My Online Secret Admirer Tomas, J

My Online Secret Admirer

By J. Tomas

Published by

Queerteen Press

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queerteen-press.com

for more information.

J. Tomas

ISBN 9781611522723

Cover Credits:

mikegraffigna

Used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.
Cover Design: J.M. Snyder
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product of the author’s imagination and/or are
used fictitiously, though reference may be made
to actual historical events or existing locations.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of

America. Queerteen Press is an imprint of JMS
Books LLC.

* * * *

My Online Secret Admirer

By J. Tomas

I signed up for Computers as an elective

with my best friend Talley and my best

girl

friend

Marie because it sounded awesome—learning
to create websites, maintaining blogs, all sorts of
neat stuff. By winter break we were supposed to
start our own blogs online. I thought this would be
the best class ever, and I needed an easy A to
help bring up my grades my junior year of high
school.

But the first few months were nothing but

stupid history, Babbage and vacuum tubes and
Basic. Who coded in

Basic

anymore? By fall

break we were just starting to get into the internet
side of things, and leave it to the school to make

th a t

boring as crap, too. The first thing our

teacher Mr. Mosley did was throw a slide on the
wall showing the background code for a popular
website. Talley and I glanced at each other like

what the hell

? No one told us we’d actually have

to learn how to code HTML by hand! I was

not

taking it again next year. Easy A, my ass.

We even had to review how search

engines work. Who cared? But Mr. Mosley spent
the whole hour droning on and on about the
history of Google while everyone in class ignored
him. We were in the lab upstairs, each student
assigned to a computer, so I hid behind my
monitor and spent the time Googling funny words
to see what I’d get. I couldn’t look up curse words
—I know, I tried—the school must’ve had a really
tight filter built in. After a few minutes of goofing
around, I typed in my own name just to be silly
and hit ENTER.

I got a lot of crap from genealogy sites, of

course. My own Facebook page didn’t even
show up until the bottom of the results. No
wonder I rarely got new friend requests!

I added quotation marks around my name

—see, I

was

paying attention in class. Hit ENTER

again. This time my Facebook page was the first
listed, go me. Under that was a link to a blog…
and I knew it wasn’t mine because I hadn’t
bothered creating one yet.

Trapped in SBHS

What a great name! Too bad someone

already thought of it. I could always call mine the
same thing and pretend I never saw this one. Or
maybe just call it

Trapped in Smedley

. Wait, no.

That sounded like a horror story. Though this

was

high school, after all.

Who was I kidding? I didn’t plan to start

my blog until the assignment due date was a bit
closer. Then I’d just slap something together.
Computers was an elective; I didn’t need it to
graduate.

Thank God, too, because listening to Mr.

Mosley could put

anyone

to sleep. From sheer

boredom, I clicked on the link to the

Trapped

blog and hoped whoever owned it was a bit
more lively than the class I was in.

The page loaded—it was white with a

gray shaded border around the single column of
text. A small notation in the sidebar announced
the page was a project for school, no name of
who created it. No mention of our school by
name, either, just the initials and, in the sidebar,

the words

GO TIGERS!!

That was our mascot,

so I knew it was our school. Under that read

Class of ‘13

, which meant the blog had to belong

to someone in our grade.

In this class.
I looked around to see if anyone had

somehow noticed I’d pulled up their site. I sat at
the last computer in the back row, so I had a
great view of the rest of the class. Everyone
seemed glued to their monitors except for Jaime
Tuttle, who furiously scribbled everything Mr.
Mosley said as if it were gospel. She threw a
glance my way and hunched down further over
her desk, half-covering her paper with one arm
as if to keep me from cheating off it. As if I would.

Beside me, Talley had his head propped

up in one hand, eyelids fluttering as he dozed. A
faint snore came from him every so often, and
his mouth hung open a little. If I hadn’t known him
so long, I would’ve tried to toss tiny little spitballs
into his mouth to see how many I could get inside
before he woke up. Hell, if I didn’t have this blog
to read now, I’d be tempted anyway, friends or

not.

On the other side of Talley, Marie frowned

at the computer. She kept looking up at Mr.
Mosley as if she were paying attention, but when
I leaned back in my chair, I saw she was reading
the OMG! celebrity news on Yahoo! I thought of
writing a quick note on a piece of paper, balling
it up, and tossing it over Talley’s head to her.

Google yourself. See what you get.

Maybe she

was on this blog, too.

Or maybe it was

her

blog. That thought

stopped me. What exactly did it say about me,
anyway?

As I turned back to the screen, I realized

this couldn’t be Marie’s site. Not enough hearts,
for one. She’s as girly as they come. Even if she
were stuck with a drab gray template like this
one, she’d still change the font color to an
atrocious shade of pink.

There were two blog posts. The first was

a default one—

This is your first post! Delete this

text and write something cool about yourself!

Whoever created the blog hadn’t bothered.

The second mentioned me. Hell, it

mentioned a lot of people I knew—the author had
apparently snagged one of those online survey
things where you answered the questions using
the names of people in your class. The heading
read

Class of 2013, Butler High

. Then it had a

list of numbered traits, and beside each was a
name of someone in our class.

Sluttiest girl—Jennifer Carter. Sleaziest

guy—???

Smartest

girl—Jaime

Tuttle.

Smartest guy—NOT Timmy Talley.

I almost laughed out loud.

That

was the

truth. Talley had lived next door to me all my life
and we were best friends, but he wasn’t the
brightest bulb in the bunch, as my mother liked to
say. He was on the wrestling team and was
pretty good at it, only because he was built like a
Mack truck. He didn’t have the grades to play
football, but he was a badass on the wrestling
mat. Mostly I think he just sat on his opponent
until they gave—sometimes we play-wrestled
while watching TV and he always pinned me
down. I could say for a fact that, with his bulk

bearing down on you, you couldn’t breathe. His
best hope for getting into college was a
scholarship and he knew it.

Prettiest girl—Marie Overby.

See? She

was on here. I should tell her…

Sexiest guy—Mike Halston.

The floor dropped out from under me.
I’ve never been called the sexiest

anything

. Who’s blog was this again? Who

thought I was sexy? The

sexiest

I scrolled around the page but couldn’t

figure out who had created it. There were no
names attached to any of the posts, no

about me

link I could see, nothing to tell me anything about
the blog’s creator. Just my name, there in the
center of things,

sexiest guy—Mike Halston

I felt my chest swell with pride. Someone

thought I was sexy.

But who?

* * * *

At lunch I sat with Marie and Talley, like

always. It was pizza day, and Talley had three
slices on his plate to keep up his weight. He had
a match coming up in a few days, which meant
he had to bulk up if he could. I wasn’t sure he
was all that great a wrestler, to be honest, but he
could pin a guy to the mat in seconds and was
stubborn enough—and big enough, let’s face it—
to keep the guy down for the count.

Marie had a salad. Compared to Talley’s

plate, hers looked like nothing. I had a slice of
pizza and fries—not healthy, my mom would say,
but the school thought fries were a vegetable and
who was I to argue? Dipping a few fries into
ketchup, I hoped I sounded nonchalant when I
asked, “So have you guys started your blog
project?”

Talley snorted into his pizza and didn’t

answer. Marie flipped her long, straight hair over
her shoulder and rolled her eyes. “It’s not due

yet

is it?”

Fear crept into her voice; she gave me a

wide-eyed look that begged me for reassurance.
“No, no, we still have time.”

Across the table, both Marie and Talley

seemed to relax. With a relieved sigh, Marie
said, “God, Mike, you had me worried there for a
minute. I was like wait, I thought Mosley said it
was part of our midterm grade. That’s like

months

away.”

“Well,” I said, choosing my words

carefully, “I found someone’s blog. Someone
from our class.”

Talley frowned at me, his jaw working like

a cow chewing its cud. Around a mouthful of
pizza, he asked, “How do you know?”

Briefly I described the blog. Talley’s brow

darkened while Marie’s eyes kept getting bigger
and bigger. “What’s it say?” she asked,
breathless. “Oh my God. How’d you find it?”

“I Googled my name,” I admitted.

“Whoever posts there mentioned me.”

Marie reached across the table and

gripped my hand, her nails biting into my skin.
“What’s it say about me?”

I pulled my hand away. This wasn’t about

her

. “It says

I’m

the sexiest guy in our class.”

Talley glared at his plate—I hated to be

the one to break it to him but yeah, I

sexier. I

mean, if you like big, burly, bearish men, Talley

kind of cute. In a linebacker sort of way. Not that
I’ve ever noticed.

But Marie squealed as if I’d just told her a

secret, and her claws were back digging into my
wrist again. “No

way

,” she gasped. “Who’s blog

is it? Someone

likes

you!”

I glanced around the crowded cafeteria,

but no one bothered looking back. Marie was
prone to outbursts like that, and no one noticed
any more. Still, I lowered my voice and told her,
“Not so loud. I don’t know whose blog it is.”

“Probably some

girl,

” Talley muttered.

“God, I hope not,” I said.
But silently, I agreed with him. I’m not out

at school—Talley only knows I’m gay because I
told him in ninth grade. I still remembered the
moment as if it had happened yesterday. I was
terrified of telling him because he was my best
friend, my oldest friend, and the manliest guy I
knew. If he stopped talking to me because of it, I

didn’t know what I’d do. But I couldn’t keep
pretending I liked girls any longer. If I didn’t tell

somebody

, I knew I’d burst. So I waited until we

were both playing

Gears of War

and, casually, as

if it meant nothing really, I just sort of said I liked
guys.

“Like me?” Talley had asked.
I shot another enemy on the screen and

shrugged. “Not really you in particular. Just guys
in general. You know, the way you like girls.”

We played for another few minutes, each

trying to outshoot the other. Then he stopped and
looked at me from the corner of his eye. I felt the
weight of his gaze even if I didn’t see it. “So, not
me?”

“Not you,” I assured him.
He nodded and turned back to the game

as if my announcement didn’t surprise him. It
must not have—nothing changed between us,
thank goodness, which made coming out to
Marie a bit easier. All she had to say was, “Does
Talley know?”

I told her he did, she said cool, and that

was that.

* * * *

I finally admitted to Marie that her name

was on the blog, too, but only because I wanted
her help. “Prettiest,

really?

” she cooed, as if

there were any doubt. She knows she’s pretty;
she just wants to hear someone else say it.
Crunching on her salad, she mused, “You and I
should run for homecoming court. King and
queen, right here! I know one person who’d vote
for us.”

“You don’t know who’s blog it is,” Talley

pointed out.

Right.

That cooled her a little. “We should

find out,” she said. “It can’t be too hard—just ask
everyone in class who’s already started their
blog. I mean, really. It isn’t due for

months

so I’m

sure only one or two people have bothered…”

She trailed off and looked at me, a blank

expression on her face. I’d seen it often enough
to know that meant she was getting an idea.

“Wait. Who do

you

think’s already started their

blog?” she asked, looking at me.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Someone super

smart, or a brown-noser, someone who

always

gets good grades…”

My gaze trailed around the cafeteria and

settled on the hunched-over back of Jaime Tuttle.
She sat at the end of the last table in the room,
closest to the door, as if she planned to snarf
down her lunch and make a mad dash for the
library or something.

God, no,

I prayed. It couldn’t

be…

But Marie had followed my gaze, and a

sly smirk spread across her face. Lowering her
voice to a scandalous level, she whispered, “You
don’t think

her

, do you?”

As usual, Talley seemed out of the loop. I

could never tell if he was really as dumb as he
looked, or if it was just easier for him to play that
role. “Who?”

“Jaime Tuttle.” In a sing-song voice, Marie

added, “She likes the gay boy. She likes the gay
boy.”

I kicked her under the table. “Shut up, will

you? Someone’ll hear you and then it’ll be all
over school.”

Beside Marie, Talley mumbled, “I’m

surprised it isn’t already. Ow!”

Her nails scratched his thick arm like a

cat’s claws. “I can keep a secret, Talley,” she
snapped. “You of all people should know that.”

I didn’t get a chance to ask what she

meant by that—hell,

I’m

his best friend, I know all

there is to know about him, don’t I? But before I
could find out, from the corner of my eye I saw
Jaime stand and, for the briefest second, I
could’ve sworn she looked my way.

Me. Great. Why does she have to like

Marie watched Jaime leave the cafeteria,

then leaned over the table again, all business.
“I’ve got a plan. She’s in my next class. I’ll just be
all like hey girl, I hear you got the hots for my
GBF—”

“Your

what?

” I asked.

Marie rolled her eyes. “My gay best friend,

duh. Of course I won’t say that to her face. I don’t
want her freaking out because the first guy she
goes for likes dick.”

I tried to protest. “I’ve never—”
“Puh-

leaze,

” Marie cried, raising her

voice to talk over me. “I’ll just say yo, I found your
blog, and I saw you think Mike’s bringing sexy
back, and I’ll see what she says. Simple as that.”

Talley grunted into his last slice of pizza.

“Yeah, like she’s going to tell

you

.”

Over her shoulder, Marie told him, “You’d

be surprised what

some

people tell me.”

The way she said it made me think she

meant him. What could she know about Talley
that I didn’t? But the bell rang before I could ask,
sweeping us up with the crowd and ruining my
chance to find out.

* * * *

I didn’t see Marie again until after fifth

period. I was at my locker in the back hall,
trading my English book for Government, when

she playfully kicked the back of my knee. It
buckled, but I was already turning before I could
go down. She squeezed behind me into a tight
space formed by a nearby open locker door and
tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Sorry, dude.
It’s not her.”

I leaned against my locker door, half

inside as I dug through my books and Talley’s for
the one I needed. “Are you sure? What’d she
say?”

Marie grinned. “She said, ew, Mike

Halston

? Not if he were the last guy left on

earth

ugh!”

She wrinkled her nose and grimaced, but

I could tell she enjoyed telling me verbatim what
Jaime said. “Great,” I sighed. “Did you tell her

wh y

you asked? Because now she probably

thinks

her

.”

Behind me, the locker door opened wider

and threatened to drop me to the floor, but
Talley’s elbow caught me in the small of the
back, keeping me standing. At least I thought it
was him—it was his grumbly voice I heard over

my shoulder. “Who’s this? I didn’t think you liked
girls.”

In the mess at the bottom of my locker, I

caught a glimpse of a Government book and
snagged it. “Jaime Tuttle,” I explained. “Marie
says—”

Talley frowned at us in confusion. “Wait,

you

like

her?”

“No,” I said, a little harder than I meant to.

The book I had grabbed wasn’t mine—it was his.
But he had Gov second period, so I could use his
book in fifth. Tucking it under my arm, I tried to
refresh his memory. “I thought the blog I’d found
was hers but Marie says it wasn’t.”

Talley’s brow only furrowed deeper. “What

blog?”

There he was again, either as dumb as

the teachers thought he was or doing a damn
good job of playing stupid. “Never mind.”

I tried to shut my locker but he stood in the

way. He looked from me to Marie and back
again, like he wanted in on the joke. Suddenly a
light bulb seemed to go off because his half-shut

eyelids widened slightly and he said, “Oh. You
mean the thing from lunch. It wasn’t her?”

Exasperated, I snapped, “Yes, the thing

from lunch. So if it isn’t Jaime, who else could it
be? Who else has even bothered putting
together a blog yet?”

Marie shrugged. “We have what, twenty

kids in the class? We can just ask each one
individually, hey, have you started your blog yet?
Can’t be many yeses.”

“Maybe it isn’t even our class,” Talley

muttered. When I gave him a sharp look, he
explained, “Mosley teaches Computers first
period, too. Maybe whoever said those things
didn’t mean the people in the period but the
graduating class as a whole. Like out of the
whole eleventh grade.”

As dumb as he seems sometimes, Talley

had the occasional flash of brilliance. What if the
blogger

wasn’t

in our Computer class, but rather

in the graduating class of 2013? Whoever it was
seemed proud of that fact—it’d been written on
the sidebar plain as day.

So instead of only limiting myself to the

twenty kids in our class, I was looking for a
blogger in any

number

of people—how many

were in first period Computers? And, come to
think of it, did anything on the blog indicate it’d
been created for the class in the first place?
There were easily a hundred and fifty kids in our
graduating year!

And one of them thinks I’m the sexiest.

It was a heady thought. I tried to think

back to the blog and sort of remembered
reading somewhere on the sidebar that it’d been
created for a school project. So I would stick with
the juniors who were signed up for Mosley’s
class, at least for now. If none of the ones in my
class panned out, I’d move onto the first period,
and if

that

came up broke, I’d—

I’d what, exactly? How did I plan to find out

who wrote that blog? I couldn’t just ask everyone;
word would get around about the site and people
would laugh about it in the halls. Whoever had
written it would probably rather delete the entry
and die of embarrassment than confess they

liked me. And what if it

were

a girl after all?

Where would I be then?

That raised an unsettling question inside

me. Did I hope it was a guy? Someone I could
come out to, someone who felt as I did towards
another boy, someone I could—possibly—date?

Suddenly my head hurt, and I wasn’t even

in Government yet. “Forget it,” I groused, angry at
myself for even pursuing it this far. “I don’t care
who it is, really. It’s probably just some silly
cheerleader writing down stupid things and
calling them a blog.”

“Don’t you want to know who it is,

though?” Marie asked.

“If it’s a girl, no,” I admitted.
Marie glanced at Talley, who was busy

digging through my locker for his Algebra book
and wasn’t even listening to us any longer. “What
if it isn’t a girl?” she asked softly. “What if it’s a
guy? Someone who likes—”

“I don’t care,” I lied. I ducked my head

down into my collar and tried to ignore the looks
my friends gave me.

I don’t,

I tried assuring

myself, but it didn’t work. The tickle in my heart
was still there. Shrugging it off, I told them both, “I
gotta go. I can’t be late for Barrett’s class again.”

* * * *

The next day in Computers, I managed to

snag the same PC I’d used the day before. One
of Mr. Mosley’s rules was never clear the
browser history—he probably checked each
computer after hours to make sure no one
accidentally stumbled upon any porno sites, or
something. Even though I hadn’t written down the
blog’s URL, I knew I could find it easily enough.
As soon as Mosley launched into a boring
lecture on netiquette, of all things, I ducked
behind my monitor and called up the blog using
the browser’s history cache.

I just wanted to look it over one last time,

make sure there wasn’t anything

anywhere

saying who had created it. But as the page
loaded in my browser, I noticed a new blog post
at the top of the screen. The subject was simply,

OMG!!

He knows, God, he KNOWS. Somehow

he found this damn thing and I never thought
he’d read what I wrote. Why did I post that shit?
Mosley said these would be anonymous, none
of the other students would know what we said in
it, be honest and all that crap and of course the
moment I say anything at all about Mike who
else would find this blog but him?

I should just delete it, the whole thing. I

already deleted the post. If he Googles himself
again (who the hell Googles themselves in the
first place? That’s what I’d like to know) if he
does it again, he won’t be able to find anything I
said about him. But he’s suspicious now. He
knows someone in our class likes him, if he
ever found out it was me, God, I’d never live it
down. I don’t want him to know. We’re friends,
isn’t that enough?

Why did I spell out his name like that?

Why didn’t I just use initials or a code name or I
don’t know. Something stupid. I’m stupid.

Stupidest jackass at Butler High.

God, he knows I like him. Well, not me,

but somebody. He knows I like him like THAT.
So how can I ever look him in the face again
and pretend I don’t feel the way I do? We hang
out together all the time!

My mind went numb as I read the post. My

breath caught in my throat, and my hand on the
mouse began to tremble ever so slightly. This
wasn’t something written by a faceless kid I
maybe saw in class or the halls. No,

this

was

written by someone who knew me. Someone

knew

. Jesus, someone I had told about the blog!

How else would they know I knew about it?

Someone who had to ‘

pretend I don’t feel

the way I do

.’ Someone who liked me,

Someone I knew.

Damn. Who?

Without sitting up, I glanced down the row

of computers. Talley sat in his usual spot next to
me, head in his hand as he dozed through class.
On the other side of him, I could see Marie

staring intently at the screen in front of her. They
were the only two people I told about the blog. It
had to belong to one of them.

No—it had to belong to Marie. I just

knew

it.

But why? She knew I was gay. If she

wanted to like a friend of hers, why not Talley?
He’d dated one of the cheerleaders for a few
months sophomore year, but he wasn’t seeing
anyone at the moment. They’d make a cute
couple. Talley and I usually hung out after school,
at my house or his, playing video games on the
XBox until our parents came home and made us
do our homework. If Marie liked Talley, I wouldn’t
mind her chilling with us, too. If she liked

him

nothing would really have to change between us.

But no, she liked me. It

had

to be her. She

must’ve lied about not starting the class project
so early—that was why she’d been so quick to
peg Jaime as the blogger. She wanted to throw
me off.

I watched her surreptitiously over the top

of Talley’s disheveled hair. Had she seemed a

little distant earlier? I couldn’t remember if she’d
looked at me when we spoke before class. What
would we say at lunch? I couldn’t confront her
about it; she’d just deny the whole thing. Still, I
needed to tell someone about it, get a second
opinion, see what someone else would do in my
place. I didn’t want to lose her friendship, and if I
were straight, she’d be the first girl on my list to
date, but the sad truth was I didn’t like her like

that

I needed some advice. My gaze shifted to

Talley, either asleep or feigning. He wasn’t
exactly Cassanova, but he

had

dated a girl

before. I’d get his opinion on it…but not at lunch,
Marie would be there, and not between classes
because there just wasn’t enough time to really
talk then.

After school, when we went back to my

house, I’d tell him what I suspected. Maybe this
was what Marie had been hinting at when she
talked of keeping secrets. It wasn’t something
Talley had told her, after all. Maybe, just maybe, it
was something she’d told

him

* * * *

At lunch Marie asked me if I’d thought any

more about who might have created the blog.
Talley glanced up from his cheeseburger with
that perpetual look of confusion on his face.
“What blog?”

I gave him a meaningful stare and shook

my head a little to tell him to drop it. I didn’t want
to talk about it with Marie right there. But she
caught the gesture and frowned at me. “Mike,
what? What is it?”

“It’s nothing,” I assured her. “Look, it

doesn’t matter, okay? It probably belongs to
some

girl

and I don’t want to ask around or

anything in case she starts to think maybe I like
her or something. Which I don’t.”

“You don’t even know who it is,” Marie

pointed out.

Surprisingly, Talley came to my defense.

“He doesn’t care if a girl likes him or not. He’s
gay.”

It seemed everyone in the cafeteria

stopped talking at that exact moment—Talley’s
voice couldn’t have rung out any louder if he had
shouted. I ducked my head and stared hard at
the lunch tray before me, praying no one had
heard him.

God, with friends like these,

I thought.

This was why I didn’t have a boyfriend. I was
surprised anyone could like me at all, given my
social circle…or lack thereof.

Though if it’s Marie’s blog,

I silently

reminded myself,

she already knows my social

circle. She’s half of it.

If it

di d

turn out to be Marie’s, I worried

what would happen to our friendship when I had
to tell her I didn’t like her the same way.

Fortunately she didn’t ask about the blog

again. It had to be hers,

had

to. Why else would

she bring it up only to move onto something else
without waiting for a real answer from me? I had
to ask Talley what he might know about it. I could
tell from the quick glances he stole around the
table during lunch that he knew more than he’d
admitted. At least, I thought he did. Sometimes I
could have sworn he just played dumb because it

was easier than owning up to being smart.

* * * *

When the final bell rang after seventh

period, I hurried to my locker to retrieve my
homework. Talley was already there waiting for
me. This was his week to drive. On the days
Marie had to work after school, she’d bum a ride
from us because she ran the register at the gas
station just outside the subdivision where we
lived. If she didn’t have to work, she usually had
cheerleader practice or drama club. I hoped
she’d be too busy to tag along today so I could
ask Talley about the blog as soon as I could, but
she was already waiting at his car. I sat silently in
the passenger seat while Marie, in the center of
the back seat, leaned between Talley and me to
use the rearview mirror to touch up her make-up.

Talley pulled into the gas station parking

lot, let Marie off at the employee entrance, and
peeled rubber as he gunned the motor to speed
home. Without her in the car, a weight felt lifted

from me—I didn’t overanalyze every little thing
she said or did, looking for a hidden meaning I
wouldn’t have thought was there the day before. I
didn’t want Talley to think I was obsessing about
the blog—I wasn’t, really I wasn’t—but I didn’t just
want to launch into a discussion about it the
moment Marie was out the door. I’d wait until we
were home, drinks in hand, snacks in the
microwave warming up. Then I’d try to sound
casual as I said something along the lines of,
“So, do you think Marie likes me, or what?”

I hoped the answer was no.
As Talley pulled into the shared drive

between our houses, we saw his dad’s pickup
truck in the back. Without discussing it, we
parked and hurried up the steps to my back
porch. My mother worked until four, my dad until
six. We’d have the place to ourselves and could
unwind in front of the television without his father
hovering nearby, pestering us about homework
and grades.

Talley followed me into the kitchen. I

stopped at the sink and ran the water, waiting for

the filter to flash green before filling two glasses.
Behind me, Talley opened the fridge and stared
into the depths as if waiting for something inside
to jump out at him. Now that we were finally
alone, I sipped at my water and tried to think of a
way to start. “You know that blog I found?”

Over his shoulder, Talley grunted. It might

have been yes but was more likely just
something to fill the space between us to show
he was sort of listening. Reaching into the fridge,
he asked, “What’s this? Chinese?”

He pulled out a take-out container I had

never seen before. “I don’t know, you can have it.
Listen, I was thinking…”

“About what?” Talley let the refrigerator

door slip shut, then bumped it with his elbow to
make sure it closed. Opening the take-out
container, he grinned. “All right, lo mein! Want
some?”

I shook my head. “About the blog. The

one I found in class?”

Talley rummaged through the silverware

drawer, not really paying any attention to me.

Finding a fork, he dove into the container and
began shoveling cold, slimy noodles into his
mouth.

I had to tell him—my whole body felt like it

was going to explode. Taking a deep breath, I
said, “I think I know whose it is.”

The fork froze halfway to his lips and he

looked at me. For the first time all day, he really
looked at me, saw

. “Wait, what?”

“The blog,” I explained, so used to Talley’s

stubborn stupidity act by now, I didn’t even get
frustrated at having to spell things out to him.
“The one I found yesterday in class. I think I know
whose it is.”

His voice sounded muffled, as if it came

from a long way off, or from around a mouthful of
cold Chinese noodles. “How’d you find out?”

I shrugged and sipped at my glass of

water. “I visited it again today, and there was a
new post that got me thinking it was someone I
knew. Someone who knew I knew about it.
Which narrowed down who it could be.”

“Marie,” Talley sighed.

With a nod, I started to agree.
“God

damn

it,” Talley cursed. He tossed

the take-out container into the sink, narrowly
missing me. “She promised me she’d never tell
a soul, not even you.

Especially

not you. And

then—”

“Wait.” Now

was the one confused, but it

was no act. “Talley, what are you talking about?
Marie didn’t tell me anything. I just guessed.”

He gave me an incredulous look, as if

surprised he might have already said too much.
In a faint whisper, he asked, “Guessed what?”

I hesitated. Up until two seconds ago

when he had pegged the take-out container at
me, I thought the blog belonged to Marie. He
even said her name, confirming my suspicions.
But if it

was

hers, why would Talley be mad I’d

found out? What had she promised not to tell
me?

Then it hit me. My knees weakened and I

gripped the sink behind me to keep from falling
to the floor. “It’s yours,” I said, my voice so low,
the words were barely audible. I looked at him in

disbelief. “Oh my God, it’s yours.”

Despite how quietly I spoke, Talley heard

me. I saw anguish and fear war across his face
and knew. It

was

his blog.

But why had he written what he did in it? In

an effort to fill the silence between us, I said
simply, “I don’t understand.”

“Mosley said it was confidential,” Talley

told me, his voice cracking slightly. “I never
thought you’d find it. Shit.”

Shit

was right.

Remembering the last blog post, I asked,

“How

you feel about me, Timmy?”

I rarely used his real name—Talley had

always been

Talley

, nothing more. Even his

parents called him that, and all the teachers at
school, all his friends and teammates, everyone.
But early in our friendship I had learned I could
always get an honest answer from him if I used
his first name. And God knew I wanted the truth
right now.

He bit the inside of his lower lip, giving his

face a puckered look, as if he’d eaten something

sour. For a moment I worried he wasn’t going to
come clean with me—he’d storm out of the
kitchen, back outside, across the driveway to his
own home, and leave me with questions I didn’t
quite know how to ask.

Then he glanced at me, and the raw, open

look in his eyes made my heart stutter in my
chest. Why hadn’t I noticed how cute he was
before? With that flyaway hair, those smudged
eyes, the firm jaw that would feel so right
pressed against mine?

He’s your best friend,

I reminded myself.

You can’t think of him like that. You can’t think
he’s cute.

But why couldn’t I?
After a breathless moment, Talley sighed.

“Forget it.”

“No, wait.” I caught his arm as he turned to

leave. “Tell me. Come on, I need to know.”

Another sigh, this one heartbreaking. “You

said you didn’t like me, remember?”

“I never—”
“When you told me you were gay,” Talley

explained. “I asked if you liked me and you said
no. I was cool with it then—hell, I was a little
freaked out, to be honest, and when you said you
liked guys, I thought you were trying to say you
liked

.”

I had been afraid he’d think that, which

was why I was careful to assure him at the time it
wasn’t him in particular I liked. Though looking at
him now, I thought I might have been a bit

too

quick to rule him out. “That was years ago,” I
whispered. “Tastes can change.”

“I’m not gay,” Talley assured me. He

shook his head to emphasize the point. “I don’t
like dudes. I

don’t

. I like big boobs and short

skirts and chicks with really great hair, you know
that. But…”

Somehow, I found my voice. “But what?”
Talley shrugged. “

But

you’re my best bud.

Like, ever. I can’t imagine a time when we won’t
be friends. Remember back in sixth grade, when
you started dating Sarah Blanks?”

“That wasn’t really dating,” I pointed out.

“My mom had to drive us to the mall to hang out.”

“Well, I started dating her friend Missy just

so we could be together,” Talley explained. “Not
because I liked her, God, no. But so I could be
with you, that’s it. You and Sarah and me and
Missy. Remember?”

I remembered waiting for the girls outside

the women’s restroom at the movies, Talley and I
dropping

quarters

into

Street Fighter

and

laughing as we kicked each other’s arcade
asses. We would’ve stayed there, too, but the
girls pulled us away. In the theater, Missy and
Sarah had wanted to sit beside each other, and I
remembered how hot Sarah’s hand was in mine
because she insisted on holding it throughout the
film. Every time something struck me as funny, I
turned to share it with Talley and found Sarah
beside me instead.

In my kitchen, I watched Talley’s mouth

twist into something halfway between a grin and
a frown. “I just got to thinking, man,” he said, his
voice unusually soft. “What happens when you
find a hot guy you want to date? I can’t tag along
—I’d be the odd man out. And I couldn’t date one

his

friends. I’m not gay.”

My heart flipped at the way the word

sounded in his voice. “So you keep saying.”

“I don’t want to lose you to another guy.”

Talley gave me a sad smile. “I won’t. But the
more I thought about it, the more…I don’t know,
the more I got to liking the idea of us being
something…you know, being more than friends.”

“Dating?” I hated the hope I heard in my

voice but God, why hadn’t I noticed how cute he
was before?

Talley shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. Doing

what we do now, hanging out and shit, but maybe
we could see if…you know, if you

want

…”

He reached out and touched my chest, his

fingers warm through my thin T-shirt. He trailed
his hand down to my belly and let his fingers rest
on the top of my belt buckle. “The more I think
about you,” he admitted, “the more I like you.”

“Like me how?” I whispered.
He dipped his head a little and looked up

at me with a sardonic grin. “Since when have

you

ever played dumb, Mike?”

Before I could answer, he took another

step closer and leaned toward me. “I like you like

that

.”

My stomach fluttered beneath his touch.

“Prove it.”

His lips brushed mine in a gentle kiss. He

tasted like soy sauce and cold Chinese noodles,
and he took my breath away.

I gripped the sink tight with both hands to

keep from falling into him. As our kiss deepened,
I said a little prayer of thanks for having found the
blog. If I hadn’t, I would have never known how
Talley felt for me, or how I might feel for him, or
even how good he kissed, soy sauce and all.

Thank

God

the blog hadn’t been Marie’s.

THE END