[TAC] THREE'S A CROWD

Chapter 10*

{New}

New lets out a heavy yawn into his fist as he rests his back against the brick wall of their school building. He's fucking cold, and tired, and ready to feel the warm sheets of his bed instead of the cold air hitting his face and making his nose red.

The one thing about dating Tay that took New some time to get used to was the fact that the boy is basically the core of every social event or gathering. He's the team's star basketball player, he's charismatic, charming, and he's good looking, so naturally, everyone is drawn to him.

He's also a people pleaser, and he's way too nice to tell people he doesn't have time to talk right now, or he's annoyed by a certain thing, or he doesn't want to do something that people ask him to.

If Tay wasn't a people pleaser, New would be asleep in the passenger seat of his car right now, heading home, but instead, he's standing outside of the school building after a game, waiting for Tay to finish conversing with all the impressed college representatives that want to chat with him before he leaves.

Five more minutes pass before New decides that if he's going to be waiting, he's going to at least wait in Tay's car.

He enters back into the building where members of the team are still occupying the hallways near the gym, as well as the gym itself, and he scans his eyes around the court to see if he can find his boyfriend anywhere.

He finally spots him, talking to some adults who are probably from some fancy university and seem to be very interested in him. He has his bag over his shoulder, and New can tell by his fidgeting feet, along with the faint bags under his eyes, that he's ready to go home too.

New waits until there is a break in their extremely important conversation to ask Tay for his keys so that he can wait in the car.

Tay's expression is only a little unreadable when he reaches deep into his pocket for his keys. New has no idea why Tay has been giving him strange looks lately; sort of like he's unsure of something, or contemplating in his head...New doesn't know. He doesn't dwell on it either, because he's fucking tired, so he ventures out to his car and sinks into the passenger seat as the heat from the air vents slowly warms him up.

The fact that he's wearing one of Tay's jackets helps him relax, and he zips it all the way up so that the collar covers half of his face.

He sits there, his head rested against the window as he watches different cars pull out of the parking lot in order to go home. He lets out a sigh just for the heck of it, because he feels just a bit weary.

He knows it's selfish, but sometimes he wishes he could just have Tay all to himself, and that the boy wouldn't always be occupied by other things. He always lets those thoughts dissappear though, because Tay isn't strictly his, and he has so much to offer the world as a person. It would just be nice if, maybe, Tay wasn't always so busy with something.

New knows that it's an impossible concept anyway, because it's about that time where scouts are always planning to speak to him, meetings are being arranged, the season's just starting to kick off, and he's at the height of his high school basketball experience. He is probably the most relevant person in their entire school, and because of that, New needs to accept the fact that he's going to have other things to tend to besides his boyfriend.

Which is perfectly fine, really.

He quickly wipes at a single tear that dares to escape his eye as he sits there, sinking into Tay's jacket. He despises the fact that his eyes choose the dumbest moments to release tears.

This is not a crying matter. Tay is happy, and New is happy, and even though it's been a good two weeks since Tay's slept over, New's not going to be bothered by it. It's okay.