Chapter Ten
Twenty-seven days till the show
Dylan first met Vicky at the open auditions for the Rhodes Playhouse summer production of Our Town, the year before Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. It was a fresh May morning and the line stretched all the way up Myrtle Street, ending outside the charming kids’ bookstore, Once Upon a Time.
Dylan was by the theater’s front entrance, one of the first ones dropped off, partly because their mom wanted to get to a step aerobics class in Hudson, and partly because Dylan preferred to read alone than endure Celine and her barely veiled criticisms.
The theater world intrigued Dylan. It was a chance to unzip the girl suit and try on something else.
“Mind if I cut in?” were the first words Vicky Fang ever spoke to Dylan.
Dylan looked up from The Bell Jar to see a breathless girl assessing them with sharp eyes. Dylan recognized her instantly—junior, queen bee, intimidatingly polished.
“Uh, sure…” Dylan had replied, but it wasn’t really a question, as Vicky was already doing it.
Dylan watched, mesmerized, as Vicky pulled out a lip gloss and compact mirror, applying with the precision of someone who expected to be looked at.
Dylan didn’t wear makeup—it made them feel like a circus clown and as comfortable as the dresses and long hair their mother insisted on.
But there was something hypnotic, even addicting, about watching Vicky Fang dab her pillowy lips with the sticky glaze.
Another puzzle piece sliding into place.
Dylan didn’t like wearing makeup but they liked that Vicky wore it. They liked it a lot.
Vicky caught them staring and snapped the mirror shut. “What?”
Dylan backed up. They tried to speak without showing their braces. “Nothing.”
Vicky fluffed her hair, which was moonless black with the slightest wave. “How do I look?”
Dylan couldn’t say what they really thought: Terrifying and hot and like I would let you kidnap me if it meant we could spend a little time together. “Good,” they said. “But you have…” They gestured at Vicky’s mouth. A stray smudge of gloss.
Vicky frowned. “I have…?”
Dylan surprised them both by reaching up, gently wiping the gloss from the corner of Vicky’s mouth. The feeling of touching a pretty girl like this quickened Dylan’s breath, making them even more sure of something they’d long suspected: that they liked girls, and not in the way other girls did.
There were a lot of ways in which Dylan didn’t feel like other girls at all.
Dylan’s gaze flickered to Vicky’s, holding it for a heartbeat. Vicky stared back with a mix of defiance and something less certain. As if they both shared a secret. Vicky’s hot gaze throbbed throughout Dylan, intoxicating their bloodstream and making them light-headed.
Then Vicky stepped back, and Dylan remembered where they were. Open auditions in a small town. Caution cooled the heat under their skin. Whatever had just happened, Dylan suspected their mother would think it was wrong, even if it felt very, very right.
“Thanks,” Vicky said briskly, opening her bag. “Good luck in there.”
Jazz had thrown open the playhouse doors, greeting the line of hopefuls with a lusty, “Good morning, thespians!” The theater’s artistic director wore a matching set patterned with pop art-style speech bubbles in bright primary colors. Her glasses were shaped like two giant stars.
“I go to your school.” Dylan spoke in a rush.
“Radical,” Vicky tossed off, not looking back.
That summer, Dylan didn’t get cast. Nor did Annie. But Vicky did. And Lola, who played Emily Webb.
Over the next year, Dylan started saying hello to Vicky when they passed each other in the corridors of Riverstone Prep.
Vicky was in the group understood as the popular girls: pretty teenagers who tweezed their eyebrows into twigs and treated those beneath them with gentle disdain.
Vicky only returned Dylan’s hellos if she wasn’t with her pride of lionesses.
Vicky didn’t seem to have a steady boyfriend like some of the other girls, but their school was co-ed, and plenty of boys displayed their interest by roughhousing in front of her.
Dylan saw Chip Chadwick, the towheaded football star, crush a Coke can to his forehead in an attempt to impress Vicky.
Dylan began referring to him as “Chimp,” describing his behavior as zoo-like to their mother.
“Boys will be boys,” Celine had chuckled in response.
The next year, Dylan was once again front of the line at the open auditions for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Once again, Vicky was pushing her luck.
“Hey!” Vicky’s greeting was a pant. “Mind if I cut in?”
Dylan looked up from Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. They smiled at Vicky, but unlike before, the smile had an edge. Dylan was trying something new. Guts. “Yes, I do. So no, you can’t.”
“Please?” Vicky tossed her hair back and tried an even bigger smile. “There are so many people here.”
It was fun, seeing her beg. “People who got here on time.”
Vicky huffed. “I’m cutting in.”
They stood nose-to-nose. Dylan had two inches on her. “No,” Dylan said calmly, “you’re not.”
Anger and delight sprang onto Vicky’s face. Her hands balled into fists even as her gaze flashed to Dylan’s lips, before slicing back up. “People are watching.”
Dylan smiled, unfazed. “Radical.”
That summer, all four of them—Vicky, Dylan, Annie, Lola—were cast, quickly becoming inseparable. But after Vicky rejected Dylan at the closing night after-party, they’d never spoken again.
Until now.
· · ·
The next morning, Sunday, Dylan awoke in Jazz’s guest bedroom on the second floor feeling hot and bothered. Not just because it was already sweltering and Jazz did not have central air. Because right across the hall from them, in the exact same queen bed as Dylan had, lay one Victoria Mei Fang.
How had this happened?
Oh, that’s right. Dylan had made it happen. Dylan had returned to Rhodes. Dylan had opted in.
Scooting up a little, Dylan surveyed their bedroom for the next month. Colorful, whimsical, and a little slapdash. The comforter was royal purple, trimmed in black lace. The largest framed poster read Buy Weed from Women! French doors opened to a balconette overlooking the green gulp of the garden.
Dylan fell back against the pillow, trying to summon the momentum to get out of this very comfortable bed.
Years of therapy and self-growth had helped Dylan develop perspective and self-protection. Rolling into Rhodes on that first afternoon, Dylan had felt good—Dylan had felt in control. But Dylan had not adequately accounted for the extended impact of Vicky Fang.
What’d she called them last night at the diner? A fuck boy? It wasn’t true—not really—but Dylan was thrilled at the misconception. Fuck boys were sexually in-demand scoundrels with massive dicks. Dylan did not hate that Vicky thought that about them.
Their teen obsession was a woman now. A woman with full breasts and a round ass. A sharp, hot tongue. Closing their eyes, Dylan relaxed, imagining that tongue pressed against various parts of their body. Licking. Sucking. Taking orders. Obeying.
Dylan reminded themself they should definitely not be masturbating to Vicky—again.
Vicky had long been an investment in Dylan’s spank bank but fantasizing about her here, now, was probably a bad idea.
But not bad enough to stop Dylan from reaching inside their boxer briefs.
Jesus, they were already wet. This would take seconds, not minutes.
Dylan should not be imagining Vicky, naked on her hands and knees, begging for it.
Dylan should not be imagining grabbing a fistful of Vicky’s tit as they fucked, squeezing a dark brown nipple until Vicky cried out, her glossy red lipstick smeared and messy.
Dylan should not be imagining reaching a climax with Vicky, about to come together, sweaty and delirious and—
Someone banged on their bedroom door. “Hey!”
Dylan landed back in reality with a gasp, then a groan. So close. They were panting, and sweating, and so close.
“Rogers!” Outside the bedroom door, Vicky knocked again. “You in here?”
“Just a sec!” Dylan threw the sweat-soaked sheet aside, feeling half-deranged with unmet need as they stumbled over the fuchsia-pink carpet to yank open the door. “What?”
Vicky swayed back in alarm. She was dressed in blue-striped seersucker shorts and a cropped white tank showing off a sliver of olive skin. Her eyeliner was flawless. Her lips were, distressingly, sticky with gloss. “Lola and I are ready. You’re…not dressed.”
Her gaze slid to Dylan’s loose black tank and TomboyX boxers. Vicky’s eyes pulsed wide. She sucked in her lower lip.
Dylan didn’t typically answer the door in something you could basically see their nipples in, but they were too flustered to care. They swiped hair out of their eyes, trying to focus. “Okay, okay, I’ll just jump in the shower.” A very, very cold shower.
Vicky clucked in annoyance. “We don’t have time for—”
“I need a shower! I’ll ride with Jazz!” Dylan said hotly, shutting the door in Vicky’s face.
· · ·
Twenty minutes later, Jazz’s Mustang lingered at a stop sign.
Definitely best to ride with Jazz in her ancient convertible, even if she did drive at approximately ten miles per hour and stopped for a full ten seconds at every stop sign.
Today, their director was dressed in a flowy, emerald-green jumpsuit.
The top part was emblazoned with the words Drama Queen in the same bright pink as her oversize glasses.
Sweat pooled under Dylan’s thighs as the sun beat down. High summer.
Hot & Sweaty. The words dropped into their brain like a surprise gift. Hot & Sweaty captured something about not just summer, but this summer: the tension, the playfulness, the heat. The salt of sweat on skin, the pop of nerves seeing a crush, the sticky sweetness of a kiss…
Having developed dozens of unique, story-driven flavors in the three years Marlowe had been operating, Dylan knew an idea when they had it.