Holiday His Stories (BXB short stories)

The Truth About Grilled Cheese

Chapter Eleven: The Truth about Grilled Cheese

A/N:  This was in my Shorts book.  I tweaked it the very very tiniest bit so it fit with my holiday theme for this book.  

Casey was tired. But he smiled. And pushed the glasses up his nose for the millionth time that day. Last week, he'd lost one of the plastic pieces, the nose guard or whatever. His parents kept promising to order him a new pair, but looked like he'd have to keep bugging them. He could just replace the nose guard itself...that was an idea.

"Here's your change," he said, passing over a dollar and a few pennies to the kid. "It'll be ready in just a second."

The girl nodded, ear pods firmly in place, and turned her back to the food stand, eyes on the game. He'd seen her here the last couple of weekends too. A skinny brunette kid, junior high age probably. Always ordered three grilled cheese sandwiches, a can of Sprite, and nachos. It was funny, because she always sat by herself in the bleachers, eating the nachos, being super careful about avoiding drippy cheese sauce on her clothes, and drinking the soda. She never touched the grilled cheese. Maybe she had a crush on one of the players. Maybe not though, because she looked totally bored.

It was hot. The snack stand was hotter, with the grill, but at least it was in the shade. Sweat dripped in beads down his forehead. He lifted his hat, wiped back his damp hair, and put it back on. A sip of his ice water cooled him down a tiny bit. Only a tiny bit.

Weirdly warm weather for St. Patrick's Day. He couldn't imagine why  people were drinking the  green ice cream shakes they sold today only, or the cupcakes, dyed green, and topped with a sprinkle of Lucky Charms cereal, frosting dripping a little, as they sat in the sun. The little strand of twinkling green lights some adult had  wrapped around the awning wasn't as adorable as expected.  They blinked randomly and it was giving him a headache.

This kinda sucked.

Every kid at his high school had to participate in volunteer activities, school spirit, whatever in order to graduate. Casey put it off all four years. He wasn't exactly a rah rah Viking pride kind of guy. More like a rainbow pride kind of guy. Which maybe was fitting for the holiday? Pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, right?

Well, it didn't fly well at his school. Where student athletes were kings. Every teen guy was hetero and masc, and every girl aspired to marry their high school sweetheart. Idiots and assholes. College was just a sweet four months away though. At a liberal arts school states away, where being gay was nothing to cause anyone to blink their eyes. Or walk on another side of the halls. Or graffiti his locker. Or all the stupid mindless things that happened during the last two years after he'd come out in his conservative community.

All he did was mind his own fucking business. He just went to class. Got moderately decent grades. Went home. Walked his dog. Watched YouTube. Went to bed. Repeat. But he didn't do any sports, despite a rocky attempt at joining the swim team (you actually had to know how to swim, go figure) his freshman year. That was enough to make him get treated like an alien at school.

But having a pride sticker on his phone set off fireworks. Casey was very tired of politely listening to Christian advocates at his school trying to save his soul, and learned soon enough to not bother raising his hand in class anymore. He never got called on. He'd suspect his teachers of giving him bad grades on purpose, except he only did the bare minimum. Casey owned the fact that he'd earned his average scores on every test and paper.

Still, here he was. This was everyone's least favorite job. Serving hot food on hot days to rowdy fans watching hyper competitive high school baseball. But it was the only thing available and his counselor snottily informed him it was this or volunteering during summer school, which would be hell on earth. So with his diploma on the line, he'd decided to just suck it up and do it with a smile on his face. He basically had nothing better to do anyway.