22 Letters✓

Chapter 1: The Bet

"Come on Leon, it's your turn." Matthew rolled his eyes at me.

Coming to Matt's get together was a wrong idea. Letting myself play videogames with them was even worse.

And taking bets was not expected.

But I had no choice. Nathan was there, and I needed to impress him. Matter of fact, I needed a chance to talk to him.

Nathan Daniels is everybody's dream guy. Blonde hair, green eyes and a jawline that can cut through diamond, he is definitely good eye candy.

Not to mention him being a great athlete.

Nathan lifts his eyes up at me, his interest peaked. "Go ahead, Leon. It is your turn anyways." He shrugged, leaning back in his chair.

"Okay," I sighed, running a hand through my soft brown hair.

"Alright, I'm going to make a bet with you, Leon." Derek's dark eyes settled on me, making my stomach churn.

"What is it? Are you gonna make me dive into a shark tank?" I asked him, sarcasm rolling off my tongue.

"No you dumbass, I bet you can't tell your crush you like them." He smirked, his eyes discreetly darting to Nathan.

Derek's my best friend, and the only one who actually knows I'm gay. He's always been supportive, and promised to keep it a secret from everyone till I had the courage to say something.

Which is probably never going to happen as long as I'm on this earth.

He is also the only one who knows about my crush on Nathan. It's been about a year of me watching Nathan without making a move, and probably a few months of me trying to get into his friend group.

With Derek being on the track team with Nathan, he vouched for me.

I wasn't exactly athletic. I did the average that was expected of a student at school, but my main focus was being on the chess team. As captain, I take that very seriously, and I will always love playing chess.

Derek managed to get me to come to Matthew's house on the account of me being cool. Now I had to lie my way into his home and even fake being interested in the games.

The lengths I go to for Nathan.

"And who's your crush, Leon?" Nathan asked me, looking up from his phone.

"That's a secret, I guess." I laugh nervously, looking at Derek. "I could totally tell them if I wanted to."

"Oh, is that so?" He began to smirk.

I nodded, gulping a bit. "Yeah, I'm not a chump."

"Then let's bet on it."

I knew Derek had something planned when he invited me over. He always has something up his sleeve, and I should've taken a hint a while back.

I began to think. Take a bet with Derek and risk the chance of actually letting Nathan know I like him, or just chicken out and call it a day in front of them.

"Really? Leon wouldn't do it, Derek. He's just a kid," Nathan said, smiling at me.

"He's not the bold type," one of his friends chimed in.

After a bit of arguing over whether I'd do it or not, I cleared my throat to silence them. When that didn't work, I spoke.

"I accept," I said, grabbing everyone's attention and bringing the room to brief silence.

"I didn't know Leon was this confident," Max whistled.

"Right? He's always playing chess with Cecelia, or reading with Derek. I've never seen you do anything else," Nathan answered, making that little boost of confidence drop.

"There's more to Leon than what you know," Derek mumbled. "Now! The bet."

"Tell me what it is."

"You have 31 days, that is exactly a month, to admit to your crush that you like them. Failure to do so means that you'll have to run around the entire school....naked. " Derek rubbed his hands together evilly.

Run around the school naked or tell my crush? We all know what I'm going to pick.

"31 days? That's it?" I laughed. "You could've given me less." I bluffed.

"Why not cut it down to 24? This seems interesting to me," Nathan piped up.

"You're right. Since Leon's so tough, we should cut it down to 24 days." Derek changed his mind. "You have 24 days to tell your crush the truth, and if you don't do so, you'll run around the entire school naked."

"That's all? That seems easy." I rolled my eyes.

"I forgot to mention something."

"What?"

"You can only tell them in the last 2 days, and your bet starts today!" Derek clapped while my eyes darted towards Nathan.

24 days. How the hell was I supposed to do this?