Leon, Leon (BoyxNB romance)

Chapter 2

The rest of the day was uneventful, mostly. At lunch I had retreated to the computer room on the top floor, so I could listen to some relaxing piano music mix on my phone and eat wotsits as I leant against the window and stared through it onto the grassy field below where the football team were practicing. I didn’t see Jake or the other guys down there – it was only the really dedicated that went to the lunchtime practices as well as the after-school ones – and I think a girl from the netball team was being a substitute goalie.

“Hey, how’s it going,” Ally said, munching on a slice of cardboard pizza from the canteen. “You up to much?”
“Nah, just chilling. What about you?”
“I have English work to finish off, so I’ve decided to trek to the other side of the room to stop Susie from latching on my shoulder and nagging in my ear to add more opinions or extend paragraphs or whatever.” I gave him a look, saying, ‘It’s for the best she’s like that, you never get anything done on your own,’ and he seemed to say back ‘Yeah, I know.’ “Why up here? Aren’t you normally with the mad banter lads downstairs?”
“Jeez Ally, it’s not Geordie Shore,” I rolled my eyes, but there was always the thought that I really wasn’t part of the group. I’m sure Ally didn’t mean anything by it, but it still hurt. “But yeah. There’s this new guy, and I just thought... retreat to home base, for a while.”
“Oh, right. What’s wrong with him? Is he being an asshole or something to you?”
“No, it’s not like that, just-“
“Wait, who’s being an asshole to you? What’s their name?” Kayla said, shouting across the room.
“Nobody is, Kayla, we’re just talking about the new guy in my class.”
“Oh right, I know. The French one?”
“Yeah.”
“With the hot smile and fit body?”
“Uh... I guess.” I hadn’t really looked at anywhere downwards from his neck, but there can’t have been more than one new kid a day, and even if there was, Kayla was pretty stingy on rating guys.

Was he fit, though? I used the other guys for perspective. Ben always seemed to be the one with a girlfriend, so I guess he was the true alpha – though maybe it was because he didn’t have the weirdly high and well... weirdly weird standards for who pleased him. Apart from the bonus of being Russian.

They didn’t really have much in common, from what I could tell in my head – they were both tanned, sure, but Ben’s seemed much more orange, ‘Trumpy’, you could call it in this modern political age. And he was a blond, and his teeth were straighter and he didn’t have the acne. And, you know, he could speak English. I’m sure some of the girls found the whole French thing hot to begin with, but I imagined the effect would quickly wear after a while.

Could you do what he’s doing? I asked myself again.
No? No.
Then stop criticising. You’re the one hiding from him, not the other way around.

She paused, for a second. “And you’re sure he’s not picking on you? I’ll beat him up if he is, don’t worry! Deck him one!”

I laughed, waving my hand over at her, and saw Susie roll her eyes too. But even she couldn’t help but smile, as serious as she always tried to be. “Thanks, Kayla, but I’m good.”

“So no offence, but how come your up here, then?” He said, scooting opposite me so our shoe toes were touching. He flipped his dark brown fringe back so he could look at me better, and smiled. He’d been trying to grow out of an emo phase himself for a while, but hadn’t quite got all the way there yet. 'Soft grunge', he called his new style.
“I, uh... it’s complicated.” I said, shrugging. “He’s just new, right? And I’m always a bad judge of character to begin with, and I can’t start conversations neither, so sharing reg was hard enough. But then I found out him and three of the boys had their first class together – and it was engineering, too, I could feel the testosterone in the air – and then after when I saw them just before lunch, walking down to the hall, I felt way too awkward to join back in. Like they’re probably all best friends by now, organising house parties and girls for him to meet and probably their marriages, too.”
“Wait, their marriages to each other or the girls?”
“Does that really matter? Point is is that I’m not in the group for any of it.”
“Aw come on, don’t be depressing,” he smiled. “That went out of fashion a while ago. Just know that... we’re here, and we’ve always got your backs. Even if... stuff has changed, and you don't feel comfortable being around some of us anymore."
“Al, I don’t think that’s much consolation coming from us.” Kayla said, walking over. “But seriously though. Don’t worry about that guy. Just ignore him, right? You don’t need to even give him the time of day. Unless you can get his number. Then please do. And send it to me. And show him that one good picture of me in the red dress from like three years ago and say I look even better now.”
She batted her eyelashes at me. “Jesus, you were just on about beating him up a minute ago. How can one person be so shallow? Scientists investigate.”
“Yeah, well, keep me informed either way. On his face, I mean. How punchable it gets. Or snoggable. Either one, or both, ideally.”
I couldn’t help but laugh again. She may be... crude, at times, and a little more violent than necessary, but she could really brighten up the room, if you gave her the chance.
“Alright, my good friend Kayla,” She grinned. “I will. Just for you.”

xxx

A/N (24/3/18): Hey! I meant to include something like this in the first chapter, but got too excited and forgot 😂 I've had the idea for this story for a while, and started writing it recently. I will update a chapter every day until I run out of chapters to post (or it finishes.) If you don't know any French, I would suggest looking some of it up - or don't, if it makes you more involved in Cal's world.

(PS: There is also a little bit of Welsh in this chapter. Don't expect many people to know the language, so I'll include those words:
- Dim - None, no or zero
- O gwbl (Pronounced Oh Goobull)- at all
- Spec - a shortening of S4C (S pedwar ec), the welsh language tv channel.)