High School Musical (Harry x Taylor Lautner)

The guy you knew from kindergarten

Back in the cafeteria, Harry and Selena were still trying to recover from the chaos that had happened.

"Is Miley really, really mad?" Harry asked. "I said I was sorry."

"No one has beaten out Miley for a musical since kindergarten," Selena explained.

"I'm not trying to beat anyone out," Harry protested. "We weren't even auditioning. We were just . . . singing."

Selena shook her head. "You won't convince Miley of that," she warned. "If that girl could play both Romeo and Juliet, her own brother would be axed out of a job."

"I told you, it just . . . happened." Then he admitted the real truth. "But . . . I liked it. A lot." He laughed and then asked Selena the question he had been wondering about since New Year's Eve. "Do you ever feel there's this whole other person inside of you, just waiting for a way to come out?"

Selena gave him a sharp look. "No," she said, decisively.

The bell rang to signal the end of lunch period. Miley stalked out of the cafeteria, but not before leveling a death-ray glare at Harry.

Then Liam stepped up to stop Mikey. He was frizzing with happiness, now that his secret love of baking was out in the open.

"Hey, Miley." He said. "Now that Taylor's going to be in your show . . ."

"Taylor Lautner is not in my show!" She snapped.

Liam pushed on, undeterred. "I thought maybe you'd like to come see me play ball some time . . ."

Miley tossed her head and said grandly. "I'd rather stick pins in my eyes."

He frowned at her, puzzled. "Wouldn't that be awfully uncomfortable?"

She rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Evaporate tall person!" She said as she stormed off.

Crestfallen, Liam called after her. "I bake . . . if that helps."

~~~~~~~~~~
The next day, Harry opened his locker and found a note. He read it quickly, then looked at a yellow door at the end of the hall. He was a little confused—and very intrigued.

He opened the door and found a staircase that led up to the roof. As he opened the door and stepped out into the beautiful, sunny day, rounded by lash plants, all being grown as hydroponic experiments.

"So this is your private hideout?" He asked, smiling.

"Thanks to the Science Club," Taylor said. "Which means my buddies don't even know about it."

Harry wondered about that. His teammates didn't seem to be his only buddies.

"Looks to me like everyone on campus wants to be your friend," he pointed out.

"Unless we lose." He seemed to be a little down about that, he thought. The pressure must be intense, especially since . . .

"I'm sure it's tricky being the coach's son," he said.

Taylor shrugged. "It makes me practice a little harder, I guess. I don't know what he'll say when he hears about the singing thing."

"You worried?" He was surprised. Taylor seemed so cool, so confident. Not the type to worry. Ever.

But Taylor nodded. "My parents' friends are always saying, 'Your son is the basketball guy, you must be so proud.' Sometimes I don't want to be the basketball guy. I just want to be . . . a guy."

Harry smiled with understatement. He didn't want to be genius boy. They were both so much more than that.

"I saw how you treated Kristen at the auditions yesterday," she said softly. "Do your friends know that guy?"

Taylor shook his head. "To them, I'm just the playmaker dude."

"Then they don't know enough about you, Taylor." Harry paused, then decide it was time to share a confession of his own. "At my other schools I was the freaky math boy. It's cool coming here and being . . . anyone I want to be. When I was singing with you. I felt like . . . a boy."

"You even look like one, too," he teased him.

Harry laughed, glad to have the seriousness of the moment lightened a bit. "Remember in kindergarten, you'd meet a kid, knowing nothing about them, then ten seconds later were best friends, because you didn't have to be anything but yourself?"

"Yeah . . ." Taylor's voice was wistful.

"Singing with you felt like that," Harry said sincerely.

"I never thought about singing, that's for sure," Taylor said. "Until you."

"So you really want to do the callbacks?" Harry asked.

He thought about it for a moment as he looked at him. Really looked at him. Then he smiled. "Hey, just call me freaky callback boy."

Harry smiled, a glowing smile of pure happiness. "You're a cool guy, Taylor. But not for reasons your friends think," Taylor looked down, a little embarrassed, and he moved on quickly. "Thanks for showing me your top secret hiding place. Like kindergarten."

Then the bell rang, breaking the mood and making Taylor realize he was late, and that meant detention!