Ethan is a senior on the reigning champion Landon High School Color Guard, a straight-A student, and an all-around perfectionist. His family may be too busy to notice, but he plans to make history by spinning his way to another gold medal at nationals. For Ethan, senior year is all about the wins—if he can get his love life out of last place.
Danny just slid into the DMs of his long-time crush, Ethan. It’s a bold move, but Danny’s been determined to make the most of life since he came out. He’s even patched up his relationship with his two adoptive dads, and his team, the East Valley Color Guard, is about to debut their fiercest show yet. Danny's never been happier, so why is he desperately searching for his biological mother—and why the secrecy?
When Danny and Ethan start dating, their connection feels unbreakable. But as the pressure of nationals mounts, their teams’ rivalry intensifies. The line between love and competition blurs, and both must decide what they're willing to sacrifice—victory, love, or their long-hidden secrets.
16+ due to adult situations
Excerpt:
“And this is my room,” Danny announces as I follow him inside.
I catch a whiff of his cologne and the scent instantly fires up memories from last week of Danny’s arms wrapped around me with his lips pressed against mine. I’m sure that’s why the first thing my eyes are drawn to is his bed and then my pervy brain immediately starts picturing all the things we could do there.
And now it suddenly feels way warmer in here.
I hear the door click closed behind me and force my eyes elsewhere, ignoring his bed for now, as I take in the rest of his room—the dark wood desk and bookshelves, the baseball bat-shaped hat rack on one wall, an old-school Star Wars poster on another.
“Cute,” I say, trying not to sound like my pulse has been beating double-time since the second I walked in here.
“Thanks,” Danny says. “Oh, and check it out.” He taps buttons on a wall panel next to his door, diming the overhead light and turning on a continuous strip of blue LEDs that outline the ceiling. “I installed these not too long ago. Even wired the light-switch panel myself.”
“I’m impressed,” I say.
Danny grins shyly. “No big deal, really. I just watched a couple of tutorials on TikTok.”
“Yeah, well, I’d probably end up electrocuting myself if I tried something like that,” I say, continuing to look around. A framed photo on his desk catches my attention and I pick it up for a closer look. Danny and two other guys are wearing cool black and red winter guard costumes and the biggest smiles. “Is this from WGI last year?”
“Yup,” Danny says, walking over to me. “That’s me, Sanjay, and Conner—the other guys you’ll meet tonight.” He points out each of his friends in the photograph. “This was taken right after we found out we made finals.”
“No wonder you all look so happy,” I say.
Danny laughs lightly to himself. “Yeah, plus our semi-finals performance that day was, like, our best of the season.”
I can practically feel the joy radiating from him right now and, honestly, I think I’m a little jealous. Now, don’t get it twisted, winning world championships is pretty damn exciting. But the last couple of years, what I feel most at times like that isn’t so much joyfulness as relief.
I mean, even at last night’s competition, our guard totally redeemed ourselves with a strong performance, and when we were announced in first place, all I could think was that our score should’ve been higher than an 80.1.
Seeing the light in Danny’s eyes, the smiles on the faces of the three boys in the picture I’m holding, it’s obvious that moment wasn’t tainted with expectations or tons of pressure for them to “make history” or anything. It was just pure happiness. That’s got to be an amazing feeling.
“Do you have a video?” I ask, placing the photo back on his desk.
“Of semis? Of course.” Danny says.
“Want to show me?”
“Now?”
“Yeah, why not? I’ve seen your finals performance on YouTube before, but if you say your semis run was your best, I’d love to watch it with you.”
Danny’s face lights up. He shrugs and says, “Sure.” He grabs his laptop off his desk, sits on the foot of his bed, and motions for me to join him there. The second I do I can feel the tips of my ears and nose heat up, because, well, hello, you already know what I’m thinking.
I scoot right up next to him. An electric current runs through me when our legs and shoulders touch and I have to bite my lower lip to keep from giggling out loud. Being this close to Danny makes me feel kind of euphoric. But also, it’s funny. Of all the things I pictured us doing on his bed, watching a winter guard video together wasn’t one of them.
“Hey, so, I just want to remind you we’re not, like, Landon High School good or anything,” Danny says, turning to look at me.
God, the apprehensive expression on his face is so cute it nearly kills me.
“Stop,” I say, playfully bumping his shoulder. “I want to see. Really.”
Danny looks directly into my eyes, then his gaze slides down to my mouth, holding there for a few seconds before he turns his attention back to his laptop. “All right,” he says, grinning. He types in his password, unlocking the computer, and the Ancestry.com website fills the screen. Near the top of the page it reads “Hello, Danny” along with a prompt to build his family tree.
“Oh, cool,” I say. “My family did that same DNA tes—”
Danny inhales sharply and jolts upright. He quickly closes the browser and whips his head in the direction of his bedroom door. He seems a little panicked, like he’s just seen a ghost or something.
“You okay?” I ask
Danny swallows hard. “Yeah,” he says, tone clipped, still looking at his closed door.
“Should I—”
“No, no, you’re fine,” he says, turning back to me, then under his breath he adds, “Didn’t mean to leave that up.”
“Sorry,” I say, shaking my head. “What?”
Danny’s shoulders relax as he exhales slowly. “Remember when I said I started looking for my birth mom?” His voice is barely above a whisper.
“Yeah,” I say, still confused.
“Well, this is part of that.” He taps his laptop with his thumb. “And I don’t want to tell, you know,” he jabs the same thumb toward his door, “unless there ends up being a reason to.”
“Oh,” I say, finally putting it all together. Wow, I am so slow. He’s trying to keep this quiet and the second I see it, I nearly announced it to the whole house. “I am so, so sorry, Danny. I didn’t mean—”
“You didn’t know. It’s all good, really,” Danny says. “Look, I know I sort of freaked out there for a sec, but seriously, I don’t mind. It’s kind of nice to tell someone, actually. Well, it’s nice to tell you.” He glances away and that damn self-conscious smile of his burrows into my chest.
His words hang in the air as I nod over and over, trying to think of something to say, because how should you respond to something like that? I’m used to meeting boys who use fake names on their profiles and can’t admit out loud that they like dudes, even after they’ve made out with you. But Danny is something altogether different.
