Project: Bromance!

Chapter Nineteen

Noah's POV
The next day James gets up early, effectively waking me up along with him. Instead of doing normal people stuff like brewing coffee and taking his insufferably long time to get ready, he walks to his truck and stares at it in a daze.

His reaction last night wasn't really what I expected from him. I expected something closer to how he's acting now, I think last night he was putting on a strong show. Too many people to breakdown over something as stupid as a truck.

He walks to the porch and looks under a chair. Sitting there is a bucket of white paint.

"I just made 800 bucks," he says but he didn't seem as happy about it as he meant it.

We walk back inside and he sits on his bed. I join him and pull him into my side, he shakes. He obviously is not as chill with this as he wanted to be, he was scared.

"It's alright love," I say soothingly.

Before we started this project, I felt like he was invincible, completely different from the kid he used to be.

But the more time I spend with him the more I see that who he was is just carefully suppressed  and the more time he spends with me the more it seemed to come back. The less he pretended like he could handle everything that came at him alone.

Obviously I'm terrified too, but I have less riding on it, I know how much his friends mean to him I honestly feel like it's my fault this is happening. If I wasn't here than he'd not have had to deal with this whole fiasco.

"How about we get dressed love," I say to him.

And we do get dressed but instead of him using his own jacket he wears the one I gave him the other day. Once he curls his hair we still have about twenty minutes before we have to leave, and he sticks his hands in my hair.

I haven't cut my hair more than to trim for a while so it's long and unruly, the only form of maintenance is the rapidly fading blue dye, but seeing as it's so messy he puts it up in a man bun- Kind of.

My hairs not that long, it doesn't go past my ears when it's wet. But somehow he managed to put it in a low sitting man bun. He laughs at it.

"For once I can see your entire face," He says, kissing the corner in my mouth, I smile and turn my head catching his lips as he starts to move his head.

I feel like we're just procrastinating thinking through what going to schools going to be like.

I bring my hands to rest on his shoulder blades and pull him into my lap. Just then, as luck would have it James mom walked in.

"It's a surprise he's letting you anywhere near him since his hair is already curled," She observes suppressing her laughter.

"Shit I forgot about that," he scrambles away and into the bathroom to inspect his hair.

A string of curses quickly follow. Personally I don't really think I messed it up.

I frown at his mom before remembering the fact that I'm lucky she's not the type of parent to smite me for kissing her son.

"You don't have to go today," she says comfortingly, "I know it's hard, especially to come out on someone else's terms,"

It's easy to forget people are bi when they've been married to a man for my entire life.

"It's alright, I think it's best to face this head on,"

James crankily mutters his agreement from the bathroom.

When he emerges from the bathroom he mutters something into his mothers ear, she nods and smiles proudly.

I stare at them in confusion.

I check my phone.

"Time to go love," I say grabbing our backpacks and offering his to him. We rush out the door and James protests as his mother throws toast at his head, he wasn't expecting it so crashes quietly to the floor, louder than it should of been seeing as it was, or it use to be, toast.

Lucky for me this time he was expecting it and he catches it before it hits me. His hand is actually damaged from this, the type of scratch you get from running your hand to quickly over an edge of furniture sits there.

"Ma how do you fuck up toast," he asks more defeated than angry. He doesn't falter from walking to his car.

"It's fucking delicious, eat it you ungrateful, limp, noodle," she says throwing another at us to make up for the one he dropped.

He's sure not to drop it. We don't have enough time to stop by Starbucks or something so we actually will have to make due with what we have.

We run to the car, if we had left twenty minutes ago than we would of been able to stop and get bagel bites or some shit. Once we get to the death trap he calls both his truck and Casper, he pauses before getting in, staring dejectedly at the marks in the door. I smile empathetically at him and he gets in.

We are bound to there in time to go to breakfast- Not like that's any better than his moms toast- but again we have to make do with what we have.

His hands are shaky resting on the wheel- his friends aren't known for being particularly accepting, so I get that, but I'll be damned if they lay a semi-violent finger on him, he deserves none of that shit.

A few horns honk around us, some slurs are thrown out the window at us.

When we walk through the doors the normal bland, meaningless, chatter (Which seemed a little less bland and meaningless and more about me and my boyfriend) instantly ceased. Heads turn our direction. I reach for James hand and keep it from shaking.

A/N
Back with my girlfriend Yay! I hope this chapter reads better than I think it does ima try to make a picture of how I imagine James and Noah to look using my lovely photo shop skills! Remember the photos I might use are just a guide to how they looks it's not set in stone, it's just the best representation I could find/make. The way that James looks is so basic I can't find anything that's right.

Byyyyyyyyeeee <3