Three Boys, One Crush Pt. 01

Well readers, it's been a while but I went on a serious binge and am over 47,000 words deep in this light 'novella'. No fancy into here, and I think this will be resolved in two parts, but the following story is the result of 'taking my characters for a walk' and exploring what it might have been like if my well-established WCoD mains, J and her 3 suitors, had met in their senior year of high school at the age of 18. If you're already a fan, welcome back, and if you've never read any of the work associated with this character set before, I hope you enjoy my trio of best bros and their kinks as they find and fall for their perfect match- one very bold, unique, but vulnerable girl at the most raw stage of her developing sexuality.

Ironically the first twenty thousand words of this fell out of me in about two, three days while I didn't even crack 10,000 in all of NaNo. Go figure.

Come and find me all across social media, randy readers. <3 Enjoy!

Three Boys, One Crush

Jane

Once upon a time, there were three guys who met as a mismatched trio of eleven-year-olds, and grew to love each other as brothers from other mothers.

There was also a girl who, at the same age in a different school, had almost no one. She was too weird, too insular and bookish... too naive.

The boys grew up fiercely close. What one wanted, the others echoed, and they protected each other, doing the same for their peers. They were popular, they were smart. They had cool clothes and pretty great childhoods with lots of happy times. One was a jock with straight As, one was pretty and kind, and one was sharp, who laughed easy- but this doesn't even begin to cover what or who they were, nor all their struggles. It's just important to know that for three bros, they couldn't be more different yet united by common dreams.

It wasn't that the girl never wound up making any friends- it just took time, until she met people who could see her uniqueness and embrace it. She eventually blossomed enough to open up and find her place in the social hierarchy of high school hell. By then she was a proud freak, having made herself exactly what she wanted no matter what anyone else thought she should be. She befriended the other freaks, nerds, outcasts, losers, and geeks- a solidarity against loneliness and social order.

As fate would have it, the boys and the girl wound up thrown together in proximity close enough to acknowledge each other's existence by their senior year. Second semester, halfway through.

Little did they realize what it would mean for each of them.

The girl was about to have her world shaken up and turned on its head. The boys were about to find their missing piece.

She never would have believed them had it not been for that pretty little parcel on her desk one morning. So innocently wrapped, with a fluffy little bow. High-quality wrapping, bright rainbow colors. Plus a box of freaking Godiva.

Godiva! The most prestigious chocolate brand she could think of at that age, in its distinctive gold box and its gorgeous marble-countered store in the local mall. It could've been a horrible joke. It could've been, but her mind would never have given her the peace of not knowing for sure what was inside.

After all, who could resist a present that looked so enticingly theirs?

***

M

12th grade, new English class, same trio; this year me and the guys agreed to take some electives together, one of which was Brit Lit. I was so excited to be spending the time with them and enjoying a flavor of books I loved and wanted more of. Cal and I often took the same electives because he was open to many subjects and we liked to stay close. Randy, though, was not strong in English (taking far more extra math classes and science), but had opted to do senior year with us so he had study buddies. A perfectly elegant solution that had gone well, with us already getting through "Contemporary American Lit" together.

We took seats on the back left, Calvin taking the absolute last desk in the row, cramming himself into the seat. I tutted. Classroom standards were one-size-fits-most at best. I took the desk in front of him, and Randy seated himself at my immediate right. After that it was just a matter of waiting for everyone else to shuffle in, take seats, and get started. The teacher wasn't even there yet, but as students arrived I recognized a few faces. The guy who wound up sitting behind Randy was a friend-of-a-friend and he joined us chatting before class.

It wasn't out of the ordinary at all, and relatively sedate for a first period class. No one was awake. Everything was quiet.

"Whoa," I hear Randy chuckle. "Who's the Jedi Knight?"

Looking up at his sudden interest I see this figure striding through the door. Everyone else is bundled up in thick coats and sweaters (as we're dead in the middle of an east-coast winter), but this person is covered in a brown... cloak. Like Aragorn son of Arathorn just entered the place. The hood goes down and I see a spill of long brown hair. She moves toward our side of the classroom and marches to a desk one row over, closer to the middle of the room. Still standing, she undoes a button and the brown swath falls away from her shoulders. I become fixated on her hair as it shakes free.

But soft! What light through yonder doorway breaks? It is the East, and this girl I've never seen before is the sun. (In our defense, it was a huge senior class. Upward of six hundred.)

Underneath the heavy drape, she's dressed in the most outlandish burst of color in the room. A purple and cream-colored tie-dye pattern on her short-sleeved top. Dark green parachute skirt? Black- what looks like laced boots- below. To cap it off, she's got purple lipstick on, and after she bundles her winter-weather gear into the chair she's chosen, she straightens her glasses. It's only been a moment since my friend's question, but I feel like time has slowed down.

"Wait a minute- I think I've heard something about a chick who walks around in a cloak in the winter." Cal says, and our acquaintance looks over.

"Her? Yeah that's Jane Callahan," he tells the two of them. "I keep forgetting you guys didn't go to Smithfield Middle."

"Who is she?" I ask, trying to surreptitiously hide the fact that I'm staring at her. Jane seems totally oblivious to anything but dropping her backpack on the desk, and she unearths a book before sitting down. Oho. Wonder what she's reading, even prior to starting an English class? She definitely wasn't in American Lit.

"One of Smithfield's most famous freaks. I'm surprised this is the first time you're hearing of her, even if you're from another district. She's not subtle."

"Yeah no kidding," Randy rumbled, obviously intrigued. He was looking her up and down with a huge smile on his face. Hurriedly, I looked to Cal. His eyes were wider than usual; by itself that wasn't very telling, but I could see tension in his body language. Something fought to remain supressed on his face. More info needed. So I prompted Nick, the FOF, for deets.

"Dish, man," I said sweetly. "A girl with style like that has got to be interesting."

"Oh, she's a total weirdo," Nick admitted. "Runs with the theatre kids, nerds, geeks, and of course freaks. Reads continually. Stopped wearing pants two years ago. Overall quiet and unobtrusive, but if pushed, she goes off." He leaned in to keep things more covert. "Rumor has it she shouted down an entire film class at the end of last year because there were a few assholes bullying her friends and the teacher. Someone pissed her off and she just snapped. No one acted out afterwards, and no one could even hate her for it. That's kind of the thing..." he half-laughed to himself, glancing at Jane out of what looked almost like scientific interest rather than sexual. Like she was a puzzle to figure out. "People who know her say she's the sweetest person they've ever met, but at the same time, if you fuck with her or someone close to her, you can set off a beast. She used to be bullied a lot back in the middle school, but just became weirder and weirder, like a big fuck you to everyone. You know Jeffrey Spirano?"

"I do," Cal rumbled, leaning over with his arms on the desk and supporting his chin. He was watching the girl with this gleam in his eyes. Studying her as she opened her book and proceeded to block out the classroom around her. "That guy is a major dickwad and just such a loser."

I glanced at the clock. Still twenty minutes until class started.

"Well back in ninth grade he used to fuck with her. Stole her stuff, made fun of her, all that. One day he comes out of their class together all freaked out. He was trying to get under her skin, apparently, and showed her this nasty cut on his finger. Well, she turns around and shows him this picture of a cut-up dead body in a book she was reading."

I gasped. Randy's eyebrows shot up. Cal sat up straight in a jolt.

"Really?" My best friend asked, shocked.

"If he was telling the truth."

"He stopped fucking with her after that, didn't he?" Our dirty nerd asks, his voice amused. I heard the tell-tale rasp. Randy likey.

"Yeah, he did. Immediately. Most everybody did after ninth grade, because she never stopped being... weird. And she didn't engage with people teasing her anymore either, as if they just didn't exist. At the same time... no one can ever get close to her. No one who's not already been labeled one of our resident freaks or geeks, anyway."

"What book was it?" I asked, stunned and at the same time, deeply deeply attracted. Look at this girl. Her own sense of style, a secret core of strength. Sweetness. Book-lover. My friends were clearly intrigued, even if Cal wasn't ready to admit it to himself yet. Nick looked my way as I took my eyes off Jane and glanced over.

"Oh... I have no idea. I doubt Jeffrey knew." Nick shrugged his shoulders and relaxed in his chair. "What's up with you guys? You into her?"

"Time will tell," I took the liberty of answering. "She sounds like an interesting person, and she sure stands out." Nick snorted.

"That's an understatement. The senior class is buzzing about the awards already, and everybody I've talked to is voting her 'Most Likely to be Remembered' at the end of the year."

"Dubious honor," Cal remarked dryly. "But seemingly fitting. It would be hard to forget someone like her..."

Nodding in agreement, I looked longingly at that silky mane trailing to her lower back. It hung around her shoulders and arms like a mantle.

"There's one more thing you guys should know," our buddy continued, his tone dry. "Jane's status in the social hierarchy isn't the same as it was back in the day. She is and was a 'freak', but because she doesn't give a shit and owns it, she rocketed up to 'cool' on the scale. She's like our class's Fonzie."

Oh, did that ever track.

"There's a catch though," he carried on, not missing a beat. "She has no idea anyone thinks she's cool. And if you actually try to approach her, well, the description has been 'kind but impenetrable'. Crushes get crushed. The few times she's been seen with anyone in the school, it didn't last long. Even guys who say they fucked her- everyone knows it's complete bullshit, because she doesn't party. She doesn't do most of the dances or social events. There's no connections."

"Anything outside of classes that she can be confirmed with? Clubs, sports, student council, theatre, anything?" I asked, watching the seconds tick by. Nearly down to twelve minutes left.

"Besides appearing in Romeo and Juliet last term, the only extracurricular she is confirmed a part of is the improv troupe that meets on Fridays in Cafeteria E."

Through this entire inquisition, I was watching Cal closely. If there was nothing he saw to keep him interested, he would've tuned out long ago. He was keeping very close tabs on the conversation here, and I saw the curiosity in his face.

"Thanks man," I said as I was rising from my seat. "That should help tremendously." I started off, and Nick hissed

"Dude, you're gonna try right now?" under his breath.

"Oooooooh M," Randy uttered, a huge smile on his face. "Her? Yes? You think?"

My eyes connected to Cal's. "Her. Yes." Since we straddled different social classes from Freak to Jock (me being Popular), I had already heard and seen something in her that each of us would like. I had this feeling. An itch. An intuition, if you will.

And I wanted to know what she was reading.

"You have my blessing, M," Calvin nodded, watching her like a predator, as he sat hiding his size.

So I walked over.

"Hey, you're Jane, right? Whatcha reading?"

***

Cal

As M greeted her suave and sure of himself, blond curls tossed so casually and prettily, I watched silently and subtly. Randy too. Even Nick had fallen quiet as he exchanged looks with us, his face contorted in disbelief. My bro had never been shy about approaching girls he liked, and neither was Randy. You tell M he can't get a girl? He will walk by you in the hall with her on his arm the next day. Sure, it had a lot to do with him being 'so hot', but he was also a total romantic sweetheart and everybody knew it.

"Whatcha reading?" He asked the girl, and I saw her trance visibly shatter. Huh. M did that too, zoning out so hard with a book it was hard to get his attention sometimes.

"Oh! Um..." Closing the book on her fingers, she looked up. I watched the exact moment the surprise hit her face and she began to tremble. Tremble? At the sight of M? Why...? "Aren't you... Mickey Smith?" My boy gave her a dazzling smile.

"You know me? Yeah! You can call me M. I came over because I want to know what's got you so blissed out right before Brit Lit," he teased, gesturing to her book. "I'm so excited about this class and I love seeing another big reader! Not just someone taking it to fulfill an elective, you know?"

She blushed, the shy little thing. And hugged her book to her chest, as if shielding herself.

"It's... Dracula. By Bram Stoker." She seemed reluctant, but maybe a little... less guarded. "Um, that can't really be it, right? I mean, the most popular guy in senior year doesn't just walk up to me and ask me what I'm reading." She looked around, as if searching for the reason why M was standing at her desk, and finally spotted us. Randy first, and as she looked to him, the scruffy bastard grinned and tipped his fingers to her. Her gaze drifted my way, and I snared her into direct eye contact. For a moment, I waited to see the hint of fear, like everyone else got when they spotted me. But her blush only deepened, and she looked me up and down.

I was amazed, then intrigued when her body language folded in, just like mine, as though protecting her core. She started trembling again, and had to drop her stare.

Some inner sense I hadn't felt before that moment kicked in- telling me it saw something it liked in her. There wasn't any fear. No. That had been a very different kind of reaction.

Part of me needed to know what it was.

M laughed brightly, stealing her attention back. "You found me out, Jane. Though the book was the perfect icebreaker. This guy's not just a pretty face." His stance became more open and casual toward her as he leaned in. He turned all charm. "Actually I want to ask you out."

There, she became a deer in headlights, mouth falling open, face fully red. Wow, I never thought I'd find the sight of someone blushing so furiously... enticing.

"Haha," she said nervously, after the pause stretched too long. "You got me! Classic throwback-style, early senior prank, right? Did someone dare you to ask, or put you up to this? I mean there's no way you could be seen with me! You're only like the hottest guy in school."

"Ahh," I heard Nick suck in air. "Now I get it. Once bitten, twice shy."

By that point, the rest of the classroom had taken notice and watched their hunkiest hunk take a swing, only to be hit by the pitch. I cringed, just a bit. My heart went out to him.

"She's been messed with so much no one can get close because she thinks they're approaching with ulterior motives," I muttered in response, still observing indirectly. M faltered for a split second, but recovered himself. "Oh, I get it." That was a lesson I myself knew well.

"Same here," Randy sighed. "She's got her shields way, way up. Just like I did when I met you guys."

"Oh, no, it's nothing like that," M protested passionately. "This is my first time ever seeing you. I confess I just had to ask an acquaintance of mine your name." He waved his hand at Nick, who sunk in his seat and tried not to be noticed. "I love your outfit, and the cloak is pretty badass. Plus, I really love a girl who reads. You know me already, so you must've heard something about me," he urged. "Have you ever heard of me using a girl like that, or setting her up to be hurt?" M was being his 100% earnest self, and I watched her ice crack ever-so-slightly.

She hesitated.

"Actually, no... everyone says you're a really great guy." Her face grew pained. Lips then pursed in determination and she took a breath; to collect herself, I was sure. "I'm sorry, I'm just..." she did something with her arms and hands. It wasn't really a shrug, and it wasn't an open-palm signal of exasperation. No further explanation seemed forthcoming, but I knew M. He wouldn't need any excuse.

"Hey, hey... don't look so sad," I heard Mickey say, taking her hand to drop a kiss on her knuckles. Immediately she froze, again stunned, staring at M with pure astonishment on her face. "You've been hurt, haven't you? A princess with long hair to cloak herself in, trapped in her tower..." He reached to lightly stroke her cheek, then trailed his fingers in her tresses and down. It was a move he'd developed with a careful, artful flair, but the words he said to her were pure M in the moment. "So pretty, sweetness."

Jane made a noise like a strangled moan that was also a scream, and she absolutely rocketed to her feet. Me, Randy, and Nick startled in our seats. The rest of the class reacted silently, some visibly jumping, many with hands over their mouths. A couple of people around her were red-faced, too. My heart was slamming itself against my chest. What the fuck was that sound, and why did it light me up inside?

"Excuse me," she chirped, clearly panicking. "I have to go. To a book. I mean the library, quickly. Um. To return this book." She clutched the copy of Dracula like it was a talisman.

"What?" M asked, genuinely confused. "But you're not done-" My beautiful bro's argument was cut short.

"I think I can still make it if I rush! So, I gotta run. Literally." Jane turned and fled, right out the door, and left the room in chaos the instant she was out of earshot. Little had the girl even realized how much of a spectacle the whole thing had become. No one had said a single goddamn word the entire conversation, but the place erupted now. It was pretty comical, all told.

"Oh my Gawd!" Someone said, rising above the chatter. "Who resists M Smith?" I rose, and walked over, steering my reeling friend back to his desk.

"C'mon," I said to the classroom at large, and the sound of my voice instantly stilled the room again. "She didn't say no. But if she got harassed and picked on for years, living on the fringes of social acceptance, can you blame her for freaking out?" M sat, and I plopped myself back down into my too-small chair at my too-small desk.

"Well said, buddy," Randy responded, crossing his arms, leaning back in his chair. He knew a little something about being a "freak", "nerd", "geek", and "dweeb" himself. Oh this was gonna be news at school by the end of the day.