“Real nice,” I said. My best buds. At least I was right about them being terrible people.
“Are you upset?” Joey rolled his eyes. “I’m sure you could be super gay too if you tried.”
“Aww, he’s supporting you, Luke!” Zach laughed.
“That’s not the part I’m worried about,” I told Joey. How was this my life?
“I mean, let’s look at the evidence,” Joey continued, pointing to Zach. “He’s been with way more guys than you.” Apparently, that wasn’t enough. “Way,waymore,” he added.
Zach nodded. “I might even say way, way, way more.”
“So there’s that,” Joey said, holding one hand in the air. “But on the other hand—” He raised his other hand. “You’ve only dated one guy, but you’rereallycommitted to that one guy and you guys are always being lame as hell and making everyone throw up in their mouths—”
I rolled my eyes. “Real nice,” I repeated. I expected some casual homophobia from Joey unfortunately but obviously not from Zach. He liked himself too much to be self-hating.
“—And you don’t even make people puke from the gayness,” Joey continued. “It’s from the cutesy shit. Gay, straight, whatever. Cutesy shit is cutesy shit and itblows chunks.” A less nice version of love is love. “Maybe it’s a draw?” He moved his hands up and down, in that gesture where it looked like weighing two things, but then he made his hands into fists and they started fighting each other.
“Joey,” I said, getting back to the important part. “Your only problem with all this is that they’d be voting one queer out and another one in?”
He didn’t deny it, only said, “I was probably gonna vote for you anyway.” Okay, that was— “I have to.” What an endorsement. He gestured between us all. “We’re the three freaking amigos.”
I gave up on him, turning to Zach instead. “Why did they even come to you with this? You’re bi too.” Which was something Zach really enjoyed about himself, so never thought I’d need to point that out but here we were.
“Oh, I know,” Zach spoke, confirming he hadn’t forgotten a basic fact about himself. He had a look in his eyes, like he was picturing the many and varied ways he’d used his bisexuality in the past.
“I know too,” Joey grumbled. He didn’t always know things, so he wanted credit when he did. “Guess they forgot.”
Find this funny,a small part of me tried to instruct all the other parts that weren’t amused. This terrible idea almost makes me look good at plans, and I once pretended to date a boy in secret because I’d somehow assumed it would solve all my problems and not cause others.
In a way, it was amusing. The guys put their heads together and decided to end the gayness once and for all. To accomplish that, they apparently needed more gayness. They were trying to fight gay with gay.
Only they didn’t know that. Because for all their big issues with me, for all it was hard to live with and mental Pringles, it was easy enough for them to forget about the queerness when it was convincement for them, when they wanted to.
Zach didn’t have a boyfriend he held hands with in the halls, so Zach was straight.
Laugh this off. It’s so dumb. Don’t let this bother you. Laugh about it.
I just wasn’t laughing.
“They don’t want a gay person to be captain anymore,” I said, trying to wrap my brain around this still. Even though I understood, I got it. But I still felt so removed from it. I wanted it to be a joke or misunderstanding. “They asked you to step up.” I looked at Zach. “And that’s why you think it will be funny?”
He grinned. “That’s why Iknowit will be hilarious.” Zach chuckled to himself while I stared at him.
“You could try taking this seriously,” I suggested.
“Impossible,” he argued. He looked thrilled. “They want someone else to be captain because you’re a big homo,” he took a moment to compose himself as he was almost giggling, which I don’t think I ever saw him do even when he was a kid. “So the guys had thebrilliantidea to replace you with another, arguably bigger, homo.”
“Oh my god,” Joey breathed, shaking his head.
Zach held up a hand, needing a break as he doubled over on the bench for a moment, trying to contain his laughter. “It’s, what even, no.” He mimed wiping a tear from his eye. Maybe he was actually crying? “No words currently exist to describe the sheer…moronittude.”He continued to laugh like a jackass.“I, oh, my sides hurt.” He clutched at his midsection.
“What are we gonna do?” Joey asked when Zach got himself under control.
“Haven’t had a lot of time to plan,” Zach answered. “So far I’ve got nakedness, a hot guy, and home plate.” His eyes lit up thinking about it. That seemed to be a plan for reminding everyone he was bi.
“No, about the captain thing,” Joey said, putting a hand up to block Zach from his view for a moment, like this conversation had hit its limit for gay thoughts and he couldn’t take anymore. “Counter plan.” Joey nodded his head and looked at us with urgency, trying to get us interested. “Team Cobra,” he decided firmly.
We looked at him blankly. So much for no more gay thoughts.
