Get'cha Head In The Game!

14. the dinner

They'd been sitting in the car in front of the house for roughly ten minutes.

"Fuck. God fucking fuck Jesus christ why did I think this would be a good idea oh my God oh my fucking. God." Ryan was hyperventilating. He was gripping the steering wheel with both hands so hard his fingernails were starting to rip into his palms, he was on the verge of tears and sweating, God was he sweating.

"Ok Ryan, please look at me." Chad had been trying to calm him down but it all seemed useless, so he tried some direct, honest confrontation.

"Take your hands off of the steering wheel, here let me hold them and you can squeeze mine" he extended his arms out and Ryan did as suggested. "Now. Let's talk about this. Why are you so godamn agitated?"

Ryan took a deep breath. "I-its my dad. Jesus, he's so terribly judgemental, I don't know w-what he's gonna do when he sees you."

"When he sees one of your friends?"

"You don't get it!"

"Then help me get it."

Another deep breath. "You really don't get it. You're not my friend- I mean you are, but.."

"But?"

"Fuck this is even more frustrating than my homophobic dad. I like you Chad! You Idiot."

"Uh." Chad stared at the blonde with his mouth wide open, jaw on the ground and everything. "I don't get it."

Ryan, still squeezing Chad's hands, pulled them towards him, closed his eyes shut and did what Chad had thought about doing alone in his room. He kissed him.
Chad's eyes widened and he skipped a heartbeat, but that was all the time he took before kissing back. Fifteen seconds later they both let go gasping for air.

"Do you- hhhhhhhhhget it now?"

Chad laughed. "I think I do. So what about we go in now and kick your dad's ass?"

Ryan gave him another quick kiss on the cheek. "Sure."

Chad held his hand until the mansions door started opening. There stood Ms Evans, wearing a black form fitting dress with a pearl necklace. "Here you are ducky! And who's your friend right here?"

"My name is Chad. I'm one of Ryan's schoolmates, nice to meet you Ms Evans." He shook her hand.

"Ooh! So this is the Chad you've been telling me about!" She winked.

Ryan blushed. Ok, he may or may not have talked about Chad to his mom. His dad may have been homophobic, but his mom wasn't, and who are you supposed to tell about the guy you like when your best friend is also your crush and the only other friend you have is having a weird love affair with your twin sister? And also he was her ducky.

Chad waited for Ms Evans to turn around and head to the dining room, then smirked. "You told your mom about me, ducky?"

"Kill yourself."

Sharpay and Mr Evans were already sitting at the dinner table, talking about some new renovation she was planning on her rehearsal room in the house.

"Hey Ry! And Danforth." Sharpay was precise to split the sentence in half perfectly between joy and profound dissent.

Mr Evans got up from his seat to shake Chad's hand. "The co captain of the Wildcats! Nice seeing you here son. I've heard great things about you."

Chad put up the most plastic smile he had. He was doing this for Ryan, he had to remember that.
They all sat down as a man better dressed than Chad served them a plate of gnocchi with royal shrimp and cuttlefish ink.

As the family displayed their disgusting level of wealth, Mr Evans began talking. "So Chad, how is Ryan doing at basketball?"

It took every ounce of will he had in his body not to spit out his food and laugh. "He's... getting pretty good, actually." Ryan, sitting beside him, put a hand on his thigh to reassure him and smiled.

"Fantastic! I'll just have to come to your next game then! When are you two going to be playing?"

Chad was panicking. Ryan's plan had been working for the past week, they settled with coach Bolton and he accepted to cover for them, but this was another type of situation entirely. He looked at Ryan. He felt he was squeezing his thigh. Ryan cleaned his mouth with an embroidered napkin, blue letters R & E on it.

"Dad." He started "I'm about to tell you something that's going to be extremely upsetting. I'm not playing basketball anymore."

Mr Evans took a breath in to begin talking but was stopped immediately.

"Also I'm gay. I'm gay dad. I don't know what made you think playing a sport I don't like was gonna change that. Basketball isn't going to make me straight, just like baseball didn't make me straight and just like golf didn't make me straight. Just like you straightening my godamn hat all the time doesn't make me straight. I'm frankly exhausted of you trying to 'fix' me and I'm not gonna let you do it anymore. I don't care what you tell me to do or what you think of me, if you honestly discard your own son's identity because of your decaying, rotten ideology, then YOU are the one that needs to be fixed. Now leave me and my boyfriend alone." He was now standing, hands laying against his sides and wrapped up in fists.

Chad was looking up at him, mouth wide open, exposing a big portion of unchewed gnocchi.

Sharpay also stood up, gracefully and without rage, unlike her brother. "Since we're on this topic, I also think I might be a lesbian, so there's that."

Everyone's eyes went to her immediately. "Well that was unexpected." Chad said.

Mr Evans was red with rage, now standing up like his kids. "Get out of my house. You, disgusting- pervert and your equally deviated friend." He was screaming now. "Look at what you did to my daughter!"

"Dad-"

"You made her- one of you. Get out of my house. NOW!"

"Vance." Ms Evans, who had been quiet until that moment, was calmly beginning a sentence, staring town at her plate with a napkin in her hand. "How about you get out of this house."

He looked at her with his eyes wide open, a blood vessel almost popping in his neck. "Am I hearing this right?! Derby, what in the hell are you-"

"Stop. I'm not gonna argue with you. You're not welcome here anymore, not until you threaten MY kids and say such disgusting and vile things to them. I'll give you 15 minutes to pack your stuff and leave."

Mr Evans stormed off angrily, throwing a couple of things off the table that the waiter quickly cleaned up.

Chad was still sitting. "So.. your 'boyfriend', uh?"