Page 166 of Pride High 2: Orange

“They?” Diego said incredulously. “As in both of them?”

Uh oh. Maybe that was too much to ask. Ricky grimaced and nodded.

“And neither one of them knows that I’ll be there?” Diego pressed.

“Right, because I was worried they’d—"

Diego barked laughter. “Fucking perfect! Omar is going to have a meltdown. And I bet Anthony pisses his pants. Let’s go!”

That was progress. Of a sort. Ricky scurried to get out of the car and catch up with Diego, who tromped across the yard—melting snow and all—to the front door. He pounded on it with the butt of his fist.

“Umm,” Ricky said while squeezing in front of him. “Maybe you should let me do the talking. Okay?”

He turned around to discover that Diego was now leaning against one of the porch pillars with his arms crossed. And he looked really cool while doing so. Ricky would have kept staring if he didn’t hear the door swing open.

“Ricky!” Omar said happily. “Come on in, my—” Omar’s gaze flicked to the left, where Diego stood. “—dude!”

“Be nice to each other,” Ricky said before anyone could get another word out. “I only want to put the past behind us.”

“Yeah, Jafar,” Diego said, detaching himself from the porch. “Let’s settle this.” And with that, he pushed past them.

“Make yourself at home,” Omar grumbled. Then he looked to Ricky for an explanation. “What the hell, man?”

“Please,” he said with a pleading expression.

Not that Omar saw it. He was watching Diego move deeper into the house. “Looks like it’s not a choice.”

Ricky followed them inside.

Diego was glancing around the entryway with a shit-eating grin. “Are your parents home? I want to thank them for kicking my family while we were down.”

“Nobody’s here,” Omar replied, before muttering under his breath, “Thank god.” Louder he said, “What did they ever do to you?”

Diego spun around to face him. “Making us pay for the garage when it burned down? When my freaking dad had just died and my mom was out of work?”

“Hey, the bill was splitthree ways,” Omar retorted. “Which isn’t fair considering only one of us did it.”

“Let’s find out who,” Diego said. “Where’s this tape?”

“Upstairs,” Omar growled before leading the way.

Ricky was beginning to second—if not third—guess himself. He should have told everyone beforehand, so they’d have time to mentally prepare, but he’d worried none of them would have agreed to meet.

They turned down the hall and approached Omar’s bedroom, heavy metal music drifting out the open door. Omar was the first to reach it.

“Guess who’s here?” he said loudly.

Ricky hurried forward, hoping to soften the blow, but it was too late. He walked into the room in time to see Anthony’s shock and confusion, both of which evaporated when he spotted Ricky. That’s when he rolled his eyes, like Diego’s presence was all too obvious. Which is exactly why Ricky was doing this! They literally couldn’t even look at each other without it becoming a big dramatic mess, which was dumb.

“Hope we didn’t interrupt anything,” Diego said when striding into the room. “You guys weren’t banging each other, were you?”

“For your information,” Omar spat, “I have a girlfriend now.”

“And you’re not one to talk,” Anthony added as he stood.

“You mean Ricky and me?” Diego asked, draping an arm around his shoulders. “He never puts out. Even though I’m always asking him to. Does that surprise you, gay boy? I guess you fell in love with the wrong guy. You could have gotten somewhere with me. Not that I was ever interested.”

Anthony’s face turned beet red. He clenched his jaw a few times before shaking his head and moving to the stereo. Off to a great start!