Chapter 1

Dana Partlow wanted to kiss the girls, dammit. She hadn’t kissed a girl for a month, not since she’d moved to Riverton, and it was starting to wear on her. Living in a small-town closet, after years of being out back in Oregon, was harder than expected. Becoming a cheerleader looked almost attractive.

Almost. Dana watched three cheerleaders in uniform walk past as she waited in the cafeteria for the end-of-lunch bell. The short one, Nikki, really was attractive in that get-up—Dana would look like a green-and-gold giant. She wadded up her lunch bag and tossed it into the trash, two tables over. Dana glanced at Tina Herrera and Josh Toussaint, as they bickered over ... well, she hadn’t been listening.

In a pause for a dirty look from Tina, Dana said, “Okay, run me through this again? Drama geeks are all flighty, honors students don’t cheat, goths and gamers don’t date, band geeks are—”

“Insatiable,” Tina supplied.

“That’s one way to put it—” Josh began, but before they could get started again, Dana said, “Whatever. While jocks are date around, and cheerleaders are bisexual.”

“That’s about it,” Josh said.

Dana took a deep breath. All standard stereotypes—except the one she’d never heard before. “So—why are cheerleaders bi?”

Tina glanced around, tucking a lock of dark hair behind her ear. “They just are,” she said. “Everyone knows that.”

“Yes, but why?“

Josh cleared his throat and leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Well, the story is—”

Tina broke in, “Oh, not that again.” She rolled her eyes.

Josh opened his hands. “She hasn’t heard it, okay?”

Tina tched, but looked away. Tina and Josh insisted they weren’t going out, but in the month Dana’d known them, they’d not-broken-up and not-gotten-back-together four times. They were not not-together again, thus Josh’s snippiness and Tina’s tchiness. Dana didn’t understand why they didn’t declare themselves steady and be done with it.

“According to the story,” he said, “these two cheerleaders fell in love, the squad captain and her second. They were outed the day the squad won the state cheering tournament. They were harassed so badly, they committed suicide together. The squad was so shocked by this, they all came out—and they’ve been out ever since.”

“So cheerleaders are gay,” Dana said.

Tina shook her head. “They’re bi.”

“After all,” Josh said, “they all go out with jocks.”

That, at least, was universal. Still, it didn’t make sense—all of them bi? One teenager in ten had been the Gay-Straight Alliance article of faith, back in Portland. Dana tried another lane up the court. “When was this, anyway?”

“Supposedly, about twenty years ago.”

“Except,” Tina said, “Mercedes, my oldest sister, she said it happened twenty years before her time.”

“Ooo-kay,” Dana said. One of Tina’s nephews was a freshman.

Josh grinned—a better expression on him than a scowl. “So I went through the yearbook archive, over fifty years’ worth. It’s never mentioned—and no year had even two cheerleaders die before graduation, let alone together.”

“Then,” Dana made a helpless gesture, “the story explains nothing.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Josh said. “People believe it.”

“Some people,” Tina said. “Some of us just think cheerleaders are weird.”

“This town—” Dana started to say, but the bell interrupted her. Is weird, she was about to say.

Tina looked at her sharply. “What about it?”

Dana shook her head as she stood up. “This town is hard to get used to.”

“We’re just an ordinary western town,” Tina told her.

Ordinary? Dana had never heard of anyone assuming cheerleaders were gay. If anything, the reverse. Hadn’t there been a movie about that?

The girls said bye to Josh and hustled to their lockers—Dana’s was the second one over from Tina, which was how they’d met. And became friends, even though Tina was a senior and Dana a junior. But then, Tina’s circle of friends cut across cliques. It was almost like they had a checklist, with Dana ticking off the jock box. There’d been a couple groups like that, back in Dana’s old school, too. Dana had stuck with the other athletic girls, though—especially the other lesbians. Not an option here.

“Whoa there, chica,” Tina said. “Not everyone has your stilts for legs.”

Dana glanced back—she’d almost lost Tina in the shove of the after-lunch hallway. After years on the basketball court, she was used to weaving through people. “Whoa yourself, girl—I’m not a horse.” Nor was Tina, with that pretty face of hers—not to mention latte-colored skin and full curves. Dana shook her head to clear that thought, and shortened her stride to match her friend’s.

Tina went on, “There’s a hallway speed limit, you know.”

Dana glanced down. Tina was carefully keeping a poker face, and Dana realized Tina was yanking her chain. She pivoted in front of Tina, stopping beside her locker. “Cut that out—I’ve enough trouble keeping track of the real rules.” And she had to understand the local rules, if she was to survive.

With a grin, Tina sighted up her finger at Dana—score. Dana batted it aside, then converted the move to reaching for her locker dial. Tina swerved around Dana to her own locker.

The bisexual cheerleader problem bothered Dana enough, it took two tries to open her locker. She glanced at Tina again. The freshman between them still hadn’t come—time to try a run down the other sideline. She leaned over and asked, “So what happens when someone doesn’t fit in? Like, oh I don’t know—a cheerleader isn’t bi?”

“Does it matter?”

“That’s what I want to know.”

Tina flipped back her hair, a girl shrug. “Probably cast out of the pack, to run howling through the wilderness behind the gym. We’re big on traditions.”

“So who do they date? Other than jocks.”

Tina opened her locker. “Each other. I guess.”

“Which—” Dana stopped. She had an idea. No, an Idea. She didn’t get many of those. Her brain sprinted down-court with it. Without speaking, she picked up her backpack, already loaded with her afternoon books.

“Which?” Tina said.

“Which doesn’t sound like it should count, really,” Dana said slowly.

Tina looked at her oddly. “Well, who else? It’s not like any other girls are gay.”

Dana grinned. “It sounds to me like the squad has a shortage of dates.” The warning bell for next period rang. “Later!”

Dana spent American history running with her Idea, and pre-calculus as well. It would work—she had a need, and so did the cheerleaders. It would work. It had to work. At the start of Spanish, she was still preoccupied, barely listening to Tina’s questions. Only because Señora Garcia called on her early and often on did Dana pay any attention at all.

As Dana and Tina left the classroom, they were met by Josh, coming from French class next door. He walked with them to their lockers. Halfway there, Tina caught Dana’s arm.

“What?”

“Okay, girl,” Tina said, “what is up with you this afternoon? I asked you a question twice and you didn’t even hear me.”

Dana thought quickly. “You know what they say—third time’s the charm.”

Josh snorted. “Seriously, though—what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Dana said. Quite the reverse.

Tina and Josh glanced at each other. Before they could say anything, she gestured them on—to keep moving in the crowded hallway. Besides, her Idea made her too excited to stand still. As they walked, she explained it to them.

“Everyone in Riverton expects cheerleaders to be bi, right? But no one ever sees them date anyone but jocks—guy jocks. So they need to go out with girls—and what better girl than a jock?” She grinned.

But Tina was unimpressed. “But you’re not bi.”

“Exactly,” Dana said with complete sincerity. She reached for her locker dial.

“You’re a jock,” Tina went on. “That means you date around.”

“Even better—I’ll have the entire squad to pick from.” Not that Dana knew who she wanted to ask out. She paused as she opened the door.

Tina had a pained expression. “Are you always this blonde?”

Hey! Dana drew up to her full height. “That depends—are you always this brunette?” Which, okay, was like the weakest comeback since comparisons to sliced bread.