissed off with me, but year eleven prom is, quite frankly, the end of five years of near total hell at secondary school and I’m not going to mark its passing quietly. Hell, no. This shitshow is going out with a bang. And turning up in the same shiny polyester suit that all the other year eleven boys will turn up in is not anywhere close to being “a bang”. Screw that. If I’m not going to fit in, if I’m going to stand out, then I’m really gonna stand out.
Speaking of which, he didn’t even mention the glittery eye make-up. Do I need more? I walk through to the kitchen, where Dylan is finishing off a glass of chocolate milk.
“Sorry,” he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He knows the chocolate milk is mine, and he knows it’s precious to me.
“The eyeshadow,” I begin.
He licks the last of the milk off his lips and looks across at me. “Uh-huh?”
“Do you love it?”
He stares at me, then his face breaks into a smile. “Well, you … I mean, you certainly look gay.”
“I am gay!” I say. “So are you!”
He doesn’t deny it, but he ever so slightly flinches, and I know I’ve said the wrong thing. “Besides,” I continue, “you don’t win prom king and queen without going to some effort.”
He scratches his tousled dark brown hair. “You really think they’re gonna give it to a gay couple? Really? Our school?”
He has a point, of course, but he must clock the look of disappointment on my face because he quickly adds, “Hey, but who knows? Maybe things are changing.”
I nod at him and smile, although I know he was probably right to begin with.
“I want to have a nice night, so I’m sorry I was a dick about your outfit,” he says.
“That’s OK.”
“I’m a bit tense.”
“Why are you tense? Do you need a massage?”
“No. I mean, yes, I do, but—” He gestures to his bow tie. “It’s real. I don’t know how to do it back up again if I untie it.”
I laugh at him. “Were you dressed by your mum?”
“Practically.”
I know why he’s tense. He prefers me to be “straight acting”. He told me that when I turned up to one of his matches in a Some people are gay. Get over it! T-shirt. I was just trying to do my bit to challenge homophobia in football, but apparently some of the other boys found it distracting and that’s why they lost the game. I don’t know, it’s almost like some people have a lame excuse for everything. I sigh. “Do you want me to lose the rainbow cloak?”
“No.”
“I want them all to see it, Dylan. I want everyone who made my life hell for the last three years to see they haven’t won. I’m here. And I’m gonna shine so bright I’ll blind the fuckers!”
“I know.”
“Aaaaand I’ve only gone and bagged the hottest guy in the school. Also worth celebrating.”
He flicks his eyes down to the floor, embarrassed, I think.
“You look really good, Jack. You’ve maybe got a whiff of gay vampire about you, but it works.” He smirks at me. “Now make a joke about what gay vampires suck.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m classier than that.”
He holds his arms out wide. “Come on.”
And I go in for a hug.
Dylan.
I one hundred per cent, truly, madly, deeply, unreservedly, from the bottom of my big gay heart, love this boy. And OK, OK, I know what people say. I know how I’m not supposed to really understand the meaning of love because I’m “only sixteen”, so how could I possibly get my innocent little head around such a complex thing, but it’s not like I see anyone older with their shit together in this regard. In fact, I vividly remember the screaming row Mum and Dad had, before Dad left, when I was ten years old. “I love you!” Dad had pleaded, shielding his head from the onslaught of shoes that Mum was hurling out of the window at him. “You don’t know the meaning of love!” Mum had snarled back.
So, I’m not convinced it’s an age thing.
And me, I do know the meaning.
And right now, he is standing in my kitchen, my date for the prom, in a dinner jacket and bow tie, with that dark brown messy hair of his, those goddamn deep brown eyes, and that playful little smile he always has when he knows I’m about to kiss him, and I think, yes, this is love, because if it isn’t, then what the hell is it?
OK, maybe right now, it’s mainly lust. Let’s say seventy per cent lust and the rest – I can’t even do the maths because I’m so horny – is love.
Thirty per cent. It’s thirty per cent love.
But normally it’s more fifty-fifty.
It’s just … Christ alive, he scrubs up well.
I go in for a kiss.
“You smell gorgeous,” I murmur.
“It’s actually my dad’s,” he says. “I just spritzed it on.”
“Well, it’s certainly a step up from Lynx.”
“Which there is nothing wrong with.”
“If you want to smell like the boys’ changing rooms after year eight PE.”
He chuckles, and his hands snake round my waist and inside my dinner jacket, and he pulls me into him. Him taking the initiative like this is a new thing. Dylan came out at the beginning of year eleven, causing a major stir because he doesn’t just play football, he is – wait for it – captain of the goddamn football team, oh, yes, he is! So basically he was the first person in school to come out who wasn’t instantly hated and bullied, because Dylan is adored as a sportsman – he’s like this hero that even the straight boys check out (in fairness, he looks so hot in his footy kit, anyone would lose their shit), and suddenly gay was cool. Now, obviously that annoys me – anyone should be able to come out and not take crap for it – but on the plus side, it did mean quite a few people found the courage to come out too, so I’m glad for that. And literally, from the LGBTQ+ society having a membership of five, it’s now up to fifteen. Next year, I get to be president and plan to double it. Next year is going to be so gay. It’s totally going to piss off Mrs Nunn, the evangelical RE teacher.
But I digress. I was sitting by myself one lunchtime as usual, and Dylan strode right up to me, with such a sense of purpose I seriously thought he was going to hit me.
“What are you doing?” he said as I cowered behind the bench.
I just stared at him.
He sighed. “I came to apologize.” He looked down at the ground, then back up at me. “About the year nine thing. In PE.”
The mention of it made my stomach turn to lead. But also the thing happened two years previously, so why was he apologizing now? The story was this: I’d just come out, and some of the boys in my year responded by refusing to get changed with me in PE because I made them feel “uncomfortable”. Their ignorant parents got involved too, backing their stupid kids up, like parents of those sorts of kids always do. After a lot of arguing, the school suggested that maybe I’d prefer to get changed in the disabled toilet – dressing the whole thing up like it was a privilege, my own personal changing room, when really they’d just yielded to the bigots because it was easier.
“It was really shitty,” Dylan said.
I shrugged. “You weren’t part of it.”
“But I didn’t stand up for you. Not one of us stood up for you.”
“Well, when you’re the only gay boy in the year, it goes with the territory.”
Then he looked me right in the eye, his bottom lip wobbling slightly. “You’re not the only gay boy.”
Obviously, I couldn’t believe it at first. Dylan Hooper. Gay. But over the weeks that followed we started hanging out more and actually enjoying one another’s company. Now, it’s true there wasn’t (isn’t!) a wealth of options in terms of gay kids to hang out with. In our year, to start with, it was just me and him. Afterwards, thanks to the Dylan Makes Gay OK Factor, there was Theo, who’s bi and seeing a girl in the year above, and then Tariq. Tariq’s super sweet, super geeky, and has a rich dad who runs an app company, so if any of those appeal, he’s your boy. He’s now on the LGBTQ+ society committee with me, and next year, he’s going to be my deputy. Honestly, he’s such a sweet lad, so utterly wholesome, he must be protected at all costs, but I guess he just didn’t do it for Dylan. The sixth formers are all in very serious and committed relationships with each other, and apart from a collection of very marvellous girls, that only leaves a couple of lads in year eight and nine, and, well, no. However, I did eventually shake off the idea that Dylan was only hanging out with me due to a lack of other options, and started to entertain the idea that he possibly actually quite liked me, and so I took the bull by the horns and asked him if he wanted to come back to mine to start the history homework together. At which he was all,
“Er, um, I guess, yes? OK, then?”
And just as we got to mine, he added,
“You do know I don’t study history, don’t you?”
And I smirked at him. “I do know that, Dylan, yes.” Bless.
To start with, whenever we would “do history homework” together it was always me suggesting it. But after a while (at least until exams got in the way and literally everything was put on hold), it would be him. It’s always been behind closed doors, usually his bedroom, which is a monument to dreary masculinity, with its simple, functional decoration and pungent smell of Deep Heat (a far cry from my own fairy light, scatter cushion, lavender pillow mist kingdom), but he seems a bit more comfortable in his own skin these days. It’s nice.
We break away from the kiss. “We should get some pics,” I say.
“For Instagram.” Dylan does not like Instagram. He reluctantly lets me post pictures of us, but he refuses to be involved – doesn’t even have an account. That’s the reason I haven’t told him that any pictures of him always get significantly more likes than anything I post without him. And the comments are something else. But I don’t want his head to get big, so blissful ignorance is best.
I take a few selfies of us, a few of him looking all smouldering and James Bond, and then a bit of video of me romping around the garden with my gay cape, before he checks the time on his phone and suggests we make a move, because god knows it would be catastrophic if we got there so late the non-alcoholic punch had run out.
But this is the bit I’m most looking forward to actually. Dylan has a motorbike. Not only that, he has passed his test and is legally allowed to ride it with a pillion passenger – aka me. Which means I am going to roar into the schoolyard for the year eleven prom on the back of a motorcycle driven by a massive hunk, like some glorious moment in an American coming-of-age movie circa 1985. If he also does the Dirty Dancing lift with me, like I’ve made him promise, the prom is going to be so kitsch and camp it will literally explode into confetti.
We walk towards my front door. “Are we technically supposed to be wearing motorbike leathers for this?” I ask.
“You do know it’s a moped, right? Not a motorbike,” Dylan replies.
“I mean, what’s the actual difference?”
And then he opens the door, I step outside and I see the thing.
CHAPTER TWO
NATE
I’m pretty sure prom is something you’re meant to look forward to, but somehow I’ve made sure I’m not. Which is me all over. I’m really good at making sure I don’t have a good time.
Elements of Dread in Ascending Order of Dreadfulness
1.My outfit. My tux is hired because money is tight and we couldn’t afford to buy one that you can get altered. That’s no one’s fault, but it’s classic bad luck that the hire shop didn’t have anything left in my size. So now I look like a year seven kid on the first day of term, all dressed up in an oversized blazer and trousers that are slightly too long.
2.The speech. Oh god, the speech. “Someone’s got to do it, Nate!” the head merrily told me. “And you’re the spokesman for your year!” I mean, I’m really not. I was voted senior prefect, but it wasn’t a vote of popularity or respect – it was malicious. The title confers no benefits whatsoever, only loads of horrible responsibilities, like monitoring the lunch queue, putting away chairs after assembly and giving speeches to people who are just waiting for you to fail, preferably hilariously, so they can upload it somewhere.
3.The BIG THING. You see? And there I go again, already building this one up by calling it “the big thing” in the first place, when I could just call it, “The really stupid thing that I’ve no idea why I’m doing and maybe I won’t.” Except, of course, thanks to a certain someone, I finally feel like I actually want to, so there’s that. Yes, I’m going to come out to everyone. And I’m doing it big-gesture style because I’m an idiot (a) it’s a special prom surprise for Tariq, and I know it’ll make him proud and happy, and what more could I want? And (b) I don’t want everyone gossiping about it, I just want to get it out there, all at once, really clear, fresh start, new page, all that stuff. Plus, it saves me having the same conversation, like, over a hundred times, and the only other effective way of doing it would be to take an advert out in the end-of-term school newsletter: Nate Harrison would like to proudly announce that he is officially gay – flowers are not necessary, but please send any donations to his PayPal account so his wardrobe becomes befitting of his new status.
Yeah, I’m not doing that.
But first, I have to deal with THE BIG THING (must stop calling it that) with my parents because if I don’t, they’ll hear about it anyway from some third party (probably Linda at number fifty-five) and Mum will be upset because she’ll think me not telling her first means our parent-child relationship has broken down and that I’ve got other secrets, like being addicted to meth, or keeping a scrapbook under my mattress full of my favourite BTS pics and self-insert fan fiction, with a list of all the boys ranked in order of how cute I think they are, with detailed explanatory notes and appendices. For example.
Anyway, I take a deep breath and enter the lounge, where I know my parents await me and where I’ve strategically given myself approximately five minutes to get it all out in the open before I really have to go because Mr Walker says I need to do a “soundcheck” before everyone arrives in the gym.
“Oh, Nate, look at you!” Mum coos, coming over to tweak my bow tie needlessly.
“Hey.”
“Who’s a handsome boy?”
I grimace. “Mum, you’re doing that thing again!”
“Hmm?” She’s only half-listening, brushing down the shoulders of my jacket, making me paranoid I’ve got dandruff.
“Where you’re talking to me like I’m a dog,” I continue. “Do you want me to start weeing on the carpet?”
She frowns. “You are not going to wee on the carpet, Nate.”
“No, I know, but that’s what dogs… Oh, never mind.”
“Well?” Mum says, presenting me to my dad.
I stand awkwardly, not really knowing where to put my hands, but eventually just opting to shove them in my trouser pockets, although they turn out to be smaller and higher up than I’m used to, meaning my hands don’t really fit properly.
“Hands out of pockets,” Mum says, smiling and using her primary school teacher voice – firm, calm, slightly disappointed. “You don’t want to look slovenly.”
I clear my throat and remove my hands.
Dad is looking impressed.
“If I was thirty years younger—” Dad says.
“If you were thirty years younger, what?” I interrupt.
Dad looks flummoxed.
“That’s not a thing parents say to their kids!” I tell him. “Or to anyone!” I add.
He raises his eyebrows. “No? Doesn’t it just mean that you miss the good old days?”
Mum tuts. “No, Mick, it doesn’t. It’s really inappropriate.”
I shake my head. “Oh my god, right, listen—”
“Rose? Come and see your handsome brother!” Mum shouts through to the kitchen.
“Mum, no—”
But my six-year-old sister has already run through, blonde hair, cherubic smile, butter wouldn’t melt, and you would never tell she was actually possessed.
“OK, here I am, thank you, please go back to the kitchen,” I tell her.
Rose looks me up and down, giving nothing away in terms of whether I look OK or not. “Do a twirl,” she demands.
I grit my teeth because denying her will only make this last longer and I really do not have the time. I turn around on the spot. “Ta-da. There we go.” I gesture to the door.
Rose sits down on the sofa.
“Oh my god,” I mutter. “OK, So—”
“Photo time!” Mum declares, squinting at her phone as she tries to access the camera.
“No, but—”
“I want one of you on your own, one with Dad, one with Rose, we’ll need one of you by the front door…”
There’s a shot of me by the front door for every major, and for that matter minor, life event of the last sixteen years. First day of every new school year. Last day of every school year. Joining the Scouts. Opening night of the school production. Grandpa Henry’s funeral. The day Mum decided my voice had started fricking breaking!
“I’m putting them on Facebook and emailing them to the family – everyone wants to see!” she continues.
“OK, but—”
It’s futile. Mum starts shepherding us, adjusting sofa cushions in the background “so the family don’t think we’re messy” and telling Dad to “smile more” so that “no one thinks he’s too depressed about losing his job”. When she’s done, she starts swiping through them and then it’s all, “How do you attach a photo to an email again?” and all I want to do is just say the thing I want to say and get out of there.
“You seem tense,” Mum says, glancing up from her phone. “Remember to breathe during your important speech, and don’t gabble. You know how you gabble when you get nervous.”
Oh my god.
“And who knows,” she continues, “maybe a little romance will blossom at this prom?”
My eyes widen.
“Maybe you will lock eyes with a special someone across the crowded dance floor…”
“OK,” I say. “So, look, about that, what if … you know, maybe there already is a ‘someone’ who is … special, you know?”
Mum’s eyes light up and then fill with mild panic. “Are you using condoms?”
“Mum! We’re not… We haven’t… That’s not…”
“But you would?”
“I mean, yes, but—”
She actually breathes a sigh of relief. “So, tell us, then!”
“Yes, tell us all about him!” Dad says.
“Yes, him, that’s right, because I’m— Hang on, what?”
Everyone’s just looking back at me expectantly. This was not as I’d planned it in my head. At least one person should have been crying by now.
“What’s his name?” Mum asks.
“OK, so, it’s Tariq, but can we just backpedal a little here?” I look at my parents, who are smiling inanely at me. “OK, so, I am” – I pause, because drama – “gaaaaay.”
“Yes,” Mum says, with this sort of manic fixed grin on her face.
“I like boys.”
“I like boys,” Rose adds.
“No, but I really like them,” I tell her. “I don’t like girls, I like boys.”
She frowns at me. “I’m a girl.”
“Right, but—” I glance at Mum for help, but she doesn’t seem to clock any problem. “I like girls, but I don’t like like girls, Rose? OK? Makes sense? Good.”
“No.”
“OK. Mum?” I look at her pleadingly.
“Well, you haven’t explained it very well, Nate,” she says.
I take a deep breath. ...
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