disclaimer: not mine: the delay in uploading is down to real life. drat real life

The following morning Scout sat by the window in his dorm. He was trying to distract himself from the foul taste in his mouth by reading his English assignment. The sentences went on and on and on. Scout hurled the book at the wall. Pages fell out. "You'd think, over hundreds of pages, he'd have the time to tell you what's happening."

Will just lay there composing a journal entry.

"Subtext" Scout added bitterly.

"I told you you should drink more water before going to sleep." Will got up and rescued Henry James from the floor. Tucking the lost pages back in place, he asked "How much of this are you absorbing?"

Scout snarled "And the sun hurts my eyes."

Will handed him back the novel and, reasonably sympathetically given he was a teetotaller, a bottle of water. "Alcott would be more your speed this morning."

"Hm?"

"Louisa May Alcott: she wrote-"

"Very funny." Scout pulled sunglasses out of a drawer. "She wrote a book called Jo's Boys."

"What?" That was pretty random, even for Scout.

"Something Bella said last night. I just remembered. There was this guy she said was one of Joe's boys."

"Baz."

"Big guy. Expensive watch. She said you used to be close."

Will rolled his eyes. "It's a small town; we're about the same age. Sean, me, Joe, Baz. We ran together for years."

Scout was confused: What could they possibly have had in common? Baz looked like a thug.

Will continued thoughtfully "None of us wanted to settle for this town. We all wanted ..more."

"Is that when you learned to pick locks?"

Will snapped back to the present tense. "It really freaks you out that I know that stuff."

"If you hadn't got the scholarship-"

"..yeah?"

"What would you have become?"

Will didn't know. That was the thing. He fiddled with Henry James, aligning the unbound pages more neatly. "Another Joe, maybe. Not like Baz."

Scout was going to ask about Joe, but after several thumps at the door, Jake burst in. She was wearing a shirt and tie and a stressed expression. "I can't get the tie right."

Scout pushed his sunglasses further up his nose. "Don't shout."

Jake shot him a resentful look. "I just did my oxfords. Shoe polish and a hangover - so not a good combination. And you get to lounge around-"

"I'm reading Henry James-"

"- enjoying yourself-"

"-enjoying? Washington Bowl?"

"I'll get your tie" said Will.

"Thanks man. The knot won't go how I want it."

Reluctant as a convict headed for execution, Jake's feet dragged on her way across the lawn. Hamilton jogged away from his parents to meet her. He grabbed her hands and squeezed them. "This is gonna be okay" she heard herself say. Ham must be so freaked out by this.

He kissed her, then at her reaction said "What? You worried they'll work out we're together?"

She smothered a laugh self consciously.

"I don't have to pretend I'm not into you anymore." He liked that. Still holding her hand, he turned so they could walk to his parents' car.

Mrs Fleming was looking at their joined hands as if the sight made her gag. Jake tugged to get free, without success. Her eyes flew to Hamilton's dad. He was looking inscrutable and Deanlike.

Jake hadn't seen enough of him to know how to read his feelings. She had always taken good care to stay out of his path. This being a boy deal hadn't been intended for serious scrutiny, and, really, a big part of her was not happy that it had held up quite so long. Yes, she was doing her damndest to pass, but surely, she was feminine, right? So, her position had led her to stay out of the Dean's way. Jake swallowed convulsively. If openly dating his son wasn't drawing attention to herself, then what was?

"Um, Mrs Fleming, sir, I'm not late am I?" She squeezed Hamilton's fingers.

"Well, Mr Pratt." The Dean's voice was solemn, even in this casual context. "Have you decided what to order yet?"

It's nice to be asked, Jake thought ascerbically. It didn't help her mindset that this was the venue of that grim first date. She peeked at Hamilton but he was intent on the menu.

"Not quite" she replied " ..and please, call me Jake."

"Jake, then" he said, and glanced awkwardly at his wife. She usually took care of small talk for him. But right now Kate was feigning absorbtion in the menu, even though he knew perfectly well she was going to order lobster rolls. She always did. "The lobster rolls are good" he told Jake.

Kate looked over at her husband quickly. She knew what he was thinking.

"I hate seafood" Jake said flatly.

Steven sighed, and kept trying. "So.. what are your favourite subjects in school?" He saw Hamilton come out of his daze to shake his head and roll his eyes. It was a reasonable question, Steven thought.

"Um, IT, computers." (Jake heard her mother's voice in her head giving interview advice to a friend. "- and give one team sport so you sound like a well rounded person.") "And I enjoy crew." Jake wondered if this was what a job interview felt like.

Steven watched Kate reacting to that. Of course, the boys must have met through crew. He supposed that even if they hadn't met that way they would inevitably have run into each other. He had caught innumerable sneaked glances between them, not to mention Hamilton's effort to hold hands under the table. As an attempt to reduce Jake's stress level, it had backfired seriously when Jake spotted the Dean noticing them. Steven was sorry about that.

He wondered what sort of person Jake was when not ratchetted up to this level of tension. At present whatever charisma had drawn Ham to him was deeply concealed. He wondered if fatherly responsibility really obliged him to find out what sort of person Jake was. He felt dispirited by the task.

Why were the boys looking like that? Oh. Far too long a conversational silence, (bad). He automatically looked to Kate for help, but she was involved in catching a waiter's eye. Break the silence, somehow.

"Hamilton. Have you completed your assignments for Monday?"

"oh god." Jake regarded herself in the mens' room mirror. "I look like I'm in drag."

"Uhh, Jake-"

Jake shot Hamilton a defensive glare. "Jeans and sweatshirt is kinda unisex." But this; formal white shirt, dark green silk tie borrowed from Scout, off the peg suit hastily bought in Carson, laced shoes.. The shoes weighed a ton. She felt like she was moonwalking in those thick heavy soles. "- oh god."

"We ought to get back out there." Hamilton danced with restlessness.

"Oh yeah. Boys don't go to the bathroom at the same time." It was another of the boy-rules Jake had memorized without fully understanding. "Why is that?" She returned to being hypnotized by her reflection.

Ham blushed. "You don't want anyone to think you might be, uh, you know,"

"Ham you just told your family you're gay."

"That makes it worse. They might think we're-"

Now they were both blushing. "We couldn't". How could we? It's a bathroom. Totally not romantic.. what?"

"Cotillion."

Jake let out a breath of laughter. "All right." That memory relaxed her slightly.

"C'mon. You can't put off returning to the table forever."

"If you think that" Jake said darkly "why'd you follow to haul my ass back?"

"You'd been gone Ten Minutes Jake. C'mon" he repeated.

Rawley main road had that whole Sunday roast lunch torpor thing going. Ryder leant against the petrol pumps sucking tobacco deeply into his lungs. A paperback lay forgotten in his lap. The hick beautician, the burger den, the grocers with a slurry of overripe fruit, Grace's pumps; they were all shut. Not a soul was to be seen until a car stopped briefly to disgorge Fleming and Pratt. They were wearing suits. Had the Flemings taken Pratt to morning service or something? Pratt was backing away from the Dean's car chanting thank yous. He had an aura of restrained panic about him. Fleming muttered something to him as the car pulled away.

"You think I'm hot in this." Pratt's voice was flat in disbelief, and overloud.

Ryder had to concentrate to make out Hamilton's reply. "You've given me some serious kinks." Ryder couldn't work out if that was a joke or not.

Neither, it seemed, could Pratt. He gave Hamilton a quick, nervous glance. "I'm sorry-" He broke off. "I've said it so many times, I know, but-"

Hamilton interrupted. "You always look hot."

Pratt pulled his boyfriend into an alcove and they threw themselves at each other with might and main and - dear lord - tongue. Ryder passed from astonishment, through vicarious embarrassment - which wasn't his sort of emotion, oh no. Ryder wasn't shockable - till at last, by the time they came up for air, he was annoyed. "I know it's been hours -"

The couple spun round. He blatantly checked out the formal wear. "Your committment ceremony. Aww, why wasn't I invited?" He smirked. "Who was best man?"

"What are you doing here? Waiting for Grace?" Pratt said her name with such disdain. Git.

Well, Grace had told him things about the lovely Bella and their friend Calhoun which put that Senatorial toerag, and any moron who befriended him, in a very poor position to throw stones. "Jacob. Grace is the poster girl for normal, around here." He wondered if Pratt and Fleming were up to speed on the incest story. Impossible to tell, really. Ryder felt cold inside. The more he saw of grubby human impulses, the more he wished he were some other species. And he didn't like animals, either. Maybe, a cat.. he could probably do feline.

While he thought this he traded barbs on auto pilot with the boys. It wasn't even fun taunting them now they were out of the closet. Grace joined them all during this futile exchange. She wanted to know how Ryder was.

He grumbled, hating himself as soon as the words left his mouth. He despised moaning minnies. "These bollixing bandages I have to bind myself up in. I can hardly breathe."

Jake pursed his lips. No sympathy there.

Fleming plucked the dwindling fag out of his fingers and ground it out with ridiculous thoroughness. "Smoking won't help you breathe."

From behind Ryder, Bella thanked Ham. "-Smoking's dangerous near the pumps. How did lunch go?"

"Okay" Ham said.

Out of his sightline, Jake vigorously shook her head and pulled faces to indicate what a lie that was. Bella wasn't paying attention, instead, she was briskly telling Grace to mind the station "-it's more than your turn."

Grace made a practiced pout.

"What are you doing Ryder?" Bella turned on him.

She obviously hoped he'd sod off. Ryder said "I'm staying with my girl Grace." He looked round. Every face had written on it in clear print, what is he up to now? He grinned cheekily at them all.

"Come on" Bella said to Pratt and Fleming. "I promised Sean we'd help clean up. Do you know, Lena walked all the way back over to Sean's this morning?"

"Lena?" Ryder was surprised. "I thought she still had the hots for Jakey, here."

"I don't think so" Jake gritted.

"O, come onnn" Ryder drawled out. "Those boyband looks, girls love that. Cute, and, all importantly, unthreatening."

Jake spluttered.

"Yeah, ah, let's go" Bella said hastily. Ham looked like losing his temper. She caught at his arm, then Jake's, and indicated her truck with a jerk of her head. It was parked on the forecourt. Will had walked the mile from here to the school at dawn, after dropping the rest off outside the gates and doubling back to get her and Grace safely home.

Ryder watched them head out, then followed Grace into the kitchen. He didn't care to be alone, lately. "Cuppa tea?" he asked.

"Tea?"

"I'm going with the stereotype. I know it turns you on."

She had a good honest laugh. He liked to provoke it. It was like giving her a very cheap present. The only sort he could manage right now. He frowned. All his thoughts went to the same place.

Sean was in front of his house, carrying out a refuse sack of beer cans, when the truck pulled up. "Hey. It's pretty much in hand" he greeted them. Lena had been and gone.

Ham said "We would have come earlier. We had to do the lunch thing."

"Oh yeah. How'd that go?"

"It was fine-" This time Hamilton caught Jake's pantomimed disagreement "-baby it was. Next week'll be better."

Jake's jaw dropped. Next week?

"-Mom'll come round."

Jake groaned aloud.

Sean returned to the house hiding a smirk. Bella was surveying the living room, hands on hips. "This is pretty good."

"You should've seen it first thing."

Bella extracted two almost empty glasses from under a chair. They were from a set his mom loved. He had thought someone broke them. "You didn't get everything."

"I did the visible bits."

Bella gave him the raised eyebrows he'd so often seen her turn on Grace. The others joined them. "The kitchen's a bomb site" Ham observed. Jake swatted him.

Sean looked tired. "I've got to do something about that so's I can eat."

Bella handed him a doggybag she'd brought. "I made extra at lunch. Stick this in the microwave."

Soon after, Sean was wolfing down reheated meat loaf while the other three washed up glasses.

"What was the deal with that gatecrasher?" Hamilton wanted to know.

"Grace thinks Baz actually did beat Ryder up" Bella told them. "Ryder acted totally weird around him."

"So Ham is off the hook for that? (Bella, this is sprouts)."

"(I cooked them. Eat them.) Yes."

"Lack of evidence" Jake said drily. "Combined with, they went back and asked Ryder again, and he said he wasn't sure."

"Wanker" mumbled Hamilton.

Sean choked. Swallowing his mouthful lumpy, he protested "You can't say that. Bella is here, Jake is here-"

Jake caught Bella's eye, and grinned faintly.

"Jake says that more than I do-"

Bella sighed quietly, and stepped in. "Have you guys noticed about Ryder's car?"

"Only as part of her boy-disguise - what car? I suppose he has one, rich snob, but-"

"Red. Sports car." Hamilton wondered where Bella was going. "What about it?"

"I saw it on a used car lot in Carson."

"The same one?"

"Ham. Cars are my thing. It was the same one."

"He's been walking everywhere for the last week." Jake shrugged, not caring.

"The car was probably being detailed. You know, to get the BLOOD off." Hamilton glowered into the bowl of greasy water.

"Maybe he needed to pay somebody off." Sean carried his plate to the sink. "That reminds me, Scout told me-"

"-what?"

"I'm trying to remember. It was some story about a hanger on of Ryder's, making a cellphone call to him, and the call was picked up by a stranger. Some townie'd won the phone in a poker game."

"Is, uh, Baz, good at poker then?" Ham wiped his hands dry.

"No. Joe is good at poker."

"And Ryder, apparently, isn't." Jake unrolled her shirt sleeves and retrieved her suit jacket from where it was draped over a chairback. "Is this important? 'Cause, nobody thinks Ham did it anymore."

"My baby sister is going out with him."

"Oh. Yeah. There's that."

They all sensed it wasn't the moment to remind Bella about her Grace-diatribes in the past.

"So, you want to grass on Joe?" Sean wasn't clear on Bella's intentions. Joe was currently a jerk, but Sean remembered being friends-

"No!" Bella searched their faces. Hamilton looked as if he were sucking lemons. "Just, stop him going after Grace's boyfriend."

Hamilton turned away and stared out over the yard.

"The car, the cellphone-" Jake was dubious. "Bell, this whole thing is probably dealt with."

"He's still kind of jumpy. I think there's more."