Untitled Part 8

"So, I heard some juicy gossip about you," Richard Wang, the most flamboyantly gay guy this side of Capitol Hill, said as I collapsed under the large maple tree near the football field. We first met a couple years ago when he was getting harassed by some upperclassmen and I intervened. I admired his ability to be comfortable with himself and to be openly out when most teens kept quiet about their sexuality, and we'd been friends ever since.

My best friend, Morgan, joined us. Inked and pierced in multiple places thanks to her fake ID, she was determined to be the antithesis of Abercrombie and Fitch. "Spill."

Richard beamed now that he had an audience and sat down on the grass. "It seems our dear little Alexis here procreated with Brett Pederson."

Morgan's jaw dropped. "Please tell me you were suffering from a temporary bout of insanity, Miss 'Nobody Is Good Enough To Get Between My Legs.' "

"It's not what you think." I pulled my tablet out of my bag and checked my storyboard. As the creator of a weekly blog that had exposed more than one scandal at Eastline, it was my job to make sure I had something that would get people to read and react. "We're just paired up for a project in Mr. DePaul's Hum-Ex class."

"Oh, the 'Dropping Your Genes' project," Morgan said with a snicker, twirling her finger in the air as if to say "big whoop." "You have my deepest sympathies."

"Not mine." Richard bumped my shoulder with his. "I'd love to have some one-on-one time with Mr. Quarterback. Maybe I'd even teach him a few new plays of my own."

"I doubt you could convert him to the other team." That quivering returned to my stomach as I thought about how good Brett smelled. Time to change the subject. "Richard, any updates on that sex discrimination story?"

"I'd much rather focus on a sexual story with your project partner."

"This is a newspaper, not an issue of ."

"It's Play, and fine, I'll live out my fantasies in my own head. At least one of us isn't completely hung up on stereotypes." He got up and crossed the campus in a huff, flicking off every blade of grass that would dare stick to his jeans.

Morgan, however, lingered under the tree with me. "Don't sweat it. It's just two weeks. The worst part will be handling the switch-offs for child care."

"Meaning I'll probably be stuck with the kid the whole time."

She shook her head. "These are top-of-the-line fake babies that record everything. You have to enter in a code when you have it. Then, it cries when it's wet or hungry or teething-"

"So in other words, I'm not going to be sleeping much during the next two weeks."

"Yeah, pretty much." She started playing with the tiny barbell in her eyebrow. "But since we're on the subject of hot guys-"

"I never said Brett was hot," I said loud enough for anyone within ten feet of us to overhear. "I'm just paired up with him for a class project, nothing more."

"And I know you better than that. He must have done something to get under your skin."

I weighed the risk of confiding about my body's undesired reaction to him, but decided against it in case anyone around us was listening in on the conversation. "He switched places with someone to work with me," I mumbled.

"Okay, now I'm thinking must be the one suffering a temporary bout of insanity." I pressed my lips together, and she added, "Not that I don't love you and all, but you have the tendency to go a little bat-crazy when it comes to class projects."

"I demand perfection from myself, and I'd hope my partners will give it their best efforts as well."