#SamGabeHSAU --

His big question answered, Sam goes on to get the rest of them answered. Next up on the list is the Breakfast Club - Sarah, Jess, and Maddy - all of whom he corners at once on the deck out behind the cafeteria, where kids sit on good days.

He plunks himself down in front of them and sits Indian-style, which is awkward enough when you're normal-sized. Sam looks like he's attempting to impersonate a pretzel. "So I'm here to listen," he says.

Jess keeps a lid on the other girls' tendency to erupt in giggles at the slightest provocation. "Listen to what?" she asks.

"Whatever you have to tell me. Whatever I've been missing lately."

Sarah looks at Jess. "Now I think I'm missing something."

"Why did you guys laugh the other day?" Sam asks. "When I asked you about whether girls know. You know." He gives a halfhearted wave of the hand that doesn't have any meaning beyond I-don't-wanna-say-it-out-loud.

"Because it was a weird question," Sarah says. "Because you're weird for asking."

"Why am I weird?" Sam wants to get defensive, but Jess has her finger on his pulse as well. She calms him down with a glance.

Of the three, Madison talks the least, but when she does it's usually incredibly insightful. "Because you ought to have the best-functioning gaydar of all of us," she says, and then her mouth shuts and it's clear she won't have anything more to say today.

Sam wrinkles his nose. "What? Why?"

Sarah tries to restrain her giggles.

"Sam." Jess says. "We've been dancing around this ever since you and I went out, so someone's got to just say it to you. We're pretty sure you like Gabriel."

"Gabr--" Sam's voice won't allow him to finish the word. He starts again. "Of course I like him, he's my best friend!" His voice squeaks. "Just because you guys think he's--"

Sarah hides her face in Jess's shoulder to avoid laughing her ass off. Jess frowns at him sternly. "Listen," she reminds him.

Sam stills. He runs over the whole conversation in his head. And when he gets to that last line, he strips away the assumption in his head that it's some sort of dig at Gabriel, or swipe at their friendship, and...

"Oh." He's round-eyed, twitchy, like an owl.

"Why do you think I broke up with you?" Jess says. "You weren't that into me, Sam. You think I was gonna sit there and take that?"

Sam doesn't really know what to do with this new information. He thinks he might be relieved a little bit, annoyed a little bit, but most of all he thinks he might feel like the dumbest sap on earth. He is the last person to figure it out.

"So you guys all knew?" He looks at them each in turn.

"Is it true, then?" Sarah can't hold back her curiosity any longer. "Do you like him like that?"

Sam should be surprised by how quickly the "yeah" comes out of his mouth. He's certainly surprised to hear it. He repeats himself, just to confirm it. "Yeah, I think I do."

Sarah's mouth is twitching. Jess just nods. Madison gives a soft smirk and goes back to the book she was reading. Sam looks at the three of them and gives a goofy smile himself. He's just done something irreversible. He should feel like his world is shifting, like everything's about to go mad. But he doesn't. It isn't. And that's got to be the biggest surprise so far.

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