Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Taylor officially broke up with Chad after graduation, but he had seen the writing on the wall for months. It was as amicable as a high school breakup can get, and they promised to keep in touch after they went off to college in the fall. After all, they were friends. Friends that used to date, granted, but friends nonetheless.

It was about three months after graduation, and three weeks into starting college when Chad called Taylor in the middle of the night. He had no idea if she would pick up, given the time difference, but she did.

“Hello?” she asked groggily.

“Hey, Taylor,” Chad said, a little out of breath.

“Oh, God. What the fuck, Danforth?” Taylor said, checking the time on her alarm clock. “It’s four am; I have class in four hours!”

“Sorry,” he said. “Just forget it.”

“Nope,” Taylor said, rolling out of bed and sliding on her slippers. “I’m up. What do you need, Danforth?”

Chad cursed under his breath and looked up at the night sky. “I’m at a frat party. Or, outside a frat party.”

“I can’t drive you home,” she said, trying not to wake her roommate with the horribly squeaking door hinges as she walked out of the room and down the hall. “Yale isn’t exactly next door to U of A.”

“I’m not that much of an idiot,” Chad hissed. “I meant that I’m at a frat party and I kinda made out with a guy and I don’t know what to do!”

Taylor froze and said the first thing that came into her head. “Why would you call me about that?”

“I don’t know! It just…look, you’re the smartest person I know and I’m freaking out because I don’t know who I can talk to about this!” Chad said.

“Why can’t you call one of the New York people?” Taylor said, sitting down in the common room. “Or even find Sharpay? She’d be pissed because it’s the middle of the night and some people like to sleep, but she’d get it because she probably had to deal with Ryan’s gay panic.”

“First of all, the last time I saw Sharpay, there was a guy sticking his tongue down her throat and I don’t want to go anywhere near that,” he started, beginning to pace on the front lawn of the frat house. “And second of all, I didn’t want to talk to Ryan or Kelsi about this.”

“And you can’t call Troy because he’s a meathead or Gabriella because then she’d tell Troy and he’s a meathead,” Taylor said, rubbing her forehead.

“I tried to talk to him about this once and he just kinda looked at me like I had grown two heads or something!” He said. “I mean, it was last summer and he was being a jerk, but still.”

“Last summer?” Taylor asked. “Post-graduation last summer or Lava Springs last summer?”

Chad sighed and sat down on the grass. “Lava Springs. After the baseball game.”

“You mean when you and Ryan eye-fucked on the field and then swapped clothes?” Taylor asked, grinning at the memory.

“Tay! This is serious!” Chad said. “I know I like guys and I know I liked you but I don’t know what to do!”

“You said that,” Taylor said dryly. “I still don’t get why you don’t talk to Ryan about this. He probably has a better perspective on the ‘whoops, I might like guys’ thing than I do.”

“You also like guys,” Chad retorted. “Or at least I assume that’s not why you dumped me.”

Taylor rolled her eyes. “Of course not. But you still could talk to Ryan.”

“I can’t,” Chad said through gritted teeth.

“Why not?” Taylor pressed.

The other line went silent. Chad shivered a little from the desert breeze, but still kept the phone to his ear, trying to come up with some sort of excuse that wasn’t—

“You like him,” she said, with dawning realization. “Oh my God, you have a crush on Ryan Evans!”

“Pfft! I do not!” Chad said reflexively. “I don’t like guys.”

“You called me at four am in a panic to tell me that you made out with a guy but you don’t like guys?” Taylor asked. “I might be running on three hours of sleep and no caffeine but that’s ridiculous, even for you.”

“You’re right. I just haven’t exactly said it out loud before.”

“That you like Ryan Evans?”

Chad scoffed. “Not like it even matters, anyway. He’s in New York, at Julian’s or whatever.”

“Juilliard,” Taylor corrected.

“And I’m a closeted basketball player that he went to high school with in New Mexico, who is still in the closet, maybe, and still in New Mexico” Chad said. “I guess I thought it was some kind of phase in high school. And you know me better than most people, dating wise. I just…I had to talk to someone about it.”

Taylor looked at the blank wall in front of her. “I get it. I wish you had told me sooner, that way I could’ve helped you out in person.”

“You would’ve been my wingwoman?” Chad joked.

“Of course! When people figured out a lovable doofus like you could snag the smartest girl in school, everyone will be falling at your feet!” Taylor said. “Anyone would be lucky to have you.”

“Thanks, Tay,” Chad said.

“Especially Ryan Evans,” Taylor teased.

“Shut up! Nothing even happened!” Chad said. “I don’t even know if I’m gay!”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell a soul!” she said, crossing her heart even though no one could see it.

“Not even Gabriella?” he asked nervously.

“Not even Gabriella,” she said. “I promise.”

Months passed after the phone call. Taylor sometimes sent the occasional email about bisexuality or news of what was happening in New York, but they never discussed the phone call explicitly until winter break. Most people from East High were coming back for the holidays, including Taylor, Ryan, and Kelsi, who took a first class flight back to Albuquerque from New York courtesy of the Evans’s family fortune.

(Taylor had attempted to get out of it, but Ryan and Kelsi invited her to come stay in New York to see the Big Apple all dolled up for Christmas and have someone they knew in the audience for their final performances. Besides, the most direct flight to New Mexico would have been from New York, and it’s not like she’d have to pay for a hotel.)

Taylor texted Chad something cryptic about having information before winter break started. So, of course, Chad invited her to get coffee when she came back. The coffee shop was all decked out for the holidays, complete with the smell of fresh buñuelos wafting out of the kitchen in the back. Eventually, Taylor sat down at the table looking particularly pleased with herself, which was never a good sign.

“Oh, no. What did you do?” Chad asked in lieu of a greeting.

Taylor narrowed her eyes. “Nothing.”

Chad gave her a knowing look. She rolled her eyes and opened the flap on her oversized black leather bag.

“I’ve been asking around, and I compiled a list of everything you need to know,” she said, pulling out a thick purple binder and handing it over to Chad.

“Why are you like this?” he said, snatching the binder out of her hands without looking at it. “And this isn’t a list; it’s a binder.”

“You date me for how long in high school and you’re surprised that I decided to dig deep?” Taylor asked. “I did this instead of preparing for my final presentation in International Security.”

Chad raised his eyebrows. “Taylor McKessie not studying for a presentation?”

“Oh, don’t worry. I got an A. And stop making this about me,” she said in a tone that hadn’t changed at all since high school. “Although I had way more fun researching all of this than anything we’ve had to do in college so far. Some of the people there are dumber than you.”

“Hey!”

“Anyway,” Taylor said, attempting to steer back on topic, “I went through emails and old text messages and reached out to a couple people. And before you even asked, I told them I was compiling a list of what people were like in high school to get a head start on the reunion.”

“We graduated six months ago,” Chad grumbled.

Taylor snapped her fingers to get Chad to refocus. “Danforth. I’m not going to let you throw away months of my research just because you’re chickening out.”

“I’m not chickening out!” He retorted a little too quickly. “It’s just…I don’t know if I’m ready.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I just feel a little guilty, you know? I mean, we were dating when you started questioning things. Even though we weren’t going to last past graduation, I still want you to be happy.”

“Thanks, Tay,” Chad said, placing the binder on the table. “I want you to be happy, too.”

Taylor smiled and glanced down at the binder. “I might have gone a little over the top with the decoration, but it’s Ryan Evans; it’d be blasphemous if glitter wasn’t involved.”

Chad’s eyes widened as he looked down at the title of the binder in blue block letters: Ryan Evans 101. Underneath was a terrifying blown up picture of Ryan’s smiling face that had been cut out and pasted on a field of glittering pink and yellow stars. It might have been hilarious if it didn’t make Chad’s stomach twist into nervous knots.

“What if he doesn’t even like me?” Chad said softly. “I mean, it’s not like we were best friends in high school. And we haven’t spoken in six months.”

“He doesn’t have a boyfriend, if that’s what you’re asking,” Taylor said. “Kelsi might’ve let slip that he’s had a couple of hookups, but nothing serious.”

Chad glared at Taylor. “I’m still a jock, Tay. I know that the status quo doesn’t exist in college, but we’re in different worlds. I can’t compete with New York guys.”

“You really like him,” she noted.

“Of course I do!” he exclaimed. “Who wouldn’t?”

“I don’t,” Taylor said. “Not in that way.”

“Are you gonna help me?” Chad asked, looking desperate. “I don’t even know where to start.”

Taylor moved to sit next to Chad. “I’d suggest you start with opening the binder.”

Chad looked at her suspiciously and opened the binder. “Table of Contents? Really?”

“For quick access!” Taylor replied. “If you want to burn a CD for him, you can just turn to section five: music. Or if you’re looking for a particular genre, you can look for the page number.”

“Burn a CD?” Chad asked incredulously.

Taylor chuckled and shook her head. “Everyone’s gotta start somewhere.”

Chad slumped over the table and held his head in his hands. “What if he won’t even see me.”

“He’ll have to,” Taylor said, pulling out her phone, “because we’re going to the party that he and Sharpay are throwing at their house.”

Chad’s phone chimed as Taylor sent him a photo of a paper invitation with the information about the party on it. His eyes widened as he read the date. “New Year’s Eve? You better be my backup if Evans shuts me down.”

Taylor rolled her eyes. “Sure. But you better invite him to whatever thing Bolton’s gonna do before Christmas. It’s tonight, right?”

“Shit,” Chad said, getting up from the table abruptly. “I told Troy I’d help set up decorations and catch up, which is stupid because I’m at his parents’ house even when he’s not there.”

Taylor handed him the binder. “Don’t forget this.”

He took the binder. “Thank you. For not telling anyone about this.”

“What are ex-girlfriends for?” Taylor said with a wry smile.

Chad nodded and all but ran out of the coffee shop. Once he returned to the safety of his car, Chad opened the binder again to look at the table of contents. He would have been mortified to see a section Ryan’s favorite places in New York if he wasn’t already mortified that Taylor took his one freak out from three months ago to make a essential guide about the guy he had been crushing on for over a year. So instead of dwelling on any of that, Chad snapped the binder shut and placed in the passenger seat under some miscellaneous crap he’d forgotten to get out of the car. Then he turned on the ignition and drove.

Chapter Text

The Bolton’s house was already pretty decked out for Christmas, but without the boys around, Mrs. Bolton hadn’t put as much effort into decorating the inside. So, Troy, and by extension Chad, had some last minute decorating to do to make the house holiday party ready.

“How’s Albuquerque?” Troy asked as Chad finished hanging a tacky green and red garland above the TV. “I know I was here not that long ago, but it’s still been a while.”

Chad shrugged and slid down the ladder. “Everything’s pretty much the same. College parties are pretty wild, though.”

Troy nodded. “You got a girlfriend?”

“Dude, you would know if I had a girlfriend,” Chad said. “Besides, the best part about being freshmen again is that there’s a whole new world of possibilities! I mean, if you’re not already tied down.”

“I’ll have you know that Gabby and I are stronger than ever,” Troy said defensively, but he was smiling so everything was good.

“No guys at Stanford could compare to the two time MVP of New Mexico State Basketball Championship?” Chad asked. “Or did you scare them all off?”

“Don’t worry, Chad,” Gabriella said, walking down the stairs. “Troy’s too busy with theater and basketball to be jealous about guys at Stanford.”

“I still can’t believe you’re majoring in theater,” Chad said before turning to the stairs “Hey, Gabby!”

Gabby laughed. “I assume you can’t major in basketball.”

“I take offense to that,” Chad said.

“Theater’s not that bad,” Troy retorted. “I mean, even you warmed up to the Evanses by the time we graduated. And now you go to school with Sharpay!”

“Sharpay does many things, but going to school isn’t one of them,” Chad joked.

Gabby started going through the boxes of Christmas decorations. “I mean, you and Ryan got along pretty well when we were working at Lava Springs.”

Chad stiffened. “I guess.”

“Come on,” she exclaimed. “You guys swapped clothes after the baseball game! And you worked together on the musical senior year. It’s cute.”

“And to think I was worried about him stealing you!” Troy said, kissing Gabby on the cheek. “I should have been worried about him stealing Chad!”

“Why are you so obsessed with my friendship with Evans?” Chad asked, trying hard not to be defensive.

Gabby held her hands up. “It’s the holidays and I haven’t seen everyone in forever because my mom moved up to Stanford with me.”

“It’s not like everyone’s still in New Mexico,” Chad said grumpily.

“Who are you and what have you done to my best friend?” Troy asked, laughing a little. “It’s like you’ve switched places with the Grinch.”

Chad took a deep breath and turned to face Troy and Gabriella. “I need to tell you guys something.”

“Should I leave?” Gabby asked.

“No, stay. I’m gonna need to say it to more people eventually,” Chad said before letting it all out. “I like guys.”

Gabriella smiled knowingly at Chad, but Troy looked as though he had short circuited. “Like guys, how?”

Chad shook his head and shrugged. “I like guys, to make out with and stuff. You know, like girls, but not.”

“But you like girls?” Troy said, less of a statement and more of a question.

“I mean, yeah. Girls are hot,” Chad said before having an epiphany on how best to explain his sexuality. “It’s kind of like when you told your dad that you love basketball, but you also wanted to do theater. So now you do both? It’s like that.”

“Chad, you could have just said bisexual,” Gabby said, biting down a smile. “Does this have anything to do with Ryan?”

“No!” Chad said immediately. “I mean, yeah.”

Troy.exe resumed function. “Wait, so you’re doing both theater and basketball now?”

Chad looked over at Gabriella, who just laughed. “Babe, your best friend just came out as bisexual and that’s what you latched on to?” She asked Troy.

“No!” Troy said, returning to the world. “So who else knows?”

“Taylor, because I kind of called her in the middle of a panic after hooking up with a guy at a frat party,” Chad said, scratching the back of his neck. “And now you guys.”

“So this isn’t a new thing?” Troy asked.

“New-ish? I mean, I still don’t know what I am, but a lot of my life makes a lot more sense,” Chad said. “We good?”

“Of course we are,” Troy said. “Brothers, right?”

“You know it,” Chad replied as Troy pulled him into a hug.

“So are we inviting Ryan Evans to the Christmas party?” Troy asked.

Chad took a step back and coughed, trying to be casual. “Why’d you ask that? It’s your party. You can invite whoever you want! It doesn’t matter to me.”

Gabby laughed. “Oh you got it bad!”

“I don’t even know if he likes me!” Chad said in a voice that definitely didn’t sound more like it belonged to a petulant whining toddler than a nineteen year old man. Because he was a man now. And men, regardless of sexual preference, do not whine in public.

Gabby just rolled her eyes and pulled out her phone. “Ugh, boys!”

The party started swinging at around 8:30. They had tried to keep everyone inside the house to keep the chilly winter air out, but the supposedly small “get together” eventually spilled out into the backyard. Christmas music of all kinds, good and bad, began blasting from the yard. Of course, the main people in attendance were old friends from high school who had decided to come home over break. Some people were friends of Chad’s who decided to stay in Albuquerque over the break, and some were kids from East High who were getting ready to join the Class of ’08 in the terrifying post-housing market crash world. At least Bush was leaving office in a month and someone spiked the eggnog with enough booze to make everyone forget what was happening in the world.

Except that maybe Ryan Evans hadn’t showed up yet. Which was fine. It’s not like he’d been given ample notice that there was a party that night. Besides, he just finished up a semester and was probably jet lagged and maybe he wanted to have quiet night in with his parents. Not that Chad cared about any of this.

“I’m here!” A shrill voice that just sounded like too much pink and glitter squealed from the front door. “We can start the party now!”

“Hello East High!” A second voice boomed. Everyone cheered and Chad definitely did not run to the front door to see Sharpay and Ryan Evans enter the building, closely followed by an annoyed, but smiling, Kelsi Nielsen.

Chad walked to greet them. “Evans! I didn’t think you’d make it!”

Ryan grinned at Chad from under his perfectly askew burgundy fedora. “Someone had a fashion disaster and it wasn’t me.”

“As if you didn’t have to change your outfit five times,” Sharpay huffed before turning to Chad. “Danforth.”

“Evans,” he said, giving her a curt nod. She smiled before marching into the house to find the rest of the party.

“I guess you don’t remember me,” Kelsi said, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear.

“Hey, Kelsi,” Chad said warmly. “How’s Julius?”

“Juilliard’s good,” Kelsi laughed. “Finals were brutal.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me!” Ryan bemoaned. “I honestly don’t know how we’re supposed to get through seven more semesters.”

“Sounds brutal,” Chad said. “Maybe you should have stuck with baseball.”

“I know you’re joking, but I very nearly considered it when I had to get up at 8am for ballet in the middle of December,” Ryan said, grinning. “I mean, I’d do ballet anyway, but at least it would be my choice!”

“Well, there’s eggnog in the kitchen and most the people we knew in high school are out back,” Chad said, closing the front door and ushering Ryan and Kelsi in. “Welcome back.”

“Thanks, man,” Ryan said, patting Chad on the shoulder. You know, the way friends do.

And Chad was fine with that.

But then Kelsi gave him a knowing look and cleared her throat. “You know, college is a real interesting time. I probably never would have figured out I was definitely a lesbian, but you know.”

“What?” Chad said, feeling panic wash over him.

“In her defense, Taylor didn’t say anything,” Kelsi continued awkwardly. “Just a classic case of game recognizing game.”

Chad stared at Kelsi, at a total loss for words. “Game recognizing game?” He said simply.

“Yep,” she said, face contorting into a painful cringe. “I’m gonna go join the party.”

“Okay.”

Kelsi shot Chad a pair of finger guns before disappearing into the crowd and leaving him to figure out what the hell just happened.

Chapter Text

Chad woke up with the world’s worst hangover on Troy’s couch to his phone ringing louder than the siren on a fire engine. Everything hurt and just generally tasted like death and nutmeg. He made the terrible mistake of not looking at the caller ID before picking up. Taylor was already in mid-sentence chewing him out for something.

“It’s like you didn’t even read the binder!” She yelled. Even from over the phone, she was terrifyingly loud.

“Good morning,” Chad grumbled before running to the bathroom to puke his guts out.

“It’s two in the afternoon!” Taylor yelled, still audible even when not on speaker.

“Uh huh,” he grunted after flushing the toilet.

“Did you just wake up?” Taylor asked.

Chad put the phone up near his ear, as he slouched next to the toilet. “Yeah. Someone put something horrible in the eggnog.”

Taylor groaned from the other line. “Do you remember anything from last night?”

“Kind of,” he said. “Evans was here.”

“‘Evans was here?’ Chad, do you hear yourself?”

“I’d honestly rather not hear anything,” he replied, taking solace in the cool tile floor under his somehow bare feet. He didn’t remember taking his shoes, or his socks, off. But it must have happened at some point the night before.

“Do you need a recap of how badly you fucked up?” Taylor asked.

Chad shook his head as bits and pieces of the night came flooding back. “No, don’t remind me.”

Chad gave up on trying to find Ryan about halfway through the night, deciding to get flat-out wasted on eggnog instead. In that time, Troy had gotten drunk enough to stand on a table and start belting out the songs from Twinkle Towne, accompanied on piano by a much more sober Kelsi, who was laughing her ass off. The night became a little fuzzier around the edges as Chad returned to the kitchen for eggnog and cookies. Somehow he ended up slumped on a swing in the backyard, rocking back and forth on his sneakers, watching the party rage on. The night was cold, but the alcohol was warm and he was full from the countless trays of Zeke’s Christmas cookies he had inhaled. And, best of all, he didn’t make a stupid move on any guys in front of his high school friends.

“Where have you been?” Ryan asked, settling down on the swing next to Chad. “I would have asked Troy but I saw him and Gabriella disappear into a room and I was not about to follow them.”

Chad laughed. “You’d think they’d be sick of each other already, living thirty-something miles apart after going to the same school for two years.”

“Didn’t answer my first question, Danforth,” Ryan said, smiling a little.

“I just go with the flow with parties,” Chad said. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

Ryan looked down at the ground and frowned. “I thought we were going to stay in touch after we graduated.”

Chad put his head into his hands. “Oh, God. I’m sorry. I meant to, but with school and the new basketball team…”

“I get it,” Ryan said. “I should have called you. I guess I can’t believe I’m still jealous of Taylor McKessie.”

Chad looked up to see Ryan grinning. “Still?”

Ryan shrugged. “She told us that she’d heard from you a few times during the semester.”

“Oh,” Chad said. “Yeah. That happened.”

“So how’s U of A? Can’t imagine you’d find anyone like Taylor there,” Ryan said, leaning back into the swing.

“U of A’s fine I guess,” Chad said. “I think I just miss how everything used to be in high school.”

Ryan scoffed. “Are you kidding? I mean, I know we became friends eventually, but I’m so glad to be in an actual city.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Chad said. “I just miss how we all got along in senior year. I mean, I see Sharpay every once in a while, but it’s usually at a party and it’s disgusting.”

Ryan laughed and grimaced. “I can only imagine.”

“I miss you,” Chad admitted quietly.

“I’ve missed you, too,” Ryan said. “But I’m here now.”

Maybe it was the alcohol or the cold, but Chad could have sworn that Ryan was blushing, a small smile creeping onto his face. Chad knew it was now or never and decided to make a move. “Yeah, you are. You really are.”

Ryan laughed a little as Chad moved his swing to be closer to Ryan’s, feeling the liquid courage about to earn it’s moniker. “You know what I love about Christmas?”

Ryan shook his head, thoroughly amused. “What do you love about Christmas?”

“It’s Christmas!” Chad exclaimed, making Ryan laugh out loud. “You have presents and eggnog and big trees and mistletoe.”

“Isn’t Jesus supposed to be in there somewhere?” Ryan asked.

“Evans, you’re forgetting about mistletoe,” Chad said, using his finger to pop Ryan’s hat a little more to the side. “I mean, you know what happens under mistletoe, right?”

“I do,” Ryan replied as Chad launched off the swings.

“Kissing! Kissing happens!” Chad exclaimed, launching off the swing and stumbling to his feet as he gestured wildly. “We should’ve put some mistletoe out here.”

“What?”

“I’m serious! It’d give me an excuse at least.”

Ryan stood up from the swing and took a step towards Chad. “What’re you talking about?”

And Chad leant forward and closed his eyes, puckering his lips when—

“What are you doing?” Ryan asked.

Chad opened his eyes to see Ryan recoiled back and staring at Chad like he’d grown another head. “Um. Mistletoe things?”

Ryan grumbled something under his breath and smiled tightly at Chad. “It was good to see you, Danforth.”

And then he walked away, leaving Chad, drunk and alone in the cold. Except now, the alcohol didn’t seem to help make the cold go away. And it felt like the entire world was staring at him, but none with more fervor and clear disappointment than Taylor, who had watched the whole scene unfold from behind a window inside.

The continued shrieking over the phone and another wave of nausea brought Chad back into the moment. Not that he wanted to; it was a pretty awful moment.

“If you had checked page 18 of the binder, you would have known that Ryan doesn’t go for guys that are clearly straight and clearly drunk,” Taylor said in her classic know-it-all voice.

Chad nodded before asking, rubbing his head. “What about not straight guys who are drunk?”

Taylor sighed over the phone. “You’re not helping your case, Danforth.”

“It’s not my fault I don’t have the same passion for compiling blackmail binders on people I went to high school with!” Chad retorted, head spinning from the simple act of speaking to someone on the phone.

“It’s not a blackmail binder!” Taylor cried loudly, making Chad hold the phone away from his ear again. “Its a simple, organized list of things you need to know if you ever want to have a chance of wooing Ryan Evans.”

“Sure,” he said. “I just think what happened is I made a fool of myself and then Ryan realized that if he ever had a crush on me, it was long over, and now he’s moved on to New York guys.”

“You are an idiot, Chad Danforth!”

“What else is new,” Chad said, sadly.

Taylor sighed on the other end of the line. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. But seriously. You have to tell him!”

“Why? So I can embarrass myself in front of the guy that helped my brain figure out that it also likes dudes?” Chad asked.

“Because you’ll always regret it if you don’t,” Taylor said with a finality that Chad didn’t have the strength to argue with.

“I’ll do it after I’ve recovered,” he said.

“Ugh, you’re such a drama queen. You two are meant for each other,” she said.

“Love you too, Tay,” Chad said, hanging up before collapsing over the toilet again.

The door opened behind Chad and in stumbled a bleary eyed Troy Bolton. “I just got a thousand texts about last night,” he whispered, squinting heavily. “Did I really perform all of Twinkle Towne?”

“I left before you got to the second act, but I think so. You were standing on a table,” Chad said, slowly looking up. “Dude, what was in that eggnog.”

“I don’t know,” Troy said. “I just kinda put a bunch of stuff from the liquor cabinet in there so my parents wouldn’t notice that I’d taken anything.”

Chad dry heaved. “Gross.”

Troy slid down to the floor and put his head into his knees. “Mistakes were made. At least it’s not Christmas Eve.”

“Thank God for that,” Chad said, leaning back against the wall. “I’m never getting that drunk again.”

“I second that,” Troy said. “Now move. I gotta use the toilet.”

Chapter Text

The rest of winter break from Christmas to the day before New Year’s Eve came and went uneventfully. Sometimes the old gang would hang out at Troy’s house or…Troy’s house. But the uneventfulness did allow Chad to, begrudgingly, look into the binder. Ryan Evans 101. Sure enough, on page 18 under the heading “Green Flag, Red Flag,” were a list of things that were sure bets and no gos when it came to the kind of guys Ryan allegedly went for. If Chad had been an idiot before, this was truly a new level of pathetic.

But the thing about a piece of Taylor McKessie original research is that is was not only highly organized, but always had the audience in mind. In this case, the audience was a basket case basketball player who didn’t really know what flavor of gay he was and thought that dino chicken nuggets tasted better than regular chicken nuggets. All of this meant that even if the content wasn’t wildly pertinent to his current sexuality crisis (or string of embarrassing moments), Chad would have read the binder cover to cover anyway. It didn’t hurt that Taylor made annotations in the music section, pointing out that there was potential to bond over Michael Crawford and Phantom of the Opera. Also, all of the diagrams had been printed in color, which must have cost a small fortune at the school printer but looked beautiful.

So Chad went to the Evans family mansion with way too much information about Ryan banging around in his head. He made sure to arrive after the party was already in full swing, just to avoid getting as spectacularly drunk as he did during Troy’s Christmas party. The night was less of an excuse to party and more of a mission.

Of course, Chad said hello to everyone from East High and most of the student population of U of A who recognized him from the basketball team. It took him nearly an hour to finally find Ryan, chatting with Kelsi and Taylor about something. The music was too loud and all Chad could hear was his heart pounding in his ears. So instead of going through the usual small talk, he took the leap.

“Do you want to get some air?” Chad asked. Ryan nodded and led him up to a balcony on the second floor. Chad caught Taylor’s eye before disappearing upstairs and gave her a thumbs up.

“Say what you will about them, but East High knows how to party,” Ryan said, looking out over the desert night.

“I’m pretty sure half the people down there are from U of A, but sure,” Chad said, scratching the back of his neck. “I’m sorry for being a drunk idiot at the Christmas party.”

Ryan shook his head. “Don't worry about it. People act weird when they’re drunk; I totally get it.”

“No, that’s not the only thing,” Chad said. “I’m…I like guys, okay?”

Ryan’s mouth dropped into an “o” shape. “And you’re telling me this because…”

“Because I like you!” Chad exclaimed, letting it all out. “I’ve liked you for a while and I didn’t say anything because I thought it was a phase until I started making out with guys in college and realized a lot of stuff.”

“Oh,” Ryan said, face going through almost every emotion at the same time.

Chad nodded. “The main thing I realized is that I should’ve have made my move in high school when we were in the same state. Or time zone, or whatever.”

Ryan looked down at the ground, not saying anything. Chad fidgeted in the awkward silence that grew until he couldn’t take it any more.

“You can just say that you don’t like me,” Chad exclaimed, unable to stop himself. “I’ll get over it; I just want you to…”

“Of course I like you!” Ryan interrupted, snapping out of his state of looking at the ground and not saying anything. “I’ve had a crush on you since forever! Excuse me for taking a moment to process all of this!”

“See that’s why I wanted to have booze in my system before talking to you about this stuff,” Chad joked. Ryan let out a half hearted laugh and crossed his arms over his chest.

“It explains a little about the other night, though,” Ryan said. “You on eggnog that was spiked to high heaven is actually more polite than most guys in New York. It was kind of sweet.”

“Like eggnog?” Chad asked before immediately regretting it. “Sorry. You don’t have to respond to that.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Danforth. You’re a catch,” Ryan said.

Chad smiled but could tell there was something else Ryan wanted to say. “Okay. But…”

“But you have sports and we live two thousand miles away from each other!”

Chad was taken aback. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Ryan looked at him like he was an idiot, which to be fair, he was most of the time. “You want to be in professional sports, right?”

Chad nodded mutely.

“Do you see anyone out there right now who’s not straight by even a fraction?”

“Things are gonna change!” Chad said with stubborn determination.

“How? When?”

“I don’t know! I can barely get through life trying to understand what’s going on; do you think I can predict the future?”

“No, of course not. But that’s not even getting started on you being here when I don’t live here anymore.”

“I’ll have to go to New York.”

“But your scholarship.”

“Means I play for U of A until we eventually get kicked out of the bracket and won’t go to March Madness and blah blah blah,” Chad said, becoming a little performative. “But that’s right around spring break. And I’ve never been to New York before. Say, don’t I have friends going to school at Julia’s?”

“Juilliard.”

“That’s right! And maybe they’d be willing to show me around the city. Or something. If they ever get time off because one of them has 8am ballet classes, which sounds like something invented by Satan himself.”

Ryan laughed in spite of himself. “I just thought I’d left all of this behind, you know? So much for the fresh start I guess.”

Chad shrugged. “I get it. But I don’t exactly have the grades to transfer to a school with a good basketball team near New York, so Albuquerque it is.”

Ryan raised an eyebrow. “You’ve thought about this.”

“There have been many times I have thought about not going to U of A. I mean, Troy’s not even there and that was the whole thing we’d been dreaming about since we were kids. But my whole family’s here and I still love basketball. It’s the best place for me, for now.” Chad sighed and looked at Ryan. “I don’t think I’m gonna stay here forever, especially not if I’m anything above a one on the Kinsey scale. But it’s where I need to be now.”

“Kinsey scale?” Ryan asked, bewildered to hear that phrase come out of a jock’s mouth.

“Taylor might have started sending me emails about figuring out your sexuality,” Chad said bashfully.

Ryan laughed again. “Should have figured that.”

“But seriously, if you’re ever back here…” Chad trailed off.

Ryan nodded. “And if you’re ever in New York.”

“I promise I won’t ghost you again.”

Ryan laughed and shook his head. “Seconded.”

Below them, the world began counting down to the New Year. Chad looked at Ryan, knots in his stomach twisting into something awful. “Maybe just a New Year’s kiss? Since we’re both here.”

Ryan nodded. “Why not. We’re both here,” he echoed softly as the countdown winded closer to the new year.

“Okay,” Chad said, leaning forward to close the distance.

Even if it wasn’t New Year’s, Chad would have sworn there would have been fireworks anyway. Kissing Ryan Evans was everything he’d thought it was be, but better because he was real and doing something wild with his tongue that made Chad stop thinking. The kiss wasn’t anything like he had felt before: bittersweet and happy and sorrowful and full of wanting. While perhaps unfair to future kisses, Chad knew that this was his new benchmark for what a fantastic kiss could be. Not a bad way to start off 2009.

Someone far smarter than Chad once said something about how things that go up, must come down. It probably had to do something with physics and not real life stuff, but it felt like the right way to describe that moment. So he walked down the stairs to see everyone ringing in the new year with joy and jubilation, trying to ignore the twisting in his gut. He sat down next to Taylor on the couch, who was grinning as if she thought that everything upstairs went spectacularly well.

“So?” She asked, raising an eyebrow. “How’d it go?”

“You’re gonna need to add ‘doesn’t do long distance’ to page 18.”

Chapter Text

Chad and Ryan stuck to their word in not ghosting each other. At first, it was the occasional text to say “hey” or “what’s up” or share a minor accomplishment. Then it was a phone call about how the Redhawks won against the number one ranked team for the first time since the 60s or how Ryan was nominated by Juilliard to receive an award for young artists in New York City. After that, they were texting each other everyday. The conversations ranged from everything and nothing to dumb pictures they saw on the internet and one sided rants about Wicked or how the Lakers sucked.

“It kinda sounds to me like he might do long distance,” Taylor would said.

“Shut up,” Chad said. “We’re just friends. Until I move to New York or Albuquerque becomes the center of the universe, nothing’s gonna happen.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Taylor said.

Chad would have blown up at her if she hadn’t been on the other end of a phone call. But he didn’t because he was grateful for the support.

Besides, long distance with anyone, even if they were as smart as Taylor or amazing as Ryan, would have seriously dunked on the perfect college experience. After all, college is about finding yourself and figuring out what you’re supposed to be outside the confines of a school environment. Not to mention that parties would be a total downer if you were worried about cheating on someone who wasn’t actually there half the time.

At the same time, Chad couldn’t help but hear Ryan’s voice in his head every time he started to check out a guy. No one in professional sports was out in 2009. Sure, people might have come out after retiring from the sport, but that was hopefully twenty years away. And that was if Chad even made it to the NBA. Not to mention the times that Chad had hesitated around the door of the currently underground Gay Support Group, people kept yelling about something called Prop 8 in California. If California couldn’t even make up it’s mind about gay people, what chance did someone like Chad have?

So, Chad went out with the occasional girl, and made out with guys at parties after being “dared” to.

(“Stanwick, dare me to make out with that guy,” Chad had said after his fourth beer.

Stanwick looked at Chad and laughed. “Dude, what?”

“It’s a party, man! Dare me to do something stupid!”

“Okay. I dare you to kiss everyone in this party, if you want to do something…”

Chad cut Stanwick off by laying a fat kiss on his mouth before moving on to make out with the rest of the party like he was a bisexual Richard Dawson.)

And it’s not that the girls he would take out weren’t pretty and funny and nice and/or good in bed. But they lacked a certain je ne sais quoi, as Ryan would put it. Taylor would say that was bullshit and that the thing that Chad was looking for was currently living in New York and always worn hats. It did not help that everyone who was not Ryan agreed with her, including the infamously meat headed Troy Bolton.

So the spring semester passed without much fanfare. The Redhawks just missed making it to the First Four play-in tournament, which meant that the season didn’t extend into March. Which was definitely a bummer, but not that surprising considering the rules for March Madness barely make sense in the first place. But it wasn’t a total loss, as it gave Chad some much needed extra time to focus on studying for the classes he had to skip due to traveling for basketball.

Ryan stayed in New York for the summer to help with a summer intensive or to take a summer intensive. Either way, he was stuck in the city for the summer. Not that Chad would have been able to make the trip out to New York between summer conditioning and his part time job at Lava Springs, which may or may not have had a significant bump in pay from when he worked there in high school.

One thing that Chad hadn’t counted on, but probably should have, was that Ryan Evans would have flown in for the last week of summer. It wasn’t until Chad saw him walk out of the helicopter that he realized of course Ryan would come home over the summer. And of course he looked amazing, even in another stupid pageboy cap that would have looked ridiculous on anybody else. Apparently, dedicating your life to dance turns you into an Adonis. Not that basketball also didn’t do the same trick; Chad hadn’t been nearly as focused on basketball as Ryan was on dance.

Which made it absolutely wonderful when it came to light that he still seriously sucked at golf. Even after all this time, Ryan Evans was still human.

“Are you even aiming?” Chad teased. “Seriously, what are you doing?”

“Shut up!” Ryan exclaimed. “I need to focus.”

“Oh, is that what you’re doing? You’re focusing!”

Ryan swung the club and the ball flew somewhere towards the hole, though definitely not as on target as it could have been.

Chad whistled. “Not bad. Maybe you’ll be able to play with the big names on Broadway.”

“I’ll have you know that the sport of choice for Broadway actors is softball,” Ryan said, handing Chad the club he was using. “A game, as you may or may not recall, I am totally good at.”

“Baseball and softball are not the same thing,” Chad said, placing the club back into the bag.

“Yeah, but I’m better at swinging a bat than most people on Broadway,” Ryan replied, looking out over the green. “Though I probably need to work on the back swing if Sharpay changes her mind and decides to go all Hollywood on us.”

Chad shuddered at the thought. “Somehow that sentence got scarier as you kept talking.”

“I didn’t realize you were so scared of California, Danforth,” Ryan said.

“Not California. Hollywood,” Chad clarified. “It’s the Sharpay of cities, which means it’s terrifying.”

Ryan barked out a laugh. “I don’t think she’s that bad,” he said, beginning to walk to the golf cart. “Are you sure you don’t want to play?”

“Positive,” Chad said. “It’s bad enough to run after your bad aim. I think I’d find a way to break a window in the clubhouse.”

“I’m sure you’re not that bad,” Ryan said. “You have pretty good hand-eye coordination.”

“That’s a neat theory, Evans,” Chad replied. “What makes you say that?”

Ryan winked, as if that would distract from the pink blush creeping into his cheeks. “I’m sure you’ve had some compliments, being Mr. Basketball and all.”

“I don’t know if I can say the same for you,” Chad replied, also beginning to blush a little.

“I’ve had some compliments,” Ryan said smoothly. “Even you said that I had more than a little game.”

“I didn’t mean for it to get into your head,” Chad said, feeling the conversation starting to take a slightly less innocent turn.

Ryan raised an eyebrow. “You’re always in my head, Danforth. Maybe after we finish this hole we can talk about it somewhere a little more private?”

Chad nodded dumbly and followed Ryan into the golf cart. The tension between the two was nearly palpable as they drove off down the course in near silence. Until Ryan decided to open his mouth, of course.

“When I said…that…I didn’t mean that we had to do anything,” Ryan said, starting to talk a million miles a minute. “If it makes you uncomfortable or something…”

“And which one of us got drunk at Troy’s Christmas party and got turned down,” Chad asked, finding words coming to him a little easier.

Ryan laughed and shook his head. “Sorry about that. Moral code and all.”

“How chivalrous,” Chad said. “Thank you for protecting my fragile reputation.”

“Of course!” Ryan exclaimed, adopting a terrible posh British accent. “What else are gentlemen for?”

“Never talk like that in my presence again,” Chad said.

“What if I need the accent for a role in musicale!” Ryan asked, still talking in that terrible terrible accent.

“I’d walk out of the theater. You’re worse than Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins,” Chad said.

“And I thought you didn’t like musicals,” Ryan said with a smile.

Chad shook his head. “No. I like musicals. I just don’t dance.”

“Chad Danforth, are you turning to the dark side?” Ryan asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Of course not! Everyone’s seen Mary Poppins; it’s kind of hard to avoid musicals when you have picture of Michael Crawford inside the fridge,” Chad said, only half joking.

“Context?” Ryan asked, visibly bewildered.

“My mom likes Phantom of the Opera,” Chad said. “She’s seen it like forty times.”

Ryan slammed the breaks on the golf cart, nearly launching Chad out onto the hard concrete road next to the course. “What the hell?”

“You know Phantom of the Opera?” Ryan asked in disbelief.

“Yeah.”

“Have you see it?”

“Yeah.”

“More than once?”

“I’m just gonna cut to the chase and say that my mom has made me cross state lines multiple times to see Phantom and then exclusively played the Broadway cast recording on our way to school everyday even when I was in high school. Why do you think I was so eager to get a car?” Chad asked.

Ryan paused for a second, his brain having clearly crashed and initiating a reboot that was gonna take a while. “Why did I never know this?”

“Dude, you remember what high school was like,” Chad said. “Besides, do you really think I like Phantom of the Opera after hearing it a thousand times against my will? You can’t tell me that you’ve made snap judgements about things that were way more petty.”

Ryan finally rebooted. “So are you coming to the party tonight? I know it’s technically staff only but…”

“I’ll be there,” Chad said.

Ryan nodded, seemingly at a loss for words. “Good. Now where the hell did I send the ball.”

Chad shrugged. “I have no idea. I’m a horrible caddy."

Chapter Text

There was alcohol at the party. Chad should have expected this, considering that Lava Springs had a full bar and regularly had to deal with the occasional white woman over fifty who had had too many margaritas objectifying him with a little casual racism thrown in for good measure. But the staff party in high school definitely didn’t have drinks. Or at least, the staff party for the junior staffers didn’t have alcoholic beverages. But the adult staff party did, as it was thrown after the high school pool party in the afternoon.

The whole vibe of the adult staff party made Chad feel wildly underdressed. If he had known that it was going to be more of a cocktail party and less of an end of summer blowout, he probably would have worn full length pants and a shirt that didn’t say “Warning: I do dumb things.” He probably also would have prepared for the inevitability that Ryan was going to look mouthwateringly, tongue tyingly good in a burgundy button down and tight (TIGHT) black slacks.

“Hi,” Chad said roughly as he approached where Ryan was standing at the bar. “Come here often?”

Ryan looked over to see Chad and grinned. “Not as much as I would like, considering my parents own the place. You?”

“I usually work here,” Chad said. “What do you want to do?”

Ryan shrugged. “I’m only in town for a little while, so I have to catch up with friends.”

“Friends?” Chad asked. “Is that what we are?”

“I’d hope so,” Ryan said. “I’m sorry for making things weird…”

“Dude, don’t worry about it. I’m the one who made it weird over winter break,” Chad said.

Ryan went silent as the bartender (someone Chad had never seen before in his life and clearly wasn’t a staff member of Lava Springs) slid him a glass of…something. It was a whiskey glass but it had a cherry in it, which was definitely not how most men in New Mexico have their whiskey. Then again, Ryan Evans wasn’t like most men, full stop.

“Your Manhattan, Mr. Evans.”

“Thank you kindly,” Ryan said, taking the drink and slipping the bartender what looked like a couple hundred dollar bills.

Chad gaped for a moment. “I know you live in New York now but this is ridiculous.”

Ryan shrugs and lifts the glass to his lips. “It’s an open bar. If you want to live up to the wording of your shirt, you could order a drink.”

“I don’t know,” Chad said. “Alcohol isn’t exactly on the preseason nutrition plan.”

“I know for a fact that you sneak French fries from the kitchen during your breaks,” Ryan said teasingly. “And no one would blame you for taking advantage of the open bar.”

Chad flagged down the bartender. “Whiskey, neat.”

“Right away, sir,” the bartender said with a curt nod.

Ryan raised his eyebrows. “Whiskey? In that outfit?”

“You might find that I’m full of surprises, Evans,” Chad said.

Ryan tilted his head in confusion. “I’m not quite sure that’s the right response.”

“Cut me some slack, okay? I’m not the smoothest when it comes to guys I have crushes on,” Chad admitted, making Ryan blush.

The bartender walked back over. “Your whiskey, sir.”

Chad took the glass, nodded, and took a sip. In the split second between lifting the glass up to his mouth and taking a sip, he realized something rather important that could have ruined the rest of the night.

“Gah,” Chad grunted, contorting his face but trying desperately not to look disgusted. “It’s like someone put rubbing alcohol in smoker.”

Fortunately for Chad, this made Ryan laugh. “I guess you can’t shoot whiskey,” he said, raising his glass up to cheers with Chad.

“Is that a reference to something,” Chad asked in a voice that was a little froggier than he would have liked it to be.

“Carrie Underwood? Come on, it’s a country song!” Ryan said. “We’re in the wild west!”

“You and I both know that anything about Albuquerque being the wild west is bull,” Chad said. “Especially if a city slicker like you has heard of a country song that I haven’t.”

Ryan rolls his eyes. “Everyone knows Carrie Underwood.”

“There’s no way everyone knows Carrie Underwood,” Chad said. “You’re still a pretentious theater kid after all.”

“Or maybe a spring semester in New York has opened me up to the possibilities life has to offer.”

Chad studied Ryan’s face, almost making the mistake of taking another sip of his whiskey before thinking better of it and putting the glass down. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Ryan took a sip of his drink without grimacing, the bastard. “Means that I learned how to handle my whiskey.”

“First of all, there’s no way that’s straight whiskey; there’s a cherry in there. And I thought you didn’t do drinking,” Chad said, “or guys that have been drinking.”

Ryan turned so that he was leaning up against the bar and close enough to speak softly into Chad’s ear. “If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that sometimes alcohol can lead to fun times.”

“You mean getting drunk and doing stuff?”

“I mean, maybe we just have the one drink and see where the night takes us,” Ryan whispered.

Chad downed the rest of his whiskey without thinking about it and smacked the glass back down on the bar, grimacing and trying not to make a noise more similar to that of a dying old man. “I think I’m fine with that being my only drink,” he said, his face pinching in on itself against his will. “Ugh, that’s strong.”

Ryan threw his head back and laughed. “Do you need a water?”

“I’m fine,” Chad said, knowing that he was thoroughly unconvincing.

“I’ll get you a water.”

The conversation between the two continued to flow smoothly, as though they hadn’t just started regularly texting back and forth over the last six months. And Ryan was right; Chad did need water to get the burning taste of the whiskey out of his mouth.

Eventually, everything became a little softer around the edges as Ryan tugged Chad into the mens room. And then from the mens room to an alley behind the kitchens. And then from the alley behind the kitchens to Ryan’s personal condo upstairs, where clothing quickly became an impediment to the kind of activities they wanted to do. So the dumb t-shirt and gym shorts, along with the burgundy button down and wildly tight slacks all landed somewhere on the floor of Ryan’s condo as the two stumbled to the bedroom.

It was awkward and fumbling, but Chad blamed that on the alcohol. Because every other part of it was so much damn fun. Of course, they had gotten hot and heavy and Chad couldn’t remember anything sexier than Ryan Evans laughing in the heat of the moment when Chad accidentally grazed his stomach in an attempt to be seductive. Sex had always seemed to be serious and the ultimate culmination of something sacred and carnal, but this felt just like the extension of whatever it was that was already happening between them. And so it was light and fun and wonderful wonderful wonderful.

Chad woke up in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room with sunlight beginning to peak through the blinds. Everything was still a little fuzzy around the edges, but it was a more pleasant bleary and relaxed than any other hangover he’d ever had. And the bed he was in was probably the most comfortable thing he’d ever slept in ever. He looked away from the window to see Ryan stirring a little, plastered to his side.

“Good morning,” Chad said roughly.

Ryan blearily opened his eyes and smiled sleepily. “Good morning. How’d you sleep?”

“Like a baby,” Chad said. “Dude, what do I have to do to get a bed this comfortable?”

Ryan laughed, the sound rumbling against Chad’s torso and right into his heart. “I don’t know, have rich parents?”

“You think your dad could get the university to use these mattresses in the dorms?”

“I thought the college experience was having a shitty bed to sleep on while doing the most stressful work of your life,” Ryan joked.

“It wouldn’t be so stressful if we had actually half decent beds.”

“I’ll put in a good word, but I can’t make any promises.”

“Fair enough.”

The two fell into a comfortable silence, laying in the morning light and listening to the birds outside squawk and sing. Ryan began lazily tracing patterns on Chad’s ribs with his index finger and Chad almost reflexively placed a kiss on his forehead. It was undoubtedly one of the best moments Chad had ever had the pleasure of being a part of. So, of course, he had no idea how to make it last.

“So when do you go back to New York?” Chad asked, immediately knowing that it was absolutely the wrong thing to say.

Ryan stiffened a little beside him, pulling his hand back towards his own body. “Classes start Monday. Sophomores aren’t guaranteed housing, which is stupid, so Kelsi and I are getting an apartment.”

“Sucks about the housing,” Chad said.

Ryan sat up and pulled on a bright green robe that looked like it had been made of the hide of a slain Kermit the Frog. “It is what it is. It helps that I know what I’m doing with my life.”

“Should I take that as an insult?” Chad asked.

“It’s not about you,” Ryan said. “I’m frustrated about other stuff. Realizing this week is coming to an end isn’t helping.”

“It is?” Chad asked, unable to stop putting his foot in his mouth.

Ryan tied the robe around his waist in a way that should not have been attractive, but apparently the prior twenty-four hours had only taught Chad that he found nearly everything Ryan did to be inexplicably hot. He then checked the alarm clock for the time and swore loudly. “My flight is scheduled for 10 am.”

“And?”

“It’s 8:30. And Lava Springs isn’t exactly right next to the airport.”

Chad rubbed his eyes and looked over to the alarm clock on Ryan’s night stand. The stark bright numbers of the digital clock hit him like a truck and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

“I guess this would be a bad time to talk about whatever we are now,” Chad said, only half joking as he pulled on his boxers.

Ryan looked up at Chad, blushing and clearly having not heard what

“I mean, like, as an addendum to the ‘whenever you’re in town’ thing we talked about on New Years,” Chad said, slipping into his gym shorts. “Like there doesn’t have to be strings or anything. I know you and long distance aren’t really a thing.”

Ryan threw Chad his t-shirt. “It’s not that I wouldn’t do long distance. It’s just hard to juggle Juilliard without any distractions. Not that you’d be a distraction.”
“I get it,” Chad said. “There are guys on the team that broke up with girls for even worse reasons than ‘I don’t have time for a relationship right now,’ even though they could have used it as an excuse.”

“Fair enough,” Ryan said. “So we’re both busy and not in the right place at the right time. But when we are, we just see what happens.”

“Yeah,” Chad said, looking down at the rumpled t-shirt he had just yanked on and realizing that it was inside out.

“Your shirt’s on backwards,” Ryan said.

Chad swore under his breath and pulled the shirt off to try again when the front door of the condo swung open. “Mr. Evans, your car is waiting downstairs,” an all too familiar voice said.

“Be right there, Fulton!” Ryan said loudly, looking over at Chad with wide eyes. “There’s a trellis outside my window; you can sneak out through there.”

“Why does a desert resort have a trellis?” Chad hissed, quickly trying to put his shirt back on the right way.

“It was Sharpay’s idea, not mine,” Ryan said, rummaging through his dresser for clean clothes. “Don’t forget your shoes.”

Chad nodded and pulled his feet into the dirty socks on the floor and stuffing them into his sneakers. “It won’t be like this every time, right?”

“As long as we don’t do it right before I have to leave the state, then yeah.”

“So there will be a next time?” Chad asked, a lump forming in this throat that he told himself was just a side effect of drinking whiskey. “Not that we’re dating or anything.”

Ryan nodded and pulled on his own underwear and pants. “Right. Just adding on to all the other stuff.”

Chad opened the window as Mr. Fulton made himself known again. “Mr. Evans, I really must insist…”

“I’ll be out in a moment,” Ryan shouted, moving to a wardrobe and flipping through neatly hung shirts that were arranged by color in a wildly pleasing manner. “Don’t worry!”

Chad should have probably left by now, but he was still mesmerized by Ryan, even in the state of chaos and panic. And Ryan caught him staring.

“So, no strings?” Ryan asked, with an expression that Chad couldn’t quite read.

Chad nodded, even though something in him was still a little disappointed. “No strings. See ya.”

And with that, he dipped out of the window.

Chapter Text

Chad’s head swam with every single thought ever and then some as he drove home. The wild mix of euphoria and sheer terror combined into an overwhelming feeling that he’d never felt before. He groaned and turned on the stereo to try and drown out the voices in his head. Which is why, of course, he still had the Wicked cast recording in the CD player, blasting “What Is This Feeling?” at full volume. Chad attempted to switch to the radio, but every channel seemed to be playing some kind of stupid love song, including one even called “Love Story,” so he turned off the stereo. It was like the universe was laughing at him the entire drive back to his house. There was only person he could turn to in situations like these, so he called her.

“What’s up, Chad?” Taylor said.

“Ryan was in town,” Chad said simply.

“What the fuck did you do now, Danforth?” she asked, sounding more amused than annoyed.

The line crackled with silence. Taylor groaned. “Your inability to construct complete sentences over the phone is going to be the end of me.”

“We hooked up,” Chad said. “And he’s going to back to New York in…like…now.”

“Oh, you poor baby,” Taylor said. “I’ll be there in an hour.”

“You live five minutes away.”

“I know. I need to get supplies,” Taylor said, keys jingling as she ran down the stairs, “and reinforcements in case your potential sister-in-law decides to end you with a shovel.”

“Please. We both know her weapon of choice is a stiletto,” Chad said, only half joking.

Taylor sighed. “Stay where you are. Unless you see Sharpay on the war path. Then run for your fucking life.” The front door of Taylor’s house closed behind her as she ran to her car.

“I don’t know if I can outrun the feral Sharpay Evans,” Chad said, “but I can try.”

“Alright, toodles!” Taylor said, pitching her voice up in an attempt to imitate the high ice princess herself.

“Toodles,” Chad echoed miserably.

Taylor arrived with Gabriella and Troy, each holding grocery bags filled with comfort food. When Chad let them into the house, Taylor and Gabriella marched past him and straight into the kitchen. Troy just stood in the front entryway, looking lost, before handing Chad a jar of straight green chile.

“Taylor didn’t exactly say what happened. She just kinda told us to get into the car and we went to Smith’s,” Troy said. “I snuck that into the bag when they weren’t looking.”

Chad smiled at the jar of green chile and nodded. “You’re a good friend, Troy.”

“I’m trying to be better at it,” Troy said. “Gotta make up for the one thousand…”

“Dude, if you even start talking about how far we are the from Bay Area, I’m gonna lose it,” Chad said. “I had enough of that to last me into the next lifetime.”

Gabriella shrieked from the kitchen. “Why is there a man in your fridge?”

“Don’t let my mom know that you don’t know who Michael Crawford is,” Chad yelled back before refocusing his energy on Troy. “Dude, let’s go before my mom comes home and starts reenacting Phantom. She’s a terrible Christine.”

They walked into the kitchen to see a traumatized Gabriella on the floor in front of the still open refrigerator and Taylor cackling over four empty bowls and a pint of vanilla ice cream. Troy walked over to close the fridge, but before he did, he looked inside and laughed.

“You weren’t kidding. Hello, Mr. Crawford.” Troy closed the refrigerator. “Goodbye, Mr. Crawford.”

Chad shook his head and saw the ice cream. “Whoa, I can’t do ice cream!” He said, walking over to Taylor. “It’s not on the preseason nutrition plan.”

“Ryan Evans’s ass isn’t on your basketball meal plan, either,” Taylor retorted. “A little ice cream won’t kill you.”

Troy’s eyes widened bigger than anyone had ever seen before. “You ate Ryan’s ass?”

“I didn’t eat his ass!” Chad exclaimed. “I…We hooked up.”

Gabriella bounced up from the floor, eyes nearly as wide as Troy’s. “You what? But he’s in New York!”

“He will be in three hours,” Chad said. “He came to the country club to get out of New York for the week before school starts. I was working and we started flirting because he’s still really bad at golf and…we may have hooked up. But I did not eat his ass.”

Chad opened the jar of green chiles with a satisfying pop, flicked off the lid, and grabbed a spoon, eating directly out of the jar like it was peanut butter. Now Taylor’s eyes were wide.

“You just eat it out of the jar?” She asked, mildly afraid. “And you were offended when I joked about eating ass.”

“This is really good!” Chad said defensively, mouth full.

Taylor wrinkled her nose before turning her attention back to the ice cream on the counter. “So I’ve called this emergency meeting of the Chad Danforth Support Group because Chad Danforth did, as his shirt would suggest, something dumb.”

“He has a name and he’s not dumb,” Chad retorted. “Neither is this shirt."

“And it’s in moments like these that I’m glad I broke up with you,” Taylor said sweetly. “I made Chad a binder filled with all of the information he needed to know about our precious Ryan Evans. I would say he’s the Glinda to Sharpay’s Elphaba, but she’d probably take that as a compliment.”

“I thought Glinda was the pink and sparkly one,” Troy said, confused.

“She wears a blue dress in the show,” Gabriella said, rubbing Troy’s arm comfortingly.

“But also a pink dress when they go to the dance in ‘Dancing Through Life’ and into ‘Popular’ when she tries to give Elphaba a makeover. But it’s different than the pink dress she wears in the movie when she comes out of the bubble,” Chad added, making all three of his friends turn and stare at him. “What? Ryan emailed me a link to the bootleg.”

“Where did you put the binder?” Taylor asked, placing her hands on her hips.

Chad’s eyes widened. “I don’t know. I haven’t looked at it in months. Not that I would need to; I basically memorized when you gave it to me.”

Gabriella laughed awkwardly, finally catching up to where the conversation was supposed to be headed. “You gave him a binder?”

“If it wasn’t so creepy, it’d be a good read,” Chad mumbled. “Besides, it’d need some updating.”

“That’s what I was going to do,” Taylor said. “You’re long past Ryan Evans 101.”

“Maybe you should make a new binder,” Chad snarked.

“Okay, what’s going on?” Troy said, holding his hands out the way he did in high school when he wanted the basketball team to listen to him. “Why is everyone talking about binders?”

Gabriella shrugged. “It’s a Taylor McKessie special.”

“What’s the point of growing up in a town where everyone knows everyone if you don’t figure out how to get dirt on people,” Taylor replied.

“Thank God you’re going into politics,” Chad said. “I’d be terrified if you were planning on doing anything else with your life.”

Taylor narrowed her eyes at Chad. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

“Okay, I still don’t know what’s going on,” Troy said. “What the hell is ‘Ryan Evans 101’ and what’s with the binder?”

Chad ran a hand over his face and groaned. “I called Taylor and told her that I might maybe have a crush on Ryan and she put together a binder so that I could know everything about him.”

“No, I put it together so you would know how best to woo him,” Taylor said.

“Either way, it’s called ‘Ryan Evans 101’ and it’s stupid,” Chad continued. “Especially because we’re well past that point.”

Gabriella looked between Taylor and Chad, awestruck. “I’m so glad I stuck with you Wildcats.”

“God, I’m a Redhawk now!” Chad yelled with mock anger, making Gabriella laugh. “And you’re a tree! Or something!”

“Cardinal,” Troy said, finding his voice. “But not like the bird. Like the color.”

“I can see why you would still want to be referred to as a Wildcat,” Chad said, nodding to a still snickering Gabriella.

Taylor shook her head good naturedly. “Anyway, Chad has since made a move on Ryan Evans, which means it is our task to pick up the pieces.”

“What pieces?” Chad asked. “I’m fine.”

“Danforth, you would not have called me in a panic this morning if you were fine,” she replied.

Gabriella took a seat at the kitchen counter. “So, what happened?”

“I already told you,” Chad said, taking another spoonful of green chiles. “We hooked up.”

Taylor pulled the jar and spoon out of his hands and placed them on the counter. “We know, genius.”

It was in this moment that Chad had almost wished that two of his closest friends hadn’t been super freaky geniuses. “I mean, what’s happening with you and Ryan? Are you guys gonna do long distance?” Gabriella asked, doing that thing of trying not to look hopeful but still seemingly like she was about to jump around the kitchen and dance.

“He doesn’t do long distance,” Chad said. “We just kinda said we’d hang out whenever the other is in town. I guess that means we hook up every once in a while. A no strings sorta thing.”

Taylor groaned, running a hand over her face, and Gabriella whipped out her phone, texting someone furiously. Troy and Chad exchanged matching confused looks.

“What’s happening?” Chad asked.

Troy shrugged. “Why would I know?”

Gabriella’s phone chimed with an incoming text message, so she motioned Taylor to come look at what it said. Taylor silently read the message on the screen before nodding and looking back up at a very confused Chad.

“Kelsi said that you and Ryan are both being idiots,” Taylor told him in that absurd know-it-all voice that he thought was hot in high school. If Chad was being honest with himself, it was still kind of hot. But it was not the moment for such thoughts, nor the place.

“But that doesn’t need to mean anything!” Troy said, coming to Chad’s defense.

“She sniffed out that I was into guys at your Christmas party last year,” Chad said. “I get where she’s coming from, but I’m not gonna force anyone into doing anything they don’t want to do. And I don’t even know if I’m ready for long term relationships. I’ve kinda been spoiled.”

Taylor rolled her eyes. “Oh please. Flattery might get you places with people who don’t know you, but there’s a reason we’re the ‘Chad Danforth Support Group’ and not the ‘Chad Danforth Ego Inflation Task Force.’”

“Task Force?” Chad asked.

“Kelsi said that you should go for it anyway,” Gabriella said, completely ignoring Chad.

“Why are you live texting this to Kelsi?” Chad exclaimed. “She’s not part of the support group, is she? She’s in another state!”

“No, but if she figured out that you and Ryan were into each other, she deserves to watch the train wreck in real time,” Taylor said.

Chad felt something bubbling under the surface that made all of this seem overwhelming and exhausting. “Don’t I get a say in how my relationships work out? And who knows and who doesn’t? Not all of us are as eager to gossip about each others sex life because not all of us live in a world where we can be open about that kind of stuff. I haven’t even had a chance to wrap my head around the labels and terminology and other stuff that already doesn’t make sense but people expect me to have figured out in a night because I like a guy from high school! And that’s before we even talk about the basketball side of things. I don’t even want to think about that. So while I appreciate the joking and stuff, I’m not exactly in a position to ask Ryan out until after college.”

His words echoed around the room, making even the ever confident Taylor look a little bashful as she refocused on the defrosting ice cream. Gabriella awkwardly pocketed her phone and looked down at the kitchen floor, tapping her nails on the stone countertops.

“So you’re just going to wait it out?” Troy asked, breaking the silence.

“Unless one of you guys has the dough to get a flight to New York right now or a magic wand to make everyone suddenly a lot less homophobic, I don’t think I have much of a choice,” Chad said.

“On the bright side,” Troy said, completely ignoring how guilty the girls looked, “you can hang out with us for the rest of the summer!”

“Absolutely!” Gabby said. “And I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“You’re alright,” Chad said, waving his hand dismissively. “And Kelsi would’ve found out sooner or later even if you didn’t text her.”

Troy laughed. “Apparently she knows you even better than I do.”

“Nah,” Chad said, slinging an arm over Taylor’s shoulders, “you guys still know me. You’re cool to hang out here as long as you want.”

“And then you can drive us all to the airport,” Taylor said, a mischievous glint returning to her eye. If Chad wasn’t so grateful for the company and junk food, he’d maybe regret forgiving her so quickly. But instead, he just helped her with the ice cream and laughed off the disgusted looks from the girls when he inevitably drowned his sundae in green chile.

Chapter Text

Chad’s head was still spinning going into sophomore year, but he had to quickly refocus because he had apparently showed enough potential to be regularly playing with the guys on the starting lineup. And then he had to meet with his advisor to figure out the academic side of his college plans, like what he was going to major in and how to finish up a degree in four years. Then, he had to go through the process of declaring a major and meeting with the head of the department to approve his petition, which Chad realized only afterwards was more of a formality than an actual interview to see if he would fit into the department.

Albuquerque also started to feel more lonely than it had been freshman year. He hadn’t seen Sharpay in months and was strangely beginning to miss her. The only familiar face in town was Jason, but even he was making plans to move out to Los Angeles to try and break into the film industry (after an in-depth discussion clarifying that breaking into the industry meant getting a job and not going on an Oceans 11 style heist of a studio lot). It wasn’t that Chad didn’t have friends in town; he did. It’s just all the familiar faces he’d come to know from school had one by one left to go do bigger and better things.

Chad was just beginning to think he wouldn’t see anyone from East High for a while until the Redhawks went up against UC Berkeley in December. That was until he was at a frat party, keeping it low key in order to appease the more douchey (read: homophobic) people on the basketball team, when just another night started to become the strangest night of his life.

“Danforth!” A voice pierced through the noise of the crowd.

Chad turned to see Sharpay Evans forcing her way through the crowd towards him. If he wasn’t surrounded by people, he would have made a run for it. Maybe use the little cash he made from working in the student center to leave the state.

Sharpay eventually stood in front of Chad with an unreadable expression. “Come with me,” she said, grabbing his hand and yanking him in the direction from where she came from.

“Where are you taking me?” Chad asked, panicking a little.

Sharpay rolled her eyes. “You’ll thank me later,” she said, sounding less prissy and more annoyed.

“Why?” Chad asked.

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Sharpay snapped. “If you keep talking, I’ll send you back to that stupid party.”

“Okay, okay!” Chad said, giving up and letting himself be dragged out of the party and into her bright pink convertible. “Okay, seriously. Where are we going? And this is not a stupid question because you’ve never let me within twenty feet of your car.”

“Get in the car, Danforth!” She said, sliding into the driver’s seat. “We’ll get there when we get there.”

So Chad got into the car. Before he even had the chance to put on his seatbelt, Sharpay floored it. The rest of the journey was made with relative silence, bar the night air whipping violently through their hair as the car sped through Albuquerque. Chad had to close his eyes to keep himself from getting car sick or losing it out of fear because of how wildly Sharpay was driving. If there was one thing he couldn’t do, it was die in Sharpay Evans’s pink convertible before officially coming out of the closet.

Before long, the car squealed to a stop in front of the Evans family mansion. Chad looked over at Sharpay, who was already glaring at him with the might of a thousand suns.

“Before we go in,” she said, “I need you to know that if you hurt my brother, I will…”

“Stab me through the heart with a stiletto?” Chad asked, the most terrified he had ever been in his entire life.

Sharpay cocked her head to the side, thinking. “I hadn’t thought about that,” she said, sounding surprised that she hadn’t come up with that herself. “I was going to say that I will take you out to Alamogordo and leave you where they test the nuclear weapons, but a stiletto to the heart is inspired. I might have to reevaluate my opinion of you, Danforth.”

Chad blinked. “Okay.”

“Now get out of my car before I drive you to Alamogordo and stab you through the heart with a stiletto,” she hissed, pointing towards the front door of the mansion.

Chad nearly face planted on the gravel driveway in his attempt to get out of Sharpay’s car as quickly as possible. But he somehow managed to right himself and walked towards the house, until he felt a pair of surprisingly strong arms turn him towards the side of the house.

“We’re sneaking in!” Sharpay whispered from behind Chad. “It’s our grandmother’s birthday and we couldn’t get out of it, so we’re using you as our excuse.”

“Don’t I get a say in any of this?” Chad asked.

“No!”

So Sharpay wheeled Chad towards the side entrance of the backyard, which was pleasantly humming with smooth, inoffensive music that would be best suited to setting the mood at a conference on the color beige. They stopped in front of a large side gate that Chad had never seen before that probably led into the party.

“I will handle everything,” Sharpay said, walking confidently towards the gate and turning to face Chad. “Don’t speak unless you are spoken to. And if you are spoken to, make sure it’s not too loud. Nana is one loud noise away from cardiac arrest.”

“I’m not loud,” Chad said.

Sharpay gave him a look. “I could hear your stupid jock mating call from the other side of the school. You’re very loud. Which is good if you ever decided to pull a Troy and switch from basketball to the stage.”

“You did not just use my best friend’s name as a verb,” he said.

“So what if I did? It’s not the worst thing I could do to his name,” she whispered. “And we’re getting off topic. Just…follow my lead.”

Sharpay turned on her heel and stood in front of the gate for a moment, smoothed her hair, took a deep breath, and reached up to open the latch. The gate swung open to reveal the most old white people Chad had ever seen in one place at one time, which is saying something considering he spent multiple summers working at Lava Springs. It was also the only time that he could ever describe an event as having a light tinkling of polite conversation. Not to mention, everyone seemed to be in black tie, which again made Chad feel wildly underdressed had he not just been at a frat party. At least this time he had no idea that the night was going to involve crashing a boring white people party.

Sharpay strode confidently into the garden towards the center of the backyard, where most of the guests were gathered around. Chad moved to follow but as the crowd parted to make way for Sharpay, he saw him. In all the casual texting they had done, Ryan never mentioned that he was popping over to Albuquerque any time soon. But there he was, fedora and all, dressed in beige with nice black pants. And all Chad could do was stare, unable to move or do anything. Except maintain eye contact with Ryan when they inevitably locked eyes after Ryan looked over to where his sister had come from.

“Hey, princess,” Mr. Evans said warmly.

“Hi, Daddy,” Sharpay said. She glanced over her shoulder to see Chad still frozen in the shadows, and threateningly nodded for him to join the party. “I don’t think that I’m going to be here for long.”

“Oh no,” Mrs. Evans said, “did the trip tire you out?”

“Mother, I’m fine,” Sharpay said in a tone that was somehow bitingly sweet before turning to her brother. “Nice to see you too, Ryan.”

Ryan snapped his attention back into the conversation as Chad awkwardly scooted through the shadows of the garden. “Shar! What are you doing here?”

“I assume you’re meaning to ask me why I am late,” Sharpay said, glancing back over to where Chad was waiting in the shadows. She rolled her eyes and walked back to him, grabbed him by the arm, and gently pulled Chad into the main conversation.

And then he locked eyes with Ryan again. It was almost impossible not to, considering that the last time they had been this close, Chad was climbing out of the window of Ryan’s condo after spending the night together. In the months that had followed, Chad had wondered if he had just built up the idea of what Ryan looked like that night in his head. But even in a horrible beige shirt that washed out his light complexion and only mildly fitted pants, he was completely distracted from everything that was going on around him. The world could be ending and Chad would still find himself staring at Ryan.

“Daddy, Chad is having a party with a bunch of the East High gang,” Sharpay said, turning back to her parents. “It’d be a real shame if Ryan and I couldn’t go.”

“Mr. Danforth?”

Chad broke his gaze from Ryan and stared at Mr. Evans. “Um…excuse me, Mr. Evans?”

“Are you having a party?” Mr. Evans asked. It wasn’t that he was a particularly intimidating guy, but after a couple of summers working for him and knowing that he was on the board of directors for his school, Chad was terrified of Vance Evans.

“It’s not really a party. Just kind of a low key thing,” he said, desperately trying to seem calm even though he was crashing a wildly fancy black-tie party hosted by his crush’s dad and member of his school’s board of directors in gym shorts. “Couple people are in town, so we’re just hanging out.”

“Nonsense, that sounds lovely,” Mrs. Evans said, gesturing lightly with her martini glass. “What do you think, duckie?”

Ryan blinked at his mother before returning to his cool, calm, collected facade. “I think if Shar thinks it’s worth while, then we should go. But I wouldn’t want to run out of Nana…”

“Leave your grandmother to me,” she said with a smile. “She’ll understand you don’t get to see your school chums as much as you’d like.”

“Thank you!” Sharpay said, grabbing Ryan’s arm and pulling him towards the garden gate where she and Chad had just come from.

Chad stood awkwardly for a moment in front of the Evans clan before awkwardly backing towards the gate, waving weakly. “Nice to see you all.”

It took all of his will power not to trip over himself as he turned around on the gravel and all but broke into a sprint after the Evans twins.

“So,” Ryan said as soon as all three were out of ear shot of the garden, “where’s the party?”

“There is no party,” Sharpay said, pulling her car keys back out and flipping them in between her fingers. “We’re going to Lotaburger.”

“We are?” Chad asked, both he and Ryan stopping in their tracks.

“You didn’t know about this?” Ryan asked, pointing to Chad.

Chad shook his head and held his hands up. “I have nothing to do with this. I was at a frat party and now I’m going to Lotaburger with the literal drama queen of East High. I have no idea how any of that happened.”

Ryan rolled his eyes. “I just wish she wouldn’t meddle.”

“Meddle with what?” Chad asked.

Before Ryan could say anything, both of them were being dragged to Sharpay’s parked pink death mobile by said death mobile owner.

“How hard is it for you two to get in a car?” Sharpay growled, all but throwing Chad and Ryan into the backseat. “Danforth, you can have the front seat.”

“What about me?” Ryan asked in a whiny voice that Chad hadn’t heard since high school. “Why can’t I have the front seat?”

“Because you didn’t tell me you were going to Nana’s birthday and had to improvise a plan that included this jock so that you’d actually come!”

“Hey!” Chad said. “I’m right here.”

“But he was extremely cooperative, thus he gets to sit in the front seat,” Sharpay continued. “He also gave me a very creative threat to use in defense of your honor.”

“A stiletto through the heart isn’t that creative,” Chad said.

Ryan’s eyes widened as he climbed into the back of the convertible. “Shar, you can’t just threaten people!”

“Who says I threatened him?”

“Guys, I’m still right here,” Chad said.

“Literally everything about this situation!” Ryan said. “I’m no law expert, but I’m pretty sure you abducted him. Like, if you were sued in a court of law, you could be charged!”

Chad rolled his eyes. “Dude, I came of my own free will. Now can we go? I was just promised greasy green chile cheeseburgers and the closest one this rich ass neighborhood is already closed.”

Sharpay adjusted the rearview mirror to smile smugly at Ryan before looking over at Chad. “I think I’m starting to understand what my brother sees in you, Danforth.”

Ryan opened his mouth to protest but any noise he could have made was drowned out by Sharpay revving the car as it screamed out of the driveway and onto the suburban streets of Albuquerque.

Chapter Text

Every region of the country has its greasy local burger chain: California has In ’N’ Out, Texas has Whataburger, Wisconsin has Culver’s, and New Mexico has Blake’s Lotaburger. Chad wouldn’t say that Lotaburger is the best burger place in the world, but they put green chiles on your burger without asking and Nat Geo called it the best green chile cheeseburger in the world a few years back. All of that to say, it’s definitely a contender for the best burger place.

By the time Sharpay pulled into the parking lot, the place was practically empty with the exception of a few drunk college students who were grabbing a bite to eat before hitting the next party (or going home once the food coma hit) and the employees. In fact, the only person that seemed remotely awake was Sharpay, who immediately began barking orders at Ryan as soon as they walked into the building.

“Ryan, you’re ordering the food."
“But I…”

“You already know my order, and get Danforth whatever he wants,” Sharpay said, handing over a slick all-black credit card. “I’m paying.”

Ryan looked down at the card and back up at Sharpay skeptically. “On the family black Amex? You realize this ain’t exactly the Ritz, right?”

Sharpay rolled her eyes. “Shut up and ask Danforth what he wants!”

Ryan gave his sister A Look before turning expectantly to Chad. “Uh, just a Lotaburger with extra green chile.”

“Got it,” Ryan said, before turning back to Sharpay. “You’re lucky I like you.”

“Uh huh,” she said, already grabbing onto Chad’s forearm and yanking him towards the seating area. “We’re gonna find a booth.”

“What?” Chad managed to get out before having to stabilize himself against the surprisingly strong Sharpay. Before he turned around, though, he saw Ryan’s eyes sparkle into a smile as he covered his growing smile with his hand. Goddamnit.

The moment was cut short by nearly tripping over himself as Sharpay strutted towards an empty booth close to the back exit near the restrooms. Chad slid into the seat facing the door while Sharpay faced the cash register, immediately falling into awkward silence. That is, silence not counting the ambient sound of the speakers tinnily playing Top 40 throughout the joint and the sizzling of burgers in the kitchen.

“Ryan told me you had fun this summer,” Sharpay said, attempting to be casual while looking over her flawless manicure. “How’s it been since then?”

Chad blustered for a moment before finding his words. “Uh, nothing’s happened. Since last summer. Stuff happened over the summer, but not since then.”

“Don’t be coy, Danforth. It doesn’t suit you,” she said sharply.

“I’m serious. It’s just kind of a thing that happens when we’re in the same place at the same time,” Chad said.

Sharpay looked up, narrowing her eyes. “Same place, same time?”

“I mean, on New Years Eve we were kinda like, ‘Oh, whenever you’re in New York,’ and ‘Whenever you’re back in Albuquerque.’ But it wasn’t a commitment to anything. The only time it really came up was when he was here for the week over the summer, and we agreed the it was still just a no strings thing,” he said, trying to seem casual and not at all nervous that the scariest person from his high school was interrogating him about the nature of his relationship with her brother.

“So you’re not dating?” Sharpay said, crossing her arms over her chest. “And who’s fault is that? I just need to know who I need to be mad at.”

Chad blinked. “It was technically a mutual agreement.”

“But you didn’t want to agree to it?” She asked, eyes narrowing in a way that made it look like she was turning on her Terminator vision. “I’m gonna kill him.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Chad said.

“No, you don’t get it, Danforth!” Sharpay said. “I spent most of high school listening to him pining over two people: Ashton Kutcher and you! And now that he has the chance to have you, he isn’t taking it?”

“There aren’t exactly a lot of out athletes,” he said before processing what Sharpay had said. “Also, have me? Like a thing?”

“Well, sports are stupid. Why do you care about what they think?” She asked, not even hearing the questions. “If there’s a problem at the University, then I’ll have Daddy make it go away.”

“I mean, the dream is to play in the NBA,” Chad admitted sheepishly. “I got a long ways to go but I think that I can make it.”

Sharpay pursed her lips thoughtfully. “And you can’t make it if you’re dating my brother?”

“Like I said,” Chad said, “it was technically a mutual agreement. Besides, I can’t compete with New York guys.”

“The fact that you’re bisexual makes you hotter than most guys, period,” Sharpay said, matter-of-factly. “Not my type, but I’m not the kind of girl who goes after my brother’s sloppy seconds.”

“Ouch?”

“Please,” she said, holding out her hand, “I just mean that whoever Ryan wants is off limits. Even if that means never getting shoot my shot with Ashton Kutcher. Not that I would want to. It’s the opportunity that matters.”

Chad shrugged. “I guess that makes sense,” he said. “Though I just want to be clear, I’m pretty sure I brought up the no strings thing.”

Sharpay frowned. “But you don’t like it.”

“I don’t like a lot of things, Sharpay,” Chad said. “But unlike you, there’s not a lot I can do to change those things.”

Her face softened a little. “I just think that my brother deserves to be happy for once. And I think that he’s being an idiot by just leaving you out for someone else to snatch up while he isn’t looking.”

“You and everyone else,” Chad said under his breath.

“What do you mean, everyone else?”

“Taylor, Gabriella, and Troy. And Kelsi probably knows the most about it, considering she and Ryan live together and she texts with Taylor and Gabriella.”

Sharpay tilted her head thoughtfully. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I absolutely agree with Gabriella and Taylor on this one.”

“Agree with them on what?” Ryan asked, sitting down next to Sharpay with a precarious tray filled with burgers, fries, and milkshakes.

“That Danforth is here is an idiot,” Sharpay said, quickly changing the subject.

“I thought everyone knew that,” Ryan said.

“Hey!” Chad said, grabbing his burger from off the tray. “I thought you liked me!”

“You can like someone and think their idiot,” Ryan said, turning to Sharpay. “Isn’t that right, Shar? Or are we just supposed to forget your Troy Bolton phase.”

Sharpay buried her head into her hands. “Oh, God. Don’t call it that. I just thought he’d be a good duet partner!”

“Among other things,” Ryan said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Chad gagged, grabbing a burger from the tray. “Gross. That’s my best friend you’re talking about!”

“And?” Ryan asked. “You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”

Sharpay snapped her fingers at Ryan. “We don’t coerce people into revealing things they don’t want to talk about at a Lotaburger. This place is sacred!”

“Don’t let Ms. Darbus hear you,” Chad snarked, peeling back the silver and blue foil before taking a bite of his burger.

Ryan attempted to cover his laugh with a cough as Sharpay narrowed her eyes. “More than one place can be sacred, Danforth. Surely even your basketball obsessed brain could figure that out.”

Conversation between the three of them flowed naturally after that. The burgers and fries were wonderfully greasy and it was nice to actually talk to the Evanses without the high stakes and melodrama of high school surrounding ever single moment of their lives. They reminisced over homeroom, Twinkle Towne, Lava Springs, senior year with the benefit of a little bit of hindsight and knowing how everything turned out in the end. It wasn’t until the poor, exhausted person working the cash register informed the trio that they were closing that the conversation even tried to stop. But it just continued as they loaded into Sharpay’s car (Ryan still relegated to the backseat with Chad maintaining front seat privileges) and sped back through the cool Friday night until they arrived back at the Evans’s house. The backyard was quiet and all the lights were out, signaling that whatever Twilight Zone party had been taking place was long over.

“You know I don’t live here, right?” Chad asked as they exited the car. “Is there any way that we could go back to campus?”

“I’m not driving you back to campus,” Sharpay said, sounding almost offended that Chad would even ask. “Figure it out. Call a cab or something.”

“How did you even find me?” Chad said, finally realizing that Sharpay hadn’t even picked him up from the dorms. “Sharpay, wait!”

“Night, boys!” Sharpay said, sauntering up the driveway and into the house. “Toodles!”

Her exeunt of course left Chad and Ryan alone together in the same place for the first time since August. Which was understandably awkward.

“So, my sister abducted you from a frat party,” Ryan said.

Chad nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. “Yeah. No idea how she did it.”

Ryan laughed a little. “That’s Shar for you. Always has some kind of ace up her sleeve to get what she wants.”

“Which apparently was getting you and her out of celebrating your grandma’s birthday,” Chad said before they both fell into silence once more.

“I know the last time we saw each other, it ended up, um…” Ryan said, trailing off.

Chad nodded, fully understanding what he was alluding to. “Yeah.”

They stood in front of each other, not quite knowing what to say or where to start. Ryan took off his hat and began to fiddle with it in his hands as Chad scratched the back of his head. What do you say to the person you’ve been thinking about for months and texted with while artfully avoiding talking about what happened when you last saw each other in person?

“I mean, we did say whenever we were in town,” Ryan said, avoiding eye contact.

“And it’s a no strings thing,” Chad said. “So if you wanted to…”

Chad couldn’t finish his sentence because suddenly there was a Ryan Evans plastered to his chest and hungrily kissing him. It didn’t take Chad long to respond in kind, wrapping his arms around Ryan’s torso and lifting the hem of his shirt up to touch his bare back. The noise that Ryan made nearly had Chad lose it right there in the driveway of the Evans’s family mansion.

“Bedroom,” Ryan panted between kisses. “Now.”

Chad pulled back to see Ryan looking positively debauched: hair ruffled, lips swollen, shirt rumpled. “You’re gonna have to lead me because I don’t want to risk going into the wrong room and traumatizing your poor nana.”

Ryan laughed and pulled Chad into the house, leading him up to his bedroom, and locking the door behind them.

Chapter Text

The next morning felt incredibly familiar to Chad in that he was in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room with sunlight beginning to peak through the blinds. Except this time, there was something incredibly sobering about the light of day as he realized that there was not a single drop of alcohol in his system. The warmth and relaxed feeling that sunk into his bones as he came to was pure afterglow. And the night before had been far more passionate than the drunken fumbling around they had done over the summer (albeit, considering that neither Chad nor Ryan had turned twenty yet, there was still quite a lot of messy teenage fumbling that was more funny than awkward). In fact, if Chad hadn’t been so horribly repressed, he might have even recognized the scary warm and fuzzy feeling as catching feelings. That is, bigger feelings than he already had before all of this started.

“Stop thinking,” a husky voice whispered, lips brushing the shell of Chad’s ear. “You’re gonna have smoke coming out of your ears.”

Chad turned to face Ryan in the bed, who was already awake and bonelessly lounging on the bed. “You have asthma or something?”

“Nah, but I am taking a voice class,” Ryan said. “Our professor’s all but threatened the smokers to quit with physical violence.”

Chad furrowed his brow. “People at Joyride smoke?”

Ryan rolled his eyes. “Some people at Juilliard still adhere to the notion that smoking decreases stress. Which is probably not true, but none of us are taking science classes, so it doesn’t really matter what those nerds say.”

“Don’t tell that to any of the people that we know that are studying that nerd shit,” Chad said softly.

Ryan laughed and leaned forward to knock his forehead gently against Chad’s. “Don’t worry. Secret’s safe with me.”

Chad sighed, just letting himself indulge in the moment just this once. Not that it would last that long, as he realized a pretty significant issue.

“Jesus Christ, Sharpay abducted me. How am I gonna get back to the dorms?”

Ryan quickly reached his hand up to cover his mouth to keep himself from laughing. But the problem with suddenly lifting up your hand up while lying forehead to forehead with another person is that there’s a chance of accidentally punching someone in the face. Which is why Ryan should not have been so surprised when he knocked Chad square in the nose.

“Gah!” Chad said, grabbing at his face.

“Oh my God, I didn’t mean to do that!” Ryan said, laughing nervously. “Are you okay?”

Chad groaned and rolled out of bed, reaching for a tissue on the bed side table. He blotted his nose just in case, but the tissue came up clean.

“I’m fine,” Chad said, slightly muffled by the tissue. “For someone with a mean pitch, I think I expected you to punch a little harder.”

“I wasn’t trying to punch you!” Ryan said. “Also hey!”

“Anyway, how am I gonna get back to the dorms?” Chad repeated, pulling up his boxers and shorts in one go. He quickly regretted it as he could feel his nose throb in protest. “I don’t know if the buses run out this far.”

“They don’t,” Ryan said. “I could drive you.”

“I’m not riding on your Vespa or stealing your sister’s car,” Chad said.

Ryan snorted and walked over to his dresser to begin rifling through the sock drawer. “I’ll call you a cab then,” he said.

“You really don’t have to,” Chad said, beginning to protest.

“Eh, it’s the least I can do,” Ryan said, waving a hand dismissively towards Chad. “You think thirty bucks’ll cover it?”

Chad’s eyes widened. “I don’t know. I don’t really take taxis.”

Ryan shrugged, pulling a stack of bills out of his sock drawer. “We’re not too far from U of A. I think thirty’ll be enough including tip.”

“Do you just keep cash in your sock drawer?”

Ryan ignored Chad and picked up his phone to call who Chad assumed was the local cab company. Chad knew he was probably supposed to be getting dressed and checking his phone to check if it had maintained any charge from the previous day, but he couldn’t help but stare at Ryan. Ryan and his ridiculous green robe, doing nothing but talking on the phone, and yet Chad couldn’t take his eyes off him. And he began let his mind wander, just for a moment, and wonder if what he was feeling was normal or even what it meant. He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t even notice Ryan hang up the phone.

“I’m not coming home for the holidays,” Ryan said unprompted, tossing Chad his shirt.

Chad caught the shirt and cocked his head to the side, confused. “What?”

“There’s some winter performing gigs that Kels and I landed over the holidays,” Ryan said almost a little too casually. “It’s not big deal, and it doesn’t pay that much all things considered. But it does mean that we have to stay in the city over the break.”

Chad pulled on his shirt as what Ryan said began to register. “Wait, you get to perform? In New York?”

“It’s what I already do, dude,” Ryan said sheepishly.

“No, but you’re getting paid? To do your dancing shit in front of people? In New York?”

Ryan nodded.

“Dude! That’s incredible!” Chad exclaimed, only to notice that Ryan wasn’t nearly as excited as he should have been. “What’s the problem?”

Ryan sighed. “I haven’t exactly broken the news to my family yet.”

“You mean that family that almost missed the senior showcase musical thing because they were on a world tour?” Chad asked.

“You remember that?”

“Not willingly. It was all your sister would talk about that wasn’t about understudying for Gabriella when she went to Stanford.”

Ryan laughed in spite of himself. “I’m actually a little more worried about how she’s gonna take the news, to be honest.”

Chad pulled on his shorts. “Worried she’s gonna be jealous or something?”

“Duh.”

“Considering that she used me as an excuse to get you out of your nana’s party last night, I wouldn’t be that worried.”

Ryan sighed and sat down on the side of his bed. “We just said we’d always do all the Broadway New York performing stuff together. I don’t want her to think I’m replacing her with Kelsi.”

Chad walked over to sit next to Ryan. “Interpret this how you want, but I don’t think you can replace Sharpay with anyone. And people have tried. Remember, what’s her face, that British girl who was Sharpay’s assistant senior year? Tammy? Tara?”

Ryan barked out a watery laugh. “Tiara.”

“Exactly. She’ll have her turn in the spotlight again, but you’re your own person. And if you have a job over Christmas that means you’ll be in New York instead of New Mexico, so be it,” Chad said.

“So you don’t mind?”

“You’re lucky I still like you after you punched me in the face,” Chad joked, rubbing his nose. It didn’t hurt too badly, but it still felt a little tender.

“I didn’t mean to! And I don’t need to take this from someone who is worse at remembering names than literally anyone else I know.”

The ribbing continued as the two continued to dress until it was time to smuggle Chad out through the front door without anyone seeing him. Somehow they managed to sneak out to the curb in front of the Evans’s residence before the cab arrived.

“So, I guess I’ll see you after the holidays,” Chad said, attempting to be casual.

Ryan nodded, rocking back and forth on his toes. “Yeah. Good luck with the basketball season.”

It shouldn’t have warmed Chad’s heart to hear that, considering that everyone told him some version of that sentiment over the last month as the team ramped up for the season. But it did. And Chad tried to ignore the fact that it was because of who said it.

“Break a leg with the job,” he said to keep himself from saying anything too mushy.

Ryan blushed and smiled softly. “Yeah, thanks. We’re gonna need it,” he said.

Chad shook his head. “You’re gonna be amazing,” he said. “The best elf number seven or whatever there’s ever been.”

Ryan laughed and rolled his eyes. “Thanks. Means a lot.”

“Of course.”

And then there was a moment where neither of them knew what they were supposed to do. As much as they had said that they were friends and whatever they were doing was no strings, there’s not exactly clear cut rules on how to end the interaction when it doesn’t end with one person sneaking out through a window. Lucky for both Chad and Ryan, the cab pulled up to the curb before either of them made a move that might have been either too formal or too familiar or just plain awkward.

“See you around,” Chad said before climbing into the car.

Ryan waved. “See ya. Get home safe.”

“You too,” Chad said, closing the door before he could register what he said. As soon as the cab pulled away, Chad facepalmed himself and hoped that the cabbie didn’t notice.

Somewhere in a hallway of the most prestigious college for the performing arts in the country (some would say the world, but there’s some snotty British actors who might beg to differ), one Kelsi Nielson walked out of her Remedial Music History class when her cell phone rang. Upon checking the caller ID, all she saw was the 505 area code but the rest of the number she didn’t recognize. Someone from New Mexico. So she answered the call.

“Who is this?” Kelsi asked without preamble.

“Chad Danforth.”

Kelsi nearly dropped her phone out of shock. “Chad! Hi! How’d you get my number?”

“You really don’t want to know,” Chad said, closing the binder and making a futile attempt to brush the glitter that had escaped from the cover off his fingers.

“No, I really do,” she said, ducking into an empty practice room and set down her bag on a piano bench. “Cuz I’m pretty sure I gave you my number in high school if you had any questions about rehearsals and stuff but I never heard from you.”

“I forgot to save it, so Taylor gave it to me,” Chad said, which in all fairness was true. Kelsi’s number had been included on the in case of emergency contact list in the binder, which Taylor had compiled. But there’s only so many people who can know of the existence of said binder without it being embarrassing and/or creepy.

“Taylor, right!” Kelsi said. “How’s she doing?”

“Busy,” Chad said dismissively. “Listen, I need to talk to you about something.”

In her shock, Kelsi lost her balance slightly and her hand slammed on the lowest notes of a practice piano. She quickly righted herself and sat down at the piano bench.

“I can call back if you’re busy.”

“No!” she said quickly. “I’m not busy. Just in a haunted practice room.”

“Good to know music schools also have ghosts,” Chad said, trying to joke but not quite feeling it. “Anyway, you know that Ryan was out here for the weekend.”

“Oh God,” Kelsi said. “Tell me that you didn’t.”

“In all fairness, we have an agreement,” Chad said.

“So did Arizaphale and Crowley, that didn’t stop them from being ineffable husbands in the end,” Kelsi replied, rolling her eyes.

Chad blinked, not understanding a single word of that sentence. “What?”

“It’s a book. You probably wouldn’t like it,” she said quickly. “So what happened with you and Ryan?”

“This isn’t really about him,” he said. “I mean, it kind of is because it just kind of seems like I’m destined to in the orbit of the Evanses for all eternity, but that’s not the point.”

“So why are you calling?” Kelsi asked.

“I…I guess it’s just that I don’t have a lot of friends that I can talk to about this stuff.”

“The gay stuff?”

“You don’t have to listen to me. I know I was a jackass in high school about theater and stuff, but I’m still figuring out a lot of things. So I guess this is an I’m sorry for being a jerk and a I would like to be friends. Besides, didn’t you say something about game recognizing game? Last Christmas?”

Kelsi laughed in spite of herself. “Yeah. I did. I remember immediately going to the eggnog because I was so embarrassed about what I said.”

“You and me, both,” Chad joked.

The line crackled with silence for a moment before Kelsi remembered something. “Wait, so you and Ryan definitely slept together last night? How did that happen?”

Chad sighed. “Would it be at all surprising if I told you that Sharpay was involved.”

“Yes! Absolutely! Tell me everything!”

And so Chad told Kelsi the whole story of November 6, 2009, leaving out the more graphic details that happened after the wild night at Lotaburger. It was the first time in a while that Chad felt this weight he didn’t know was there lift off his shoulders a little. Not that staying in the closet was bad; Chad still didn’t know what labels to use or if they applied to him in any meaningful way or if he even wanted to use them. But it was nice to just let out the whole story to someone who already knew him and accepted whatever weird contradiction he was living through, even if it was over the phone to someone two thousand miles away.

Chapter Text

When the basketball season finally started at the end of November, there were a few things that made this season a little different. First of all, they had changed the conference rules so now the top two finishing teams automatically qualified to the March Madness bracket. Second of all, Chad had been made the alternate team captain, since everyone knew that the dude who was actually captain was gonna be busy talking to NBA teams in the lead up to the draft. That meant that all the stuff that Chad had wanted to do over the break was immediately overruled by practice and drills and weights and laps. It was like he blinked and suddenly it was February. The Redhawks had an away game at Berkeley and seeing Troy again after wiping the floor with him on the court felt like the first time Chad could breathe in months.

“I mean, seriously dude,” Troy said as they worked over the engine of the ancient truck, “how did you do it?”

Chad shrugged. He would be lying if he hadn’t noticed the small, late growth spurt that he’d had over the last few months that sometimes made it feel like his shins had thousands of tiny needles poking into them. In real life, that made things a little more awkward as he had to readjust to how he moved through the world between classes and socializing. But those couple of inches had been starting to make all the difference on the court.

“The growth spurt or showing you up in what’s supposed to be your game, theater boy?” Chad asked.

Troy rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I could’ve been more specific. But seriously, man. I feel like we haven’t hung out in forever. What’ve you been up to?”

“Not much. Homework, practice, class. And Evans was in town in November,” Chad said off-handedly, trying to sound casual.

Troy stopped and stared at him. “Which one?”

“Both. It was their grandma’s birthday but it honestly looked like the start of a horror movie or something.”

“It can’t have been that bad.”

“I’ve worked at Lava Springs longer than you have and I’ve never seen more old white people wearing beige in my life.”

Troy wrinkled his nose. “Gross.”

“So basically Sharpay dragged me out of a frat party and used me as an alibi for her and Ryan to ditch their grandma’s birthday.”

“Dude,” Troy said.

Chad shook his head. “I know.”

They worked on the engine of the car side by side in not quite awkward silence, but definitely not comfortable silence. At one point, Troy just set down whatever tool he was working with on the top of the engine and turned to face Chad.

“Why him?” Troy asked.

That question totally threw Chad for a loop. In all of the time that he and Troy had been friends, they only ever had one scuffle about who the other was dating. And even then, it was smoothed over quickly and led to the highest attendance for school musical callbacks in East High history. So Chad went for the low, sloppy blow.

“Why Gabriella?” He shot back snarkily, trying to avoid the question.

“Don’t turn this on me, man. I thought we got past this!”

“We did. But you got lucky, man. We’re not even technically a thing and every single time I look at a girl or think about maybe making out with another dude, I can’t stop thinking about him,” Chad said. “It’s kinda driving me crazy. I haven’t even seen the guy since November.”

“You might be even worse than me and Gabby,” Troy said. “Cuz we’re actually together.”

“Don’t remind me.”

Troy laughed but quickly caught a glance at Chad’s miserable expression and stopped. “Are you okay, man?”

Chad shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve known that I like guys for years now and it still feels weird. Like, I don’t know how to feel when guys on the team start using gay as an insult or when the cheerleaders try to hit on me.”

“Have you been with any of them?”

“Made out, went on a couple of dates with,” Chad said. “Sometimes things would get handsy but nothing more than that.”

“Because of Ryan?”

Chad huffed. “I don’t know, okay? There’s a ton of things that I’d like to be different about whatever our thing is. But I’m not even sure if I was in New York or if he was in Albuquerque that we’d even give each other the time of day. At least we’d be a little closer to being on the same page.”

“Dude,” Troy said, “we both know that you text with him more than you talk with me these days.”

“He has unlimited minutes!” Chad said defensively. “It’s not my fault your phone plan sucks!”

“All I meant was that I think you know where you want to stand with him. And if the girls are to be believed, you’re too much of a coward to do anything about it.”

“I’m being realistic. You know my parents wouldn’t be the most excited if I brought some white girl home. And I don’t even know where they stand on gay people! Like you and theater was more of a philosophy change.”

“And you aren’t?” Troy asked. “Just…do yourself a favor and figure out your own crap before jumping in with other people, okay?”

“Who are you and what have you done to Troy Bolton?”

“I took an elective course in psychology first semester freshman year. I’m thinking of picking it up as a minor,” Troy said.

“So now you’re a basketball player who does theater and gives people life advice.”

Troy shrugged. “Isn’t that kind of the whole point of college? To figure out who you are and stuff?”

“For you maybe,” Chad said grumpily. “I don’t know how I’m gonna explain of this to my parents. They’re still mad that Taylor dumped me even though it happened two years ago.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Troy said, elbowing Chad good naturedly. “Besides, I’m not gonna tell anyone. And even if I hadn’t, Taylor and Gabby would probably have me hunted down and brutally killed if I did.”

“And Sharpay,” Chad said.

Troy stopped everything he was doing and turned to face Chad with his whole body. “Sharpay? As in Sharpay Evans?”

“In all fairness, she threatened me with nuclear warfare if I broke Ryan’s heart.”

“What?”

“You’re not saying that you wouldn’t threaten the same thing to anyone I was dating?”

Troy shook his head. “I just never thought that Sharpay would be on the same side as Taylor and Gabriella on something.”

“Trust me. No one’s more surprised than she is,” Chad said. “She told me so herself. In a Lotaburger of all places.”

“You went to Lotaburger with Sharpay Evans where she agreed with my girlfriend and your ex-girlfriend on something? Was it opposite day or something?”

“Definitely or something,” Chad said, trying as hard as possible not to let his mind wander back to the other things that happened that night.

Troy took a step back and looked at Chad through narrowed eyes. “Wait, you didn’t do anything that night, did you? With Ryan?”

Chad looked away, unable to make eye contact with anything other than where his shoes met the pavement. Troy groaned.

“Dude! Why?”

“We have a deal, okay? And it’s fun,” Chad said. “I’ll take what I can get.”

“Bro, I can I just say something honestly?”

“Go for it.”

“You’re an idiot.”

Chad scoffed. “Okay, Mr. ‘I moved to California to follow my high school girlfriend only to attend her school’s rival for a degree in theater on a basketball scholarship.’ Sorry I don’t have the same audacity to follow my heart and give up a sure thing.”

Troy shrugged. “Your loss, dude. But you know you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don’t take.”

Chad shoved Troy without any malice instead of responded, which only made him laugh. And then it was back to old times where none of the bullshit about school or basketball or dating mattered and they were just two childhood buddies working on the worst truck of all time. And then, of course, Chad’s phone rang.

Troy looked over in an attempt to see any type of caller ID. “Who is it?”

Chad shrugged. “It’s 505, though. I’m gonna take it.”

“Go for it, dude.”

Chad flipped the phone open. “Hello?”

“Danforth! It’s Vance Evans,” the voice on the other end of the call proclaimed with a familiar unnecessary flair.

Chad’s eyes widened, trying to telegraph the conversation to Troy with his facial expressions. “Hi, Mr. Evans! What can I do you for?”
“Why’s Mr. Evans calling you?” Troy whispered.

Chad shrugged as Mr. Evans barreled on. “I hear you’re making quite the splash in the business school at the University of Albuquerque.”

“I’d rather make an impact on the court, sir. But I do try to keep up with my grades,” Chad said, trying to sound calm while staring completely freaked out at Troy. “I am on a scholarship after all.”

Chad saw Troy smack his forehead out of the corner of his eye and couldn’t help but internally cringe as well. He couldn’t tell if Mr. Evans had noticed, partially because phone calls just don’t work that way.

“Fair enough. Listen, we have an internship program in New York with a couple of businesses over the summer that look for students to shadow them for a couple of weeks in the summer. We can set you up with one of our alums to see where you might be able to fit!” Mr. Evans barreled on.

“Oh, wow. New York?”

“Yes. We have a lot of successful alums on Wall Street or in start ups. I know it’s not a particularly great economic situation but it would be an great thing to put on a resume!”

Chad made eye contact with Troy and attempted to telepathically tell him what exactly was happening. “Um, that sounds really cool. How do I sign up?”

“I’ve already given them your details. I hope you don’t mind,” Mr. Evans said. “You remember my kids, Sharpay and Ryan? They’re both in New York now. I could ask if they would mind showing you around if decide to end up going!”

“Can you give me a second?” Chad asked.

“Of course! Take all the time you need and call me back when you have an answer! Go Redhawks!”

“Go Red…” Chad said as he heard the receiver on Mr. Evan’s end of the phone click and go dead.

He turned back to an expectant Troy, a million thoughts racing through his head. “I think I’m going to New York this summer.”

The Redhawks narrowly missed making it to March Madness once again; the team finished an agonizing third in the conference and there was never any chance that they’d be invited to the First Four that year. The one bright spot was that Chad cemented himself as a member of the starting lineup and only seemed to be getting better with every game. But for the first time in maybe his entire life, there just might have been opportunities outside the game.

Waiting for him in New York of all places. Not that it had anything to do with the growing not-relationship with a certain lithe dance major who had a holiday gig over the holidays. Definitely not that.

Chapter Text

Ms. Darbus said (during the one time that Chad was paying attention in homeroom) that the summer between sophomore and junior year is what helps you leave behind your foolish, childlike self and step into the true character of your adulthood. Chad had always brushed it off as piece of baloney; the mad monologuing of a drama teacher with too much ego and not enough understanding of the modern world. And while she was referring to the summers between sophomore and junior year of high school, Chad had to begrudgingly admit that he was definitely coming into his own summer between sophomore and junior year of college.

It mainly came as the consequence of accepting the invitation to spend a week with Ryan and Kelsi at their apartment in New York while he was doing his internship thing. Now Chad had traveled a lot for basketball games and trips to see family in other states, but he’d never gone anywhere by himself before. No one else he lived with or interacted with in person on a regular basis had any input on the plans. If they had, they might have told Chad that summer in New York City might be the closest one can get to what it might be like to live in the Devil’s armpit: it’s sticky, far too hot, and smells terrible.

“I can’t believe you stay here over the summer on purpose,” Chad said, feeling his clothes instantly become drenched with sweat and humidity. “Let alone dance in this kind of weather.”

“That’s what I keep telling him!” Kelsi exclaimed. “I can’t even right any music in this weather; it all just turns into mushy paper.”

“Well, if you can’t stand the heat, then get out of Hell’s Kitchen!” Ryan said.

Kelsi started to open her mouth to correct Ryan but thought about it for a second. “Oh, yeah. I guess we do live in Hell’s Kitchen now.”

“You live in a cooking show?” Chad asked. “The one with Gordon Ramsey where he curses everyone out?”

“It’s always a joy to see you, Chad,” Kelsi said instead of answering.

Ryan attempted to cover up his laughter, but Chad glared at him, which only made him laugh harder. The three of them fell back into easy conversation as they trudged through the thick air of New York summer towards the Evans-Nielsen residence (again, courtesy of the Evans family fortune). Fortunately, the building had an elevator, so they didn’t have to suffer through the terror of walking up to the fifth floor in a building with no air conditioning.

Thankfully, Ryan and Kelsi had optimized their apartment by figuring out how to best cool the main living spaces with well placed fans and open windows. Chad wouldn’t know that it made the place look like the fan stall at a flea market, but that’s only because he’d never been to a flea market in New York.

“It’s not as big as literally anything in New Mexico, but we make do,” Kelsi said after unlocking the door. “We were supposed to get a window AC unit last week and then it never arrived, so we’re making do with fans.”

“New York also doesn’t smell the greatest,” Ryan added as they walked in. “So if anything smells weird, it might just wafting in from outside.”

“Or one of the neighbors died,” Kelsi said, “again.”

“I’ve basically lived in men’s locker rooms for the last four years; my sense of smell is kinda immune to bad things,” Chad said. “Except old lady smells. I do not jive with old lady smells.”

Kelsi laughed and nodded to Ryan. “Never let this one drag you to an estate sale, then.”

Ryan rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t the one who walked away with a giant stack of sheet music!”

“It was really cheap! And I needed it for school!” Kelsi retorted before turning back to Chad. “I would have had to pay like fifteen bucks per book if I bought it new. Whoever was running the estate sale let me get all of it for five dollars.”

Chad whistled. “Maybe I need to reconsider my thoughts on old lady smells.”

“No you don’t,” Ryan said. “You seem more of an army surplus kinda guy.”

“Thank you?” Chad said uncertainly.

“Aside from us whisking you to Greenwich Village to learn the shopping habits of our people, what’re you supposed to be doing this week?” Kelsi asked, clicking on a fan next to the modestly appointed entertainment center (complete with a tv and an old Wii covered in duct tape).

Chad shrugged and set his backpack on the sagging brown cough in the middle of the room. “I think we’re shadowing the company for a couple of days and then they have a bunch of stuff that we’re doing to get to know the higher ups at the company. The email was kinda vague, but they said we’re getting an itinerary tomorrow.”

“Sounds about right,” Ryan said. “My dad tried to get me to do something like that in high school to maybe steer me away from the theater, but there was no chance of that happening.”

Kelsi snorted. “The man who regularly straightened your hats didn’t want you to be in a non straight profession? No way!”

Ryan rolled his eyes and shook his head before turning back to Chad, which made his heart to a completely unprompted flip flop. “So you’re cool with crashing on the couch?”

“It’s a fold out!” Kelsi sang, doing a poor imitation of Vanna White as she made jazz hands around the couch.

Chad laughed. “I’m cool. Thanks again for letting me stay here.”

Ryan smiled a little, and it was probably just the horrible New York heat but his face went a little pink. “Of course. Any time. I’ll get you some sheets or something.”

He awkwardly made his way towards the narrow hall and disappeared into one of the rooms. Chad looked over at Kelsi, who had this infuriating knowing look on her face that told him that she knew everything.

“Don’t even start,” Chad warned.

Kelsi had the audacity to look at Chad wide eyed, like she didn’t know what he was talking about. “What do you mean?”

Chad rolled his eyes. “You’re in school for music, not acting. Just say whatever you need to say and get it over with.”

“What do you want me to say?” She asked. “I know you’re not like a thing or whatever but what Ryan does with his personal life is none of my business.”

“Except when you’re texting with Taylor and Gabriella.”

“Don’t snark at me. I’m a full time student at the most stressful music school in the country. If someone says one too many snarky things at me I think I might turn into dust.” Her eyes lit up, suddenly distracted. “Ooh, that could be a good song lyric.”

Ryan walked back into the living room with a bundle of semi-decently folded sheets as Kelsi scribbled something in a notebook on the beat up upright piano next to the TV. He handed Chad the sheets and nodded towards Kelsi.

“Did she tell you she’s taking poetry classes at Columbia now?”

“Creative writing with an emphasis on poetry,” Kelsi clarified, finishing whatever she was writing with a flourish. “I want to be a better lyricist for songs that aren’t written for people I went to high school with. There’s no crime in that!”

Ryan laughed and nudged Chad. “She’s only taking it because some girl told her to.”

Kelsi narrowed her eyes at Ryan. “I don’t think you have a leg to stand on, Evans, considering your some guy is sleeping on our couch for the couple of weeks.”

Chad choked on his own spit as Ryan turned so red he seemed to be radiating heat from his face. Though that was probably simply a side effect of the unrelenting New York summer weather.

Kelsi laughed to herself and put her pencil down. “Speaking of, what have they told you about the internship?”

Chad cleared his throat and coughed. “Uh, it seems like it’s some kind of Wall Street thing? Big tech company that has something to do with sports? I’m supposed to get an email about it but I haven’t been near a computer since before I left Albuquerque. You don’t mind if I borrow a computer?”

Ryan shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”

“Oh, shoot!” Kelsi said. “No, we can’t. The wifi went out last night!”

“You guys have wifi?” Chad said.

“We could go to the library and then take you on a more formal tour of the city before you start with the internship thing,” Ryan suggested.

Kelsi furrowed her brow. “Do you think the school would let him use their computers?”

“No, like the Public Library,” Ryan said.

Chad perked up. “The public library? Like where they filmed Ghostbusters?”

“Thank you!” Kelsi exclaimed. “I’ve been trying to get this one to rent it from the Blockbuster since we moved here, but he hasn’t budged. Even though there’s a whole scene at Lincoln Center and we’re there literally every day.”

“Dude,” Chad said, turning to Ryan.

Ryan held his hands up and ducked his head from the verbal assault. “In my defense, I grew up with Sharpay. If it didn’t have pink or singing, she would throw a fit until we watched something with pink and singing.”

Chad laughed while Kelsi narrowed her eyes and put her hands together in a manner that could only be seen as scheming. “So maybe that’s our play. We go to the library, get Chad to a computer, see a little bit of the city, and go to a video store, rent Ghostbusters, and pick up a pizza.”

“That’d be so cool! But, Ryan, if you want to do something different…”

Ryan cocked his head. “It could be fun.”

Chad whooped, making Ryan grin and flush slightly. Though that really could have been the heat and not anything related to Chad’s reaction. Kelsi smiled with a glint of something in her eye that Chad couldn’t really read. But he didn’t really care to think about it any further. After all, he was going to show one of his closest friends one of the best movies of all time. A friend he was getting to see in person for the first time in months. Someone who was definitely just a friend. That’s the only reason he was excited.

But then Kelsi raised an eyebrow at Chad as if she could read his mind. Chad was determined to pretend, even if he couldn’t fool everyone.

Chapter Text

Chad ended up at a boring corporate investment firm that was filled to the brim with people that seemed to be annoyed by anyone who had the audacity to be interested in anything other than money. Even after the market closed, whenever Chad decided to hang out with the people he was working with seemed to keep working. The internship in of itself ended up being kind of a bust, since it still seemed like Wall Street was reeling from the Recession. That or the other corporate stooges would just start complaining about Obama right in front of Chad and then shrug it off with a simple “no offense” directed his way. The whole experience would have been gross even if the city wasn’t absolutely miserably swampy.

“At least I got free Yankees tickets?” He said from his place, slumped across the couch as Kelsi and Ryan were getting ready to see something. “It’s a nice stadium; it only opened last year.”

“Don’t you dare speak kindly about the Yankees!” Ryan spat, only half joking.

“Oh please. You’re just mad that the Rockies didn’t make it past the Phillies last year,” Kelsi said, putting on dangly earrings in the mirror.

Chad sat up. “I didn’t know you followed baseball, Kels.”

“I don’t,” she said. “That one does and it’s annoying as hell!”

“The Yankees won the world series last year! Excuse me for paying attention to baseball in a city that won’t shut up about it!” Ryan said, moving to elbow Kelsi out from the center of the mirror. “Now scooch; you’re not the only person who needs to primp.”

“Where are you guys going again? That ABBA musical?”

Ryan and Kelsi scoffed at the same time, both equally offended in a way that Chad didn’t realize they would be. “That ABBA musical!” Ryan said incredulously.

“I seriously forget how much of a dude you can be sometimes,” Kelsi said, rolling her eyes at Chad as she moved to grab a handbag. “It’s only one of the longest running musicals in Broadway history!”

“I heard it was the first thing to make Meryl Streep laugh after 9/11 and that’s why she ended up in the movie,” Ryan said. “I just wish she’d consider a limited run; not that they need any more press to boost ticket sales but it would’ve been nice.”

“Because your dad would have definitely coughed up the cash to buy tickets without Sharpay having to whine about it,” Kelsi said.

“What show are we talking about again?” Chad asked.

Ryan and Kelsi whipped around to give Chad the most terrifying glare he’d been in the receiving end of since he broke his mom’s wedding china during an ill advised game of indoor whiffle ball. “Mamma Mia!”

“Okay, jeez!” Chad said before something hit him. “Wait, wasn’t that the movie you tried to get us to see summer after senior year when a bunch of us went to see The Dark Knight?”

“Now he remembers!” Ryan exclaimed, throwing his hands up defeated.

“Hey, I don’t dance. You can’t blame me for not knowing these things,” Chad said.

Kelsi and Ryan gave him both A Look. A Look that clearly said, “we know you’re lying to us because we’ve seen you dance literally so many times” without the words even needing to be said out loud.

Chad held his hands up in surrender. “I take it back. I don’t dance that often.”

“Keep telling yourself that, sweetheart,” Kelsi said, touching up her lip gloss right as the landline started ringing.

“I got it,” Ryan said, smoothing his hair with his hands as he walked over to where the receiver was resting. “Nielson-Evans residence.”

Chad couldn’t make out what was being said on the other line, but he could see Ryan’s face morph from nonchalance to pure shock. “I’m sorry, you’re what?”

Kelsi and Chad exchanged a confused look before turning back to an increasingly freaked out Ryan. “You’re not even pregnant!”

The voice on the other line, while still garbled, grew louder as Ryan ran a hand through his already nicely done hair. “Yes, we still have your ticket. Are you sure that you don’t you need anyone with you right now?”

Chad and Kelsi both moved to be closer to Ryan to maybe catch a word or two of whoever the hell was on the other line. However, Chad was never the best at eavesdropping or effectively spying, regardless of how many times he watched Charlie’s Angels, so he still go nothing except the staggering reaction from Ryan.

“Okay, sounds good. Congratulations?” Ryan replied, wildly confused. “I don’t know what to say, but I hope you’re okay.”

Kelsi’s face went white as she seemed to figure out exactly what was happening. Chad still had no idea, but Ryan just finished the phone call.

“Yeah, you better put us on the visitors list!” He said. “We’ll see you soon, okay? Alright, buh-bye.”

Ryan hung up the phone and looked at Chad expectantly. “Do you wanna go see Mamma Mia?”

“What just happened?” Chad asked.

“Our friend who was supposed to be going with us just canceled because she’s in the hospital and she just had a baby,” Ryan said.

“We don’t know she was pregnant,” Kelsi added. “No one knew.”

“Oh god, do you think TLC’s gonna feature her on ‘I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant’ or something?”

“I don’t think they’re making new episodes anymore.”

Chad stepped between Ryan and Kelsi. “Can we back up for a second?”

Ryan shook his head. “Sorry, my bad. Do you want to go see Mamma Mia tonight?”

“It’s okay if you don’t,” Kelsi quickly added.

“No, I’m going,” Chad said. “I’m not gonna dress up but I’m going. Didn’t get to see any Broadway with the damn internship thing. Even if we did, they would’ve been talking about stocks and bonds the whole time.”

Which is how, about fifteen minutes later, Chad Danforth found himself in the mezzanine of the Winter Garden Theater sandwiched between a divorce party of middle aged white women already drunk on white wine (going off what was in their tiny plastic sippy cups) and Kelsi Nielsen.

“So how much ABBA do you know?” Kelsi whispered to him before the show started.

Chad shrugged. “I think my mom has an album or something.”

Kelsi grinned. “Oh this is going to be fun!”

Chad didn’t really know what the think about the musical. At some point the divorce party stood up and just started dancing along to the music without a care in the world. The story was a little strange, but then the actress playing the mom started singing “The Winner Takes It All” with so much heart and gusto. It was like hearing it for the first time, even if it was only the second time he had ever heard the song. He tried his best to hide how much he was crying, but one of the ladies from the divorce party handed him an honest to God fabric handkerchief to wipe his tears away. One of the potential dads stood up during the wedding scene and came out as gay and Chad got swept away with the absurdity and fantasy. As far as first Broadway shows go, even Mr. I Don’t Dance himself had to admit that it would be pretty hard to top Mamma Mia.

“So what did you think?” Kelsi asked, glancing at Chad knowingly.

Chad sniffed and quickly dried his eyes with his sleeve. “It’s not bad.”

She smiled and attempted to hand him another tissue before he holds up the handkerchief he still had from one of the women in the divorce party. “I’ll take not bad.”

“Pretty white, though,” Chad said, wiping his nose on the kerchief.

Kelsi laughed and shook her head. “Yeah, you’re not wrong. If we knew you were coming, we would’ve probably done In the Heights or something. But it just won the Tony so last minute tickets are pretty much impossible to get.”

“It’s cool,” Chad said. “I don’t we would’ve run into a divorce party.”

Kelsi stifled a snicker as the woman that handed Chad her hankie turned to the group of college students, beyond tipsy and grinned far too widely. “Thanks for the fun time, kids!” She said.

Chad handed her back the handkerchief. “Thanks for the hankie,” he said.

The woman bent down to kiss Chad on the forehead but stumbled and kissed him right on the mouth instead. “Any time you’re in New York, honey!”

Kelsi laughed loudly as the woman turned to rejoin her friends, leaving Chad completely frozen in shock.

“I didn’t realize that I had competition,” Ryan said, in a tone of voice that Chad couldn’t read because he couldn’t see his face.

“Are you okay,” Kelsi asked Chad, still laughing a little.

“That was not how I expected my night to end,” he replied, finally able to turn around and face his friends. Tears of laughter streamed down Kelsi’s face and Chad still couldn’t read Ryan’s face.

“To be fair, I don’t think that’s how she thought her night was gonna end, either,” Kelsi said, calming down slightly. “Come on, boys. Let’s skedaddle!”

The trio walked outside into the still warm summer evening, with Kelsi running ahead to grab a cheesecake from Junior’s before it got more crowded than it already was. Chad walked in silence with Ryan, who still seemed strangely unreadable.

“Are we good, man?” Chad asked.

Ryan shrugged. “I don’t know. What are we supposed to be, man?” He said, only a little mockingly.

“Look, I don’t have feelings for a white woman who drunkly kissed me on the mouth,” Chad said. “Not that it matters, but I thought you should know.”

“Oh,” Ryan said.

They kept walking down the street towards Times Square side by side, close enough that every once in a while, their fingers would brush. Chad probably just imagined it, but he could have sworn he heard a small gasp escape from Ryan every time it happened. But then again, the sidewalk outside the Winter Garden was so crowded that it could have been a number of things.

“We have a show that we’re putting up in the fall,” Ryan said, looking up and breaking the silence.

Chad looked up to meet Ryan’s gaze. “Really?”

Ryan paled slightly and was quick to amend his previous statement. “I mean, it’s not really a show yet. I don’t even know if it’s gonna happen because the submissions for the black box theater season haven’t opened yet, but hopefully Kels and I have a show that’ll be going up in November.”

Chad stood dumbly. “I hope you get it.”

“No, Chad,” Ryan said, seeming to struggle with getting his mouth and brain around the right combination of words to properly express himself. “I was wondering if you would maybe want to see it? I mean, you don’t have to. But it could be fun.”

Chad knew that the fall was going to be hard. He could barely fit breathing in between practice and classes and homework and conditioning. But the little voice in his head thought it might be nice to take a break from the insanity, and definitely didn’t add in that he could see Ryan again.

“Let me know when it is,” Chad said. “I can’t promise anything but I’d love to go.”

And, oh, how Ryan’s face lit up. It made something warm and fuzzy go off in Chad’s chest that he couldn’t quite comprehend as Ryan began to go on about the concept of the show and whatnot. Chad wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone what Ryan was talking about, but he couldn’t look away. In that moment, it was decided that he would do whatever he could to get to New York again in the fall.

And that was a far better way to end the night.

Chapter Text

If there’s one thing most people can agree on, it’s that junior year is the fucking worst.

(Some people, such as Gabriella Montez, might argue that freshman year was the fucking worst, as she suffered from a mental breakdown during spring semester midterms after her supposed new college friends dumped her over text and her roommate wouldn’t leave her alone. However, not everyone is so lucky to create the support system they need to survive junior year so early on. Nor do they have a boyfriend that decided to champion therapy after taking an elective course in psychology.)

It’s when college students start being weeded into different camps based on how successful they are. Two of Ryan’s classmates were cast as ensemble members of a new Broadway show before Christmas. A couple of the athletes at U of A were drafted into different professional leagues across the country. And then there were the people who couldn’t handle the pressure and cracked: injuries, mental breakdowns, existential epiphanies that led people to transfer or disappear off the face of the earth. One girl at U of A went on study abroad for a semester and didn’t come back because she’d fallen in love with someone and stayed abroad. Chad definitely wasn’t jealous of her at all.

(Instead, Chad took a gender studies class because apparently the professor had wildly good ratings and his advisor suggested that he look beyond his world of athletics. He also had to find a class that completed the requirement for “Understanding Human Behavior.” It’s the best he could do outside becoming the only NCAA basketball player on the men’s side that decided to come out when he didn’t even really know where he stood with the guy that he wasn’t exactly seeing. But he wasn’t not seeing him either. He and Ryan were complicated.)

Another inevitability that junior year provided was the inconvenient and mind-numbingly annoying injury. Ryan sprained his ankle days before he and Kelsi were supposed to open their tiny black box show during the fall season. Chad spent most of the season nursing an elbow injury he got from falling on his arm funny during preseason practice. Neither injury was particularly serious or career ending, but sometimes little injuries that “just need time” are the worst of all.

“I have to relearn how to dribble,” Chad complained into his phone instead of working on homework for his statistics class. “I’m a Division I athlete; I can’t be relearning how to dribble!”

“Sounds like a fate worse than death,” Ryan quipped, watching as rehearsals went on without him from where he was icing his ankle on the ground. “Almost as bad as watching rehearsals for a show you’re supposed to be opening in three days.”

“It’d be better if it wasn’t such a lame injury,” Chad barreled on. “Like I just fell weird. And it’s taking forever to get better.”

“The price of excellence,” Ryan said. “If you excel at being cool for too long, the world’s gotta humble you somehow.”

“By making me learn to dribble with the wrong hand?” Chad asked. “The ball landed on my foot and started to roll away! That’s gotta be some kind of cruel and unusual punishment.”

“But is it worse than detention with Ms. Darbus?” Ryan asked, sounding actually curious to know the answer.

“Yes!” Chad exclaimed emphatically. “A five year old can run circles around me! I can’t even shoot the ball or do a chest pass. At least with a finger injury, I can still kind of practice without feeling like my arm’s on fire.”

“That sucks, man,” Ryan said. “Are you still planning to come out here for the show?”

“I think Kelsi would find me and threaten me with physical violence if I didn’t,” Chad joked. “Plus, now I can say I know someone who premiered their show at Lincoln Center. The only person here who would find that impressive is my mom and maybe her friends at the Santa Fe Opera, but still.”

“Are you sure you’re gonna be able to handle it?” Ryan asked.

“I’ll be fine,” Chad said. “I’m a little more worried about how you’re gonna do anything with a busted ankle.”

“Theater people are way tougher than they look. You would truly be shocked at how many people go on Broadway with things worse than a sprained ankle.”

“Theater isn’t exactly a contact sport,” Chad said. “But you’re not the kind of performer who knows how to do anything less than all out.”

“True,” Ryan said. “Even if I couldn’t be the star.”

“Or you have to sit on the side with a bad ankle injury.”

“Too soon, man,” Ryan laughed.

The phone conversations that Chad had with Ryan became a part of his routine. Something between them had shifted between New York; they went the whole trip being around each other without sneaking off to make out and hook up for the first time since Chad admitted he might maybe have feelings. Not that they had much time to fool around between Chad’s internship and Ryan’s summer job and dance lessons. Sure they had texted and called and been around each other, but that was all.

But Chad was scheduled to head out to New York to see Ryan and Kelsi’s show. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go or was scared to go. There was just so much that was unsaid and Chad wasn’t ready to say it. He could say “bisexual” without feeling like he was about to break out into full body hives. Hell, he’d even spoken to a couple of people in the Gay Student Association who’d been petitioning U of A to give them funding as an official on-campus club.

Anything beyond that felt like too much.

So whatever was happening with Ryan and him was going to stay unspoken. And Chad was fine with that. Even if it wasn’t for the gay thing, they were on opposite sides of the country. Any relationship would be difficult to maintain from that distance.

If anything, Chad was being pragmatic. Realistic even.

The phone call ended with gentle jesting and goodbyes, and Chad decided to go to the library to use the computers. He fully intended to do homework, as all good college students would, but then there was a notification when he signed on. So, of course, Chad clicked on the notification.

Facebook. Evil, evil Facebook.

Apparently Martha made some kind of weekend trip to New York during her school’s fall break and uploaded all of the photos to Facebook. Clearly she didn’t look through them very carefully as there was a series of photos of Ryan with some guy draped all over him. And then there they were, making out in the background of a photo Martha took of herself and Kelsi at some seedy looking New York club.

Chad shouldn’t be jealous of some guy.

Chad especially shouldn’t be jealous of some guy sucking face with a dude from high school that he wasn’t even dating.

Chad’s mind was wandering in his gender studies class when he was supposed to be working with one of his classmates, Abbie. She was friendly and smart, with glasses and curly brown hair. The kind of girl he might go for if he wasn’t U of A’s perpetual basketball bachelor with the mythos of only hooking up with people at parties.

(Or if he hadn’t been doing whatever he’d been doing with Ryan, but no one at U of A other than Sharpay knew about that. And she was in who knows where more often than she was in Albuquerque.)

It might have been the fact that he was still thinking about the pictures of Ryan on Martha’s Facebook, or that Abbie brought up grad schools on the east coast. But before he could stop himself, Chad asked, “Do you want to go to New York with me?”

Abbie stared at him as if he’d grown two heads. “What?”

“Just, you were talking about New York and grad school and I’m gonna be out there next week for a friend’s show,” he said before quickly adding: “I have a friend at Yale, too, if you wanted to check that out. I’ve been meaning to visit her for a while.”

“I wouldn’t want to be an bother,” she said.

“No way. I could get you a ticket super easy. I kinda have an in with the board of trustees. I’m sure I could put in a good word and they’d give some recommendations for tours and stuff.”

Abbie stared at Chad in awe. “That’d be awesome. Yeah, I’d love to do that."

“Taylor.”

“What did you do now?”

Chad sighed. “How do you know I wasn’t calling you with good news.”

“Because you didn’t even bother to say hello to me,” she teased. “Now fess up.”

“I’m gonna be in New Haven next Saturday,” Chad said.

“I thought you were going to be in New York,” Taylor said. “Something about Ryan and Kelsi’s big show."

“I am. I will be,” he said. “It’s just…I might have invited a girl.”

The other line went quiet. “If I could reach my hand through this phone,” she started.

“We’re not dating or anything! It was just convenient!”

“Because calling a girl convenient is much better than using her to get over your feelings for a guy. Chad Danforth, I swear to Michelle Obama if you screw this up…”

“Tay, whatever you say, it can’t be worse than leaving me to be bombed in Alamagordo.”

The line went quiet for a beat. “Who said that?”

“Sharpay.”

Taylor snorted. “Of course. Well I was going to say that just because you’re inviting a girl on your trip doesn’t mean that you’re entitled to get any.”

“I know that.”

Chad could almost feel Taylor glaring at him from the other line. “Do you?”

“No, I’m an idiot. Of course I know that McKessie!”

She sighed. “Okay. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m already hurt. I had to relearn how to dribble.”

“Oh my god, not that kind of hurt! Like broken heart hurt!”

Chad paused for a minute. Sure, breaking up with Taylor hurt; even seeing the writing on the wall for months before it happened was hard. And he’d had his share of flings and one night stands, but none of them were quite as remarkable or notable as whatever was going on in that moment.

“I think I’ll be okay. It’s not like Ryan and I ever wanted to be exclusive or anything. And I like Abbie, the girl. I want to give myself some options.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“An idiot who’s going to buy you breakfast next week?”

“Fine. But I get to chose the place and you’re not going to complain.”

Chad crossed his heart and held up his hand even though he was talking on the phone. “Won’t complain.”

“I still think you’re being stupid.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

Chapter Text

The show was a smashing success, if a little odd. It was a college show after all, even if it was created by students at the most prestigious performance school in the world. Chad tried his hardest not to question it though, as Kelsi was apparently going through an experimental music phase. And Ryan was taking modern dance along with his regular dance classes. There wasn’t a set or really any plot; just weird music with weird dancing. Which, when put together created something that was either beyond Chad’s puny little jock brain or just plain dumb. Either way, everyone else in the audience seemed to like it and that seemed to be the thing that mattered.

Abbie insisted on tagging along, saying something along the lines of watching the next generation of great artists before everyone knows them or something. Chad’s head had been spinning a little since his conversation with Taylor and definitely not since he saw those photos on Martha’s Facebook. It definitely wasn’t what he was thinking about when he saw Ryan walking out from backstage to mingle with the other audience members that had stayed behind.

“How’s the ankle holding up?” Chad asked without preamble.

Ryan shrugged. “Been better, been worse.”

“I mean, I couldn’t tell that you were hurt, so that’s gotta count for something.”

“The joys of modern dance! Anyway, enough about me. Who’s the hottie?” Ryan asked, nodding to where Abbie was talking to Kelsi excitedly about something.

Chad rolled his eyes. “I didn’t think you’d notice that kind of thing.”

“I can tell when people are objectively attractive. I’m just not personally attracted to them,” Ryan said. “So spill.”

“Abbie is a political science and sociology double major and we met in a gender studies class,” Chad said simply.

“How progressive,” Ryan teased. “Did it open your heart up to new possibilities?”

Chad glared at him. “Har har. I didn’t need a class to tell me that I’m bi. I had a crisis over a baseball game against a drama geek instead.”

Ryan bit down a smile. “As one does.”

“I actually might like her.”

“Well then. I guess the position of your casual New York hookup is no longer available,” Ryan said, scratching the back of his head.

“Cheer up, Evans,” Chad said, trying not to sound bitter. “Bet every guy in the city has been dying to get your number.”

Ryan thought for a moment. “You realize gay men don’t serially date each other.”

“You realize that there’s not a lot of openly gay men in New Mexico,” Chad parroted. “Abbie’s nice. She wants to go into international advocacy or something so she was going to be in New York anyway for grad school tours.”

“Considering your track record, maybe I should’ve gone for a school that let me major in poli-sci,” Ryan said, attempting to joke but sounding slightly forlorn instead.

Chad stared at Ryan, who had crossed his arms over his chest and was glaring daggers at Abbie. “Are you jealous?”

Ryan huffed. “No,” he said, jealously.

“Dude, you have nothing to be jealous of,” Chad said, trying to keep the conversation light. “We’ve been on maybe one date, but I don’t think that counts because it was when we were working on a group project for class. All we talked about was the illusion of the gender binary and tacos.”

“I’d murder for a taco,” Ryan said in a menacingly low voice, still glaring at Abbie.

Chad’s eyes widened with concern. “Please don’t murder my date for a taco.”

“I’m so hungry, I could murder you for a taco,” Ryan replied before straightening up and giving Chad a tight smile. “I’m gonna go get food. Have fun with your date.”

And with that, Ryan stalked over to Kelsi, completely ignoring Abbie, and ushering her out of the room. Abbie walked back over to where Chad was standing, dumbstruck.

“So you’re friends from high school are interesting,” she said.

Chad shook his head. “Sorry about Ry—Evans. Sometimes I forget that he’s still the same diva I went to high school with.”

“I don’t think he was that bad,” Abbie said.

“Oh, no,” Chad said with a laugh. “His sister is way worse.”

“Right. Isn’t her name like Champagne or something?”

Chad laughed. “Sharpay. The girl isn’t nearly bubbly enough to be Champagne. Smirnoff Ice might be a little more accurate.”

Abbie snorted. “She can’t be that bad! Most people who were intense in high school tend to mellow out with age.”

“She had a freshman as her assistant senior year and then up and moved to New York after freshman year without telling anyone at U of A that she was leaving,” Chad said. “And then there’s the time she threatened to leave me in Alamogordo where they test the nuclear weapons, but I guess that was a little bit warranted.”

“In what situation is that warranted?” Abbie asked, eyes wide with a mix of fear and intrigue. “I think I stand corrected. That’s crazy.”

Chad nodded, shoving his hands into his pockets as they began to walk out of the theater. “I told you.”

“But I think it was cool,” Abbie said.

“My friends or the show?”

She laughed and shook her head as the two made their way out of the black box theater after Kelsi and Ryan. “Both, probably. You don’t get a lot of that kind of artsy in Albuquerque, that’s for sure.”

“I’ll say,” Chad said. “If I saw that before my buddy Troy did the school musical our junior year, I think my brain would’ve just stopped working.”

Abbie rolled her eyes as they caught up to Kelsi and Ryan waiting for the light to change to cross the street. “It couldn’t have been that bad, right guys?”

“What couldn’t have been that bad?” Kelsi asked, immediately lighting up.

“Your junior year high school musical.” Abbie’s face turned slightly pink from the cool autumn evening breeze as she looked expectantly at Kelsi.

Ryan crossed his arms over his chest. “Really, this again?”

“Oh, man. You have no idea,” Kelsi exclaimed, walking with Abbie quickly across the street as the light changed. “So basically, Troy was the captain of the basketball team and there was this new girl, Gabriella…”

Chad had no choice but to walk in slow awkward silence with Ryan behind the girls as they chatted excitedly about high school and swapped stories.

“You can go ahead, you know,” Ryan said. “You don’t have to wait for me and my shitty ankle.”

Chad shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s not like it’s a long walk. Besides, it’s been a long day and I gotta make sure you don’t kill Abbie for a taco.”

“I was kidding,” Ryan said cooly. “You know I was kidding. Why are you making such a big deal out of it?”

“I’m not. I was a joking!” Chad said, a little harsher than he had intended. “What’s wrong with you?”

Ryan scoffed. “Nothing. I’m tired.”

“Ryan.”

“You asked. I’m tired. That’s it,” he sniped. “My ankle hurts and it’s cold and I’m tired. I want to go inside.”

Chad frowns. “We’re not that far from your apartment.”

“Thank God for that,” Ryan said, quickly walking away from Chad and past Kelsi and Abbie towards the end of the block. Chad could see a light limp in his gait, but didn’t want to make a big stink about it.

“What was that all about?” Kelsi asked, looking at Chad, confused.

Chad rolled his eyes. “It’s fine. He’s just tired, apparently.”

He took off towards the apartment with Abbie and Kelsi still giggling and chatting behind him. He was fine. He was just tired.

Chapter Text

Chad took the train to New Haven with Abbie so she could tour Yale and he could have breakfast with Taylor.

“A little birdie told me that you and Ryan had a fight,” she said.

Chad sat back into the booth. “We didn’t have a fight. He was just acting weird!”

She laughed. “Acting weird because you had a fight?”

“Oh my god, it wasn’t a fight!” Chad said. “I just brought a friend to his show and he started freaking out. We’re not even a thing so I don’t know why he’s acting so weird.”

“Sometimes I miss you asking me for help on homework,” Taylor quipped after the waitress set down their food. “At least I’d know some part of the right answer.”

“It’s just that he was acting so weird about it,” Chad said. “Long distance wasn’t going to work, which means we’re both free agents. Abbie wanted to tour some colleges on the east coast; Kelsi invited us to go see their new show. I don’t get what the big deal is!”

Taylor let out a stray laugh before covering her mouth and looking back down at the table. Chad’s eyes widened. “What was that for?”

“Nothing,” Taylor said, waving her hand. “Just…I thought that there was more about you that changed since we graduated high school.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He asked

She sighed and shrugged. “It means you’re still, deep down, a meatheaded jock.”

Chad gasped, totally and utterly offended. “I am not! I have depth now! I took a gender studies class!”

“Yeah, to impress a girl,” Taylor said. “Complete jock move!”

“You take that back,” he said. “I wanted to impress a guy who definitely wouldn’t care that I had taken a gender studies course and ended up impressing a girl along the way. That’s not my fault.”

Taylor rolled her eyes. “And you wonder why Ryan was acting strangely.”

“He’s the one who didn’t want to do long distance!” Chad exclaimed. “Just tell me what you think happened so that I can fix it.”

“Ryan Evans, while different from Sharpay, is still her twin brother,” Taylor said, as though that would explain everything.

“Which means?”

“He’s clearly jealous but is far too proud to say it,” she exclaimed.

Chad scoffed. “Yeah, right.”

“For someone who claims to know him so well, you have no idea how to navigate feelings.”

“Ouch,” Chad said. “I mean you’re right but still.”

Taylor folded her hands on top of the formica table. “I’m not saying that you have to dump Abbie for the sake of his feelings, but Jesus Christ. Figure out what you want from each other.”

Taylor stabbed her grapefruit with a spoon and twisted it. “And do it before you break that girl’s heart. Or Ryan’s, for that matter.”

He sighed and looked down at his plate of eggs. “I just wish it was all easier, you know?”

“Oh, Chad. Real life was never going to be easy,” Taylor said genuinely. “It’s not your fault that you have double the boy disease.”

Chad groaned. “I thought we got over boy disease when we broke up.”

Taylor gave him a look. “I put it into the binder. The one I gave you a thousand years ago? I asked my sister to convert her rules to work in gender neutral terms, so it’s technically just ‘young love disease’ now. But you’re a boy, which means that original term still applies.”

“I’m gonna be honest, I think I skipped over most parts of the binder that didn’t have the words ‘Ryan,’ ‘Evans,’ or ‘Ryan Evans’ in them,” Chad said, making Taylor shake her head.

“Of course you did,” she said, with a small nostalgic smile. “Have you heard from the Bolton-Montez monolith lately?”

Chad blinked. “What?”

“Troy and Gabriella are apparently so attached at the hip that Troy’s thinking about relocating to Palo Alto,” Taylor said.

“But he lives in Berkeley,” Chad replied. “They’re basically neighbors.”

“Gabriella says California traffic is on another level,” Taylor replied. “It’s still absolutely crazy.”

“Seriously,” Chad said, taking a bite of his bacon. “All Troy and I talk about is basketball and car repairs.”

Taylor rolled her eyes, taking another stab at the grapefruit. “You really haven’t changed since high school.”

“Neither have you, Madame President.”

“You heard he’s thinking about a psychology minor, right?”

Chad scoffed. “He tried to psychoanalyze whatever’s going on with me and Ryan, and I told him to knock if off.”

“Honestly, he should study you for his thesis,” Taylor said. “I mean, what a better case study than a repressed jock with a big city not-boyfriend.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m teasing. Besides, Troy would more likely study his girlfriend’s big brain and call it day before bothering with any of us lowly non-Gabriella Montez mortals,” Taylor said. “Maybe they’re moving in together because he’s doing a case study on her.”

“Better her than me,” Chad said.

They continued chatting over their food, but soon enough Abbie had texted Chad letting him know her tour was over. He paid for his breakfast and went to go meet up with Abbie. Taylor’s words echoed in Chad’s head as he walked around New Haven. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Abbie; on the contrary, he thought Abbie was pretty awesome. Probably the coolest girl he’d been maybe kinda into since Taylor.

“I don’t know if Yale is necessarily where I want to be, but you never know until you go on the tour and find out way more about the school’s intramural activities than you needed to,” Abbie joked, not noticing Chad was completely checked out and thinking his thoughts. “You would’ve thought I was on an undergrad tour.”

“Do you like me?” Chad asked abruptly.

“Sorry?”

Chad sighed. “Look, you can say no, but this kind of feels like a date and my friend has these rules that all dates are official and…”

“I like you,” Abbie said abruptly. “I mean, you’re really sweet and I appreciate you coming out here with me.”

“But?”

“You’ll hate me if I say it out loud.”

Chad stopped in the street and turned Abbie to face him. “Try me.”

Abbie’s face crumpled and she looked down at her skirt. “I think I might be gay?”

Chad stifled a laugh, which made Abbie look even more devastated. “No, I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing because I’m bi.”

Abbie stared at Chad unbelieving. “Seriously? How did you even figure that out?”

“Because I’m a meat headed jock?” Abbie nodded. “Well, when I was in high school, there was this guy who I thought was just some tagalong theater weirdo. And then he turned out to have a mean fastball and a Little League championship title and that was kind of it for me. Took me years to admit it, though. I can name the people that I’m actually out to on one hand.”

Abbie’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Chad said, pulling Abbie into a hug.

“Was it Ryan?” Abbie asked.

His eyes widened. “How did you know that?”

She laughed. “It’s kind of obvious. Also, he was asking me a lot of weird questions about you like super passive aggressively. And then you had the story about his sister validly threatening you with nuclear annihilation? I mean, the only way I’d ever see someone as justifiable in violating the Geneva Convention is if they were giving the shovel talk.”

“Fair enough,” Chad said, laughing a little. “On a totally different topic, do you want to get ice cream as completely platonic friends?”

Abbie nodded. “On the condition that you tell me what the fuck is going on with you and Ryan, because theater kid with a fastball is a wild combination.”

“You’re telling me,” Chad said.

“I mean it makes sense, kinda. Hitting balls with hard wood bats?” Abbie continued. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d assume it’s some kind of allegory or someone had some real repressed gay feelings.”

“Can you un-come out to someone?”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Abbie said with a smile. “Thanks for being cool about me.”

Chad smiled back. “Don’t mention it.”

Ryan picked up on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Abbie and I aren’t dating,” Chad said in a rush. “She has some personal stuff that she needed to figure out…”

“Is it about her sexuality?”

Chad stopped dead in his tracks. “Yeah, why?”

“I owe Kelsi twenty bucks,” Ryan groaned, rubbing his forehead with his free hand.

“What?”

“She said that Abbie wasn’t straight and that you guys weren’t actually dating but I didn’t believe her,” Ryan explained. “So I bet her twenty bucks that she was wrong.”

“Abbie’s gay?” Kelsi yelled in the background of the call.

“Just take the money from my wallet,” Ryan said. “And then let’s never talk about this again.”

Chad heard Kelsi’s cackle echo through the apartment, but quickly shook his head to refocus. “So the position of casual New York hookup is still on the table. We’re in New Haven until tomorrow, but we can swing by your guys’s place before we have to go back to the airport.”

Ryan stayed silent on the other line for a little too long, making Chad overthink and start talking to fill the silence.

“We can find a hotel if it makes you uncomfortable. Nothing has to happen; I wouldn’t want to impose on you guys…”

“Chad,” Ryan half yelled through the phone to get the other guy to shut up. “It’s fine. Whenever you’re in New York, remember? Besides, we’re a no strings thing. You’re allowed to date whoever you want.”

Chad let out a heavy breath and closed his eyes. “You know the same goes for you too, right?”

“I’m a little busy for boys, but I appreciate the sentiment,” Ryan said. “So when do you guys get in?”

“The train is supposed to arrive at Grand Central at like 1:30,” Chad said, something twisting in his chest that he decided not to think about too hard.

“I’ll be there,” Ryan said firmly.

“You really don’t have to…”

“No,” Ryan said, “I was being a jerk and I’ll be there to help you and Abbie back from the train station before you have to fly back to Albuquerque.”

“Thanks, man,” Chad said, knowing that there was definitely more that he wanted to say but didn’t know how. “I guess I’ll see you then.”

“Yeah. See you then.”

Chad closed his phone and looked over to where Taylor and Abbie were eagerly pretending not to listen to the entire phone conversation.

“So how’d it go?” Abbie asked, pretending to play dumb.

He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “You were right. He doesn’t hate me.”

Taylor smiled smugly, as if to say “I told you so” without vocalizing it. “So what did Mr. Evans have to say?”

“Shut up,” Chad said, pocketing his phone.

Chapter Text

In his previous experiences coming out, Chad hadn’t had that moment of clarity, relief that seems to come with what few good coming out experiences he’d heard about. But on the train to Grand Central from New Haven with Abbie, something felt different. Coming out to Taylor happened in the middle of the night in a moment of panic. Coming out to Troy and Gabriella didn’t feel much like anything other than just another weird conversation. And he was drunk out of his mind when he told Ryan that he liked him. After that, Sharpay and Kelsi already knew and thus a formal coming out would have been redundant.

But now, Chad felt like there had been a weight lifted off his shoulders as he looked out at the passing towns and fields that eventually became more urban as the train chugged closer to New York City. By the time they pulled into Union Station (or the Moynihan Port Authority whatever; Chad wasn’t too concerned about those kinds of details), it seemed like the world hadn’t just continued to turn, but to evolve. As soon as he spotted Ryan’s familiarly stupid hat on the platform, he felt as though everything would be okay.

“Hey, stranger,” Chad said, stuffing his hands into his pockets to keep himself from making a scene by jumping Ryan.

“Hey, yourself,” Ryan replied. “I need to apologize to Abbie.”

“No kidding,” Abbie said, appearing between the two of them without any warning. “You were a frigid bitch, dude.”

Ryan placed a hand over his heart melodramatically. “The truth. It hurts,” he said before straightening up and offering a hand to Abbie. “I’m so sorry. My name is Ryan and I’m not normally a frigid bitch.”

“I’d be one too if I thought you were messing with my person,” Abbie said with a shrug, shaking Ryan’s hand. “No hard feelings.”

Conversation flowed easily after that, flowing from the subway all the way to the shitty apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. Ryan and Abbie got on like a house on fire, which meant Chad was trying to keep up with their conversations, which he couldn’t really bring himself to mind. It wasn’t until Ryan unlocked the front door to his and Kelsi’s apartment that the mood shifted.

“Good, you’re back,” Kelsi said with a tight smile as she bounced off the couch and walked towards the coat rack to grab her keys and a jacket. “Abbie and I are going into Greenwich Village, which means you two have the apartment to yourselves.”

Chad turned to stare wide eyed at Abbie, who just shrugged. “She texted me about it on the train. I thought it might be fun, considering we’re leaving tomorrow.”

“And you didn’t ask me to go with you?” Ryan asked, sounding as wounded as Chad was feeling.

Kelsi gave Ryan A Look. “You’ll have the apartment to yourselves? I don’t have to spell this out for you, right?”

Ryan was silent as Chad also tried to figure out what on Earth Kelsi was supposedly alluding to. Abbie groaned, irritated.

“Y’all can bang without other people in the apartment!” She exclaimed.

Ryan and Chad immediately began to trade deflections.

“We weren’t going to…”
“It’s not like that…”

“We’re just friends…”

“What are you even talking about…”

“Oh my God, just stop talking!” Kelsi exclaimed over both of them. “You might be able to fool other people or pretend to not have a thing in front of other people, but I’ve gotten to know you pretty well over the last five years and I’m so annoyed that I’m not even gonna make a Jason Robert Brown joke!”

The reference went whizzing over Chad’s head, but it clearly resonated with Ryan, who immediately paled and looked down at the ground.

“You don’t have to do anything,” she continued. “I was just letting you know you have the option. Come on, Abbie.”

Kelsi huffed and walked out of the apartment, sheepishly followed by Abbie, leaving Chad and Ryan alone.

“Do you wanna turn on a movie and just make out,” Chad said, breaking the silence.

Ryan let out a surprised laugh and shook his head. “You’re so weird.”

“What? Do you actually want to have sex knowing that your roommate told you to do so?” Chad asked.

“Ew, no!”

“Exactly. So I say we order a pizza, watch a movie, and then make out if we feel like it. No rules, no pressure.”

Ryan rolled his eyes. “No rules and no pressure haven’t exactly been working for us, don’t you think? Because I hated seeing you show up with another girl.”

“I don’t like seeing you with other guys,” Chad said before he could stop himself. “I mean, it's not like it should bother me. It clearly didn’t mean anything and we’re not a thing. And I don’t want to jump to conclusions about something on Martha’s Facebook page but it’s still true. Even though we’re not a thing. No strings and all that.”

“Right,” Ryan said. “We’re not a thing.”

“We could be though.”

Ryan whipped his head to look at Chad, eyes wide. “You would want that?”

Chad shrugged and sat down on the couch. “I mean, I’m not ready to shout that I’m not straight from the rooftops. But it’s not like I’d have to deal with all of that since we’re not in the same place.”

“It’d be nice to have a straight answer about why I’m not dating anyone at school aside from ‘everyone here is batshit crazy,’” Ryan said.

“I thought you weren’t straight.”

“You know what? Forget it. I don’t know why I ever thought I was even remotely attracted to you.”

Chad impulsively reached out to grab Ryan by the waist and pull him down on the couch, completely forgetting that both of them were dealing with injuries to their elbow and ankle respectively. So instead of Ryan shrieking as he fell into Chad’s lap, both of them fell in a heap on the floor in front of the couch.

“What was that?” Ryan asked into Chad’s chest.

“I think I was trying to be romantic?” Chad said, rubbing his elbow. “I don’t know. Whatever I was trying to do clearly didn’t work. That was a bad call, my bad.”

Ryan laughed and wormed his way up so they could be face to face. “It’s okay. I think I like this position a little better though.”

Chad gulped. “So movie and make out?”

Ryan shrugged. “I think we can skip the movie.”

“Good, cuz I had no suggestions.”

“I mean, we could watch Mamma Mia.”

“You’re the worst,” Chad laughed. “Shut up and kiss me.”

“Gladly,” Ryan said with a smirk.

Abbie and Kelsi came back a few hours later. Abbie and Ryan both started preparing to sleep, while Kelsi dragged Chad out into the hallway outside the apartment.

“Did you talk?” Kelsi asked.

Chad smiled to himself and shrugged. “I guess you could call it that.”

“You mean you made out and had pizza?”

“Pretty much.”

Kelsi frowned. “That’s not talking.”

“I mean, we said that we want to be exclusive and then we started making out. I think that still counts.”

Kelsi sighed and adjusted her glasses. “That doesn’t really count.”

“What do you mean that doesn’t really count?” Chad asked.

“Talking is defining the relationship. It’s telling each other how you feel,” she says, exasperatedly. “You know, for a guy who spends most of his life around balls, you’re surprisingly lacking in that department,”

“Why does it always have to be on me?” Chad asked, getting fed up. “I’m just respecting his boundaries and doing as much as I can considering that I could lose my scholarship for just being myself! Do you know how bad discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is in this country?”

“Of course I know! But it’s getting better!” Kelsi said.

“In New York? Of course! The gays basically run all of your tourist traps,” Chad replied. “But not in New Mexico. Not in Colorado! Especially not in Texas. No, we have to keep our heads down, especially when we’re not a flaming stereotype waiting to explode into rainbows!”

Kelsi didn’t say anything, instead opting to pull Chad into a tight, bone crushing hug. “What’s happening?”

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t even think about how much harder it is for you.”

“Clearly,” Chad said dryly.

“I always got your back,” she continued, beginning to sound a little watery. “You got me if anything ever goes wrong.”

“What if I break your best friend’s heart?” He asked, putting his arms around Kelsi in a final acceptance of the hug.

Kelsi pulled back and quickly dried her eyes before looking up at Chad. “Ryan might be my best friend, and I love him to death, but he’s gonna break his own heart if he lets you get away. He’d kill me for saying this, but he’s not really dating anyone. At all. And he says it’s because we’re juniors and junior year sucks, but…”

She trailed off and looked down at the ground before continuing. “I don’t think he’s ready to admit to anyone that you’re kind of it for him. I know it’s crazy because we’re basically babies, but I think that he thinks that he’s trying to protect you? His dad’s on the board of your school and you’re doing well in the basketball program…”

“I had to relearn how to dribble,” Chad interrupted. “I’m not doing well.”

“Even so, you’re doing more than anyone else that was on the team in high school,” Kelsi said. “I think he’s trying to make choices for you, which isn’t fair to either of you. And then, if things are as bad as you say they are, society’s making choices for you. Which is even more unfair! I just hope you can get out of there.”

“There aren’t really any pro teams in Albuquerque, so I’m pretty much set,” Chad joked.

“You know what I mean,” Kelsi said. “You’re a good guy, Chad. I don’t think I would have said it sophomore year of high school, but a lot changes in five years. Maybe in, I don’t know, 2016, they’ll be people like us out on the court or whatever. And maybe you get to be one of them. Just, take care of yourself, okay?”

Chad nodded. “I will.”

“Great, because I need a chaotic bisexual to fill out my gay friends bingo card,” Kelsi said. “And I’m only half joking; you wouldn’t not believe how many people at Juilliard exclusively swing in a single direction. Bi people are like shiny Pokémon, except that shiny Pokémon are actually rare and most people who are bi live in Brooklyn. I think. I don’t really leave Manhattan.”

“I mean, where would you find the time to go?” Chad said. “Who has the time for bisexual hunting when you’re chained to a piano.”

“I know you’re trying to be funny, but that’s literally what Juilliard is like. I’m lucky if I don’t have to eat lunch in a practice room. Or during a class.”

“Kelsi?”

She looked up at Chad. “What?”

He smiled. “Thanks.”

Kelsi pulled him down into another tight hug. “You’re my friend, too.”

And for the first time in a while, Chad felt like everything might be okay.

Chapter Text

The University of Albuquerque men’s basketball team had finally been invited to the First Four tournament after a grueling season that led Chad to see the bench far more than he would have liked to. But, when he was on the court, people started calling him a play maker.

In fact, that’s all anyone seemed to talk about.

At first, it was nice being recognized around campus by people he didn’t know. But that lasted all of ten seconds before it began to be…weird.

Now Chad had always been an extrovert, and quite frankly never saw that changing regardless. So he liked the attention. It reminded him of being co-captain on the basketball team at East High in his senior year, except he was still a junior and college was slightly less picky about what year you were in (unless you were a freshman). But East High was way smaller than the University of Albuquerque, so getting recognized on campus held an even bigger weight. Sure, he’d been popular, but that was when everyone knew him from class and school. But this was all basketball. Troy was the King of basketball in high school, not Chad. The whole thing was starting to get trippy. Everyone knew about him, recognized him on the quad, waved to him while shouting “Go RedHawks!” But at the same time, no one actually knew Chad Danforth.

Everyone except the handful of people who knew about the chaos of his dating life. Of course there were rumors, what with the parties he went to in freshman and sophomore year and the infamy that comes with being a rising star on the school’s marquee sports team. It got to the point where the team started overhearing about Chad’s on and off thing about a mysterious person that went to his high school. He’d tried his best to be both honest about his feelings with Ryan and everyone in New York. But that was New York. When the Golden State Bears came to town for a game, of course Chad talked to Troy about the newer developments in his personal life as one of the few people not in New York who knew.

“Exclusive, huh?” Troy said, the two standing by the water cooler during their joint practice. “But you’re not putting any labels on it?”

“No need,” Chad said, being careful about his words. “Plus, I’m not there yet, ya know? Like, don’t get me wrong. Evans means a lot to me.”

“No, I get it,” Troy said. “You don’t want to put pressure on a thing that might go somewhere.”

“Exactly! And we’re not even in the same city right now, so it doesn’t make sense for it to be super serious. But we both don’t like seeing each other with other people, so we’re exclusive. And that’s it.”

Troy grinned. “You got it bad, man.”

Chad rolled his eyes. “I don’t need to take this from the guy that moved in with his girlfriend even though they were only thirty miles away from each other during their freshman year of college.”

“Dude, I’m telling you. Cali traffic’s no joke,” Troy said. “Neither is the rent. And at least Gabby’s got a full ride and is making a killing on her research assistant gigs. I’ve been working part time at this mechanic in the mornings before school, but there aren’t nearly enough hours in the day.”

“Cry me a river.”

“Your just jealous, man. I bet you’d give anything to be renting a shitty apartment with someone right now.”

Chad glared at his friends, who wriggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Why do you always think I’m jealous of you, man? I gotta get back to practice.”

Troy laughed as Chad jogged back to the UofA side of the court, turning around halfway to good naturedly flip him the bird. Their practices continued on as normal and Chad forgot about the conversation, not even giving a thought that someone might have overheard them. After all, even if they did, it’s not like they had context for their whole conversation.

“Yo, Danforth?” Grimmel said in the locker room after practice. “What were you talking to Berkeley Bolton about?”

Chad rolled his eyes and began to strip off his sweat soaked jersey. “Nothing. Just catching up.”

“Nah, man. You’ve been holding out on us!” Grimmel said. “How long have you and Evans been hooking up?”

Chad immediately stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“Bro, who’s dating Evans?” Another voice called out.

“Danforth!”

“Aw, shit. Didn’t y’all go to high school together?”

“Wait, which one? The sister or the brother?”

“Why the fuck would he be dating the brother, man? It’s gotta be the sister. Or the mom. She’s a MILF.”

And Chad let out a breath as the rest of the conversation continued to escalate chaotically around him. How he had forgotten about Sharpay was beyond him. Even though it seemed like she had disappeared off the face of the earth, last he heard was that she was still enrolled as a theater major. And she still held the same kind of popularity she had in high school, being hot, blonde, and rich. Of course, he was also teetering on that same untouchable popularity in a heteronormative world (according to Kelsi and Abbie, and probably Gabriella and Taylor too if he asked them about it).

But even the inkling that maybe, maybe someone on the team would know about him and Ryan made him sweat. He and Ryan were exclusive now. But being exclusive with a guy and calling himself bisexual to close friends was a hell of a long way from being able to kick open the closet in a NCAA men’s locker room.

“Wait, wait, wait,” One of the guys called out, pulling Chad out of his head. “Danforth hasn’t said anything. I won’t believe it until he says it.”

Chad blinked. “Says what?”

“You and Evans? Bumping uglies?”

The locker room stared at Chad in silence. He swallowed and tried to shrug nonchalantly. “Don’t be a jackass, man. Sharpay’s a nice girl.”

The room let out hollers and wolf whistles as Grimmel shoved Chad playfully. “Didn’t expect you to be the kinda guy who wouldn’t kiss and tell.”

“Fuck you, man,” Chad said lightheartedly, making the rest of the locker room laugh and turn back to their own conversations.

“But you’re doing it, right?” Grimmel asks. “You don’t need to tell the rest of those twerps.”

Chad rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I don’t need to tell anyone anything.”

“Is this about them asking them if she’s a screamer? Cuz I think everyone immediately knew that wasn’t the move,”

“I have a problem,” Chad said.

“Nice to hear from you, too, Danforth,” Sharpay said, her voice only mildly annoyed. “What do you want?”

“The team thinks that we’re dating,” he said.

Chad could hear a horrid retching noise from the other line so loud he had to hold the phone away from his ear. “Ew! I already told you that I don’t bother with Ry’s sloppy seconds!”

“Yes, but they don’t know about that,” Chad said. “One of the guys overheard a conversation I was having with Troy and someone heard him talking about an Evans. And none of them know about, you know, so they thought we were talking about you.”

“Get to the point, Danforth. I don’t have all day.”

“I need you to break up with me,” he said.

“What?!”

“Like, really publicly,” Chad said. “And then make a big stink about how we were together and now we’re not.”

“Why can’t you tell everyone you got dumped over text or something?”

“Because we both know the only way you’d ever dump someone is by making a scene in person.”

“I’m not torpedoing your reputation! I might be cool and calculated, but I’m not cruel,” Sharpay said, nearly shrieking over the phone before quickly adding, “anymore.”

“Shar, I’m not gonna have a reputation to torpedo if the truth gets out,” Chad said, pleadingly. “I’ll let you throw things at me! Think of it as an acting exercise or something.”

Sharpay huffed over the phone, annoyed but clearly thinking about it. “I still don’t know why you need me to break up with you.”

“So the guys will stop asking me questions that make me want to shoot myself,” Chad said. “Like, I almost think I’d rather deal with slurs than them asking me if you’re a screamer again.”

Sharpay gagged. “Ugh! Why?”
“Which is exactly what I would have said if I didn’t want them to call me gay slurs,” Chad said. “So can you help me out?”

The other line crackled with silence as Sharpay continued to consider the offer. “How elaborate does this lie have to be?”

Chad let out a sigh of relief. “As elaborate as you want.”

“My parents’ll be happy of a visit. Should I email you my travel deets or text them?”

“Email,” Chad said. “My phone can’t handle that kind of data.”

“We’re gonna have to fix that,” she said before promptly hanging up without so much as a “Toodles."