But that’s the one thing we don’t do. Despite all that we’ve done, everything on that list, he won’t kiss me. He refuses, so harshly I’ve only asked twice and not since Boxing Day.

  We can’t kiss.

  Because that would make us gay.

  Gay like Charlie sees all over Jack Taylor.

  MARK RUFFALO

  “Mark Ruffalo?” Freddie says.

  “He’s the best actor in the Avengers,” Jack says. “Plus he fights for the environment and stuff. He’s an admirable guy.”

  “So’s Obama,” Freddie says, “but you don’t see me carrying round pictures of him.”

  “I’m not carrying around a picture of him,” Jack says. “It’s for a project.”

  “A project on the Avengers?”

  Jack sighs. “It’s for Drama. We had to pick an accent.”

  “So let’s hear his accent.”

  “Hi, I’m Mark Ruffalo.”

  Freddie laughs, but not in a mean way. “Shoulda picked Hemsworth. Australian’s easy.”

  “Easier than what?” Charlie says, sitting down in the quad with us.

  “Than sounding like this dude,” Freddie says, nabbing the magazine cut-out he’d spotted in Jack’s papers and holding it up.

  “That’s just Jack’s boyfriend,” Charlie says. “He’s got a thing for old men.”

  “Mark’s not old,” Jack says, a bit too fast. “He’s fifty-four.”

  There’s an awkward pause at how Jack knows this. And for how he called him Mark, too.

  “You’re sick,” Charlie says. “He’s old enough to be your dad.”

  “My father is seventy-one,” Jack says.

  Freddie looks surprised. “Really?”

  “Mum was his third wife,” Jack says. “She ‘forgot’ to wear her diaphragm one year. Now he’s with wife number four. Which is weird, because wife number four looks like a rugby tackle.”

  Freddie snaps his fingers like he’s remembered something. “Ant! I meant to say, I talked to the rugby coach about you, and he’s all for you coming out.”

  Charlie looks up sharply at this.

  “I’m serious,” Freddie says. “You could easily make B team, and maybe even a reserve for A.”

  “Me and Ant play football,” Charlie cuts in. “Always have.”

  Freddie shrugs. “Doesn’t mean you always have to. Ant’s grown into the right shape. Might be time for a change.”

  Charlie looks at me. “But we’ve always played football.”

  “I wouldn’t be any good at rugby,” I say to Freddie. “I don’t run very fast.”

  “And that makes you good at football?” Freddie asks. “Come with me next week, give it a try. You might like it.”

  “We’ve got football starting up,” Charlie says, as if Freddie’s not understanding the point.

  “You should join the Debating Society, Charlie,” Jack says. “Your subtlety of thought is all they’re missing to take them to the top.”

  “Enough chatter, boys,” Mr Bacon says, suddenly appearing at our quad. “Or I’ll put you all on warning. You, too, Jack.”

  “Aw, Sir,” Jack says, all smiles. “And besmirch my perfect record? You’d do that to a handsome boy like me?”

  “Even a boy like you,” Mr Bacon says, smiling back despite himself.

  We’re all quiet as Jack watches Mr Bacon walk away for just a second too long.

  “You little sicko,” Charlie says under his breath.

  “What?” Jack says. “I’m going to copy his walk for when I do Mark Ruffalo.”

  Freddie and I laugh, but Charlie just says, “ freak.”

  Jack stares at him for a long, hard second, then he says, talking to me but looking at Charlie, “I think you should definitely go out for rugby, Ant.”

  WALKING HOME

  “I swear to God,” Charlie says as we walk home that day, “someone needs to kick that little ’s ass.”

  “Jack’s pretty tough, though,” I say, trying to make a joke of it. “You sure you could take him?”

  Which is the wrong thing to say, of course. “Just because I’m not some mutant giant like you and your new best friend Freddie Smith?” Charlie says.

  “He’s not my new best friend,” I say. “Anyway, he’s your friend, too.”

  “He’s probably a poof just like Jack Taylor. They’re probably going off to each other right now.”

  “What?” I say, getting annoyed. “You mean like we are?”

  He stops right there on the pavement and glares at me. “ you,” he says. “I’m not a poof.”

  “Then why do you keep talking about Jack Taylor?” I say.

  He keeps glaring at me, but then he says something I don’t expect him to say. “You going out for rugby?”

  I blink. “What?” I say. “No.”

  “You going out for rugby?” he asks again, even more angry.

  I pause, a second too long, maybe because yeah, okay, I had thought it might be fun playing rugby for a change, because Freddie asked his coach about me, and Freddie, well, never mind about Freddie.

  But I can see what Charlie’s asking me.

  “No way,” I say. “You and me on A team this year. Un--stoppable.”

  “Too right,” Charlie says.

  And one more time, there’s that grin. He looks like he regrets it, but he grins anyway.

  The grin that makes my heart hurt a little bit.

  More than a little.

  QUESTIONS

  And so do you see what I mean about the list? If Charlie and I are just doing all this as fill-in until the “real thing” comes along, what does that mean? Does it mean what me and Charlie do isn’t real somehow? That we aren’t really doing it to each other, but to some imaginary future girl? That no matter how much you go to football practice, it isn’t really football until it’s an actual game?

  Have I even lost my virginity? Or am I just a virgin with a lot of practice? Because that’s the way it sometimes feels.

  And does wanting to kiss Charlie mean anything if he doesn’t want to kiss me back?

  ONE MORE QUESTION

  And by the way, is it poofs like roofs? Or pooves like hooves?

  Who would know?

  WHAT KIND OF STORY THIS IS

  One more thing before we get back to what happens. You know what Charlie said back there about Freddie and Jack? How they’re both probably poofs? (Pooves? Seriously, is there someone I can ask?)

  Well, okay, this is the kind of story where we can tell the truth, even if it is behind black boxes, so that’s a good thing, but it does mean there’s a whole bunch of things that this story definitely isn’t, okay?

  For example, this isn’t one of those stories where one of us hunky young lads has lots of life-changing sex with Mr Bacon. First of all, yuck. Second of all, that only happens in stories written by horny middle-aged writers who think they look like Mr Bacon, all right? Doesn’t happen in real life, and it’s so not going to happen here. And third, seriously, yuck.

  This also isn’t going to be one of those stories where the great big tough rugby lad turns out to be a really self-confident homo who happily gets off with your humble narrator, much as that might be nice for certain humble narrators. I mean, yeah, the big rugby guys are gay just as often as everybody else, but I reckon most of them wait until university to figure it out. Then they all move to London and join gyms.

  And finally, this isn’t going to be one of those stories where everyone learns a lesson because the little camp fella turns out to be a total ladies’ man. Jack did go out with Georgina Harcourt for all of last year, and I think they may have actually done the deed. I also know more than one girl who wants to go out with him, too, and they all say, “Nuh uh, no way he’s gay, he’s just mature and sooo sensitive,” and then their eyes go all misty as they picture him as the perfect husband who’ll listen to their problems and watch all the same romcoms.

  And that’s probably true, some of the time. But not here.

  In real life, sometimes the big straight bloke is just a big straight bloke, and sometimes the kid that seems gay is gay.

  Doesn’t mean they’re not still nice people.

  Jack is gay.

  I know, because over last summer, Jack told me.

  And in return, I lied to him.

  SEX TALK

  “I’m telling you,” Charlie’s saying. “Five times. Five times in one hour.”

  “Bull,” Jack says. “You can’t even five times in an hour.”

  “Oh, Jack,” Freddie says next to him, shaking his head sadly. “There’s so many things wrong with that sentence, I don’t even know where to begin.”

  You know, the way teenage guys talk about sex, you’d think all of us were having it all the time, non-stop. Okay, some of us probably are, but not nearly as many as brag about it. Maybe there’s a boy who’s enough of a moron to take a picture of his and send it to his girlfriend and that picture gets passed around to everyone, and sure, there’s the internet where sex is everywhere, but maybe people aren’t actually having it any more than they used to. Maybe they just have better material to lie with.

  For instance, Charlie’s never had a girl, not as far as I know, not all the way, but he can talk about it like a porno director.

  “Five times in an hour is nothing,” Charlie says. “Not if the girl is a total hot .”

  “Says the voice of experience,” Jack says. “You’ve never had sex with anything besides your own hand, Shepton.”

  “I think you’re thinking of yourself there, Jack,” Freddie says, then he makes a motion with his hand. “‘Oh, Mark Ruffalo. Come and do me but, you know, as the Hulk.’”

  Even Jack laughs at this, but then Charlie says, “Jack’s too busy half the teachers’ lounge to need to .”

  “The other half,” Jack says, “being otherwise occupied passing your bony around.”

  Charlie’s face gets red. “You little . You little poof.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Shepton,” Jack says, rolling his eyes. “Why don’t you just ask me out and be done with it?”

  And me and Freddie are still laughing. But Charlie’s not laughing at all.

  He leans forward across the desks, getting his face up into Jack’s. “You’re gay,” Charlie says. “Everyone knows it. You can sit here and you can pretend to joke with the rest of us but you’re a poof and there’s going to come a day when someone takes you down.”

  But Jack doesn’t back off. He just leans forward, too, and without taking his eyes off Charlie, blows him a kiss.

  Which turns out to be a step too far.

  Because suddenly Jack is falling back as Charlie lunges for him over the desks and Freddie’s already on his feet, way faster than you’d think for such a big guy – no wonder the rugby coach wants him – and he’s already between Charlie and Jack, holding Charlie back.

  “I’m going to stomp you into the ground, you little !”

  Charlie’s yelling and Freddie’s still holding him back and Mr Bacon’s charging over and pulling them apart, too, and as Mr Bacon and Freddie start dragging Charlie to the door to send him to the Deputy Head, Jack looks up at me from where he’s sitting on the floor.

  “Oops,” he says.

  JACK

  It was one Saturday afternoon this past summer. I was supposed to go to the cinema with Charlie but then his mum did something he wouldn’t explain and suddenly I’m at the cinema by myself, yelling at Charlie over my mobile for not showing up and thinking l should just go home because what kind of loser sees a movie by himself? But then who shows up but Jack.

  By himself.

  “Where’s Georgina?” I asked him.

  “We broke up,” he said. “It’s cool, though. We’re friends.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  And it was weird, you know, because like I said, I’ve known Jack since we were kids, since we used to call him Jackie, and though we’d grown apart as we got older, it was never like we’d had a falling out and though he was already the campest kid in the whole school, it’s not like I was ashamed of him or anything.

  Well, maybe a little, maybe for reasons that are completely obvious.

  But that little bit of embarrassment only made me feel bad. Plus, there was no one else around from St Michael’s, so Jack and I went to the movie together, some incredibly stupid piece of about romantic vampires, five minutes into which Jack started making jokes and we pretty much laughed all the way through, getting shushed by the nine billion girls sitting around us.

  And after, of course, we were on the same bus back home and it seemed the natural thing to do to invite Jack in. Mum was delighted to see him, Jack was always the most polite of all my friends, and she made us sandwiches, which we took up to my room. I fired up the wheezing laptop and we started gaming.

  Which, apparently for me, is the cue for people to start Really Important Conversations.

  “You know you can meet people on apps? Even in this little town?” Jack said after we’d spent way too long looking up facts about Mark Ruffalo. Did you know he’s deaf in one ear? Of course you didn’t. Why would you? Why would anyone?

  “People like who?” I said.

  Jack shrugged. “People.” And was silent.

  “You mean like … Facebook?”

  He gave me a look to tell me to stop being such an idiot because it was screamingly obvious that I was pretending to be stupid. “Yeah,” he said, “Facebook – where everyone is over 50 and watches The Bachelor.”

  “Then what do you mean?” I said, laughing, because that’s totally what Facebook is.

  “I mean real people,” he said. “You can meet real people.”

  “And do what?”

  He gave me another idiot look.

  And then I finally realised.

  “Jack, you’re not talking about…” I sat up. “You’re not getting groomed are you?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Groomed. Please.”

  “What are you talking about, then?”

  And still he didn’t say anything.

  “Jesus, Jack,” I said. “What kind of sleazy is going to meet up with a 15-year-old boy on an app? You’re asking to get yourself killed.”

  “I haven’t done anything,” he said, back-pedalling. “I haven’t actually met anyone. You know. Women.”

  And it was that word, women, that made it all come clear, because it was such a false word just then, like he was suddenly trying to pretend we weren’t talking about what we were obviously talking about.

  “You’re lying,” I said, my voice low. “You’ve met up with people.” I reached out and grabbed his arm to make him look at me. “You’ve met up with men, haven’t you?”

  He jerked his arm away from me.

  But he didn’t deny it.

  “Jack,” I said. “That’s so dangerous, mate. I’m not trying to be a teacher here, but you could get your throat slit. You could get raped, Jack. Please don’t tell me—”

  “Just once,” he said, quiet enough to make me shut up. “I’ve only met someone once.” He cleared his throat. “It was horrible. Worse than you even think.”

  “Jack—”

  “And so I haven’t done it again, all right?” he said, defensive now. “l mean, do you have any idea how unbelievably lonely it gets? Feeling like you’re the only one? It’s not like I’ve got a lot of options for meeting people my own age, now do I?”

  And then he looked at me. In a way that made me lean back.

  And there was a silence that, once again, I knew was asking me something.

  Asking me loud and clear.

  This is just this past summer, remember? Not two months ago. The summer where I’d already been Charlie regularly since Christmas.

  And here was one of my oldest friends, someone who I didn’t have a thing against in the world, someone who was fun to be around and who’d never been anything but a good person to me.

  And of course I bloody knew how lonely it got.

  (Jesus Christ, just that word, lonely, makes me feel so empty I don’t even want to talk about it.)

  I’d heard there were some gay girls over at St Margaret’s who were dating each other right out in the open. But not at St Michael’s. I mean, everybody knew somebody gay, duh, it’s not 1980 or something, but not at my school. At my school, it was a secret, and you were on your own. I knew exactly how Jack felt. Of course I did.

  Why do you think I was spending all that time with Charlie?

  But I lied.

  God damn me to my dying day, because the biggest sin you can commit is failing a friend. But that’s what I did.

  I failed him.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’m not gay.”

  Jack held onto my gaze. “No? I thought maybe…”

  I shook my head. “No, mate. Sorry.”

  He just nodded. “I’m sorry, too,” he said.

  I tried to lighten the mood. “Can’t you just look at porn like the rest of us?”

  “Like the rest of you,” he said, all dry. “Sure.”

  “Jack,” I said, reaching out to him. “It’s okay with me, all right? It totally is. I won’t tell anyone, but it’s okay with me.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said, getting up. “That’s great, Ant, thanks.”

  “Jack—”

  “No, I gotta go.” He went to my bedroom door and then he went out of it.

  And I didn’t see him again all summer, not for two full months until classes started again, and we both had to pretend like nothing had happened.

  THE FINAL WEEKEND

  “I’m not joking,” Charlie says on the Saturday after he lunged at Jack. “I’m going to kill that little .”

  “For God’s sake,” I say, “aren’t you in enough trouble already?”

  “I would have pounded him if that fat Freddie hadn’t got in the way.”

  “Charlie, we’re kind of in the middle of something here.”