Kissing Julian was a whole new level of me saying to the world, Hey, I’m gay. A level that I wasn’t quite sure about. I had never even thought about kissing him until right that very second, sitting next to him on the bench in the locker room. I touched his knee, quite accidentally, and a jolt of electricity shot right up my arm and through my gut. And in that moment that our lips touched, and I could feel his warm breath mingling with mine, all I wanted to do was lose myself in it.

The day before that kiss was the day the world came crashing down around me. I found Frankie crying in my room when I got home from practice, a positive pregnancy test in her lap. I didn’t know how to help her, but I knew I had to think of something. I promised her I would figure something out. And that was when I remembered the car wash money that we had locked in Coach Marcus’s desk the day before.

“Did your high school in Houston have a bunch of weird homecoming traditions?” Camille asks me, slurping up the last dregs of her milkshake and interrupting my thoughts.

“There were mums,” I tell her. “But I don’t really know about any of the other stuff. I kind of just went to school and kept my head down.”

“You never went to the homecoming dance or the football game or anything? Did you ever wear a mum?” Camille looks shocked.

“No,” I say without further explanation. I’m afraid if I say too much, Camille will start asking questions about Frankie. “Hey, it’s getting kind of late, and I’ve still got some homework to finish up,” I say, looking at my watch.

Camille looks at her wrist, too. “Jeez, it is late! As much as I’d love to sit here and talk about mums all night with you losers, I’ve got a Powder Puff meeting in the early morning before the game tomorrow. Eek! I’m so excited.”

“Powder Puff? Like girls playing football?” I ask.

“Yep. Girls playing football.” Camille laughs. “More specifically, it’s cheerleaders and drill team girls playing football.”

“It’s another fundraiser, really,” Julian says. “The cheerleaders form their own team and the drill team girls form their own team, and tomorrow afternoon they play against each other to get everyone excited about our first game of the season. Just flag football, of course. No tackling involved. I’m supposed to be coaching the drill team.”

“Sometimes I wish it were tackle football,” Camille says. “There are some cheerleader bitches I’d like to mow down. And if Jannah Sykes happened to get in my way, I might plow through her, too.”

Julian throws his head back and laughs. “If you do, you’ll get kicked out of the game. But that might just be something I’d pay to see.”