“Luke,” Zach’s voice rang out from the weight room. “They’re gone, you can come out now.”
* * *
Of all the people who could have had a problem with me on the team, Sam Michaels stepped up to the plate. He wasn’t the toughest or the meanest, the most conservative or religious. He was the most average. Ordinary. He’d be a starter this year, he wasn’t a terrible player and he was a senior, so he earned it. He played right field, he got decent grades, liked to the same music as everyone else, liked the same everything as everyone else. He was of average height, brown hair, brown eyes.
And like, Ryan’s hair was brown too but had volume and definition and his eyes had all these flecks of color in them. So maybe it was common to have brown hair and brown eyes, but when an interesting person had those characteristics, they still made them their own or something. Ryan was pretty tall, but it was his…creativepersonality that made him stand out.
I guess Michaels couldn’t help how he looked. He could wear better clothes or get contacts I guess, but god, I’m not the fashion police. Thinking about my boyfriend for a minute made this more bearable but now it had gotten weird, especially since nobody was talking.
There was silence in the weight room as Joey and I stood there awkwardly while Zach sat on the weight bench.
Zach Ahmad had light brown skin and would look effortlessly handsome if he could ever show his face in public without taking care to look flawless first. He looked at me how he always did, like he was in on a joke I didn’t know about and wouldn’t understand. The immunity I built up to that look disappeared at the moment, but I took a breath and waited for one of them to speak.
I gritted my teeth, because Zach could be a giant diva sometimes, waiting until he thought everyone was paying him an appropriate amount of attention. He cleared his throat. Then, “You’re being usurped,” Zach announced with a little smirk.
“That sounds bad,” I replied after a moment. Kinda sounded like rotten soup. “Is it bad?”
His smirk widened. “There’s a mutiny on the bounty.”
Joey gave him a confused look. What a pal, that meant I didn’t have to do that.
“Not totally sure what that means,” Zach admitted, muttering the words under his breath. “But I thought it would sound cool and it did.” He went back to smirking.
“Sounded like they wanted you to be the new captain,” I said slowly. “And you went along with it?” I was there, he did go along with it, I just didn’t know why.
“Of course I did.” That was all he said, like it was simple.
Did he not get that I was angry or just not care? Totally the second, why ask dumb questions? Even Joey gave me a look, like it was obvious. Ouch.
“You want to be captain?” I wondered. That was news to me.
“Of course I don’t,” he scoffed. “Way too much work.”
And normally I tried to have a positive attitude… I couldn’t imagine Zach even attempting that. He wasn’t exactly negative, like my friend-sister Lydia, just critical and devastating, which might be worse than negative.
“Why did you agree to go for captain if you don’t want the job?” Confusion colored my tone.
“It’s funny.” Duh, his voice implied. His face kept being infuriating, looking so amused. He wasn’t taking any of this seriously. He always maintained it was my fault when he didn’t take things seriously. My fault for ever expecting him to care in the first place.
“Duh,” Joey murmured in the background. Didn’t seem like he found the situation hilarious, just that it was obvious Zach would. Yeah, he liked other people’s misery but…
“It’s funny to see me lose the captain’s spot? To have the team go behind my back?” Once I started, I couldn’t stop. “For shit to be starting before the season, like this is really the note we wanna start on? All that is funny?”
Zach frowned. “Not when you put it like that.”
I turned to Joey, who for a second turned and looked behind him, as if there was something very important he just now became aware of on the blank wall. He tried to ignore me for a few seconds while I waited him out.
“Were you going along with this too?” I asked him when he turned to face me again.
“No, I kept trying to tell them—"
“Good, I have one friend.” I glared at Zach, who waved cheerfully back at me.
“Tell them his ass is just as gay as yours,” he finished.
“Been looking at my ass?” Zach quipped instantly with a wink.
Joey stared at him with distaste. “He’s maybe even more gay than you, Luke.” He sounded distressed, like when the Ahmad’s wouldn’t let him buy more Red Bull from their grocery store.
