Boy Disease

It was so laughably cliché that Chad could barely believe it was even happening. And yet Zeke still wouldn't shut the hell up.

"Did you know she kisses like," a dreamy look crossed his face and rubbed his hands over his jersey. "Like she's on fire. She's just wild." He laughed, "She's a wildcat."

Chad's eyebrows narrowed and he gave Zeke a pained expression, worrying that it truly was hopeless for his poor friend.

Troy chuckled and tugged his jersey off and over his head. "Anything for school spirit?"

Jason tilted his head. "Kissing Zeke is school spirit?"

"Gah!" Chad smacked his hand on his face and scrubbed his eyes. "I'm never going to be able to do the team chant. Ever. Again. Ugh."

Shirtless, Zeke put his hands on his hands on his hips. "And what's wrong with me?"

"Yeah," Troy smirked and pulled on his t-shirt. "What's wrong with Zeke?"

"Not. My type. Soooo not my type," Chad answered, then pointed accusingly. "Besides, the man is disgustingly in love with Miss Evans," he spat.

"Oh! Did you know her hair smells like vanilla? And her lips taste like brown sugar and caramel. And-"

"Enough already about the Ice Princess!" Chad turned back to his locker and seriously contemplated banging his head on it.

Zeke practically cackled. "Oh, she ain't no Ice Princess."

"Really?" Jason asked after pulling off his shoes. "Have you done... stuff?"

"Dude!" Chad thwacked Jason on the shoulder. "What are you doing?"

Confused, Jason looked over at a snickering Troy.

"Since when are you a prude?" the team captain laughed.

"I'm not! But if I have to hear again about Sharpay blowing him, I'm gonna heave my dinner before we even have it."

Jason's head snapped toward Zeke. "She gave you a blowjob!? How? When? Was it good?"

Chad groaned and again slapped his hand on his face. "Shit."

Zeke turned to Jason excitedly. "Yeah, man, it was awesome. And I got to blow her, too," he grinned, sticking out his tongue.

Shuddering, Chad made a move to go smack some sense into Zeke, but Troy intercepted him and, sort of, changed the subject. "Gabriella and I have only kissed. Her mom kept walking in when we watched movies at her house last weekend. Or dad would yell at me every few minutes when she came over to my house the week before that."

Chad huffed and figured Gabriella was some sort of improvement over Sharpay.

"Hmm," Jason said, actually looking thoughtful. "Kels and I have gone to second base," he smiled at first, but then stopped and looked confused. "Wait, that's groping, right?"

Chad rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but, no more talk about bases either."

"You have a problem with baseball, now?" Troy looked at him strangely, then quickly said, "No, wait. We were talking about Jason."

Jason looked around at his teammates. "I don't have anything else. Me and Kelsi haven't done much."

"What about you, Chad?" Zeke grinned expectantly. "How far have you gone with Taylor?"

Chad thought, then guessed that is where he went wrong because he had no idea how to answer. He hadn't kissed Taylor. He hadn't done anything with Taylor other than share food. And they had talked, but that wasn't something to brag about.

Should he make something up? Should he tell them the truth? That not only had they gotten nowhere, but that he hadn't even really thought about trying to?

As soon as Chad realized this, he was terrified. What the hell did that say about him? That he had the hottest girl in school and he hadn't even tried to kiss her? In, like, the ten months that they'd been together? Something must be seriously, seriously wrong with him.

Fortunately for him, Troy stepped in. "I think you've traumatized him too much for any disclosure."

The boys laughed and finished changing back into their street clothes.

Chad faced his locker and irritably shoved his things into his backpack. It couldn't be right. He had to have thought about it at some point at least. Taylor was totally hot. Of course he'd wanted to kiss her. And do things to her.

Except Chad couldn't think of when, exactly, those thoughts had actually taken place.

But that wasn't the point. The point was Taylor was hot and they were long overdue for some kind of action. After all, being shown up by the immaculate wonder that was Troy was just embarrassing.

Monday morning, Taylor was typing in the computer lab, and Chad stared through the door window, trying to figure out the best way to go about this. Shaking his hair, he strolled through the door and perched enticingly on the desk beside her keyboard.

She rolled her eyes but smiled. "Hi."

"Hey," he grinned. "We should make out."

She turned toward him, both eyebrows raised. "Excuse me?"

He frowned a little, no longer feeling sure of himself. "You don't think?"

Sighing disapprovingly, she looked back at her computer screen.

He thought for a moment and tried again, "Wanna see a movie?"

"So we can 'make out' in the dark theater?" she laughed.

Chad's frown deepened, but he figured at least she was amused.

Finishing her paper, she picked up her books and titled her head toward him. "Why are you so gung-ho all of a sudden?"

"It's not all of a sudden!" he snipped, more annoyed than he intended.

"You've never asked before. In fact, you haven't even kissed me."

"Well. So! That doesn't mean anything!"

"Chad," she soothed and placed a hand on his knee. "That's not a bad thing. I appreciate that you haven't tried anything when we're not ready."

Biting his lip, Chad slouched a little and wondered why he felt so guilty. He shouldn't feel guilty. He didn't do anything, though he wondered if he should feel more disappointed. "So, we're not ready?"

She shrugged. "Do you want to kiss me?"

He shifted uncomfortably, worried it was a trick question. "Yes?"

Smiling, she rolled her eyes. "All right, then we can try it."

He looked around, suddenly nervous. "Now?"

"No," she laughed. "Not at school. But do you want to have lunch together?"

His brow furrowed. "Like we always do?"

"No. Not with everyone. Just us."

"Ok," Chad grinned. He could totally handle this, now. They just hadn't spent enough time alone together. That was the only problem and it must be why they hadn't gotten anywhere. Confidence restored, he proudly strode off to class.

Dragging his heels on the way to history, Chad stopped off at his locker, scarffed a bag of chips from his lunch, and slowly switched the books in his backpack for the ones he'd need the rest of the day. Though it probably wasn't the best idea to be late, Chad didn't want to spend any more time than necessary with the new history teacher. He was beginning to think that the guy was actually worse than Ms. Darbus. However, arriving late might also get Chad a detention with him, so he quickly slammed his locker and ran down the hallway and around the corner.

Of course, he should've realized that he'd crash into someone. It was the laws of physics or something else Taylor liked to blab about. Out of instinct, he reached for the other person, catching them before they fell. He grinned when he realized who had gripped him back. "Hey, Evans."

Ryan blinked a few times, then smiled. "Hey."

"Sorry about that."

Ryan shook his head, glancing around the hallway. "No, that's ok."

Realizing he was still holding onto Ryan's waist, Chad pulled away, then decided he should make sure Ryan could stand, then figured that was dumb, but reluctantly let go anyway. He inclined his head toward history class. "Walk with me?" he asked, feeling beyond stupid the minute the words were out of his mouth.

Ryan looked around again, then said slowly, "No. Um."

Chad raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not going to history," Ryan said quietly.

"Oh, skipping are we?" Chad smirked, immediately wondering how he could avoid class and go with Ryan.

"Shar's developed an aversion to the cafeteria food. She asked me to go get her lunch."

Chad scoffed incredulously. "And you're going to?"

"It's either that or class," Ryan winked. "She would've gone herself, but she's meeting with Darbus now and can't skip out on that. And she'd rather someone do it for her, you know? So." He started off in the opposite direction, but stopped and turned. "You wanna come with me?" he asked, looking so unbelievably hopeful Chad would've said yes even if he didn't hate history class. "I'll buy you lunch," Ryan smirked, biting his lip.

"Dude," Chad grinned ridiculously and bounded toward the other boy. "You don't have to ask twice."