“My plan was to just be the best drum major I could be and hope the band would choose me because they wanted to. Until I heard your dumb plan and had to regroup on the fly!”
“You think better under pressure,” he mutters then releases his death grip on his face. “What was the next plan you hatched?”
I can’t give him the full blueprints to the Death Star. That’s plain stupid and asking for defeat. “When I heard you all arguing about who was the best man for the job to make me lose focus, I just figured I’d play up on your competition and distract all of you.”
“Like a reverse harem?” He wrinkles his nose in disgust.
“How do you know about that?” It’s eerie to hear words he just said to me echoed in my own voice.
“What else were you planning?”
Oh, no way. He thinks he’s going to deflect that? When it’s such powerful ammunition to add to my arsenal? “Do you read romance books, Jimbo?”
He screws his expression into what I’m sure he thinks is further disgust, but this one isn’t as genuine. There are definite cracks in his armor. “I don’t read at all. I’m a playboy. I’m too busy having sex to read. And competing with you in our classes. The only books I read are history, political science, and whatever other crap I have to consume to fulfill my arts part of a liberal arts degree.”
I am definitely shattering my face by grinning so hard now. And I don’t even care. A blooming warmth spreads through my chest because I have never been so eloquently handed this much intel about the enemy on a silver platter before. It’s like the entirety of Interpol risked life and limb to deliver me this. “What’s your favorite trope? It’s obviously not reverse harem.”
“You are getting distracted,” he says emphatically. “Focus, Soph. We need a new plan. You’re right. This one isn’t going to work.”
“Oh, I think it might.” My grin has reached nuclear levels. Right up until meltdown occurs. “Oh, wait. If I spill this information, it’s just going to boost your vote with the ladies. You don’t need any more help in that department.”
He rolls his eyes. “Glad we agree on that front.”
“Seriously. What’s your favorite book of all time? I won’t tell anyone. I promise.” I just can’t let this go. This information is like a drug, and I’m dependent after only one hit.
“What’s yours?” he volleys back.
“I’m not telling you that!” Reading romance novels could easily be seen as wanting to be in touch with women and disavowing toxic masculinity for him. For me? It would be labeled as hysteria for having a sex drive, as women have been tortured with for centuries.
I’ve already had enough of the patriarchy dismissing my sexual voice. Oh, God. I sound like Shannon. She’s rubbing off on me.
“This is pointless,” he scoffs. Right before walking out the door.
Damn. We never did form a new plan.
Chapter Eight
“There’s a new plan?”
If the trumpets were at the front of the room right now, entertaining everyone with their rookies’ efforts to sing the alma mater and fight song, Shannon wouldn’t be asking me this question.
As it is, the clarinet section is providing the theater with dinner tonight, and Shannon noticed Kim throwing me sympathetic glances in between glaring at James on the other side of the dining hall. So, I had to spill the entire sordid fiasco to her in a whisper.
Everyone at our table thinks we’re planning some sort of potentially criminal hazing for the trumpet section tonight.
“Will you calm down already?” Shannon reassures the rookie trumpets surrounding us. “I’m your section leader. It’s my job to make sure you have the best possible experience at your first camp! We’re not talking about anything to do with you!”
“And as one of your drum majors, I would never do anything to invite a lawsuit against the State band. Hazing isn’t something we do here. I promise.”
The baby trumpets look at me like my promises are worth about as much as Jimbo’s to me.
Great. If I can’t get votes from my own section, I’m so screwed.
Shannon elbows me in the side then hisses, “Don’t blatantly lie to them.”
“I’m not,” I whisper back. “The drum majors already had a meeting with the directors. It’s why we’re all sitting with different sections tonight. To pass on the word. Absolutely no hazing is to take place during camp this year, not even the wholesome bonding kind. You know what happened with a couple other bands last season. They don’t want to risk it.”
“Aww, man!” she whines. Loudly. “That was my favorite part of camp as a rookie!”
The entire table stares at us with saucer-plate eyes.
“No hazing in State band,” I emphasize for their benefit. “None. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. If anyone even so much as makes you do push-ups because you don’t remember your drill spots, you immediately come tell me.”
“She gets my vote!”
Shannon shakes her head. “You still have to learn your positions.”
“Crap.”
I want to ask this freshman why he even joined band if he doesn’t like learning drill, but I zip my lips. I need his vote. I need every vote.
“So?” Shannon prompts. “What is it? What’s the new plan?”
I chew on a carrot stick and try to swallow past the lump forming in my throat. “I think the new plan needs to be the old plan. I didn’t tell him everything. Just that I was going to use their plan to distract them by encouraging them to compete over me.”
“So, the new plan is the old plan?”
“Yup.”
“I’m not buying it. He gave you the perfect litmus test today when he dared you to kiss him. You couldn’t even go through with it for pretend. I’m surprised you didn’t have to visit the health center for hives treatment. You can’t make him fall for you, babe. You barely tolerate being in the same zip code as him.”
I thump my head on the table and groan. “I know.”
Applause and a few wolf whistles go up from the band as the clarinets take their bow. I’m running out of time for this little powwow. After dinner, the bandies break into sectionals for music then icebreaker games to ease the rookies into their new band family. We have a leadership meeting with all drum majors, section leaders, and squad leaders after that to go over the new, stricter anti-hazing policies. The directors want us to be their mouthpieces, so there won’t be as much pushback against the tighter leash. Judging by Shannon’s reaction to the news, it’s going to be a long meeting.
“You know what?” Shannon muses. “Maybe we’re thinking about this from the wrong perspective. There’s a fine line between love and hate, right? You could use that to your advantage. Both are passionate and, in your case, somewhat incendiary. Channel those exact same feelings but in a slightly modified way. That could work.”
I lift my head from the dinner table to pin her with my you can’t be serious expression. “That still doesn’t solve the problem of everyone else in band being weirded out if James and I start acting all cutesy-cutesy toward each other. The other drum majors will get the votes then.”