Page 51 of Dead Boys Club

“You know the part,” Mr. West agrees. “We’ll have to figure out a costume for you. You’re… tall. And we’ll have to work on getting your blocking down. You have a lot to learn in a very short amount of time.”

Almost everyone cheers, Isaac the loudest. Except for Paige. She’s quiet, watching her brother as he gets swept away by the other students and Mr. West. Zach sidles up beside her, nudging his shoulder against her own. When she looks at him, she musters some sort of half-smile.

“Kind of cool, huh?” he asks.

Paige exhales slowly. “Yeah, I guess,” she says, crossing her arms tight over her torso.

“Or…” Zach fidgets with the hem of his sweatshirt. “Or not cool?”

“It’s silly,” Paige says, shrugging. “I’m just being the dumb, jealous twin.”

“What?” Zach asks, frowning. “You’re not… Well, okay, first of all, you’re not dumb.”

“Parker just… he came to tech crew to hang out with you,” Paige blurts out, “while I worked really hard on this play. Now he’s, like, this big hero and that’s all my parents are going to focus on when they come to see it.” She sighs, scrubbing one hand over her face like she’s trying to stop herself from getting teary. “Which is a silly thing to care about. Parker never does shit like this, I should be… like, happy for him, or whatever.”

Zach turns to face Paige more fully. He places his hands gently on her upper arms, giving her a soft squeeze.

“Hey,” he murmurs. “Parker wouldn’t have even shown up to this thing if you hadn’t done it first. Neither would I. Or Isaac. You’re like… super cool, okay, and like… you made doing tech crew cool.”

Paige laughs, her voice tight. She looks like Parker when she laughs. Zach adds that to his extensive catalog of things not to think about.

“I know I should be happy,” Paige says, shrugging her shoulders a little. “I know I’m being a baby.”

Zach rubs his hands up and down Paige’s arms. “I think you can feel however you want,” he points out. “But there wouldn’t even be a play without you. Or, well, without all of us, but you know what I mean. Tech crew is super important.”

Paige laughs again, letting her shoulders fall. She turns her head, watching Parker awkwardly attempt the blocking for Puck’s first scene up onstage.

“I guess if he screws up, everyone will see it,” she says.

A surprised, nervous laugh bubbles up and out of Zach’s mouth. “Exactly,” he agrees, even though he very much doesn’t want Parker to mess up. “We get to hide backstage.”

His brain circles back to: He came to tech crew to hang out with you. Did Parker tell Paige that, or was it somehow obvious to everyone but Zach? Zach had thought that maybe Parker showed up because he had nothing else to do while he waited for Paige to drive him home. Then again, Parker had kept showing up, even after getting the Subaru. Maybe he’d been doing it out of habit or because he didn’t want to return to his big, ornate house all alone.

Paige’s mood lightens a little, but another thought pings in the back of Zach’s head and he says, impulsively, “Do you remember in the eighth grade, when I tried to ask you to the dance?”

Paige looks at him with a little pinch between her brows, lips curling into an incredulous smile. “Kind of,” she says. “Is that what you were doing?”

Zach flushes, letting his hands drop from her shoulders. “Um, yeah, I think so.” He rocks back and forth onto the balls of his feet then back down. “I mean—I’ve always thought you were cool. Even way back then.”

Paige’s face softens and she reaches for his hand. She squeezes it, and Zach squeezes back. Despite all the confusion surrounding how he feels about Parker right now, he’s glad that he gets to be here in this moment with Paige.

“Thank you,” she says. “For, like, everything. For letting us borrow your mom and letting us stay. For being Parker’s friend.”

Zach swallows thickly. Parker’s friend. His best friend. Just his friend.

“Easiest thing on earth,” Zach replies.

Chapter Nineteen

The following week is more or less a nightmare as they rush to master everything: the set changes, the costume changes, the lights, the sound. Zach is mostly too busy to think about Parker and whether or not kissing him is an advisable course of action. Friday is approaching, and the entire cast and crew languish in the auditorium for hours after school doing full runs of the show, making sure everything is just right.

Parker’s costume comes together right before opening night—a vest of fake green leaves and a pair of brown leggings, plus a circlet of leaves and flowers on his braided hair. Zach gets the same feeling in his stomach as he did upon seeing Parker in the Red Rum dress. It does nothing to quell the anxiety of wondering whether or not he’s gay.

Though Parker isn’t the most natural actor, still holding himself like he’s a foot shorter than his actual height, he waxes Shakespeare like he’s been doing it all four years of high school. Zach’s always had trouble in English class when they inevitably get to a Shakespeare unit, but Parker seems to know just how the sentences should be spoken, making each confusing verse sound natural. Zach watches each day from the wings of the stage. Parker’s face transforms when he’s acting. He’s totally unbridled out there. Zach’s eyes keep dragging back to Parker’s mouth while he watches him on stage. It’s not helping his ‘kissing Parker’ conundrum, like, at all.

A couple of days before the show opens, they all pile into Parker’s Subaru and go shopping for all-black clothes. Bea calls them theater blacks. Zach isn’t sure that there’s any difference between regular black clothes and theater blacks. He ends up choosing a soft sweater and a simple pair of black jeans.

On Friday, Parker is snappier than usual, both knees jiggling beneath the lunch table. His hair is already in a braid—Zach thinks he must have done it that morning in anticipation of the show. He can’t stop looking. He’s pretty sure he’s never seen Parker’s hair brushed, much less so intricately styled. Did Paige do it for him? His mom?