Perfect Couple (3 page)

And that meant at least
he
would nap through what I said to Brody. As for Noah and Quinn, maybe Quinn had been right: It was time I stopped worrying about how things looked. Once more, I rehearsed what I would say to Brody.
We need to take a yearbook photo for Perfect Couple That Never Was
, and
We need to think of an original way to pose for the photo
, and
What if we met off campus? Like on a date? We’d be a couple—get the joke? Not a real date, of course. We don’t want Kennedy and Grace mad at us!
Feeling like I was about to fling myself off a cliff, I took a deep breath and turned to Brody.

He was asleep. In the thirty seconds I’d taken to steel myself, his hunched shoulders had gone slack. His upper body rose and fell with deep, even breaths. I was amazed he could relax amid the buzz of the classroom—but after all,
he
wasn’t a geeky girl whose nerves were stretched taut to the point of snapping because the popular quarterback was an arm’s length away.

With a defeated sigh, I faced the front and crossed my legs under my desk again.

“Is my homework that bad?” Noah asked, turning his broad body around. “I thought I actually understood this unit, for once.”

“No, sorry, I’ve hardly started.” I bent over Noah’s work, checking his answers against mine.

My gaze drifted across the aisle to Brody. His handsome face was hidden: the high cheekbones, the expressive mouth. All I could see from this angle was the top of his head, longish light brown hair curtaining over his face, and one strong upper arm straining against the sleeve of his tight athletic shirt. He also wore long athletic shorts and flip-flops, as always. On the coldest day of the year, which admittedly wasn’t very cold around here, he
might
add a hoodie. We’d
been in various advanced classes together since middle school, but the way he dressed, he looked like he’d taken a wrong turn from the gym. That’s how Brody had always been: grinning, a bit of a mess, and a world away from me.

Twenty minutes later, I’d checked Noah’s homework. I hoped I had just enough time to finish my questions on the chapter in English so I wouldn’t have to take my book home. Ms. Patel interrupted my thoughts. “Class, may I have your attention, please? Quinn and Noah want to make an announcement before lunch.”

Sawyer stirred and raised his head from his arms. Brody couldn’t even make that much effort. He kept his head down but shifted so he could see around Sawyer. He would be sitting up in a minute, though. Surely he knew what was coming. I put my hand on Noah’s back as he stood. He smiled nervously at me before he and Quinn made their way up the row to stand in front of Ms. Patel’s desk.

“We. . . ,” Noah began, then folded his muscular arms. He was African American, with such dark skin that the fluorescent lights overhead highlighted the indentations of his huge muscles like he was a comic-book superhero. He’d also perfected a threatening scowl he used to intimidate other football players, but he wasn’t wearing it now. It was strange to see him look nervous. He glanced over at Quinn.

“Tick-tock,” Ms. Patel said. “The bell’s going to ring. Better get it out.”

Quinn wrung his hands in fingerless black leather gloves, an odd accessory during hot weather in Florida, even for one of
my
friends. Then he ran his hands through his black hair. Finally he burst out, “Noah and I are dating. Each other.”

Silence fell over the classroom. It was so quiet that Mr. Frank’s voice filtered through the wall from the next room. I wanted to jump up and pound on the wall to stop Mr. Frank, but I felt dizzy. That’s when I realized I was holding my breath.

Brody started clapping.

The class burst into applause.

Sighing with relief, I clapped along, harder and harder as the weight of the last year lifted from my shoulders. I’d been so worried about Quinn and then Noah when they came out to me. This positive reception to their official, public coming out was a great sign for their future.

The door opened. Kennedy gave the noisy classroom a bewildered glance. Ms. Patel pointed to an empty desk near the door, indicating that he should park it rather than moving all the way back to sit behind me. As he slung off his backpack and slouched in the desk, Noah mouthed an explanation for the commotion: “We’re gay.” Kennedy blushed bright red.

Not the reaction I’d expected from Kennedy. He prided himself on being open-minded. I’d thought he’d be mildly supportive, or have no reaction at all.

The applause died down, and Noah cleared his throat. “Some of you may be wondering, ‘Why now?’ A couple of weeks ago, when we voted on the Senior Superlatives, I wrote in myself and Quinn for Perfect Couple That Never Was. I thought the student council would take it as a joke. Really it was just wishful thinking, I guess. I wasn’t even sure Quinn was gay.”

Quinn put his gloved hand on Noah’s shoulder. “I did the same. Principal Chen called us both into her office and told us that if we had something to say to the school, we could go ahead if we did it in a way that wouldn’t disrupt class.”

My friend Chelsea raised her hand. “Those were secret ballots, I
thought
. How did Ms. Chen know they were yours?”

“Because she’s
creepy
?” Quinn said.

“Careful,” Ms. Patel spoke up.

“She’s really old,” Noah said with a sideways glance at Ms. Patel. “You know how she’s always telling us in assemblies that we’d better not try to slip anything past her.”

Ms. Patel bit her lip, trying not to laugh.

“Anyway,” Quinn said, “we decided to do it here in study hall because we wanted to come out in front of the people
who’ve encouraged us the most.” He put his hand over his heart. “For me, that’s Harper.”

“Awwwww.” A chorus of girls’ voices echoed how I felt. I’d tried to support Quinn any way I could, but I hadn’t expected him to acknowledge me in front of the class.

“And for me,” Noah said, “that’s Harper and Brody.”

“Brody!” Sawyer yelled a raunchy, “Aoow!”

Brody thumped him on the back of the head.

Sawyer turned around and took a swipe at Brody. Brody leaned back in his desk to dodge the blow.

“We also wanted to come out in front of Sawyer,” Noah said, “so we’d catch him off guard, before he had the chance to work up any jokes.”

“Oooooh,” said the class. All eyes were on Sawyer now. It wasn’t often that somebody stuck it to Sawyer.

Quinn went on, “And of course, Sawyer is our study hall’s student council representative. He can help us address our grievances to the school if anything bad happens.”

Sawyer nodded. He must take his position seriously. I’d been as surprised as anyone when he nominated himself for student council representative at the beginning of the year. We’d elected him because nobody else ran. But it was nice to know he would step up for Noah and Quinn if they needed him.

Then he muttered, “I’ve got nothing. Good material takes time.”

“Exactly,” Noah and Quinn said together.

Their speech seemed to be winding down. Before anybody else could heckle them, I called, “Cupcakes!”

“Cupcaaaaaakes!” several people cheered.

As I slid out of my desk, Brody cracked a smile at me. “You made coming-out cupcakes?”

“Yeah. Wait till you see them.”

“Do you need help?”

“No, thanks.” There was only one container. I’d hidden it on the counter at the back of the room, underneath a huge folded poster of the periodic table.

I was halfway there before I realized that I’d just turned down an innocent excuse to interact with Brody. When it came to guys, I was a little slow on the uptake.

Brody was standing beside his desk now, stretching. I grabbed the container and brought it to him. “I mean yes,” I said, “I need your help. Could you open these on Ms. Patel’s desk?”

“Sure. What are you going to—Oh.”

I pulled a camera out of my pocket, the small one I carried when I didn’t have my expensive one, so I never missed a shot. “Say cheese,” I told him.

“Cupcakes!” He held them up.

It was another killer picture of him, I realized with dismay. Brody was a little too photogenic. I wanted my best work to go into the yearbook, but I couldn’t get away with slipping a photo of him onto every page.

I shot a few more candids of the class while I waited for him to deliver the cupcakes to the front of the room. Then I cornered Quinn and Noah against the whiteboard for the commemorative picture I really wanted. They put their heads close together and held up their cupcakes. I’d used rainbow papers, and each cake was topped with a plastic rainbow and a cutout photo of someone in the class. So Noah’s cake had his face on top, and Quinn’s had his. After we all three checked the camera display and laughed over that classic shot, I pocketed my camera and reached into the box for the Harper cake.

Brody held his cake, as if he was waiting for me to start eating. “This was why you went around the room yesterday, taking pictures of everybody.”

“Yeah.” That, and it had been another reason to take a picture of
him
. “I thought if I made cupcakes and put people’s faces on them, involving them in the celebration, they’d be less likely to say something ugly once we get to the lunchroom.”

“Smart,” he said. “Do we have to eat our own cupcake?”

“That was the idea, yeah.”

“Because some guy’s going to ask if he can eat your cupcake, Harper.”

I nearly choked on the icing. After swallowing, I said, “I figured Sawyer might say that. I’ve done some deep-breathing exercises, and I’m okay with it.”

“Sawyer isn’t the only person here with a dirty mind.” Brody licked his icing. I watched his mouth.

Sawyer walked over. I’d stopped at the bakery that morning and bought him a vegan muffin, since vegan cupcakes were not in my repertoire. He was stuffing the last of it into his mouth. “Quinn,” he called, “didn’t you date Harper last year?”

“Here it comes.” Quinn rolled his eyes. His thick black eyeliner made the whites of his eyes more pronounced.

“And, Noah,” Sawyer continued, “didn’t
you
date Harper last spring?”

“Fuck you, De Luca,” Noah said softly enough that Ms. Patel couldn’t hear by the window.

“What does that say about the guy Harper’s dating now? What’s his name, again, the one with the rad pierced eyebrow?” Sawyer snapped his fingers a couple of times close to Kennedy, who hadn’t moved from the desk by the door. “I can’t ever remember that guy’s name.”

“
This
is the joke you came up with?” Brody asked.

“I haven’t had time!” Sawyer protested. “And
you
! Be careful about this Perfect Couple That Never Was thing, Larson. Harper obviously has a way with guys.”

“Here’s what I’m going to do to you in PE,” Brody told Sawyer. “Should I say this now, or do you want me to surprise you?”

The bell rang.

Most of the class moved toward the door, their minds already off Quinn and Noah and on lunch. A couple of girls looked over their shoulders, smiling, and said a few encouraging words to Noah and Quinn, who were talking with Ms. Patel. Noah put his hand on Quinn’s back. I couldn’t hear what Noah said over the noise of everyone changing classes, but I read his lips as he asked, “Are you okay?” Quinn nodded and relaxed his shoulders, tension released.

Happy the announcement had gone well, I started to follow Brody back to my desk to pick up my stuff. Kennedy spoke over the noise. “Harper, I need to talk to you.”

Uh-oh. I hoped he wasn’t sensitive about what Sawyer had said. Heart racing, I sank down in the desk next to his. While we waited for Ms. Patel and the rest of the class to file into the hall, I did my breathing exercises and tried to center myself.

I managed to calm down quite a bit before Brody passed right in front of me, the last one out the door. My pulse
raced again. He looked at me, brows knitted in concern, then at Kennedy, and back at me.

I gave him the smallest shake of my head, which I hoped Kennedy didn’t see. My message to Brody was that everything was okay, even though I didn’t believe it myself.

After he left, Kennedy got up, shut the door, and leaned against it with his arms folded, scowling at me. After all my efforts to appease him about my Superlatives photos and his yearbook designs, I was
still
headed for a weekend of the silent treatment.

To head him off, I said, “I understand why you’re upset.”

“I don’t think you do,” he said. “You dated Quinn, then Noah, and now they’re
gay
? What does that say about
me
?”

I wanted to point out that Sawyer had said something similar to Brody, and
Brody
wasn’t mad. Maybe Brody was more self-confident.

Maybe Brody wasn’t my boyfriend.

“I realize it was a surprise,” I said, “but—”

“You’re damn right it was a surprise!” Kennedy seethed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t give away people’s secrets,” I said. “That’s why Quinn and Noah confided in me in the first place.”

“Yeah, well, it says a lot about your priorities if you put your two gay friends in front of your boyfriend.”

“Kennedy,” I said, “I’m not putting them in front of you. This has nothing to do with you.”

“Really?” he asked. “You can’t turn in your Superlatives photos to me, but you have time to bake cupcakes with pictures for
them
?”

“Um.” I didn’t have a response to that. The cupcakes had been important to me. I’d baked them with love for my friends’ important day. Kennedy made them sound stupid.

“You bring rainbow cupcakes for your last two boyfriends, while your current boyfriend is sitting in the same class,” he said. “Don’t you see how that looks?”

“Yeah, I get it,” I said softly, without really getting it. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head in disgust, focusing his gaze somewhere above my head instead of on me. Abruptly he jerked up his backpack by one strap and opened the door.

Tia was standing in the hall. Knowing her, she’d had her ear to the door. “Kennedy, we need a word with Harper,” she said, pushing past him into the room.