Three Boys, One Crush Pt. 01

"Kind, but... impenetrable," Nick laughed sadly. "No one gets near."

"Did you have a crush on her...?" I asked, turning toward him. I hadn't picked it up before, but I caught something in his voice right then. Suspecting it, I began feeling off. Like I wanted him out of the picture. That was just a touch unsettling.

"At one point." He admitted, and I fought down a nasty rumble in my throat. "Jane doesn't let anyone in, but once in a while, you catch a glimpse of what she's hiding underneath. The joy. This intense personality. I mean, just look at her. You can't help but notice her. Once you start watching, you catch all this stuff that just makes her more mysterious, and you're sucked in before you know it." He sighed, and the noise made me relax. Whatever might've been there, I don't think he intended to go for it. "She's completely oblivious when people like her, man. M might've put himself out there, but it's gonna take something pretty blatant to crack that shell she's got."

"I might know exactly what to do," the prince whispered, his face far-off and wistful.

"Anyone wanna bet against me she's our prom date at the end of the year?" Randy cackled. "I will calculate the odds right here, right now." The class erupted again, hardly daring to believe the drama bomb that had lit up first period that fateful, cold but still, January morning.

Well, we were outed.

"Fuck, Randy, did you have to expose us like that?" I rubbed my face in my hands. Impulsively, though, I ran my hand over my short cut and straightened up. "But rather than denying shit and letting the rumor mill grind away, let's just own it." This had to be done quickly, and it had to be clear. "M, Randy, and myself are looking for a girl for our trio. All of us. We don't want to be split up, ever, and Jane..."

"Jane's exactly what we've been looking for, and she's the first girl that's ever gotten all three of us to turn our heads." M finished, his voice soft, almost a benediction. Oh, he was far from deterred. "The course of true love never did run smooth."

If Jane had actually been in the classroom for that line, it would have helped. We found out later that when we were in American Lit, she was in Shakespeare, which M couldn't manage to talk us into at the time. We were sure kicking ourselves after we found that out.

***

Randy

Oh what a gal, what a gal. Wearing a Jedi robe and this funky, punky combo with a rocker hippie vibe, she changed our fucking world.

Figures M would make the move right then and there, as he saw what I saw: Cal's face when his interest peaked. Nick's intel had proven massively helpful too, and just like I ran numbers faster than a bookie's calculator in my head, Cal ran a breakdown of facial cues, body language, and words underneath words. His analysis of people was spooky, but he denied the same kind of "gifts" his extremely intuitive mother boasted. That he'd taken notice, and made that declaration? Oh my god, the boy was smitten.

Just like me and M.

"Seriously though," I put right it out there. "I'll calculate the odds and take all bets. Jane will be our prom date, then subsequently girlfriend, by summer. Hit me up at lunch if you want in, and for fuck's sake don't ruin this for us by blabbing to Jane."

"Yeah," M agreed, "we'll woo her on our terms. Trust has to be built, and believe me, build it we shall." I could see his mind working.

Whispers passed from one person to the next, and messages were quickly sent on phones. No one wasn't going to know about this (except maybe Jane herself), by the end of the day. I smiled hugely just imagining it, and that kept me going through the ungodly early morning.

The teacher walked in about five minutes before the bell rang, a petite woman with long curly hair, and Jane turned up literally two seconds before the thing went off. M acted as though she hadn't thrown him for a loop, waving as she entered the classroom. She went red again before averting her gaze and hurrying to her desk, out of breath. I noticed that she was now carrying not one, but two books, and I knew both my buddies would pick up on the same.

So despite the ridiculousness of her excuse, she actually did go to the library.

Class started, and Ms. Terra, our teacher, passed out the syllabus. I was glad the guys and I had decided to do this year in English together (the only year you could opt out of a normal full year grade-level class), because as I read the list of books I almost groaned. I knew logic and patterns and could recite pi to too many damn numbers to get laid (even though I did), but I did not get or care what the significance of the pickle dish in Ethan Frome was supposed to be from the last class. God that book had been a drag.

M and Cal were all up on that shit, so they'd helped me through it.

And now... now we were staring at a list of even more books I wouldn't get, but this time I was excited. By some hilarious coincidence, Dracula, by Bram Stoker, was listed as one of the books we'd be reading.

Alright. I cracked my knuckles. I could do this. It was just a different kind of analysis, and there was data. I'm sure Jane could be enticed toward tutoring me, too, once we opened her up a little bit.

I wondered how much she knew about M and us- as until that day- we were only publicly known as a solid clique. After that morning? We were the talk of the school, having suddenly become perverts for wanting Jane all together, but no one seemed to think it was bad. Just "super-freaky". If M suffered a dive in popularity afterward, he didn't even blink. It didn't matter if his list of interested dates dried up, because we'd made ourselves known as suitors to the weirdest girl in our school.

A girl whose crushes were never known. A girl who had only a handful of close friends from the entire senior class. Everyone else she grew close

with were underclassmen, as we found out.

I think all three of us kept an eye on her the entire class period that first morning, and she was twitchy, getting herself ready and together before the bell chimed. When it did, she grabbed her stuff and bolted without a look back, disappearing into the milling crowd that mostly had yet to know what happened.

Ahhh, that calm before the shitstorm.

Second period we had to split up, but we were reuniting in lunch that afternoon (fifth period), and would talk battle strategy then.

"No further classes with her so far," Cal reported. "I had German second period, Mechanics and Engineering third, and study hall fourth."

"I had Photography and Advanced Film & Vid with an AP Calculus chaser," I said. "Not a whiff of her."

"My second period was P.E., and she wasn't there," M reported. "Also, really glad I went with a low impact class. Yoga actually helped put me back in my right mind at 8:45 in the morning."

"What about third and fourth?" Calvin asked insistently.

"Study hall followed by Computer Science. Nothing."

"Then we reconvene at the end of the day and follow up. There's only so many classes. One of us has got to have something else in common."

My big strapping friend had a bug up his ass for the first time ever, and I loved seeing it.

"And you both know we're attending that improv club on Friday, don't you?" M rhetorically asked us, preening himself.

"Do you even need to ask?" I snarked. "Of course we are. If it's exactly what I think it is, it should be hilarious, and we'll get to observe her in her element."

"Our opening shot here has got to be perfect," M was saying, looking enthused as I'd ever seen him. "We need to show her we're not in this as some kind of lark, and I know exactly what I want to do, to start."

"You're thinking books, aren't you?" Our biggest bro said.

"Yes exactly! Books. Maybe if she felt a connection via a thoughtful gift, she'd let us in. We should do some more digging and see what we can find out."

As we sat talking, eating in between sentences, some guys sat down at our table and crowded around. Usually we got a bunch of girls who flocked us every lunch period, most of them cooing over M, but today we'd been left alone. There were whispers though, and everyone was watching us. Had been the whole time.

I smirked broadly. Let 'em. After what we found out about Jane, I think I knew exactly what would get her to trust us. And I knew just how we could do it. A gift wouldn't hurt though- and it would show the rest of the school we were serious.

"So what the fuck? You guys came out as sex freaks this morning?" This kid Barry asked, sitting at the end of our table with his arms folded on the surface. I rolled my eyes.

"This morning?" I cracked, my mouth going off before my brain remembered I was the scrawniest dude in the entire grade. Even the freshmen who hadn't yet hit their full height were bound to eclipse me. "I've been a sex freak as long as I've known me, Bar." He visibly bristled, but my retorts were always zingers because no one ever expected the shit that flies out of my mouth.

"What- fine- maybe you, but what about mister heartbreaker and the clean-cut football star here? Everybody's talking about how the most popular guy in the school was shot down this morning by Jane Callahan of all people, and that our most visible but least chatty jock broke what we all thought was a vow of silence and told everybody they were gonna split her three ways. Like what the fuck?"

"It's true," Cal replied, then taking a large bite from a sandwich as he sat, for once not disguising his height, staring them all down.

"We're not going to deny it, guys," M shrugged, smiling somewhat arrogantly. "And she didn't shoot me down. She panicked because my attentions seemed incongruous with her understanding of herself, and she fled without actually giving me an answer."

"Incongu-what?" Barry blanched, his brain clearly short-circuiting.

"Incongruous," Calvin smugly replied after swallowing. "It's when you encounter an event or information that clashes with what you believe to be true. Apparently, Jane still believes that she is one of the class's outcasts, and therefore M approaching her must be some kind of setup."

"Poor little girl," I sympathized. "You dipshits ever stop to think about how she has felt, all these years? You talk about her without her knowing, and none of you tries to understand her. No one tries to breach the silence, so she closed herself off to your entire grade because she can't trust anyone. We figured all this out in twenty fucking minutes."

"Well maybe, but-" The speaker was interrupted by M.

"That's why we're coming right out with it. My bros and I want her. She's beautiful and unique, the perfect mix of elements to appeal to all three of us. It's been our plan to find a shared girlfriend since before we even came to this school."

"And since we're staking a claim, I'll offer my solemn word as the biggest motherfucker on campus that she's off-limits and we will protect her." Cal resumed eating, and there was another pause before some chucklehead went off. It was like no one could believe this massive change in demeanor and they had to ruin it.

"Are you three doing it with each other?" The asshole mocked, laughing like he'd said the cleverest thing at the table. He got a smattering of guffaws, but they were half-hearted and none of the three of us laughed.

"So what if we were?" M was the first to respond. "You got a problem with gay men? Bisexuals? Are you using bigotry for laughs because you've got absolutely nothing else to offer?" His tone was snippier than my pretty bro usually got, but I didn't disagree with him. There might've been something more to it, but... everyone knew M wasn't like that. He didn't tolerate this kind of shit and he never made fun of anyone. He also refused to laugh at racist or sexist 'humor'.

The guys around us shifted uncomfortably.

"Wouldn't stop us from wanting Jane, would it?" Cal asked them with a hint of threat in his words. Honestly this was literally the most he'd ever talked to anyone besides us. "You want the truth? We plan to share her, yeah. Because life without our bros sounds unbearable, yet all three of us definitely want a woman and kids. We just didn't want completely different, separate lives. So what do we do? Next-door neighbors, always? Big extended Full House family? No. No, we find our girl. Our wifey. Sure, I thought it was a little ridiculous. Until today."

"Miracle of miracles, she arose from the ether. Our perfect princess. Honestly I thought it would take longer- mid-twenties maybe, when people are really finding out who they are, you know?" The glorious blond said. I finished us off.

"That woman has got to be tough, strong, energetic, unique, capable, smart, sexy, and completely up to taking on life with three fucking hubbys who all want attention together and one-on-one or two-on-two. You have any idea how much of a freaking unicorn a chick like that is?"

I'd been louder than I meant to be as I stood up before them, almost unaware of it.

"But how the fuck could you know it's Jane from one encounter with her? Especially when you didn't even know who she was?" Another dude spouted off.

"Easy. She snagged the attention of all three of us, first with her style, and then with her honest reactions to my approach. We saw much more than you might think this morning, including how vulnerable she truly is." Mickey was a guy who wore his heart on his sleeve, and he was also a valiant knight on a white stallion sometimes. Healing whatever heartbreak Jane still carried had become number one priority on his list. "We didn't have any preconceived ideas of who she was, and no history between us means we can start at square one."

"Which brings me back to the action," I then prompted, bringing my boast from earlier full circle. "What are you guys putting up? Jane's our prom date and girlfriend by summer, three-to-one odds for. Taking all bets for cash or goods. I will happily pay up, win or lose." Out came a notebook with all the brazen bets I'd already gotten. Everybody likes long odds, apparently, or most didn't believe anyone could get through to our pretty little Jane.

Despite me trying to tell them, don't bet against us, no no. They insisted. I was especially excited to collect on the guy who offered to put up a half ounce of weed that we'd fail.

***

Jane

Oh God, oh God, oh God. I'd hallucinated that this morning, right? There's no way in hell the most lusted after, beautiful, popular, and apparently richest, sweetest boy in the school had asked me out.

Nope, nope, nope. Hadn't happened. If anyone asked... I just had to brush it off. 'Oh come on, that guy is out of my league' or 'You think he could really be seen with me?' I was nothing. No one. Just some outcast everyone had relegated to the sidelines at last, at least until some gorgeous popular prep subverted the divide between us. I still didn't get it. Yeah, I judged him so fast it snapped my head around this morning, and I did feel bad about that. But it didn't add up! He was the one every girl wanted- someone I had no hope of bagging. Someone who caught sighs in the hall, and no, I had never heard a single bad word about him. Girls definitely talked about that stuff, even if it wasn't with me.

There were a couple other pieces of the puzzle though. Mickey Smith's friends, both of whom had been in class with him today. The short one had practically salivated as he saluted me, and then there was the big guy... A Jock. Someone I had even less of a chance with. He'd stared into me like he was reading my soul, and the part of me that was enjoying Dracula that morning was the same part of me responding to the unspoken message there.

Plus, that little hand-kiss, that cheek stroke? Tingles. Everywhere, and that really scared me. No guys were so... forward with me, and not only had M outright expressed interest, his friends seemed... in on it.

I put my head down in my fifth period study hall, after lunch, and only half-listened to the sounds of students around me. If anyone knew about the incident, no one approached me. I had no idea what people were going to hear or say, though.

A couple minutes went by as I idly stared at the two books I now had out from the library- the copy of the late Victorian vampire tale, and a collection of Poe. The books made me feel safer, and once I calmed down from the panic I found myself unable to shake, I could go right back into them until I could escape to my PE class.

That was a lot of fun this year, being focused on big challenges: climbing, trust exercises and stuff like that. At the end of the year we were going to be doing the high outdoor ropes course. During the winter we had an indoor rock wall and were doing obstacle courses assembled with the available gym equipment. Not too much team stuff, and that suited me fine.

I had just begun to calm down when a voice I knew greeted me. It was a friend of mine, Lotte.

"Hey babe," she said, dropping her bag on the table and sitting next to me. She was a grade behind, but the study halls were always a mix. Leaning on her arm, she looked down as I started to sit up. "So tongues are wagging about first period. Apparently Mickey Smith and his two best friends asked you to prom and you rejected them?"

I groaned. "That is not what happened. First of all, it was just Mickey who walked over; I'm not really sure where the friends came into it, though they were there. I guess he asked me out, but I was too busy freaking out about it to reject him because I figured it was some kind of sick joke. But then he did this thing where he kissed my hand and called me 'princess'?" I buried my face in my hands. "Prom was not mentioned to me, and I left him no time to talk to me again during or after class." Rolling to one side on the table so I was facing her, I peeked through my fingers. "Tell me straight. What do you think?"

Lotte gave me a tepid look and lightly patted my back. "The rumors are swirling and I don't think even you can ignore them this time, because the guys themselves have announced their interest. They're even- reportedly- taking bets."

"Oh God," I groaned again, feeling my face heat. "I just... I don't trust it. I don't believe them. What? Fucking what? M said he didn't even know who I was until today! Guys don't want me. Guys like that don't want me." I wished, in that minute my face was the only thing heating up, but it wasn't. Other parts of me were also stirring awake, as they had earlier.

All three of them had made eye contact with me today, and I'd been shaken each time. Something was there the entire encounter, and if what Lotte was saying were true, I was in some deep shit.

"Jane you're fucking oblivious, you know?" She tutted me, shaking her head. "There are people around you- and I'm not outing anyone, so don't even ask- who look at you like they're dying for you to notice their feelings, and you're so guarded you never look up long enough to see it."

I froze in place.

"That's not true, is it...?" I asked slowly. "Have I been hurting people's feelings?"

Lotte sighed. "Not intentionally, Jane. You just lock yourself away because you had bad experiences. You might be surprised to know that a lot of your classmates actually get it, because they all remember. They saw everything."

"And none of them stood up for me," I replied dully, a little bitter. "So why would I ever dream any of them cared?"

"I get it, I really do." She leaned over to give me a half-hug around the shoulders. "But in the process you became so notorious and such a freaking champion for the abused kids, people regretted how they treated you... they just don't know how to apologize or try to mend the fence."