I woke up and felt just a little bit of awkwardness. Then I remembered that I was going to the movies with Grant after school and awkwardness was replaced by a genuine feeling of excitement. I felt a stirring in my panties, but I decided against jerking off in favor of getting ready for school. Specifically, I needed to hop in the shower, and then get my outfit picked out.

I pulled the covers off and swung my legs over the side of the bed. I stretched and yawned at the same time, clearly still fighting off fatigue. I tugged at the hem of my nightie as I stood up. A part of me wondered if I should wear something a little more… Enticing, I guess was the word? Something at least a bit more special than plain clothes. I dunno. I’d figure it out when I went to get dressed.

I walked down the hall to the bathroom, shut the door behind me and pulled off my nightie and my panties. Something seemed a little off about me, but the thought faded quickly as I stepped into the shower and felt the nice warm water cascading over top of me. It was a feeling I’d never really paid any attention to, but it was so wonderful that I couldn’t understand why I’d never given it any thought before.

After washing my hair, I reached for my shaving gel and stopped just before spreading it on my face. Why would I be shaving my face? I didn’t grow hair on my face. Weird. I instead started applying it to my legs and armpits. I took my razor and started to shave carefully, so as not to nick myself. It wasn’t difficult, but I’d been doing this for years. Laurie could stand to shave her legs every once in awhile, but she almost always wore pants anyway.

Besides, Chrissie had told me once that she liked Laurie’s hairy legs. I couldn’t exactly understand that, but I guess Grant did look more… Rugged? I guess. It wasn’t really something I thought about on other people, I just knew I hated having hairy legs, so I shaved. Same with my armpits. It was nothing that I really gave much thought to.

I dried off and wrapped a towel around my chest. After that, I blow-dried my hair and tied it into a short ponytail. I’d always wanted to grow my hair out some, kinda like Laurie did. I never understood why she had such long hair. It made her look weird. It was just her style, I guess.

On the subject of Laurie, she stumbled into the bathroom as I stood there checking my face in the mirror. She was wearing nothing but a gray shirt with a hole in the stomach and a pair of matching boxers that probably only matched by accident. Her hair was a disheveled mess and actually looked shorter than I remembered it. “Jesus, I thought you were done,” she said.

I rolled my eyes. “Almost.”

“Well, hurry up. I’ve gotta take a piss.”

“Whatever,” I said as I turned back around to the mirror. I noticed the beginnings of a zit on the side of my chin. I groaned at it, annoyed by its very existence. I liked having clean skin, and this was a very important day for me, so of course I get a zit today. I saw in the mirror that Laurie hadn’t left yet, and was looking at me kinda funny. “What?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I dunno. Just… Y’know, I really don’t know what’s up right now, but something feels like it is.”

“You’re just out of it because you’re up early,” I said. And she was. It was rare for Laurie to be awake before seven thirty, but here it was just about six twenty-five and she was awake.

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” She walked over to the toilet, dropped her boxers and sat down just as I was leaving the bathroom.

I tossed my nightie and panties into my hamper and then the towel followed closely behind. After that, I grabbed a fresh pair of bright orange panties and a light orange tank top. My chest was still weirdly sensitive, just like yesterday, but not as uncomfortable being touched by my shirt. Maybe tank tops were the way to go until whatever this was finished up.

I plopped into my desk chair an worked on more coloring. If we were lucky, the first three chapters would be finished before we decided to launch the site. Then we'd have a good buffer zone of content for regular updates. I didn't want us to need to start scheduling breaks until it was absolute necessary. Nothing bothered me more than people with irregular updates.

My text ring went off, a pleasant melody that I'd heard on the radio one day last week while coloring. But it wasn't just for anybody's texts.

It was Grant!

I let my hair out of the ponytail for whatever reason. We were just texting, not like he could see me or anything. That made me wonder if he wanted to FaceTime, but I put the thought out of my mind. I was being stupid and too… Crushy.

hey i got some ideas i want 2 run past u

kewl go ahead I texted back.

so i started drwing this guy in the bkgrnd of a few panels and i rlly kinda like drwing him

I was interested. ok

at 1 point hes staring at brenda lk hes got a crush on her is that ok?

Hm… We’d already decided to make Brenda’s friend her love interest, but there was nothing to say we couldn’t have her try out other options. We were already going with that lesbian girl based on Kat for a love triangle sort of thing, maybe a love square wouldn’t be too much escalation.

how many pgs he in so far?

um 9

Wow. I wondered how many pages he’d added, because I didn’t think I’d given him that many more pages that he hadn’t drawn yet. I was excited about new scenes to write based on his artwork now. I wondered if there were any other characters I could pick out of the background like that.

lemme c the pgs I texted.

Not five minutes later, an email notification popped up on my browser. Grant really did decide to draw more pages than I’d written, because he sent me about thirty pages that didn’t correspond with my script pages. Either he was really getting to love the comic, or he just found a tangent he didn’t want to pass up. And, honestly, that made it a tangent I didn’t want to pass up, too.

I looked over the black and white penciled artwork and found the character he was talking about. The guy looked to be in the background of most of the pages. When he was colored, he’d probably have dark red hair, maybe a bit of a tan. He was clearly checking out Brenda like he had the hots for her.

Somewhat surprising me was Grant’s choice for Brenda’s outfit. I hadn’t described what I wanted her to wear for the first couple chapters, we’d discussed having her trying to wear boy clothes for the first few days and then transitioning to girl equivalents of boy clothes soon after as she discovered that boy clothes just weren’t designed for her body. The outfit he had her in on these pages, however, was a sleeveless turtleneck sweater and a checkered skirt with knee-high boots. It was a cute outfit, but I wasn’t sure she’d wear it so early in her transition from thinking of herself as male to accepting herself as female.

whats with brendas clothes? I texted.

another idea i had he responded, since weve got maya wearing sexy clothes she would try to get brenda to wear some early on

I rolled my eyes. Maya had been Laurie’s idea, a girl who wore the skimpiest outfits imaginable. I’d been trying to get Grant to change her looks up for days now, but he liked the idea that Allana would be the more conservative kind of friend who didn’t show a whole lot of skin while Maya would be the one trying to get Brenda to show as much skin as possible.

It didn’t help that he’d also vetoed my request to tone down Maya’s chest. Brenda was a C-cup, Allana a B-cup and Maya was a DDD-cup for whatever reason. Grant was just really focused on making her look like a hooker. I guess it was probably some “don’t judge a book by its cover” kind of deal, because aside from trying to steer Brenda too far into femininity too early, Maya was Brenda’s best friend. She’d been the first person that Brenda went to after the change. So, I guess her having at least a little influence over Brenda’s clothes would make some sense.

Still. I wish Grant would make her a little less like a hooch.

so what do you think of the guy? i was thnkin his name wld be gray btw

It wasn’t a bad name. Made me think of Fifty Shades of Grey, but I doubted this guy had a BDSM dungeon in his basement. Unless…

hes nice to look at I sent with a wink emoji.

figured youd say that he responded with a kiss emoji. I giggled at the possibility that he thought I had a crush on this guy.

you decide what movie yet? I asked.

figured wed choose at the theater

Hmmm… Seemed to me like he just didn’t want the responsibility of choosing what movie to watch. Or he just wanted to be cute and romantic. I liked the second one more.

gotta get ready for school I texted. see u there

He sent back see u 2

I set my phone down and felt a warmth spread throughout my body. I couldn’t wait for the bus to show up, because Grant would be there. I just imagined cuddling up beside him while we worked on the webcomic. And then would come the movie later, where we’d be sitting beside one another in a dark theater. It would be so very wonderful.

A part of me wondered why I was feeling this way all of a sudden. Grant had been my best friend almost my whole life, we’d known each other longer than I could remember, and yet only now did it seem like I had this big crush on him. What was up with me? Was it just some weird reaction? Had I seen him every day for years and only just now realized that he was kind, warm and attractive?

Then I realized that that was obviously exactly what it was. He wasn’t the first guy I had the hots for, and he probably wouldn’t be the last. Though, honestly, I wouldn’t mind if he was. He had been my best friend the majority of my life, and if I ended up with him for the rest of it, that wouldn’t be a bad thing.

“Are you texting your boyfriend?” Laurie asked. I spun my chair around and saw her standing there, leaning against my door frame in a pair of ratty blue jeans and a loose tee-shirt. “That’s just adorable.”

I blushed. “He’s not my boyfriend!” I then meekly added, “Yet…”

She laughed. “Whatever. I’m ready before you are, y’know.”

“It takes you like two minutes to get dressed!”

“And it takes you fifteen or twenty, point is we’ve got about twenty minutes until the bus gets here and you can sit with your boyfriend. You probably wanna get ready.”

Shit, she was right. I quickly pushed her out of the room, shut and locked the door and attacked my closet like a monster. I pulled off my tank top and pulled on a light orange camisole in order to keep my shirt from irritating my chest. On that subject, my chest seemed kind of… Puffy. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I didn’t feel outrageously uncomfortable, so I just ignored it. Next, I grabbed a light red long sleeved shirt with a V-shaped neckline. I wanted something so that my necklace could touch my skin and still be visible. A pair of blue jeans that looked about as ratty as Laurie’s were pulled over my hips, the difference being that these were supposed to look torn at the knees, while hers were just old and she didn’t like buying new pants. Last came a pair of flip flops.

I slipped on my necklace and adjusted it so that it would land at the edge of my shirt’s neckline. I then grabbed a pair of diamond stud earrings I hadn’t worn in forever and slid them into the holes in my earlobes. Grant had asked me yesterday why I hadn’t worn those for so long, so I figured I’d treat him with them today. I glanced at the clock on my phone. Less than ten minutes. Not as long as I’d like to take planning an outfit, but I looked presentable and cute, and that was all that mattered to me. I grabbed my book bag and then ran downstairs to wait on the bus.

Later…

When Grant saw me, his eyes lit up. He looked me up and down, and then quickly scooched over in the seat to let me sit down. There was something in his eyes, something like he didn’t exactly know what he was looking at, but then he probably realized he was looking at me.

“Hey, Ashe,” he said as I parked my ass in the seat.

“Hi.”

“What did you come up with for Gray and Brenda?”

I pulled out my notebook. “I was thinking about this big relationship thing where we’ve got Yelena - ”

He cut me off. “Yelena?”

“Yeah, sorry, the lesbian girl based on Kat. I just came up with the name a little while ago.”

“Yelena. I like it.”

I felt myself blush. “Yeah, so I came up with this thing where Brenda’s got this triangle of people around her who are really attracted to her. Yelena, who doesn’t know that Brenda used to be a boy; Joey, who’s known Brenda since her days as Brian and is deeply in love with her because of who she is; and Gray, who moves to town and is just a general purpose ladies man who’s attracted to Brenda because she’s not throwing herself at him.”

He nodded. “Okay, so I assume we’re not gonna have her hook up with Yelena, because her orientation doesn’t change during the transition and she was already into guys as a guy.”

“Right. And she won’t be into Gray, but he’ll be trying his damnedest to win her over.”

“Yeah… We’re going head first into her and Joey ending up as the alpha couple?”

I nodded. “Uh, duh! They’re fucking adorable together, why wouldn’t we have them end up as a couple?”

He laughed, then, without my noticing, he put his arm around me. “Fine, fine. They are a cute couple. Right now, Gray’s just in the background, when will we actually introduce him?”

I looked through my notes for the upcoming chapters, trying to find a place we could organically introduce Gray. I couldn’t easily find one, so just added him in on the margin of one page. “Right there, chapter… Six, when Brenda’s at least a little more comfortable in her skin and then he comes in and she starts having some lapses.”

He ran his index finger across my notebook, reading what I’d written. “Okay, so until then, he’s a background player. I can draw a few characters in the background at school gossiping about something, and you could write them talking about him.”

I nodded. “I like that. It’s good foreshadowing. Should we do the same thing with Yelena?”

He rubbed at my shoulder. “I think she should just come in at some point, no build-up. We can introduce her at the end of this chapter and then you can write her into some scenes in the next one.”

I scribbled that in the margin of the page I was on. “That can work. She doesn’t need to be heavily involved right away, so adding her into scenes she wasn’t in won’t be too difficult.”

He sort of hugged me close to him. It felt really good, and I didn’t want him to stop until we got to school. Hell, I didn’t really even want him to stop then. I just reached up and gave him a peck on the cheek. It surprised him, but I could tell it wasn’t uncomfortable to him.

And then he hugged me closer.

Later…

Wheeler seemed to be looking through me, or something, when we got to school. I wasn’t entirely certain what was going on there, but it quickly subsided. “Hey, you guys aren’t… No fuckin’ way!”

“What?” I asked. “He finally asked me out last night!”

Charlie appeared from out of nowhere. “About time, man!” He smacked Grant on the shoulder. “So, what are you two doing to mark the occasion?” He put his hand on my shoulder. Had I always been a full head shorter than him? Duh, of course I had. Stupid me. “Think Coach would actually let you play today?”

I giggled. “Please, I just watch. Football is way too rough for me.”

“Yeah, but then you could say you’re on the same team as your boyfriend! Bet you’re a better player than him, too.”

Wheeler put Charlie in a headlock and pulled him away. “Hey, now, hands off! Ash is Grant’s yard line now, let him get at least one field goal before you start flagging a pass.”

As demeaning as it really was, it was still kind of cute that they were referring to Grant scoring with me in football terms. Boys would be boys after all, and at least they were comfortable talking like that in front of me. Then again, these guys had been my friends for years, so it almost was like I was just one of the boys.

It made me think for a brief moment that I should be one of the boys. I mean, I was a boy, right? I had been since the day I was born, about two and a half minutes after Laurie. Why did it suddenly seem so strange that they talk about this kind of stuff around me? Shouldn’t I be joining in with these crude innuendos?

But something told me that was wrong, that I wasn’t that kind of boy. Honestly, the idea that I was even a boy at times felt wrong, like I shouldn’t be one. Maybe I wasn’t one, really. After all, I did have the hots for a cute boy, a boy that was taking me to the movies after school.

No, I really wasn’t a boy, and I didn’t understand why I even thought that I was.

I saw Chrissie and Kat waving to me, so I waved back. “See you boys later,” I said to the guys. I gave Grant a little peck on the cheek before walking away, and he gave me a corresponding pat on the ass. I wasn’t entirely sure we were really at that stage of our relationship, but honestly, this relationship was such a long time coming I may as well let him have that one early.

The girls gave me weird looks as I finally caught up to them. “Are you dating one Grant Harrison?” Chrissie asked, a hint of gossip in her voice.

“Uh, duh,” Kat answered for me. “Those two have been BFFs forever, it’s about time Grant finally asked Ash out.”

I folded my arms over my chest. “Are you saying you’ve got a problem with it?” I asked.

Chrissie shook her head. “No, but now the school’s top jock is dating the school’s top reporter.”

Kat seemed offended. “Hey! I run the school paper!”

“Yeah, but you have Ash do all the work!”

I giggled. “She’s got a point,” I said.

“That’s what a good editor does!” Kat nearly screamed.

I put my arm around her shoulder. Not in the intimate sort of way Grant did with me, but in a friendly way. “Hey, you’re the best editor we’ve ever had.”

She pouted. “Good. You better see it that way.”

“So,” Chrissie said suggestively while clasping her hands in front of her chest, “how about this party tomorrow night?”

Shit, I’d forgotten all about that! Laurie could have reminded me when she barged in on me texting Grant this morning, but would she? Of course not! She was just the worst brother a guy could have sometimes.

I composed myself and answered, “My dad leaves at about noon today, Laurie and I are heading out to get the stuff after school.”

Oh, crap! After school! I’d have maybe an hour or two to buy party stuff before Grant and I went to the movies!

“Shit, I need to go find Laurie…” I whispered.

Chrissie’s face lit up. “Can I come?”

I sighed. “Yeah, you can.”