Part Three

After his flight from the living room Chad had been wandering around the Evans' spacious backyard for quite some time (and, man, this place was huge!) before he'd sat down on the steps that led to one of several stone pavilions the lawn seemed to be plastered with.

Some kind of Greek statue was his sole company (Diane? Or had she been the Roman one? Damn, he should have paid more attention in History Class… or wherever they'd been taught stuff like that).

Whoever it portrayed, the marble sculpture had been patiently listening to Chad's muttered thoughts and ramblings for more than half an hour now.

Chad was beginning to feel cold sitting there but… he couldn't go back inside just yet. He simply wasn't ready to face his friends, not after having just heard the most perplexing news about Ryan ever.

Ryan Evans… the most flamboyant and, yes, gay person he'd ever met.

Who'd turned out to be not gay at all!

Chad led out an unsteady laugh. Apparently his (admittedly still shaky) gay-dar was in dire need of a little fine-tuning, wasn't it? Chad shook his head as another quiet laugh escaped his lips, but this time it seemed more like a desperate attempt to not start sobbing.

'Ryan's dating a girl!'

Sharpay's shrill voice was still ringing in Chad's ears, no matter how hard he tried to block it out. 'Why would you think I was gay? I never said that!' Ryan's desperate voice joined his twin's inside Chad's head and he screwed his eyes shut against the onslaught of unwanted memories.

This was so not what Chad needed right now, not when there was still the fucking difficult task of telling his friends about the changes in his own life waiting for him!

But how could he do that now? He couldn't!

Not when the one person he'd counted on for help, for support and, yes, as an anchor had suddenly decided to change sides with flying colors.

No, not when it suddenly looked like he would have to hold up the rainbow flag all alone.


Ryan had noticed Chad leaving the room out of the corner of his eyes earlier. But only when the jock still hadn't returned after half an hour Ryan started to wonder where Chad had gone.

He didn't think he'd left the party completely (Chad's jacket was still there, Ryan had checked), so that meant Chad had to be somewhere around. He'd checked the kitchen, the library, the billiard room and even the dance studio (those rooms were all downstairs and somehow Ryan didn't think that Chad had gone upstairs in a foreign home) but Chad was nowhere to be seen.

Had he maybe gone outside?

Dressed in a gray Armani coat and with Chad's jacket over one arm Ryan left the house through the back door and made his way across the neatly cultivated lawn.

It had gotten unusually cold for New Mexico at this time of the year and Ryan was glad he'd put his coat on. If Chad had been outside all this time then he had to be freezing by now, Ryan thought, just as he noticed some movement near one of the pavilions.

Ryan walked closer and, really, there was Chad.

He'd apparently just stood up from the steps and was now pacing back and forth, his arms wrapped tightly around his torso to get some warmth.

"Chad?" Ryan announced his presence from a few feet away so as not to shock the other boy. But Chad must have been deeply lost in thought for he still startled and jumped around quickly.

"Ryan?" His eyes narrowed, "what are you doing here?"

"Shouldn't I ask you that?" Ryan gave back with a grin. "You've been gone for over half an hour!"

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh!" Ryan stepped closer and took a look at Chad's face. His lips were drawn into a tight line and there was a dull ache in his normally clear brown eyes.

The other boy held his gaze for a second before his eyes traveled back onto his sneakers.

"Here," Ryan held out Chad's jacket and watched him silently put it on. "So," he asked then, "you wanna walk a few…?"

"Okay," Chad sighed and, stuffing his hands deep inside his pockets, shuffled along quietly.

They walked across the huge garden, not really caring where they went, for another silent five minutes and Ryan felt Chad's eyes flicker towards his face and quickly away again more than he thought he could bear. But as irritating as Chad's behavior was and as much as he wanted to know what was bothering him, Ryan kept his gaze steadily averted and waited for Chad to start talking.

"Hey, Evans?"

'Finally,' Ryan thought relieved and loud he murmured: "Yeah?"

"Are you… are you sure that you're not gay?" Chad's voice was nothing but a hesitant whisper.

Ryan's head shot up and he was about to send a scratching remark back when his eyes met Chad's and his voice died in his throat. God, he looked so… frightened and insecure and… nothing like the cocky Chad Ryan had come to know and… like.

'No, not when I look at you.' Ryan sighed inwardly but all that came out was: "Why is everyone suddenly so obsessed with my sexuality?"

Chad's eyes grew wide and he made a quick step backwards. "I'm not obsessed with… I just always thought that… and now that I… I'd just hoped that…" He broke off and shook his head.

"I don't know, man. I'd just hoped that… I could count on you. That you'd understand, man."

When Ryan stared at him in confused silence Chad let out a nervous laugh. "You know… sitting in the same boat… two peas in a pod or… whatever this thing is called!"

"No," Ryan's brain was still trying to work it's way though Chad's ramblings but… he couldn't mean, it couldn't be… He felt like someone, possibly Chad, had just pulled the rug from under his feet and he couldn't breathe. His eyes widened comically and then…

"No!" Ryan gasped. "You can't mean… No, no no! Absolutely not! Chad, you can't be gay! You can't! Not when I've finally managed to get over…"

"Ryan," Chad's voice was soft and near, too near.

"No," Ryan repeated, desperate now. His eyes nearly popped out of their sockets they were so big and he'd started breathing heavily. And then he suddenly spun around on his heels and ran away.

'Shit!'

Chad started running after him and, being a bit more of an athlete than Ryan, caught up with him just when Ryan reached the back porch of the house. He grabbed Ryan's coat-clad shoulder and tried to make him stop moving but Ryan proved to be remarkably strong underneath all that fancy clothing and he managed to pull Chad forward with him. Together they stumbled through the back door into the kitchen and there crashed forcefully against the counter. A silver tray laden with two big bowls of chips clattered to the floor from the impact and it was the loud crash that finally brought both boys to a stunned and out-of-breath halt.

They were still staring at each other in frosty silence when the door to the living room flew open and Sharpay, followed by Gabriella, Troy and everybody else, came rushing in to see what had caused the commotion.

"What… Ryan, God! What's wrong with you guys?" Sharpay's shrill and accusing voice finally pulled her twin out of his shock-shelled posture.

"Shar, I…" Ryan's voice cracked and to his own horror he could feel tears starting to form behind his eyes. "Shit," he exclaimed and without looking at anyone, especially not Chad, he jumped over the mess on the ground and fled out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

"Ry-an!" Sharpay shrieked after him but Chad shushed her determinedly.

"Let him go!"

"What… what did you DO, Danforth?" Sharpay demanded forcefully.

Everyone's head turned to look at Chad and he took a deep breath to steady himself and simply shrugged, nudged some chips on the ground with his shoe, and answered:

"I think I may have just come out to him."

"You what?" Troy gasped.

"I came out to him. That's what I wanted to tell you guys. I'm gay." Chad exhaled deeply. He wondered briefly how his voice could sound so calm when his insides were still tied into nervous knots but… at the same time he knew that it had been the right thing to say it and… it felt surprisingly easy and… good to say it loud at last.

"No way!" Troy shook his head while Zeke and Jason broke into big laughter at the hilarious joke. The girls simply kept staring at Chad.

"I'm not joking, guys. Believe me, I wish I was." Chad's voice was still too calm for his own liking. "For the last few weeks I've done more than enough soul-searching and everything and… it's true. I'm gay and it feels good to say it out loud. I was scared shitless to tell you and I really hope you're okay with it, but… frankly, no matter how you take the news, it won't change anything. I'm still gay."

Chad looked from one friend to the other. Jason was gaping at him like a fish, Zeke was looking at Troy in confusion, Troy was still shaking his head in denial, Kelsi, Martha and Gabriella looked as if they were about to cry and Sharpay…

Sharpay was staring at him with the same incredulous shock on her face that Chad had seen on Ryan earlier.

"Sharpay," he addressed her, "if you want to be like Ryan and shout at me then go ahead. You are twins, after all, so…"

"Ryan shouted at you?" Gabriella asked shocked, the hostile staring-contest the twins had had earlier still fresh in her memory (and especially the part where Ryan had actually won, completely unbelievable and out-of-character).

"Yeah," Chad confirmed, "not the reaction I thought I would get. You know, when I thought about how to tell you all then I'd always pictured Ryan as the only one not being angry! I thought he'd support me and all… but, that was when I still thought he was gay, too. So…"

"Danforth, you big, freaking asshole!"

Sharpay's voice was nearly doubling over from force.

"What?"

"Of course Ryan's angry with you! How could he not be? He spent all of last year desperately trying to get over his stupid crush on you and now that he's finally managed to move on, you come along and tell him that you're gay? That, na na nana na, he missed his shot? Uargh, boys!" Sharpay finished with a fierce glare and stomped off into the living room.

"Dude," Troy wondered, "that nearly sounded as if she actually, like, cares for Ryan!"

"Shush, Troy!" Gabriella elbowed her oblivious boyfriend in the ribs and Troy finally looked at Chad who had gone completely shell-shocked and sickly-looking. He'd sunken onto his heels, back supported by the counter, his hands thrown over his face and he was muttering "Oh God's!" over and over.

Troy motioned for the others to leave and while they reluctantly went out he sank down to the ground and put an arm around Chad's trembling shoulders.

"I'm such a jerk! Such a jerk!"

"Hey," Troy shook him slightly. "You're not a jerk, Chad."

"Yes, I am!" came the muffled reply. "But I didn't know, man!" He let his hands sink down into his lap and looked at his best friend with wide eyes. "I really didn't know!"

"I know," Troy tried to console.

"You knew?" Chad's eyes opened even wider now.

"No!" Troy quickly assured. "I didn't know that! I meant that I know that you didn't know. Not that I knew! I didn't even know there was something to know, you know?"

"Dude, stop! My head hurts!" Chad managed a small grin before he bumped his head against the counter and groaned.

Troy kept staring at him for a while before he took a deep breath and squeezed Chad's shoulder once.

"So, you're gay, hm?"

"Yeah," Chad nodded. "You okay with that?"

"As long as you don't start wearing glitter mascara or hitting on me."

"Dude," Chad shuddered, "you're so not my type!"

"Good!" And after a slight pause Troy added cautiously: "Is Ryan your type?"

"No!"

Chad's answer came a bit too rushed for Troy to believe him and he seemed to have noticed it, too.

"Shit, I don't know, man. Not that it's ever gonna happen now anyway, not after tonight's disaster. But, I mean… really, he's… Ryan! He wears lots of pink shirts and sparkling hats and, I bet he wears glitter mascara, too."

Troy snorted.

"And did you see him tonight? Those boots? I mean, dude!" Chad laughed, a genuine, amused laugh, before he groaned again:

"But, oh man!"

"What?"

"The JEANS! I swear, I've never in my life seen anyone wear such skinny, tight-fitting, absolutely fucking unbelievably hot jeans!"

"Ugh," Troy muttered uncomfortably but Chad went on already.

"I've seen him wear those jeans before, last year during rehearsals, but… GOD, I must have been blind!" Chad buried his face behind his hands once again and Troy laughed.

"Yeah, he's not your type at all, Chad. Right!"

"Shut up, dude! Of course he is! He's Ryan!"

"And he's standing right here," a voice from the other side of the counter softly sounded all of a sudden.

Shit!

"Ryan!" Chad's face lost all color instantly and he closed his eyes. Troy looked up to see the boy in question walk slowly around the cooking isle they were leaned against to come stand in front of them.

"Ugh," he stammered and let go of Chad's shoulder to pull himself onto his feet. "I'll just… you know, ugh… go and look where the others are."

"You do that," Ryan nodded without his eyes ever leaving Chad's downcast face.

"Yeah, well… okay, ugh. I'll be… I'm gone." Troy fled without looking back.

Chad didn't dare to open his eyes, afraid of what he would see in Ryan's face. But when the other boy made no move whatsoever (and Chad's eyes began to hurt behind closed lids) he finally opened them and let his gaze wander up slowly, drinking in the sight before him.

Black leather boots that enclosed slim calves, a dancer's calves, and wouldn't end for a very long time. Then, eventually, well-muscled legs clad in, oh, those black jeans. The same skinny jeans that hid nothing whatsoever when Chad's gaze went higher and higher and made his mouth suddenly go very dry. He tried to pass the zipping-area very quickly (but not without noticing the tell-tale shape it covered) and let his eyes fall onto the bright pink belt instead. A belt covered in glimmering rhinestones and, oh… pale and slender hands on each side of incredibly slim hips, thumbs hooked into belt loops.

Chad's Adam's apple bobbed painfully in his dry throat when he gulped. His eyes were meanwhile involuntarily drawn up by a small silver-colored stitch weaving its way through the pastel-pink crinkled shirt that hugged Ryan's chest and arms in all the right places without being too tight.

Chad followed the row of buttons (were that silver musical notes?) up to where they suddenly parted to give way for a glimpse of naked skin right under Ryan's throat.

Chad had to gulp again and he suddenly noticed Ryan's throat work heavily at the same time. His eyes flew up to Ryan's face and clear blue eyes locked on his and…Oh God, had he been crying?

"Ryan," Chad whispered hoarsely, "God, I'm so sorry! I was a jerk…"

"Yes, you were." Ryan stated, crouched down in front of Chad's drawn-up knees and gave them a half-hearted smack. "But I was a jerk, too. Running out on you like that when you'd just pulled all your brass together to come out? That was pretty jerk-y, don't you think?"

Ryan's tone was light, nearly teasing, but Chad could make out a shaky edge underneath. He tried to put as much calmness and softness as possible into his voice when he answered:

"I guess I would have done the same. I mean, if the guy I had a crush on would suddenly tell me 'Hey, guess what, I'm gay!' right after I'd finally gotten over him… I'd probably shoot him or… or hit him." Chad looked briefly down onto his knees and remembered: "Oh, but you hit me, man, so I guess that's alright then."

Ryan let out a mix between a snort and a sigh and plopped down to sit on Chad's right. He took off his black fedora, placed it neatly onto the ground and leaned his head back against the counter. His left shoulder was touching Chad's right and Chad could feel Ryan's body heat radiating into his arm and from there spread through his entire body. It felt… good, really good. He closed his eyes again and nearly missed Ryan's whispered words:

"I didn't, that's the problem."

"What?"

"You said in your, by the way very eloquently phrased, summary: 'After I'd gotten over him' or something." Ryan waited for Chad to look at him again. "I didn't."

"You didn't."

"No." Ryan sighed again. "I tried but… no."

Chad tried to wrap his mind around what that meant for their situation but came up blank. "So," he asked finally, "that leaves us… where exactly?"

"That leaves us," Ryan paused and stood up, one hand picking up his fedora on the way while the other pulled Chad to his feet in a single stunning movement only he could ever pull off, "exactly here. With me standing in the middle of my parents' kitchen, about to kiss the guy with the damn worst timing ever."

"Kiss?" Chad gulped.

He noticed that Ryan hadn't let go of his hand yet and that their fingers seemed to have intertwined without him becoming aware of it. Ryan's face was suddenly mere inches away, it was so close that Chad could make out some tiny blond stubble above Ryan's upper lip that he must have missed when shaving. And for one second Chad wondered what his own face looked like this close up right now. He wondered if he perhaps should have shaved before coming here, and if he perhaps had some left-over crumbs on his lip, and if his breath smelled perhaps horrible, and…

And then Ryan leaned in and their lips met tentatively and all thoughts left Chad's brain altogether. Ryan's lips were soft, but not girly-soft, and they tasted like cherry, but no cheap lipstick cherry. They tasted like real cherries and Chad suddenly remembered how, when he'd been five or six or something like that, he'd once climbed high up into a big cherry tree, all the way up to where the best and biggest and ripest and sweetest cherries had grown.

And he'd sat there on a beautiful summer's day, feet dangling high above the ground, happy and without a care in the world, and he'd picked as much cherries off the branches as his tiny hands had been able to hold. He'd stuffed his small but even then already unlimited stomach with cherries over and over and they'd tasted so sweet and good and…

You know the feeling when, no matter that you've eaten more than could ever be healthy, no matter that you're so stuffed that you think you'll never be able to eat anything ever again, and your mom gets angry because she cooked dinner in vain, no matter that you'll be sick and aching all night… when you know all this beforehand and you still can't stop eating all those cherries that taste so sweet because you simply want more, need more, always more and it still won't be enough? Because it simply tastes too good to ever give it up? You know that?

Chad knew exactly what it felt like.

And kissing Ryan was just like that, only ten times better.

And while Chad was standing there in the Evans' kitchen with stupid childhood memories rushing through his head, kissing Ryan, fingers of one hand interlaced with his' and the other hand somewhere on Ryan's back, pulling him closer and then threading through Ryan's soft blond hair, and Ryan's hat got knocked off and rolled away but who cared…

And while Chad had no clue what all this meant and where they'd go from here, whether or not Ryan still had a girlfriend in New York and what would happen once they'd pull apart for air, what they'd say or do then, what all their friends sitting in the living room next door would think…

So while Chad had absolutely no clue whatsoever, or perhaps simply because of that, he just kept on kissing Ryan with everything he had, because…

Because it simply tasted too good to ever give it up.

Just like eating cherries.

THE END


Please comment and make me happy :-)

Oh, and maybe I will write a short follow-up to deal with what the others did the whole time, how they reacted and so on. You like the idea? Let me know.