Excerpt: Queer color guard teens find love and friendship in YA novel Twirl!

Billed as "Heartstopper meets Bring it On," Jase Peeples's young adult novel Twirl! is about teen boys from rival color guard teams who find love and belonging.

Chapter One

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Danny

“Are you tired? Some of you already look tired. Keep the energy up. Perform through to the very end,” our winter guard instructor, Nikki, yells from the top of the concrete steps outside the gym. We’ve been running the same thirty-two counts—our ending ensemble flag feature—for the past twenty minutes. She’s on a mission to get it “sparkling clean.”

We really should be inside. After all, this is winter guard season, but here we are in the chilly quad, making the most of the space available while we wait for the basketball team to get out. They’re over time, again. Because of course they are. They’re the big sports team, and we’re just that group of people who spin flags, rifles and sabers—the color guard. So, even though we win way more than they do, basketball still gets priority on the gym schedule while we remain the best kept secret at East Valley High.

“Okay, reset. We’re going to do it once more with music.” Nikki presses play on the portable sound system at her feet, yelling over the blaring beats as she continues. “This time I want you to really go for it. Check those hand positions in the middle and watch one another for timing on the toss. This flag feature is the final impression you’ll leave the judges with. So, come on, show me how you’re gonna serve it on Saturday!”

Her reminder that our first competition of the season is this weekend lights a fire in me, burning away any thoughts of cold weather, tired muscles, or the sweaty t-shirt under my hoodie clinging to my back.

The musical cue hits and we attack the downbeat, leaping into what is some of the most challenging flag work we’ve ever done—up, down, up, blind pass behind the back and turn. Halfway through, I can’t hold back the big smile that stretches across my face, because moments like this are why I love this sport—when I can hear the sound of fabric spinning in sync all around me and I can feel our entire team is absolutely killing the choreography—it’s like the closest thing on Earth to living inside music.

Then we toss our flags high in the air, pull our arms down to our sides as the poles complete two and a half rotations before landing back in our hands with the kind of satisfying smack only a clean catch can make.

Nikki shuts off the sound system. “Yes, East Valley Winter Guard! That. Is. How. It’s. Done!” she says, punctuating each word with an enthusiastic clap. “You perform like that this weekend and they’ll have no choice but to give you a high score right out of the gate.” She glances at her watch. “All right, everyone take five and grab some water. I’m going to see if the basketball team is finishing up so we can move in.”

We break and I trade high fives with my boys, Sanjay and Conner, as we chill with the rest of the guard on the steps.

“That ending feature slaps so hard,” Sanjay says after taking a sip of water from his pink sports bottle. “People in the audience are going to lose their shit when they see it.”

“For real though,” Conner adds. “They’re gonna be like, Damn, East Valley, we weren’t ready for all that.”

I nod. “Yeah, we—” A direct message notification sets off my phone, which is both unexpected and embarrassing. Unexpected in the sense that I thought my phone was on silent, and embarrassing because it couldn’t have happened at a worse time.

I sit very still, hoping maybe if I ignore the notification everyone else will too, or at least they won’t realize that distinctive loud-ass sound came from my pho—

Brrrap.

Shit.

“Oh, my God, that’s totally that gay hookup app, isn’t it?” our teammate, Catalina says, way too excited and way too loud. She’s always got to say something.

“Oh, scandalous,” Sanjay teases.

“No,” I blurt, feeling the heat of everyone’s eyes on me as I frantically dig my phone out of my pocket. I glare at Catalina. “And for the record, QTIE isn’t just a gay thing. “I’m—”

Brrrap.

Jesus. I flip the ringer switch to vibrate so hard the plastic creaks.

“So popular,” Sanjay says, ribbing me with an elbow.

Luckily, most of our teammates seem to be losing interest already. (It takes a bigger show than this to hold their attention.) I can feel their stares slipping away as they return to their own conversations, except for Catalina, who can’t take a hint and is smiling at me like she’s living her best life. “You were saying? Before we were interrupted by your boy-booty call?” she says.

“It’s not a booty call, it’s…” I hesitate because, well, technically it could be someone fishing for a hookup, but I’m hoping at least one of those alerts is what I’ve been waiting for all day—a reply from Ethan Decker.

He’s a senior on the Landon High School Winter Guard, which is only the best Winter Guard on the planet, literally. They’ve won Winter Guard International World Championships six times in a row now. I’ve had a thing for Ethan ever since I saw Landon High perform at a competition a couple of years ago, but I’ve never worked up the nerve to talk to him.

I mean, Ethan is basically the winter guard equivalent of a rock star. People in the crowd even scream his name at competitions. I personally haven’t done this (not out loud, anyway), but I totally know how they feel.

When Ethan is performing, you can’t take your eyes off him. He can spin every piece of equipment—flag, rifle, saber. And damn, can that boy dance. Then there’s his floppy red hair, light green eyes, and I’m not even going to pretend I haven’t saved a few of the shirtless TikToks he’s posted. Hey, if he’s going to post thirst trap videos like that, he can’t blame me for looking at them.

Ethan is so freakin’ hot, which is why I haven’t been able to say a word to him. That is, not until a couple of days ago when I saw him pop up on QTIE and nearly fell out of my chair.

I have no idea what came over me, but I just went for it, shot him a quick “hi,” and he actually replied. Before that, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t even aware that I existed and I guess there’s really no reason he would have either.

While we’ve technically competed against each other for years, let’s be real. Landon High School is light years ahead of my winter guard. They always perform way later than we do every time we’re at a show together, which is good. I mean, nobody wants to have to follow the world champions at a competition, right?

So, I’m betting Ethan has never seen the East Valley Winter Guard perform live or has any idea who we are. I’m sure to him, I was just another nameless face in the crowd of people who rushed to pack the back stands when Landon would take the floor.

But with any luck, that’s about to change because we’ve been chatting online a bit and—I still can’t believe I did this—but earlier today, I asked him if he’d be cool with us exchanging numbers so we could text instead of DMing through the app. The waiting is torture—even worse than having to deal with Catalina’s drama right now.

Jase Peeples is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in The Advocate, Out, Healthline, WGI Focus Magazine, and more. A lifelong performer, designer, and educator in the marching arts, he is a three-time Winter Guard International World Champion with the Blue Devils World Class Winter Guard.

Get your copy of Twirl! here.

Join Peeples in conversation with Tracy E. Gilchrist at Barnes & Noble in Los Angeles on Aug. 24.