The Queen B* and the Homecoming King (3 page)

Her expression contorted into a smirk. “This is the debate team, not a high school musical. If you want to wow someone, I suggest you try out for that.”

“Sorry, but I don’t sing,” Richard said, nose in the air, but I saw the sweat
beaded along his forehead.

Kelsey dismissed him with a wave. I opened my mouth to challenge her again, but he grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the back of the room. He wiped away the sweat with the back of his hand. “See? I told you she had it out for me.”

“Yes, but you need to remember a couple of other things. One—she’s not the final say on who makes the team. Ajay and Ms. Rothstein also
have a vote. Two—she’s right. This is serious business, and if you want to make the team, you just need to drop the act and be yourself. No more playing the part of the stereotype. I know you can carry on a debate without the sass, so prove it to them.”

He nodded and jogged in place for a few seconds, shaking his limbs loose. “Drop the sass. Got it.”

“I want them to see you as something more
than just the Token Gay Guy. You’re Richard Wang, Debater Extraordinaire.”

“Debater Extraordinaire.” He paused, one corner of his mouth quirked up. “I like the ring of that.”

“Then earn it.” I sat down and pulled out my laptop. “I’ll just sit back here and work on my next blog post.”

I didn’t miss the worried glance that Kelsey gave me over her shoulder. Good. Let her think my next exposé would
be about her. Maybe she’d learn to keep anti-gay bias away from school-sponsored activities.

Once it was time to get the tryouts under way, Ms. Rothstein stood and closed the door. “Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for coming out to the debate team tryouts. For those of you who don’t know, Kelsey Buchannan and Ajay Patel are our co-captains this year, which means we have room for four
more members and two alternates.”

Six slots, which meant more than half the room wouldn’t make the team.

“Of course, for those of you who don’t make the team roster this time, I’d like to remind you that the debate club is open to everyone in the spring,” Ms. Rothstein continued. “It’s a great way to hone your skills for next year’s team.”

Ajay and Kelsey each produced a wire basket and handed
them to the teacher.

“The first thing we’re going to do is draw the order of debates. Since we have an even twenty here, I’ll have each of you draw a slip of paper from here.” She held out Kelsey’s basket. “On the paper, you’ll learn when you’ll go and what stance you’ll be taking on a topic—pro or con. Once we get that sorted out, then we’ll get to the actual debate topics.”

Thankfully, Ajay’s
basket contained the topics. I’d be scared to see what Kelsey would come up with.

Richard filed into the line to draw the numbers and showed me his slip of paper. “10-Con. I guess that’s a good thing I’m going last. It’ll give me time to watch the competition.”

“Exactly.” And seeing as how Richard had never been a member of the debate club, he needed all the help he could get on the rules of
the debate.

Ms. Rothstein carried Ajay’s basket back to her desk. “Tryouts will last all week. The pro side will choose the topic today, the con side tomorrow. We’ll redraw the order tomorrow, so each of you will have two chances to show us your skills. On Wednesday morning, I’ll post a list of who made the first cut. We’ll have the second round of tryouts the next day. The final team and two
alternates will be announced on Friday. Any questions?”

“Yeah—where’s my barf bag?” Richard whispered under his breath.

“Breathe. You’re not up for at least another hour.”

More like an hour and a half, but when Richard finally got his chance, he took his place at the Con podium and waited for his competitor to draw the topic.

“Should the European Union allow sanctuary to migrants?” Richard’s
opponent read aloud.

Richard gripped the sides of the podium so tightly, his knuckles blanched. He had three minutes to come up with a good argument against it, even though it was probably something he was for. But once his opponent started his opening comments, Richard settled down and started making notes. By the time it was his turn to speak, he ripped his opponent’s arguments to shreds and
left no doubt in my mind about the winner of that debate.

Now, if only it was enough to convince the three people in the front row. They made a few notes before Ms. Rothstein stood again. “That’s it for today. Tomorrow, we’ll have a new set of topics for you, so get some rest and read up on current events.”

Richard bounced over to me and gave me a high five. “Did I just kick that debate’s ass
or what?”

“Your grandmother would be proud at how well you picked him apart.” I slid my laptop back into my bag. “Want to grab a frozen yogurt to celebrate?”

“Of course. I’m starving!” Richard gave Ajay a winning smile before running out into the hallway. “Meet up at the place on Eighth?”

“Sure.” And if we didn’t like the scene there, we could go to the other fro-yo place a block away.

We’d
barely made it to the parking lot when my phone rang. I checked the screen and saw Morgan’s name. I showed it to Richard before answering and putting it on speakerphone. “Perfect timing. Richard and I—”

“You. Fucking. Bitch,” she spat.

If someone else had said that to me, I would’ve replied with something childish like, “I know I am, but what are you?” But Morgan was one of my best friends.
I turned off the speaker and pressed the phone to my ear. “Morgan, what’s wrong?”

Richard lingered nearby, leaning in to catch our conversation.

“You are. I ran into Gavin today, and he told me all about Saturday night.”

Oh, shit. As craptastic as Saturday night had been, Morgan’s anger added a whole new level of angst to it. “Let me explain—”

“There’s nothing you can say,” she said, cutting
me off, her voice shaking as though she were on the verge of tears. “You knew I liked him, and all this time, you were flirting with him behind my back.”

“Me? Flirting with him?” More like the other way around, but I never got a chance to tell her that.

“You went out with him, didn’t you?” My silence only confirmed Gavin’s story and unleashed a new wave of anger in Morgan. “I can’t believe you
were such a back-stabbing bitch! And then, to come on to him so you could lure Brett into beating the crap out of him—”

“Excuse me?” Oh, hell no. How dare Gavin twist what happened Saturday night into making him the victim? “That’s not what happened at all.”

“Bullshit. Gavin has a black eye and two broken ribs because of Brett. Plus, your little show got him kicked out of his frat.”

And for
a good reason. Gavin tried to rape me when I was drunk. “Morgan, please, give me a chance—”

“Why should I? You’re just going to tell me a bunch of lies anyway. Some friend you are. You weren’t content to have Brett chasing after you. You had to go after Gavin, too.”

My stomach twisted into a dozen knots, and the frantic beating of my heart pounded in my ears. “Morgan—”

But no matter how hard
I tried, she wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise. “Go to hell, Alexis.”

Then she hung up.

Chapter Three

Richard gently shook me from my daze. “Alexis?”

I stared down at my phone as though I’d dreamed up the entire conversation. Images from Saturday night blazed through my mind at breakneck speeds. Gavin wrapping his arms around me, forcing me to the bed, ripping my shirt and fumbling with the zipper of my jeans, all while telling me I’d thank him for it when he was finished. My
hand shook, and my phone slipped from my grasp.

Richard managed to save it from shattering on the ground. “Sweetie, what’s wrong? What did Morgan say?”

I started to say that I didn’t want to talk about it, but I knew I’d feel better once I unburdened my soul. Eastline, however, was not the place to do it. The last thing I wanted was for another student to hear the tale of my stupidity. It was
something worthy of a post on my blog. “Just meet me at the fro-yo place.”

I turned and ran for my car. The nauseated churning in my gut threatened to reject anything I put in it, but I could still talk to Richard while he scarfed down some frozen yogurt.

We arrived at the same time to the thankfully empty shop. If there had been any Eastline students, I would’ve suggested going elsewhere before
I spilled my guts. I grabbed a table in the corner while Richard grabbed some food. His bowl overflowed with four different types of yogurt, topped with everything from hot fudge to gummy bears. He dug in and ate a few spoonfuls before asking, “So what did Morgan say?”

“She’s pissed off at me because I went out on a date with Gavin.”

Richard choked on his yogurt and stabbed his spoon into the
center of the chaotic mountain in his bowl. “You what?”

If I wanted to keep Richard from thinking I’d completely lost my mind, I needed to tell him the whole story from the beginning. “It all started Friday night. I overheard Summer and Brett talking about me, and then she kissed him—”

“So Summer and Brett were kissing Friday night? I thought it was all a rumor.”

“Will you let me finish without
interrupting?”

“Fine. I’m all ears.” He stuffed a spoonful of his sundae in his mouth and waited.

“She kissed him, not the other way around. But I immediately thought the worst, and the next day, I wanted to prove to him that he was so yesterday, and Gavin had been hitting on me for weeks and even wrote his number in one of my notebooks…” I paused and looked away, my conscience riddled with
guilt. “So I called him up and agreed to go on a date with him.”

“Isn’t there some sort of rule that you don’t go out with the guy your best friend is crushing on, especially since we know he’s a douchebag?”

“Yeah, and I totally broke it, but in my defense, she’d said she was so over him.”

“It was like two weeks ago.”

“But she’d said she was done with him.”

“Still not cool, and right now,
I’m pissed on her behalf.” He ate another bite before continuing. “And then what happened?”

“I went to a party at his frat house with the intention of just snapping a pic with him to forward to Brett, but then we started playing beer pong, and I got wasted, and the next thing I knew, we were up in his room, and he was trying to screw me.”

Richard’s mouth turned as round as his eyes. “And did
he?”

“No, thank God. Apparently, Gavin has a rep for date rape, and one of his frat brothers was friends with Brett and called him when he saw me with Gavin. Brett showed up just in time and gave Gavin a black eye and apparently a few broken ribs.” And he would’ve given him more if Josh hadn’t intervened.

“Sounds like he deserved it, and that explains why you forgave Brett for making out with
Summer.”

“But that’s the thing—Brett never did make out with Summer. She tried to jump his bones the same way Gavin did me, and Brett chewed her out for it.” He chewed her out for more than just that. She’d also lied to him, twisting the story of how our friendship had ended so that she was the victim and I was the one exposing her secrets. Who knew how long he’d believed her version of the past?

“But back to Morgan,” I said, since setting the record straight was far more important to me than filling Richard in on my relationship with Brett. “She ran into him today and believed his spin on Saturday night and is totally on his side.”

For the second time during our conversation, Richard’s mouth hung open in disbelief. “What?”

“Trust me—I totally regret accepting a date with Gavin, especially
with the way the evening turned out. But she wouldn’t even hear my side of the story.”

“In her defense, all she knows is that you tried to steal her man and then he got beat up for it.”

“But I wasn’t trying to steal him.”

“It looks that way to her.” Richard scraped his bowl clean before asking, “So, what are you going to do now?”

“If she would’ve just let me get a word in edgewise, we wouldn’t
even be having this conversation. But she jumped to the wrong conclusion, got pissed off, and was firing off at me without giving me a chance to explain.” My pulse pounded in my temples, and I was this close to calling her back and telling her off.

“Gee, where have I seen that before?” Richard ate the last bite of his yogurt and leaned back in his seat. “Do you want me to try to talk to her
and smooth things over?”

For the first time since Morgan hung up on me, I felt relief. “Will you?”

“I’ll do my best to get her to at least listen to you, but I’m not apologizing for you.”

“Understood. Believe me—no one is sorrier than I am for going out with Gavin.”

“Yeah, that was a new level of retaliation, even for you,” he replied.

“Screw you,” I shot back.

“You wish.” He rose from
the table, his empty bowl in his hands. “Will you come to the tryout tomorrow?”

“Of course.” I’d already pissed off one friend. I couldn’t afford to piss off the other. Besides, my gut told me that as long as the Queen B* was in the audience, Kelsey wouldn’t harass Richard.