chapter 3

It was three o'clock and I went into Club Room #6. That was the room Piki told me they got for their meetings. I saw them sitting in a circle kind of thing and Jo noticed me first. Damn.

"What the *** do you think you're doing here?" she asked. Jo was such an intimidating girl, and she was only like 5'2". She had a short pixie cut and wore really red lipstick. She was really curvy and wore lots of dark colors.

"We know how you treated Piki, get out," said Sun, who spoke in Disney-esque whimsy. Her voice was like soft whispers. Sun was a tall Chinese-German with long black hair and blue eyes. She dressed like a total hippie. She liked flower patterns on her clothes and eating tofu.

"I wanted to join," I said. "Piki was telling me about it earlier and I wanted to tell him that I'm sorry." Both Sun and Jo looked at me like I was a magical talking piñata named Dumbledore.

"Oh please, cut the crap McCarthy," Jo spat. "I'd gladly kick your ass if I was asked politely not to." I've had my fair share of fights and I always came out on top, but I thought she might be the one to break my winning streak.

"Guys, come on." Piki hadn't said a word until now. "We don't have to be mean..." He sat in a chair facing me, but kept his head turned to the side.

"Yes we do," Jo said. "Goodbye ***." I sighed. She wasn't going to let me talk to him at all. She was like his bodyguard or something.

"Can we please just talk Piki?" Jo was staring me down. Sun sat next to him like she was his mother. "In private?" He stood up and left the room. I followed.

"You have five minutes Conner." He didn't even look at me. "And please be punctual."

"I just wanted to say that I like you too and...and maybe you might want to give us a shot?" He looked at me and I wished he hadn't because I was losing my nerve. "Uh, because I've been in denial about my sexuality for a while now and...god it feels good to say that...and I just wanted to know if you'd want to see a movie or something."

"Conner...I want to believe you. I really do, but I don't feel that I'm ready to trust you." I had to do something. I had to prove how serious I was. I looked down at him and my body just took over. I was totally kissing a guy and it felt...fan-***ing-tastic. His lips were soft and his breath tasted like mint.

"Uh...um...uh...Co...Conner.&quo t; He turned around and walked back into Club Room #6. I didn't know what happened. Had I convinced him I was telling the truth? Sun walked into the hallway and spoke to me in her soft voice.

"Piki said that he enjoys movies. And between me and you...he's a little shy. Right now he's so excited he can barely talk." She looked at me with her piercing blue eyes. The silence was awkward as ***. "Well, goodbye." She turned to leave, her hair flipping as she twirled. "Oh, one more thing, Jo said she'll kill you if this is a joke." She walked back into the room.

I drove home and checked what movies were out. I wondered if he liked the Terry Lotter series. It was the tenth and final film in the series. My mom called me and my brother downstairs to dinner. "I'm starving," Kevin said as we met up at the top of the stairs. I agreed and we both made our way to the kitchen table.

"Hope you boys are hungry," my mother said to the two of us. My dad worked nights so he wasn't ever here for dinner. He was a police officer. My mother was a hairdresser. "I made lasagna!" I loved pasta. Heck, I loved food. We dug in and I polished off the last helping. I patted my stomach and thanked my mom for the food.

I called Piki, whose number I had from tutoring, and asked him again about the movie. He was pretty tongue tied and then I got kind of tongue tied. It was possibly the world's most awkward phone conversation ever.

He agreed to see a movie with me tomorrow after school. It would be Friday. I was so excited I treated myself to a bowl of ice cream...okay, three bowls.