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Bren’s fantasy deflated when her cheery greeting came in a typical Canadian accent instead of the French purr he’d been expecting.

Mrs. Lovell looked around the room with bright eyes, but when she spoke, her tone was serious. “I don’t want to scare any of you off, but I want to stress again that this musical will require quite a bit more commitment than previous ones. There are plenty of ensemble pieces, every line is sung, and there’s frankly more dancing than I know what to do with.”

She turned to Mrs. Dénommée and clasped her hands together like she was praying, and the woman with the misleading name gave her a thumbs up.

“So, if you’re going to bow out, please do it now so we’re not scrambling for replacements later.”

Bren’s stomach churned at the thought of how much he was going to study on top of all this. But Arlo was going to be here six nights a week, so that’s where he’d be too.

“For today, let’s get warmed up and read through the script together. Everyone, please form a circle on stage so we can start a game of Big Booty to warm up.”

A few of the younger students looked as confused as Bren, but they got up anyway.

“What are we doing?”

Arlo’s unfocused gaze stared towards the stage, laying his hands on his legs before bringing them together in an equally soundless clap. He clocked that his boyfriend was staring at him and quietly sang, “Big booty, big booty, big booty.”

Bren looked at Nat, hoping she’d inject some sanity into the situation, but she matched Arlo’s grin and shook her head.

“Uh huh, oh yeah, Big Booty.”

He’d never questioned whether or not he’d always love his weird Canadian lad, but when everyone formed a circle and Mrs. Lovell assigned everyone a number—he got twenty-five—he couldn’t help but wonder if the Canadians didn’t need a ginger to sacrifice to some kind of vengeful beaver god.

“Alright, Big Booty, lead us off,” Mrs. Lovell said. “Oh, and try to avoid the newbies so they can figure out the rules.”

She patted a guy in a Linkin Park T-shirt on the shoulder then stepped away from the circle.

“Big booty, number one,” he said.

“Number one, number ten,” somebody else responded.

They’d sacrifice the hot one first, Bren thought.

“Number ten, big booty.”

Right?

19

“I’m just saying,” A.J said, skirting around a group of oncoming freshmen. “Maybe if you spent less time thinking about your biceps, you’d remember stuff like this.”

He smiled as Bren huffed with indignation when they joined each other on the other side of the gaggle. He hadn’t been expecting anything when he handed over his present before first period, but it was fun to let Bren think he had.

“Workin’ out helps me relax.” Bren popped the last of his jam-jam into his mouth, the tin rattling as he pushed it into his backpack next to his new copy of Halo 3. “You’re the one who’s thinking about my muscles, like.”

He had him there.

Between the morning workouts with Dustin and the hours of conditioning and stretching they’d been put through since rehearsals started, Bren’s shape had changed enough that other people had started to comment. A.J. couldn’t deny that the new six-pack and biceps he had even when relaxed were nice to look at. He wasn’t sure how he was going to manage if Bren went and tagged “jock” onto his existing extrovert mantle, though.

“It’s hard not to when you keep showing off.”

Bren’s grin flickered when A.J. thwacked him in the stomach with the back of his hand.

“Not my fault you’re cute when you ogle.”

A.J. did his best to roll his eyes, but they stopped in their tracks when Bren gave his bicep a flex so his shirtsleeve twitched.

Thank God Canadian schools didn’t bother with uniforms.