Winger

Ryan Dean and Annie make plans for him to visit her home near Seattle over the upcoming weekend. Ryan Dean has sexual fantasies about sleeping in Annie’s room and being injured so that she’ll need to examine his body. His mind is also occupied by a big rugby game coming up before he leaves for Seattle.

At lunch, JP tells Ryan Dean that he invited Annie to Pine Mountain’s Halloween dance later in the month. O-Hall residents aren’t allowed to go to the dance, so Ryan Dean couldn’t have gone with her anyway. Nevertheless, he’s furious with JP for trying to get so close to Annie. He’s also angry at Annie for accepting JP’s invitation.

Ryan Dean storms out of the cafeteria followed by Joey, who angrily reminds him that his hurt feelings over JP’s seeming “betrayal” is hypocritical since he’s sneaking around with Megan. Joey’s words remind Ryan Dean that his clandestine make-out sessions with Megan would hurt and anger Chas and Annie if they knew about it. 

At rugby practice later that day, Ryan Dean gets an opportunity to take out his anger on JP when the team does a drill involving only two players at a time. When it’s his turn to pick a partner, Ryan Dean picks JP, and the two have a violent scuffle posing as the intended drill. During the drill, JP knees Ryan Dean in the head, causing him to bleed heavily from his eyebrow. He goes to the school’s infirmary to have the cut stitched. 

After being examined and having his eyebrow stitched up, a nurse who Ryan Dean finds attractive helps him get cleaned up. Seanie and Joey are there and tease him about the nurse. Their coach comes in and asks Ryan Dean whether there’s anything personal happening between him and JP. Since Joey’s in the room and knows the truth, Ryan Dean is about to be honest about the fight between him and JP over Annie, but Joey breaks in to lie to their coach. He says that Ryan Dean was just proving that he belongs on the team’s first string by being especially aggressive. Ryan Dean insists that he’s well enough to play in the rugby match in a few days, and his coach agrees after Joey vouches for him. JP comes into the room and apologizes to Ryan Dean for hurting him, and Ryan Dean brushes off the apology without saying that he himself is sorry.

Ryan Dean is on his way to dinner when JP angrily confronts him about their exchange in the examination room. Ryan Dean continues to be cold toward JP, refusing to interact with him.

Rather than sit with his friends, Ryan Dean eats dinner at a table with freshmen he doesn’t know. After a while, Megan comes over and sympathizes with Ryan Dean and his wound, until Chas arrives to take her to another table. Megan reminds him that they, along with Joey, have another Calculus study session planned for the next night. Seanie and Annie come over to sit with Ryan Dean when they’re finished with their meal. Ryan Dean and Annie have an intense, wordless moment in which they gaze into each other’s eyes. Seanie teases them to just kiss, already, and the two embarrassingly break eye contact. Annie asks if Ryan Dean is still coming to her house over the weekend, and Ryan Dean says yes.

Ryan Dean leaves the cafeteria and walks by the lake by himself, trying to work up the courage to end his trysts with Megan. As he debates with himself, Annie finds him. She asks him if he’s mad at her for agreeing to go to the dance with JP, which he is. Realizing that Ryan Dean has to get back to O-Hall before curfew, Annie walks him to his dorm. As they stand at the entrance, Ryan Dean desperately wants to kiss her but can’t work up the courage to do so. As Mrs. Singer opens the dorm door and sees them standing there, Ryan Dean hurriedly makes his way to his room.

Chas confronts Ryan Dean in the bathroom, suspicious that something is happening between him and Megan after he saw them together in the cafeteria. He’s about to hit Ryan Dean when Joey comes in and defends Ryan Dean, making Chas even angrier but avoiding a fight as Chas storms out, saying that he doesn’t like the way Ryan Dean looks at Megan. Joey continues to be angry at Ryan Dean for causing trouble between Chas and Megan.

The next day, Ryan Dean and Chas silently go about their morning routine, too angry to talk to each other. Tension between them simmers beneath the surface. At school, Ryan Dean finds out that Annie is in the dorm sick, but she sends him a note through her friend Isabel. The note acknowledges the moment between Annie and Ryan Dean the night before, but Annie claims that it was weird and that she doesn’t want it to happen again. Ryan Dean writes back, saying that he would have already kissed Annie if he wanted to. This bluff is intended to keep Annie interested in him. 

In conditioning class, Ryan Dean runs three miles and avoids Seanie and JP, even though he misses his time with Seanie. 

In Calculus class, Joey intervenes to break up the romantic energy between Ryan Dean and Megan. Their female teacher, who Ryan Dean also finds attractive, tells him he should take it easy because of the cut on his eyebrow. This gives Joey an opportunity to suggest that Ryan Dean should miss the scheduled study session with him and Megan that night, to which Ryan Dean reluctantly agrees. 

The rugby team gathers for their last practice before the big game the next day. During a play, Seanie accidentally steps on Ryan Dean’s testicles with his cleat. When Ryan Dean recovers from the pain and checks the area, he finds blood on his hand.

At dinner that night, Ryan Dean recounts to his friends that the school doctor thinks his testicle wound is minor. Seanie teases him about the wound, making Ryan Dean even more exasperated with his friend. 

Since Joey got him banned from the study session with Megan that evening, Ryan Dean goes to his dorm and gets into bed, finding it hard to relax because of his injury. In the night, he empties his bladder into a Gatorade bottle instead of using the bathroom because he’s scared of Mrs. Singer, who he thinks put another curse on him and caused him to become injured that past day. 

The rugby team travels to Salem for their match. Although Ryan Dean doesn’t get to start, his coach puts him in in the second half, and he scores the team’s only try—the equivalent of a touchdown in football. Pine Mountain wins the game, and the two teams have a traditional social dinner afterwards. The Pine Mountain boys are allowed to borrow the other team’s cell phones to tell their families about the game. Ryan Dean talks to his mom, who mortifies him by telling him that she’s sent him a box of condoms in preparation for his weekend at Annie’s house.

Ryan Dean and Seanie are some of the first Pine Mountain players to leave the social dinner. As they’re getting on their bus, four boys from Salem—not members of the rugby team they just played—ask for Joey by name, with one of them saying he is Joey’s cousin. Ryan Dean and Seanie point out Joey as he comes out of the school behind them with Kevin. The four Salem boys attack Kevin and Joey with a knife, stabbing Kevin in the shoulder. Chas and Ryan Dean chase down one of the four who run away, and the other three are apprehended as well. The police arrive. 

Pine Mountain’s coach rides to the hospital with Kevin in an ambulance, and all four of the Salem boys are arrested. Later that evening, the bus takes the rest of the Pine Mountain team back to school while Kevin receives treatment at the hospital. The team learns that he’s expected to be okay. Ryan Dean sits with Joey who is visibly upset, during the bus ride. Joey tells Ryan Dean that one of the boys was the brother of a boy with whom he used to be romantically involved. The other boy’s family was intolerant of his gay identity and sent him away to a “mental hospital” to be “treated,” and the brother threatened to one day come after Joey. Joey never took the threat seriously.

Ryan Dean cheers Joey up by telling him about his mom’s awkward misunderstanding about him and Annie. Joey seems to recover as he laughs with Ryan Dean, who reflects, “On that bus ride home, I believe Joey Consentino and I became best friends” (217).