~|La Plata High School, September 28th 1996, lunch|~

"Sure, I know Lilly Cantore."
"Dude, isn't she sooooooo hot?"

I shrugged. If you were turned on by mice.

"Paul, she is like…bangin'!"
"Bangin'?" I repeated.
"Bangin'" Jon replied. "You gotta hook me up with her."
"And how am I gonna do that?" I played with the straps on my backpack.
"Well, she takes English with you doesn't she?"
"Yeah, I think so."
"Well just start casually talking about your friend Jon."
"Sure that'll work. Aren't we in high school now? Do we really play junior high games with girls?"
"Dude!"
"You like her, go ask her out and good luck, her brothers are linebackers."
"I'm sure you could get 'em for me."
"Fight your own battles, dude."
"C'mon Paul, you could be a linebacker yourself."

The bell rang, lunch was over.

"Fuck you."
"Aww, c'mon, just talk to her for me will ya?"

I nodded as Jon ran towards woodshop.

"Yeah, okay, whatever."

Mousy or not she was kinda cute. That hair it reached her ass. And she was little, like 5' barely. She was stacked too, that happened after 6th grade, we all entered junior high and Lilly had filled out. My voice hadn't even changed. Her eyes looked like endless pools, I wanted to throw pennies in them and wish that Lilly Cantore would come into my room at night and do naughty things. It was no wonder her brothers roughed up anybody who looked at her. Not that they needed to.

Lilly wasn't exactly a girl. She could fuck you up if you gave her reason. I guess that's what happens when you've got 3 bruisers for brothers. Lilly was definitely no damsel in distress. She could hold her own.

But what in fucks name would make me talk to Lilly about Jonathan Guirity? Was he out of his mind? First of all Lilly has better things to do than to listen to me talk about my great friend. She'll probably think I was a homo and then call me one out loud. Second, Jon wasn't a "great" guy and Lilly could do much better.

And most importantly, she was dating Matt McEvoy.

"Matt hold my hand." I ordered. He forgot all the time.
"Sorry." He took his eyes off the football players and turned his attention to me.
"Look, I know they look good, but don't forget me alright?" I grinned.

Matt laughed and a layer of dark brown hair fell over his dark blue eyes. We had staked out our usual spot on the grass.

"Sorry, Lil. So, what are you gonna do today?"
"What do you mean?" but I knew exactly.
"English!"
"I dunno." I looked away.
"Lilly!" he fought with me to look in my eyes and I kept turning away.

Finally I looked at him, into his passionately concerned eyes. Brooding eyebrows, perfect jaw, pouty lips. Matt was beautiful. It was too bad he was gay.

"Paul's in your class Lilly."
"Duh, I know."
"Look, Lil, it's not like you don't already know the guy. Just start talking to him. and I don't mean sharing notes!" Matt took a tone and turned to lie on his back. he looked up at me, upside-down "It's not like you to be shy."
"I know, but it's…it's Paul. We used to play fort in his backyard. Were like…brothers."
"We're like sisters and we're 'going steady'!" Matt grinned and I stuck my tongue out.
"But that's just a decoy, it's not like we make out."
"Well do you want to."
"God no! Matt!"
"Hey, what if it turns out I'm not gay."
"Hey!" I scolded. "You promised me you'd come out before you were a senior."
"I know."
"I'm covering for you as long as your not ready to come clean."
"And you wouldn't be trying protect yourself from actually dealing with your feelings for Paul?"
"I don't have 'feelings.'" Matt stared at me. "I have desires."

The bell rang interrupting my recurring fantasy of Paul walking over and asking me to walk to class with him. I saw him talking with Dumbass Guirity across the lawn. I scooped up my books and went towards class. Paul passed and I thought I saw the corners of his mouth lift a tiny bit.

Bite the bullet Lilly! I ran a little to catch up with him.

"Paul!"

Did she have "I know you were thinking about me" RADAR? Maybe she caught me smile.

"Hey, Lilly." I waved awkwardly. Why did I wave?
"Uh, hey." She grinned, making her even more mousy. "That weekend homework was a drag huh?"
"Wouldn't know." I opened the door to our English class and let Lilly walk in first. "I had band practice."
"That's right your band." Lilly nodded.
"Uh huh…" I looked up at the ceiling. "How's Matt?"
"Good. He's good. Really good."
"That's good."

Lilly nodded, I just stood there like a moron next to her a few seconds.

"I'm just gonna, um, sit now." Lilly smiled.
"Yeah." I took the hint and went to the back of the class to find a seat.

I felt like such a dumbass. Lilly had never been hard to talk to. We'd see each other in the hall and she'd wave, I'd wave, maybe a "hey" it was no big deal. It had never been a big deal and all of a sudden it was a big deal.

The seats in the back were all taken and I ended up in front of Lilly. It was awesome, no really it was, I'm not being sarcastic at all. I was in full view of the teacher and I was probably blocking Lilly's view.

"Lilly?" I turned around. "You wanna…"
"Mister Thomas I'm sure miss Cantore is extremely entertaining to you, but this is English not high school dating 1."

God, he's so……stupid. He knows he's gonna get detention again for not doing his homework. He didn't care, as long as he could still be in his band. But that's Paul Thomas for you, bad-ass son of a cop. I think that's the only thing that kept him from being arrested.

I sighed and rested my face on my chin. He was really cute. I mean so what if he was chubby. I thought he was adorable. With that mischievous little grin and playful eyes. Yum. The more I thought about him the more I wished I could do naughty things with him in the dark and the more it felt hot between my legs.

"Lilly? Homework?" Paul was talking to me.
"Hmmm." I had my eyes closed.
"Your homework, Lilly, pass it up."
"Oh, right." I pulled out my neat paper from last night. I erased my name quickly and wrote Paul Thomas in a writing I imagined his would look like.

When he took my paper he must not have noticed. I frowned, do something nice for the guy and he doesn't even see it. the class brown noser, Ethan, took the pile up to Mr. Falkner. Ethan grinned at me. 'Yeah, I'm not interested mouth breather!' That dude has asked me out way too many times. He thinks I like him cause sometimes we write articles together for the paper and because once I told him he smelled good. Get off my back!

Class went on. We were reading The Old Man and the Sea. If it were The Old Man and the Sea of Chocolate, that would have raised my interest, but I can't relate to an old man in the middle of the ocean waiting to reel in the "big one". I spent the whole period staring at the back of Paul's head. He had cute little hairs on his neck.

The bell rang.

"Miss Cantore, Mister Thomas can I see you a moment?" Mr. falkner called.

What? Why? Paul and I met him at the large desk at the head of the room.

"So?" Mr. Falkner started. "Thought you could pull a fast one, eh, Mr. Thomas?"
"What?"
"I know that this is Lilly's work." He held up my homework.

Paul glared at me.

"Why did you erase her name and put in yours?"
"I didn't Mr. F, I swear, I didn't do my homework. I was at band practice and they wrote this new song and we had to work on it…"
"Enough excuses, it's obvious you tried to pass Lilly's work off as your own."
"Mr. Falkner." I began.
"Buhp, buhp, Miss Cantore. You don't need to defend this scalawag."
"But Mr…"
"Lilly, please."
"I wrote Paul's name on it." I looked at my feet.
Paul looked at me incredulously. "Why would you do that?"
"Because I knew you didn't have it, AGAIN. I just didn't want you in trouble. I thought I was doing you a favor."
"Some favor." Paul muttered.
"Well then, detention. For both of you."
"What?" Paul's mouth dropped.
"Mr. Falkner?" I protested.
"Class is dismissed, both of you head to class before you're late."

Mr. Falkner shooed us out of the classroom.

"Nice job there Lil, get us both in hot water."
"I'm sorry Paul, I…"
"Whatever." He headed off in the direction of math, I went on to biology.

What was wrong with her? Why did she do that? Lilly wasn't really miss academic, but she did pretty good. She had no business helping a dumb ass like me. I mean she's one of the ones who'll like move to DC or Annapolis and like manage something. Or maybe a writer. I don't really know much about it being good or bad, but I liked her articles in the school paper. They were always funny, like her expose on Principal Fishman's plan to turn us into factory drones or the article titled the lunch ladies secrets of beauty.

She was a little bit of a trouble maker though. She regularly got into fights with the school's resident vegetarians. She switched all their garden burgers with real beef one memorable afternoon this past March. I wouldn't mind so much seeing as eating meat came as naturally to me as drinking water, but one of those little veggies was my good friend Billy Martin. He was devastated to find out he'd eaten a cow. I mean DEVASTATED.

Still Lilly was the type to stir up controversy, Susan B. Anthony style, not petty cheater crimes. What was up with her?