Chapter One [Liam]

Here it is — the first chapter of my new book!

If you've been waiting for this since I posted the excerpt, I'm really sorry. I had every intention to start publishing at the end of April/beginning of June, but work and school and personal stuff mixed to make sure all my time was gone and I couldn't finish the final chapters until now.

This story will have multimedia, such as images showing text messages incorporated into the chapters. I believe you need access to internet to see these, so I'll put warnings at the beginning of all the chapters that have it.

I hope you like this introduction to my new story, and feel free to leave some feedback!

If you do comment though, please be sure to be RESPECTFUL — of my work, but especially of other readers!

*this chapter contains multimedia relevant to the plot*

***

"Liam, are you listening?"

I look up from my phone screen.

"What?"

Mack collapses onto the tabletop, dangerously close to knocking her lunch tray over, facepalming direly. To her right, Gus gasps in dramatic offense, while Nat smiles inconspicuously to his side. Next to me, Chloe rolls her eyes, either at my failure to keep track of the conversation or at our friends' theatrics.

"I've been roasting Gus for the past fifteen minutes and I was counting on your support," Mack tells me, propping the heel of her foot on the seat of her chair so she can brace one arm on her knee.

"All I did was point out that the hockey table never looked better," Gus says defensively.

I look over my shoulder, a few tables over. I don't have to search too far. Our school cafeteria, just like the school itself, is not too big. A repercussion of living in small-town USA.

My eyes skim over one of the longest tables, made larger by joining three tables together, where the hockey team sits. The Brunson High Grizzly Bears. To the right, sit the youngest members of the team — green underclassmen excited to sit with the big boys. To the left, sit the team's big guns — the boys who bring home the big trophies. Or, at least, as big as an in-state high school hockey competition in Idaho can provide.

Most of the underclassmen sit and stare as a tall, dark-haired player whose position I couldn't name even if I cared tells a story that appears to require a vertiginous amount of hand gesturing. Next to him, sits Chloe's twin brother, Connor — the goalie — whose position I do know because he's the only guy crouching in front of the goal.

Over the last summer, puberty seems to have finally hit Connor completely. And, apparently, it has taken the opportunity to catch up with some of his teammates as well. James Lowell, Connor's scrawny skittish shrimp of a best friend, was scrawny skittish shrimp no more.

At the left end of the table, the team captain, Owen Holmes, is engaged in quiet conversation with loyal sidekick number one and loyal sidekick number two — Dean Miller and Eli Blake, the team's star defense pairing.

While on the ice Owen is the boss, off the ice, and across the school hallways and Brunson's streets, Eli is sort of the main attraction. Or he used to be. All-round decent guy, polite to his teachers and amiable to his peers, generally calm and reasonable soul, with an innate knack for social interaction that contrasts somewhat with Owen's broodier, more combative front.

As a bonus, he also seems to have finally grown nicely into those beanies he loves to wear, even indoors.

"That Owen was always a snack, but Eli's looking like a full meal this year."

Sitting directly beside him, Chloe kicks Gus under the table. He squeals indignantly and she shoots a pointed glance Natalie's way.

Nat dated Eli Blake for a full year. They started going out in sophomore year, announcing official status by going together to the winter formal, which is Brunson High's must-go event. He ended it exactly a year later, during junior year's formal, after a few months of bad communication and ruinous distance.

She seems to be handling it well now, though. After the initial puffy-eyed mornings and month-long retreat from social life, that is.

"What, it's true," Gus exclaims, despite Chloe's not-so-subtle appeal for tact. "The lost soul vibe he had last year did not suit him."

Mack lets out an incredulous snore. "You mean his grief?" She asks, stressing that last word.

Gus rolls his eyes. "Whatever, he let himself go a little."

"His parents died," Nat points out softly.

"Fine. Make me the bad guy," Gus groans. "I was just making an observation. I was never into the Mr Popular Jock vibe, but I'd go for him this year."

"Too bad he has expressed zero interest in you," Mack retorts.

"As far as the sexuality spectrum goes, I imagine Eli Blake stands as far away from every color of the rainbow as humanly possible," Chloe comments solemnly.

"You never know," Gus challenges, with a shrewd smile my way. "Moneybags Junior thought he was safe in Straight-ville until this summer."

I roll my eyes. "I always planned to visit Bi-town at some point," I say.

Across the table, Mack flashes me a sagacious smile. "And you liked it so much you decided to file for permanent residency," she muses.

"I would've preferred to finally get a neighbor in Gay-burg," Gus states.

"Surely, it's Lesburg and Gay Drive," Chloe chimes in.

"Lesburg, Ace Drive, and Gay-land," Mack asserts.

"And the fabulous hamlets of the Pan-tons?" Natalie tries. I cock my head in question, while Mack shoots her a confused look beneath arched eyebrows. Nat smiles tamely. "You know. Like the Hamptons?"

"I'll accept that," Mack concedes with a shrug.

With a quick move after that, she pulls the hood of her mustard-colored sweater over her head and sinks her face between outstretched arms over the table. It's a drastic mood swing, but that's Mack.

"I don't wanna go to Trig," she groans painedly.

"Great." I grin. "Let's skip."

She looks up, propping her chin on the crease of her elbow. "Deal."

"No," Natalie rebukes. "You have to go to class."

"Yes, we know that." I roll my eyes. "We just don't want to."

"You think I wanna have Precalc?" Chloe shoots back.

"You're not going to Precalc, you have AP Bio with me now," Gus corrects her.

Chloe frowns. "Really? When do I have Precalc then?"

I lose track of their conversation flow as Chloe bends down in her seat to get her class schedule from the depths of her backpack, and look down at my phone once more to check one unread message.

"Put your phone away, loverboy," Mack voices, slapping a hand down on my shoulder. I didn't even notice they were all standing up. Mack gives me a knowing smile. "Captain Buzzkill says we can't skip, so you gotta let your boy toy know he has to wait for you to get back to him."

Natalie — who, I'm assuming, has been promoted to Captain Buzzkill — rolls her eyes, but doesn't seem to take offense to Mack's comment.

I grab my stuff and stand, sliding my phone into my jeans pocket.

"I don't have a boy toy," I say, following them out of the cafeteria.

Mack tilts her head to the side coyly. "Really? So that wasn't Rafael's text you were just smiling at?" She taunts.

I skim my tongue over my bottom lip with a compromised look and she takes that as all the answer she needs.

Chloe and Gus part ways with us before we turn down the hallway that takes us to our Trigonometry class. Nat separates from us much earlier on, to go to her AP Gov class — or maybe it's AP Calc, or AP Chem, or AP English Lit.

As soon as Mack's ass hits the seat, she pulls her hood over her head, crosses her arms over her chest and sinks down in her seat, burying her nose beneath the collar of her hoodie. I take a seat next to her, pulling out my phone when I see her close her eyes like she's getting ready for a post-lunch nap.

Chairs squeak against the classroom floor to my right and I look up to see a group of three girls sitting down. Two of them immediately avert their eyes when they see me looking, but a tall freckled girl with skinny blonde french braids keeps staring, unabashedly.

I arch my eyebrows at her and one of her friends pulls her down to the seat behind her, whispering something in her ear.

"In Malibu?" French Braids whispers back, a little too loudly.

I roll my eyes as the other two shush her, shooting me anxious glances. Next to me, Mack pulls back her hood to give the three girls a challenging once-over. That seems to call on their common sense and they collectively blush. I offer Mack a thankful smile.

A light rumble of excited conversation announces the arrival of the hockey guys. Eli Blake walks through the classroom door with his ever-faithful service puppy in tow, as well as the dark-haired unidentified player from the cafeteria and a couple of other teammates. They occupy five seats in the front left corner of the room.

"I gotta admit, Gus was at least a little bit right," Mack muses.

My eyebrows shoot up. "Come again?"

Mack smiles a little with a shrug, sitting up in her chair. "I never noticed Dean Miller had stopped cutting his hair like a wannabe knock-off Bieber," she says, looking at the service puppy, sitting dutifully at Eli's side. She cocks her head like a curious cat analyzing its oblivious prey. "Was he always that tall?"

"He's not your type," I state plainly.

She gives me an amused look. "He didn't use to be," she agrees. "But the messy hair suits him. And I like tall guys." Her eyes rake my own figure, just for show. "He might even be taller than you now."

I roll my eyes. "I'm the best you'll ever have and you know it."

She laughs, with little regard for grace and volume. The three girls beside us and a few of the hockey guys look our way. Mack doesn't seem bothered at all.

"Still," she sighs. "A girl can aim for the next best thing."

I grin at her, shaking my head.

Trying another glance at the hockey team, I can see both Eli's and Dean's gaze linger on us briefly, before they turn back to the front of the room, where Mrs Jameson — or Jenson, maybe Johnson, Johansen perhaps — is setting up to start today's lesson.

As soon as the teacher starts talking triangles and, well, Trig stuff, Mack tunes off and half her face draws back beneath the collar of her sweatshirt. My eyes find a focus point in the front row, on the back of a brunette head covered in a maroon beanie.

Three years back, when we all started going to Brunson High School — hell, three months back even, before I went on vacation to Malibu with my friends — I would never have noticed any of the hockey guys. In fairness, I would never have noticed any guy.

I never had any qualms about recognizing guys can be attractive, because I never saw myself as a case of fragile inflation-dependent masculinity. But I never really paid any boy enough attention to decide whether I was attracted to them.

One might say Brunson, Idaho and the neighboring high-class winter wonderland of Lake City aren't the best environments to explore one's sexuality. Malibu, California, though, is a different talk.

It started when Mack declared she was sick of spending her summer break skating in the same rink where we practice all year long, and visiting the same list of spots we visit the rest of the year — including and limited to the coffee shop next to school, the lake, The Lodge, and any of the facilities of my dad's ski resort. It ended with the five of us — Mack, Chloe, Natalie, Gus and me — taking a trip to the Golden State.

We stayed at one of Mack's family's coast-side properties, within walking distance to the beach and with a private pool available to us around the clock. Mack and Gus even tried surfing lessons. She gave up after two weeks, he kept powering through in a failed attempt to impress his hot surfing instructor.

Meanwhile, Nat read around fourteen novels and Chloe inserted herself in a voluntary vegetative state, interrupted only occasionally for her daily off-ice workout routine.

As for me, I made friends with the pool guy.

Rafael is from Thousand Oaks, within a thirty minute drive from Malibu. He works behind the counter at a coffee shop during the school year and cleans pools for the decadently rich in the summer. He truly devoted his time to making sure our pool was as clean as possible. On occasion, we might have even jumped in together just to make sure it was up to my picky standards.

I had never questioned my sexuality on an existential level, but I had never discarded any option either. Rafael was a helpful element in my summer of self-discovery.

We parted in friendly terms, agreeing there was nothing between us aside from a successful summer fling. But we still exchanged numbers. A little over a month went by before he brought up the possibility of visiting each other.

Of course, it took less than half that time for the rumors to run a lap around town.

I'm brought back to the present moment when Eli Blake turns around and looks at me over his shoulder. I realize I have been staring all along. He holds my gaze for a while, almost like he expects to receive an explanation from me. Instead, I shoot him a quick wink.

He offers no reaction, refocusing his attention back on Mrs Jossen. Or whatever her name is.