He quickly folded the note before he could change his mind and tapped the girl in front of him. She turned to face him, and he handed her the note. “Pass it to Mark, please?”
She looked surprised, probably by the fact that Ellis and Mark of all people were exchanging notes, but she nodded and took it.
Ellis made sure to keep his eyes on the chalkboard until he was sure Mark had gotten the note; then he looked his way. He was just in time to see Mark open the piece of paper and read the note. Even knowing he’d pay later, Ellis was glad he’d done it. The bewildered expression on Mark’s face was worth a hundred insults.
Mark’s cheeks tinged with a hint of pink, and he turned toward Ellis. He scowled at him, and if looks could kill, Ellis would’ve ended up six feet under right then and there.
“Mr. Wright, can you please repeat what I just said to the class?” Mrs. Beaumont asked, and Ellis had to bite his cheek to keep the laughter in. It wouldn’t do to attract attention to himself at the moment.
He did hear Mark sputter and Mrs. Beaumont give him extra homework, though, so he decided the day wasn’t evolving as badly as it’d begun.
Still, once the bell rang, he made sure he was out of the classroom way ahead of Mark. He might have felt a little reckless, but he wasn’t suicidal.
ELLIS CAVED
and helped Anna with her essay during lunch break.
Beowulf
wasn’t his favorite, but he liked English literature, so it wasn’t too hard on him. The fact that Mr. Shea was young and cute as hell only had a little to do with Ellis’s appreciation for the subject, or at least that was what Ellis tried to convince himself of when he thought about it.
“Why does this have to be so boring?”
“It’s not boring.” Ellis grinned as Anna let her head fall on the table in desperation. “Okay, maybe it
is
boring for you, but you still have to write this thing. Mr. Shea might give you a bad grade, and you’ll flunk the class. Then you won’t be able to graduate.”
Anna looked up, and her eyes took on a dreamy glaze. “I wouldn’t mind detention with Mr. Shea.”
“What about Rick?”
“Oh, come on! I’m not saying I’m going to jump him! I might have a boyfriend, but I’m not blind. I’m sure
you
wouldn’t mind detention with him either.”
Ellis looked down at his half-eaten plate of pasta and willed himself not to blush. It didn’t work, not that he’d expected it to. Of course he daydreamed about Mr. Shea. All the girls and probably more than one boy did.
“Ooooh, someone has a crush.”
“Shut up.”
“
Eeelliiis
. Do you have a crush on Mr. Shea?”
Luckily for Ellis the table they sat at was mostly empty, but Anna’s voice was loud. From a few tables away, Dale Stephens looked up from his tray and over at them, a question in his eyes when he saw Ellis watching him.
Ellis shook his head and looked down again. “Anna, please. Do you really need to give people even more reasons to make fun of me?”
Anna offered an appropriate repenting expression, but Ellis wasn’t fooled. He knew that now she’d discovered a juicy bit of gossip, she’d pounce on him like a lioness on raw meat once they were away from prying ears.
“Are you done writing?”
“Of course.” She wrote the last word with a flourish and gave Ellis a triumphant smile. “All done. Now we can have fun.”
“After school, you mean?”
“Nope. I mean we can gossip.”
Ellis groaned. “You know, my being gay doesn’t mean I like to gossip or go shopping. Sometimes you seem to think I’m one of your girlfriends or something.”
Anna patted Ellis’s hand. “I’d never take you shopping. You have the most awful taste I’ve ever seen.”
Ellis looked down at his Platform 9 3/4 red T-shirt. “What’s wrong with my clothes?”
“Honestly? I think you’re the only one in this school who actually gets the meaning of your T-shirt.”
“You do too.”
“I was coerced into learning about it.”
“Oh, please. It’s not like I tied you to the couch.”
“You said you wouldn’t help me with my English homework if I didn’t watch the movies! All eight of them!”
“Hey, I did you a favor. They’re classics!”
“Classics?”
“Yes. It’d be sad if no one here got the T-shirt.” Ellis shook his head. It was better than talking about hypothetical crushes on teachers, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to make Anna see the flaw in her ideas. It wasn’t the first time he’d tried—and failed.
“They’re just books, Ellis.”
Ellis snatched his hand back. “Take that back!”
“Ellis,” Anna said with a laugh.
“Anna! It’s like me telling you statistics is boring!”
“You do, at least once a day, five times a week.”
“But—”
“Let’s agree to disagree on this one, okay? I don’t expect you to start liking statistics, and you stop trying to educate me in geek stuff.”
“I get the shirt.”
Ellis turned to the side to see who was talking and froze. Anna fluttered her eyelashes at Dale. “Really?”
“Yeah. Awesome books.”
“I can’t believe all the hot ones are geeks,” Anna said with a groan.
Ellis cringed, waiting for Dale to tell her off, but he only chuckled. “You think I’m hot?”
Anna gave Dale a shocked glance. “You think I’m blind? Are you fishing for compliments?”
Dale pressed his hand over his heart. “I would never.”
“Didn’t look like it.”
The bell rang, and Ellis looked down at his half-eaten meal. He’d forgotten to eat again.
“Here.”
He looked up at Dale with surprise. “An apple?”
“You didn’t eat much.”
“Oh, well. It happens often.”
“Take the apple, then. You can eat it before English.”
Ellis hesitantly took the fruit. “Umm, thanks?”
The smile Dale gave him made his knees go wobbly. “You’re welcome. See you in class. Oh, and I love your T-shirt.”
Dale walked away, leaving a stunned Ellis holding an apple. Anna was ecstatic, of course.
“He’s so nice. Maybe you should have a crush on him instead of on Mr. Shea.”
“Why?”
“Because you’d have more possibilities of it becoming more than a crush.” Anna wiggled her brows.
Ellis snorted. “Yeah, right. At least I’m pretty sure Mr. Shea
is
gay. Dale had a girlfriend the last time I checked.”
Anna waved at him. “Details. Now let’s go. I have a history class to get to.”
“Lucky you.”
Anna scowled and hit Ellis’s arm before walking away. “Go on. Your boyfriend is waiting for you.”
“Hey! I don’t have a boyfriend!”
Several heads turned Ellis’s way, and he cringed. Anna was able to make him forget he shouldn’t be himself when he was at school.
He looked down and quickly moved away, wondering if Anna had meant Mr. Shea or Dale when she’d joked about the boyfriend thing.
ELLIS DIDN’T
have a crush on Mr. Shea, but he couldn’t deny the man was totally his type.
He wasn’t tall, probably around five foot nine or ten, and he had a boyish appearance that made him look younger than his twenty-nine years. Yes, Ellis knew how old his teacher was, but he’d never confess how he’d found out. Or in this case, how Anna had found out.
He leaned his chin on his palm and looked toward the front of the classroom, trying not to be obvious about the way he was staring. He wanted to run his hand through those blond curls and look into those sinful brown eyes, but it stopped there. Mr. Shea was like the famous actor or singer you knew you could lust after from afar but never touch, and it was more than fine with Ellis.
“All right. I need you to pass your assignments on Fitzgerald to the person sitting in front of you, and I’ll gather them. I’ll have them back to you in about, mmm, a week or so. In the meantime, guess what? You’re going to start working on a new project.”
The students around Ellis groaned, but he didn’t mind. Maybe it meant he really was a nerd, but that was what he liked. Researching, writing… it was fun.
“Oh, come on. You’re going to love this! You even get to choose from a list and everything.”
“What’s the catch?” someone asked from the back of the class, and Mr. Shea turned his bright smile in that direction.
“Why should there be a catch?”
“Because homework isn’t fun.”
Ellis looked down at his notebook. It wasn’t like people knew what he was thinking, but it had been a little too close.
“All right, maybe there’s a catch. The project will be worth 20 percent of your final grade.”
More groans and protests rose in the classroom, but Mr. Shea waved them away. “I’m not done. As I was saying, it’ll be worth 20 percent of your final grade, and you’ll have to work in pairs. I’m going to give each pair a sheet with a list of argumentative essays to choose from. You’ll pick one and research it, and I want one person to argue in favor of the topic you choose, and the other one to argue against it. There’ll be a presentation after winter break, and you’ll have to explain your project to the class.”
Ellis knew he’d be the last one to be chosen, like it used to happen in PE. He didn’t have many friends and none of those were in his AP English class. He looked around and could already see the pairs talking.
Dale was whispering something to his best friend, and Ellis knew they’d be a pair. Not that he’d expected Dale or Seth to choose him anyway.
“
I’m
going to pair you. Yes, I know you’d rather choose partners yourselves, but we’d end up with the usual pairs, and the point of this assignment is for you to be exposed to different points of view and to learn how to work with someone you’re not used to working with. So, the first one I call will get up and go sit next to his or her new partner in crime.”
Only grumbles answered him, but he didn’t seem to mind or care. Ellis was relieved about the pairing thing. That way he wouldn’t have to embarrass himself by asking, only to be told no. Still, Mr. Shea’s enthusiasm was kind of tiring.
“All right, class. Novalee, you’re with James. Nick with Luke, Seth and Libby, Amy and Pete, Dale and Ellis—”
Ellis tuned out Mr. Shea’s voice and groaned. He wasn’t sure whether to be happy about being paired with Dale or not. He didn’t know Dale well—in fact, they’d probably talked more that day than in all their high school years put together.
Ellis did know it could have been worse for him. Dale was smart, and he never bullied anyone—as far as Ellis knew—so he probably wouldn’t be too bad to work with.
Dale put his bag on the desk next to Ellis’s and pushed it closer before plopping in the seat. “Hi again.”
“Hi.”
Mr. Shea was done with his pairs and was handing out sheets. Ellis took theirs and put it on his desk, making sure Dale could see it.
“All right. You have the rest of the class to go over your options. The sooner you choose one, the sooner you can start working on it, so if you do make a decision today, you can use what remains of the class to start working together. I want the partners to research and work together as much as possible. Even though you have to take opposite stances, as per the assignment, I still want you to use your partner as a sounding board of sorts. Yes, Libby?”
“What if we both have the same opinion on the topic we choose?”
“Ah, well. I still want one of you to try and convince me of the opposite.”
Ellis looked at the list. “Some of those are standard topics, like climate change, animal testing, and the Internet. Do you want one of those, or would you rather do something different?”
“Isn’t there something more interesting? No offense to the poor bunnies, but I don’t want to research that. Besides, could you really argue
for
animal testing?”
Ellis shook his head. “How about this one?
Should the school be responsible for after-hours dances such as prom or other formals?
This is our last year. It would make sense to choose it.”
“And that’s why everyone and their mother will choose it.”
“Okay, what about
Should wealthy nations be required to share their wealth among poorer nations
?”
“Boring.”
Ellis huffed and slid the list toward Dale. “Why don’t you look for one, then?”
Dale grinned and grabbed the paper. Ellis watched as he leaned back in his chair and looked at their options. Ellis was curious about what kind of topic Dale would want to do. The fact that he didn’t want a traditional one was nice. At least their project would be different.
“Ah, this one!”
Dale slammed the list on Ellis’s desk and pressed the tip of his index finger on it.
Ellis leaned in to read:
Same-sex couples should be treated the same as other couples in regards to discounts for dance tickets, meals, corsage, and any other “couple” perks.
Ellis blushed. He’d thought Dale would be nice to work with, but he’d obviously been wrong. “When you’re done making fun of me, we need to choose a real topic.”
“What?” Dale looked startled. “I’m not making fun of you.”
“Why did you choose that particular topic, then?”
“Because no one else will, and yeah, because you’re gay. I thought it would be a good idea to have your personal point of view on it.”
“Why do you think I’m gay?” Ellis had never come out, neither at school nor to his parents. The only ones who knew for sure were Anna, her boyfriend Rick, and Ellis’s best friend Matt. Ellis knew his parents suspected, but they were waiting for him to tell them.
Dale tilted his head to the side. “Why, you’re not?”
“Why do you think I am?”
“Apart from the fact that I heard you have a crush on Mr. Shea?”
Ellis blushed. “I don’t! That was all Anna, I swear!”
“Look, I don’t care who you have a crush on. I don’t have a problem with you either way, but if you are gay, then this topic makes sense.”
“Why would a straight guy care?”
“Because I think everyone should be able to be who they are. One of my cousins is gay, and I know how much it hurt him not to be able to go to prom with his boyfriend. I don’t think it’s fair. But we can choose something else if you don’t like this one.”