Chapter Text
Chad invites Ryan to hang out after school and they don’t do much other than drive around in Chad’s car he bought just before school started. Ryan agreed and didn’t really care that they didn’t do anything more than that. Instead, he admired the way Chad’s curls blew in the wind because Chad insisted on rolling all the windows down, and the way Chad’s thumb tapped on the steering wheel in tune to the song playing on the radio. His favorite part of it all though was when a song Chad insisted was his favorite came on and he turned it up real loud and sang it all obnoxious and annoying, but it didn’t actually bother Ryan. It would’ve killed Sharpay, but he wasn’t his sister.
“Dude!” Ryan laughs out, covering his ears more jokingly than anything remotely serious.
“Shut up!” Chad grins. Ryan rolls his eyes. Once the song is over Chad turns it down again. He briefly looks over to Ryan, smiling softly. “You want ice cream?”
“Sure.” Ryan smiles back.
“Good.”
When they’re at the ice cream shop, one of the girls at the counter is very obviously flirting with Chad and Chad is letting her. He’s more than letting her, he’s almost flirting back which sends an uneasy feeling to Ryan’s stomach. Chad flashes his charming smile and nicely asks for two soft serve swirls in cones and grins wider when he takes them saying thank you. When he goes to pay the girl smirks at him and says something softly that earns an even bigger smile from Chad. Ryan doesn’t listen to the rest, but he watches Chad put her phone number in his pocket.
“You wanna sit in the trunk?” Chad smirks.
“Okay.”
“Come on.” He smiles widely. When they are both sat there Chad mumbles something.
“Huh?”
“I knew she was going to flirt with me.” He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t know what kind of flirting she was doing so I went with it, she gave me an employee discount.”
“Did you seriously trick her into giving you a discount?”
“Yeah.” Chad laughs.
“Oh my god.” Ryan laughs back, shaking his head. “You’re an asshole.”
“Yeah, but who really cares.”
“I think some people would probably care a lot actually.”
“Yeah, but you don’t and that’s all that really matters.” He smiles.
“Whatever.” He rolls his eyes, smiling nonetheless. As they eat, in mostly silence, the wind starts to pick up a little and it causes Ryan to shiver slightly.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Just a little chilly. I’m fine.”
“You want to wear my letterman? At least while we’re still eating.”
“Uh… o-okay.”
“Here.” He turns, grabbing it and then handing it to him, smiling softly. Ryan sorta struggles to unfold it and put it on with one hand, so Chad uses his free hand to help Ryan get it on. When it’s on he sorta stares at Ryan for a while. Ryan should be caught off guard, but this is happening way more frequently the more they hang out. However, Chad moves his foot so their ankles are hooked together and that catches Ryan off guard. “You okay?”
“Mhm.” He says, quickly going back to his ice cream, not realizing he had stopped eating it.
The next day at school Chad walks up to Ryan’s locker, catching him off guard slightly.
“Oh! I have your jacket, here.” Ryan says, pulling the jacket out of his locker.
“You don’t want it?”
“What? You need it don’t you?”
“Well… yeah, but not right now. And you look better in it than I do, so….” He smiles.
“O-oh…”
“Yeah, um. I-I’ll take it if you don’t want it, but I wouldn’t care if you held onto it for a little.”
“Okay.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Cool.” He smiles. “Did you want to come over today?”
“Aren’t you going to Troy’s?”
“Oh yeah… it’s fine he missed Saturday. Make it even.”
“Okay.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, sure.” Ryan smiles.
“Cool.”
“Ryan.” Sharpay says, arms crossed when he closes his locker, Chad’s jacket in hand.
“Yes?”
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Well… I was going to go to Chad’s…”
“Ry, I told you to be careful.”
“I know, and I am being careful.”
“You spend a lot of time with him now.”
“Yeah, because we’re friends. I like spending time with him. It’s nice.”
“I get that, but… Ry, I see how you look at him, I just-“
“I’m fine, Sharpay. I know how to ignore my feelings, I’ve done it before and I’ll probably do it again. I don’t need your help.”
“I’m sorry. I was just trying to help, but you’re right.”
“Thank you.” Ryan sighs.
“You gonna tell me how you ended up with that, now?” She points to Chad’s jacket.
“We got ice cream last night and it was cold. He let me borrow it and when I tried to give it back he said to just hold onto it.”
“Weird.”
“Yeah.” He says, looking at the jacket then looking back up, seeing Chad walking towards them. “Um… I gotta go.” Ryan says, head tilting in Chad’s direction. Sharpay turns and looks at Chad before looking back at Ryan. “Hey.” Ryan grins.
“Hey, Ry.” Chad grins back.
“Have fun.” She says, gently squeezing Ryan’s shoulder.
“We will. Well… I know I will, I don’t know about you though.” Ryan smirks at Chad.
“We’re going to my house, and you’ll be there, obviously I’ll have at least a little fun.” Chad smiles. Ryan rolls his eyes, smiling nonetheless.
Sharpay watches them walk away and she can’t help but wonder. She sees how Ryan talks about and looks at Chad and she can almost see the same from Chad. Almost.
“Yeah, my mom is totally obsessed with musicals.”
“I can’t believe you haven’t told me that before.” Ryan smirks, standing awkwardly in the middle of Chad’s room.
“You can sit.” Chad says, pointing to his bed. His very neatly made bed.
“Okay.” Ryan says, slowly sitting down on the bed, still looking around awkwardly before Chad sits next to him.
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know.” Ryan says, looking into Chad’s eyes. Chad smiles, eyes wandering all over Ryan’s face.
“Can I tell you something?”
“Okay.”
“Um… Troy didn’t miss Saturday. I did.”
“Oh.”
“I lied because I wanted you to come over. I was worried if I didn’t you’d say something all sweet like ‘it’s okay, we can hang out some other time, I know playing with the guys is important to you’ or something like that but I didn’t want you to. I wanted to be here with you. Troy’s been blowing up my phone like crazy.” He says, pulling out his phone and angling it so Ryan can see.
‘Dude, wru?’
‘Chad’
‘How are we supposed to do 2v2 with 3 ppl?’
‘Why have you been so out of it lately??’
‘Whatever. Got coach to play. You’re missing out.’
“Chad…”
“Before you say anything, I promise that I don’t care. This isn’t practice, we just do it for fun. It’s fun sometimes, but I’d rather be here with you. I want to spend time with you before you have rehearsals and I have actual practice.”
“I mean… you could join the musical. We’d be able to spend plenty of time together.” Ryan smirks.
“Yeah, no. You got me to dance once I’m not doing it again.” Chad laughs.
“Yeah, but we got an award out of it…”
“That’s not gonna convince me.”
“That’s a shame. You were a really good dancer.”
“Shut up.” Chad says, gently pushing into his shoulder.
“I’m serious! You were actually really good.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Ryan smiles. Chad’s phone lights up again so he picks it up. This time it’s from Zeke.
‘Where have you been?’
‘Troy’s been out of it since you’ve stopped showing up, you guys good?’ Chad sighs and texts back.
‘We’re fine, I’m just busy.’
‘Busy with…’
‘Busy.’ He sighs again.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Ryan smiles. Chad falls back, laying on his bed, looking at the ceiling. “You okay?”
“Mhm.” He smiles, gently pulling Ryan down next to him by his shoulder.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” He smiles, taking Ryan’s hat off and tossing it to the side.
“Hey!” Ryan says with no real care behind it. Chad’s hand moves up to Ryan’s hair, brushing it off his forehead. It takes a few tries to actually get it off, so his brows furrow slightly from focus. When he’s finally content his face relaxes again and he looks at the ceiling again for a moment.
“Ry?”
“Yeah?”
“I like hanging out with you.”
“I like hanging out with you too.” He smiles softly. Chad turns to him again, meeting Ryan’s eyes. He looks down at where Ryan’s hands are fiddling with each other on Ryan’s stomach and gently pulls one away, linking it with his own. Ryan watches as their fingers intertwine, and he can feel his heart pounding. Chad gently rubs his thumb along Ryan’s, still contently watching. He pauses when he looks back up at Ryan and his eyes drop to Ryan’s lips. He turns on his side and uses his free hand to cup Ryan’s cheek, looking for any sign of discomfort and when he doesn’t find one he gently pushes into Ryan’s lips. Ryan’s eyes stay open longer than he thinks they probably should and when he realizes they're still open he quickly shuts them. He gently pushes into the kiss. When they pull away it’s Chad who does it, but he does it slowly and only enough that they can breathe again. He smiles softly to Ryan, pecking his nose. Ryan smiles back, pushing their foreheads together.
“Ry?”
“Hmm?”
“Will you go out with me?”
“I think we already have been…” Ryan smiles.
“Right. Will you be my boyfriend who I go out with?”
“Yeah, that’s probably more fitting.” Ryan smiles, earning another gentle kiss from Chad.
“Good.” Chad says when they pull away again.
“Sharpay was telling me to be careful around you earlier. She said I was falling for you and needed to be careful.”
“Yeah, I don’t think you were too careful.”
“Eh, it was totally worth it though.”
“Oh, definitely.” He laughs, pecking Ryan’s cheek.
They spent most of the night just like that, gentle touches and gentle kisses and they couldn’t be happier.