"How should I ask Marley to homecoming?" Hunter asks. He's in the locker room after practice with Wesley and Landon. Homecoming is Friday night since the Renegades don't have a game. Ruby High has been exploding with homecoming proposals all week, everyone trying to get a date before the dance.

"Are you doing it at school?" Landon asks.

"Are you sure she wants you to ask her?" Wesley asks.

"Of course she wants me to ask her; why would you ask that?" In all honesty, Hunter knows why Wesley asked that. He's been asking himself that since all the homecoming hype began. Since Coach Dickson had that talk with him in his office, Hunter's been questioning a lot of things. "I feel like she wants something big."

"I think Bean would kill me if I did anything big," Wesley says.

Landon gives Wesley a confused look, scrunching his eyebrows together. "Sabina's going to homecoming?"

Wesley shrugs. "Why wouldn't she?"

"Because she hates being in places with kids from school, so school dances are pretty much her arch enemy," Landon explains.

Wesley hadn't even thought that she wouldn't want to go. Everyone goes to homecoming. Even parents and teachers vie for spots as chaperones for homecoming. He'd just assumed that Sabina'd go.

"You think she'll say no if I ask her?" Wesley has the entire thing planned out, but now Landon's got him freaked out. He doesn't want to ask and have her say no, but he also doesn't want to ask and have her say yes just to make him happy and drag her into something she doesn't want to do. He's feeling like there's no way for him to win in the situation.

Landon shrugs and closes his locker. He sits down on the bench in the middle of the aisle to tie his sneakers onto his feet. "If anything can make her go, it's you."

Hunter takes his athletic cup and throws it at Wesley.

Wesley looks at the cup resting by his feet. "Dude, what the fuck is wrong with you? You don't just throw cups at dudes."

"I needed help, and you made it all about you!" Hunter exclaims. Wesley puts his hands up in surrender. "Landon, what're you doing for Rae?"

"Nothing," he says. Wesley and Hunter both look at him like he's crazy. "We're dating. We know we're going together. Why do I have to ask her in some big way? She even said she doesn't want me to."

"I have three questions. One, how did you get Rae to start dating you? Two, how did you get Rae to keep dating you? And three, are you really that dumb?" Wesley asks.

Hunter just shakes his head. "It's a trap, dude. It's one of those female mind games."

"So she told me she didn't want anything big because she actually wants something big?" Landon questions.

"Yes!" Wesley and Hunter shout in unison.

"Well, you two clearly are no help to me because y'all don't have your own shit figured out," Hunter says. "I'm just going to ask my mom." He knows his mom will know. Moms always know. "See y'all later."

Hunter walks away. As he passes Coach Dickson's office, he notices that the door is open. He walks past it, but then he stops and turns back around. He walks into the office.

"What's up, Vargas?" Coach Dickson asks.

"I wanted to make sure it'd be okay with you if I asked Marley to homecoming," Hunter says. He kind of hopes Coach Dickson says no. He kind of hopes their last talk was a fluke and that Coach Dickson is actually super strict and will murder him in his sleep for dating Marley.

Coach Dickson leans back in his chair. "Didn't I already tell you it was okay? Well, in case I wasn't clear enough, it's absolutely okay."

Hunter smiles to himself and nods slightly. "Just wanted to double check."

The answer gives Hunter mixed feelings as he exits the office and the locker room. He's happy that he can be more open about his relationship with Marley now, but his confusion outweighs his happiness. He can't figure out why Marley would want to keep their relationship a secret if her dad is okay with it. It's hard for him not to start believing what Wesley and Landon have been telling him all along- she's either embarrassed of him or doesn't actually care enough about him to bring him home.

"Wait, so what should I do about Rae?" Landon asks Wesley.

"Ask her to freaking homecoming, you idiot."

Wesley walks into Sabina's room soon after leaving the locker room. He's got a copy of Moby Dick in his hand when he sits down on her bed with her.

"I need your help with this English assignment," he says.

She looks at him in confusion. "Since when does Ms. French assign Moby Dick for reading?" They have the same English teacher, whose name is ironically Ms. French, in different periods. Sabina knows Ms. French is currently assigning The Crucible as reading.

"I'm trying to get my grade up, so I'm doing extra credit," he explains. He hands her an index card with random page and line numbers written on them. "Can you find these lines for me?"

She rolls her eyes but follows his instructions. She turns to the first page and line number.

"What letter does that line start with?" Wesley asks.

"H." She turns to the next one. "O." She turns to the next one. "C." She turns to the next one. "O." She turns to the last one, which ends up being the last page of the book, where space is left after the final line. In that space, she reads the words that are scribbled messily. "Bean, be my white whale at homecoming?"

He's biting his lip nervously as she reads it and turns to look at him. "I know calling you a white whale isn't necessarily the smoothest, but you taught me that a whale isn't just a whale. The white whale is rare and beautiful and majestic and hard to understand and even harder to catch. Captain Ahab spent his entire life trying to find the white whale, and I've spent every day since first grade, maybe without even knowing it, trying to get to you." He chooses to leave out the part about the whale biting Ahab's leg off and Ahab trying endlessly to kill the whale in revenge. He doesn't feel it helps his point.

"Since when did you become such a book nerd?" she teases.

"Landon said you hate school dances and don't want to go to homecoming, but I still figured I'd ask just in case I stand a chance."

She smiles at him. "I'd love to go with you."

Meanwhile, about two hours after practice, Landon picks up Rae from her house. They drive to the little stretch of land between Ruby and it's neighboring town. Some guy has a pumpkin patch there every fall. It's the only one in four towns. It's a total monopoly. Rumor has it that the dude lives off the money he makes in just October and November. Capitalism.

"Aren't pumpkin patches more of a Halloween thing?" Rae asks after Landon parks and they get out of the car. She intertwines her fingers with his. They already carved pumpkins right before Halloween, so she's not sure why Landon wants to come back for more. He doesn't even like carving pumpkins. She just forces him to do it every year. She loves it.

"Thanksgiving hasn't passed, so it's still pumpkin season," he explains. He guides her to one particular section of the patch where all the pumpkins are big. That's when she sees them- five miniature pumpkins already carved. The way Landon's smiling like an idiot next to her, she knows they're for her.

The pumpkins spell out "Hoco?"

"Will you go to homecoming with me?" Landon asks.

"You're such a dork," she says, kissing him.

"Is that a yes?"

"I already told you yes! I told you you didn't need to do anything special."

"Wes and Hunter told me that was a trick and that you actually did want something!"

Rae shakes her head. "And you listened to them? Boys are such idiots. Not everything a girl says is a code."

"Well," he says, "still take your pumpkins. I already paid for them."

The next day at school, Wesley and Landon are alone at their lunch table. Hunter is running late. They know it's because he's doing something stupid for Marley; they're just not sure what that stupid thing is.

He appears about ten minutes into lunch with a poster in one hand and flowers in the other.

"Looks like he's actually doing it," Wesley mutters.

Hunter holds the poster up, and an "aw" murmurs through the cafeteria.

"Marley, will you tackle homecoming with me?" the poster reads.

Marley smiles at him as she walks up to him, but the smile seems forced. Of course she's happy Hunter's asking her. She's just slightly panicked over the fact that he's doing it in front of everyone. What if her dad sees? Or what if her dad just finds out in general?

"What're you doing?" she asks through her clenched teeth.

"Be my catch at homecoming?" he says, ignoring her question.

"Of course," she says, giving him a hug.

So I leave for my first year of college tomorrow morning. I'm really not sure if I'll be able to find time to write while I'm there because of classes and clubs and football games and all that. I hope I find the time, but if not, I won't be updating until Thanksgiving break at the earliest... I'm sorry. I really hoped to finish this before I left.