LUCAS

The temptation to giggle at his phone was strong, even as Lucas walked down the school hallways. Lucas and Binks had been emailing on and off all day, and Binks had sent him a rather adorable video of a cat walking across a piano and getting scared of the sound.

Thought of you, the email said.

It was almost laughable that Lucas had been so scared of frightening Binks, at first. After all, he seemed so shy—so reserved. But more and more, he was coming out of his shell. And honestly? They got along really well.

It didn’t matter that Lucas didn’t know who he was or what he looked like; they got along on a different level.

Besides, Lucas had learned a few things while emailing Binks. He knew about the crush, of course. And he knew that Binks had some issues with his father. He knew Binks was in the closet and that Binks was very, if not extremely, protective of his identity—and the only hint Lucas had was that email address. Speaking of the email address, Binks’ stemmed from a personal joke he had with an old friend.

That was super adorable of him.

Lucas’ cheeks warmed a little. He knew it was stupid that he found a random, anonymous person on the internet cute. It was stupid that he knew this could all be fake—a cruel prank being pulled on a naive queer—yet he continued to fall for it anyway.

It was stupid that he was starting to care.

Lucas struggled with his locker for a moment before wrenching it open, his eyes catching on the handmade mirror he had decorating the inside of the door. His sisters had made it for him, and they glued huge letters to the top to spell out LUCKY, all painted pink, and bedazzled the hell out of it. It was sweet, so he kept it around because it reminded him of his sisters, and that made him happy.

Today, though, his eyes caught on a single hair on his chin, and his expression instantly soured.

A thick swamp of a feeling built in his gut the longer he looked. He didn’t like to think about it. He actively tried to not think about it. But sometimes, it wasn’t avoidable—and his hands were busy trying to pluck the hair out of his skin before he could stop himself.

Just as he got a good grip on the beard hair, he was attacked and tickled from behind. Thankfully, the movement made him jump—which took down the evildoer threatening to ruin his morning, but not-so-thankfully made him squeak in surprise. He turned to face his assailant, gasping dramatically. “Cami! What the—?! I could have died!”

Cami giggled wildly, flipping her long brown hair over her shoulder. “Okay, Mr. I’m Not Overdramatic.” She rolled her brown eyes and hooked her arm with Lucas’ effortlessly. “So, you ready for the first official GSA meeting today?”

Lucas’ stomach did a little flip, and he let out a groan. “Please don’t remind me. We barely managed to scrounge up enough members since no one wants to associate with the gay club. It’s like they don’t even care that cisgender and heterosexual count as part of the Gender and Sexuality Alliance!” Lucas ran his free hand through his hair, then closed his locker.

Cami and Jen, the other GSA officers, were Lucas’ only real friends on campus. The boys were way too “macho” to associate with the gay kid, which really meant they were insecure with their masculinity. Most of the other students were too stuck up to even look in his direction.

But Cami and Jen were welcoming, warm, and genuine.

“What are we talking about?” Jen popped up behind Cami, having to bend around Cami’s tall build to be seen by the other two. Cami’s mom was a supermodel or something, Lucas couldn’t remember. Jen, on the other hand, was petite in every way. Small hands, small feet, small frame. She was playing the role of secretary and treasurer in the club—the secretreasurer, as they were calling it—because they couldn’t get a fourth volunteer. On the other hand, Cami was the peanut butter to Lucas’ jelly. The James to his Bond. The Vice President to his… well, you get the point.

Jen slipped her hand into Cami’s, and they shared an intimate smile before turning their attention back to Lucas.

Cami was bi, and Jen was a lesbian—so the club meant about as much to them as it did to Lucas. Being one of the few out gay couples in school, they knew firsthand how Westwood treated its LGBTQ community.

For example, the cheerleaders snickered and whispered as they walked by the group, a soft “what freaks” permeating the room's atmosphere. Cami and Jen were used to it, so it didn’t bother them.

But it bothered Lucas.

“The first GSA meeting,” Cami popped a kiss on the top of Jen’s hair, but it got a little caught in the jet-black messy bun Jen was sporting, “Lucky is nervous.”

Jen grinned, taking Cami’s hand in hers. “Aw, our baby Lucky is leaving the nest!”

Lucas faked a barf. “Okay, we are so not doing this. I’m fine, just a little nervous. I need to be a voice for all the baby queers trickling into the club! That’s a lot of pressure.”

Cami rolled her eyes and nudged Lucas a little with her side as a gesture of encouragement. “You’ll do fine. You’re great at this kind of stuff.”

“Says you.” Lucas’ phone pinged again, and he pulled it out in a rush with his free hand. A smile broke on his face, and he pinned his bottom lip with his teeth to hold back another laugh. It was an extremely blurry picture of Mr. Hendricks, the English teacher, doing a reenactment that involved wigs, a ton of leaves, and, for some reason, a toga. The caption read: To be or not to be! That is the reason I’m falling asleep in this class.

Lucas typed back that’s from Shakespeare, you goof, and he wasn’t Roman when Jen peaked over at him from the other side of Cami.

“You’ve been on that thing an awful lot today. Way more than usual,” she pointed out. At least she had the decency to not look over at what he was doing.

Cami, however, did not have that kind of tact. Given her height, she could easily peer over Lucas’ shoulder. “Are you emailing someone?” A gasp, then, “Is it a boy?”

Lucas untangled his arm from Cami with great difficulty and pulled his phone away from her prying eyes. “Hey! Boundaries!”

Cami shrugged. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to see, but I’m tall. And you’ve got that look on your face…”

Jen nodded in grave understanding, but Lucas had no idea what they were talking about. Sometimes, girls just knew stuff, and that was kind of terrifying. “Okay, I’m going to pretend I know what you mean.”

“You look happy,” Jen explained.

“You look like you have a crush,” Cami stated at the same time.

Lucas blinked rapidly, stepping back from the force of his shock. “What? Okay, no, I don’t even know who this guy is, and we started talking recently.”

Cami gasped, her hands flying over her mouth. “Oh! How scandalous, Lucas!”

“Again, it’s not like that,” Lucas insisted. “We’re like pen pals. He wants some advice—he’s in the closet, and I’m not. That’s it.” As if on cue, Lucas’ phone pinged with another message, and he found himself biting back another smile. This one read: Okay, well, whatever. IDK what’s going on in this class anymore.

Lucas hung his head to hide his smile, but it was too late. Cami and Jen saw him. They exchanged one of those all-knowing girl looks and then turned their attention back to him. “Was that him?” Jen asked.

Lucas tried to shrug it off like it was no big deal. “Yeah. Why?”

Cami also shrugged, like she was trying to tread carefully into shark-infested waters. “Nothing, you looked happy. It’s weird.”

“We’re just friends. Now please drop it?”

Cami opened her mouth to say more, but it quickly twisted in disgust. “Oh, crap, sorry—gotta go! Ex-boyfriend incoming.” She turned and gave a sort of curt solute, dragging Jen with her other hand. “We’ll see you at lunch, Lucky!”

Lucas didn’t even have time to process that before Charles Aughtly showed up, standing at his locker. He and Cami had—apparently—had a very brief little fling at the start of their freshman year. Charles kind of had a reputation for going through girls like used socks, but they always ended the same way. At least, he used to. He'd been single for a minute, as far as Lucas knew. He was a fine boyfriend, according to Cami, but there was no substance to their relationship. No depth.

He never got too close.

It seemed to be the philosophy the Aughtly son took with most things, if his cold demeanor was anything to go by. Charles effortlessly spun in his combination, grabbed his books, and didn’t even bother to look in Lucas’ direction.

Still, Lucas couldn’t take how endlessly cold the Aughtly boy was. Just another spoiled rich kid with a billion complexes being a jerk simply because he had more. He didn’t understand.

Then again, when Charles almost knocked Lucas over—didn’t he stay to help pick all those fliers up? The conversation that followed was a wreck, but maybe Lucas had caught Charles off guard.

Maybe there was more to Charles than Lucas thought.

Lucas leaned against his locker, trying to appear casual. “How do you do that? Mine’s so stubborn I can’t even get it open after four tries, sometimes.”

Charles turned to Lucas—their eyes locking for half of a second before Charles’ eyes broke to travel Lucas’ body, from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. They stared in uncomfortable silence for a few moments before Charles’ face twisted into what seemed like a scowl.

“That sucks.” That was all he said before he turned and walked away.

Wow.

Lucas was completely, totally, and unequivocally hated.

And he didn’t even know why.