Garrett Wells walked quickly down the hall to his band class, clutching his saxophone tightly. 'I'm so late..' He thought to himself, speeding up his frantic walk to a jog. He looked down at his watch to check the time before he hit something. Hard. His instrument and music hit the ground, the note covered sheets flying everywhere. He looked up to be met with a familiar bearded face.
"Justin..?" Garrett questioned, raising an eyebrow. The pair stared at each other for an awkward moment before remembering their initial missions.
Garrett got on his knees and started trying to round up his music. Justin watched, dumbfounded for a moment before he leaned down and started helping. Soon enough, they'd gotten Garrett's music back into his folder, picked his sax up, and they were back in awkward silence.
"Why aren't you in band?" Garrett asked the other.
"Trope kicked me out for talking while he was trying to teach, I dunno." Justin shrugged and the smaller boy furrowed his eyebrows.
"That man really hates you, huh?"
"Oh, for sure. But uh," Justin stretched, his back popping in the most horrific way causing Garrett to cringe. "I think I might dip. Wanna come with?"
Garrett scoffed, "Isn't this more of you and Audric's thing?"
"I mean, sure. But I like m akin' new friends." Justin winked at the smaller boy who gave a small smile.
"I've never skipped before, will I get in trouble?"
Justin shrugged, "Probably, but it'll be so much fun until you do."
Every part of Garrett's brain was telling him not to do this, but for some reason... He found himself sneaking out the school's back. The pair walked across the parking lot until they reached an electric blue thunderbird. Justin unlocked it, and the two climbed inside.
The drive was awkward and totally silent for about five minutes until Justin felt like he was gonna explode.
"What kind of music do you like?" The brown headed man asked Garrett.
"Oh man, it's that bad."
Justin couldn't help but laugh, "You just aren't saying anything."
"I'm sorry," Garrett laughed awkwardly, pushing his long hair out of his eyes. He looked over at Justin who glanced back occasionally. "I'm really bad with people like you."
The taller man looked at him quizzically, "What am I like?"
"Like, popular kids. I'm only good with Jayna because she's weird."
Justin shook his head, grinning, "We're both in band, so I think we might be on the same level."
"You think so? I don't know, you're so good with like, girls and stuff." The blonde headed boy immediately blushed after saying this.
"You need a wingman or something, Garr Bear?"
Garrett cringed at the nickname, "No, I didn't mean it like that. I'm gay." He wanted to slap himself. "But uh.. I'm not like James Charles gay like, I won't love you." Hard as fuck. "I mean not that I don't love you. You know! As a peer, I love all people, and-"
"Holy shit, man." Justin interrupted the other, sending them both back into an awkward silence until they had pulled up at the park. Garrett's heart had been pounding since Justin had cut him off, he must think he was an idiot.
Sometime during his rambling thoughts, the smaller boy was able to gather himself enough to notice Justin was staring at him. It made Garrett nervous.
"I didn't mean to get all weird like that, I just-" Cut off again.
"Nah, it's cool. We don't have to talk about it. You smoke?"
No.
"Yeah.." Garrett had never smoked, and yet here he was. Prepared to smoke just to fit in with this older kid.
"Cool." The taller boy pulled a rillo pack out of his door, and opened it. He dumped a cigar out of it, and started to split it in half.
"What are you doing?" Garrett asked dumbly. Justin didn't answer, just side-eyed him curiously as he proceeded to roll a blunt. The smaller boy watched the other closely, fascinated at how quick he rolled it and how neat it looked.
They continued to sit in silence as Justin lit it up, inhaling a few times and then breathing out the smoke. He passed the blunt to the younger boy who looked at it hesitantly before hitting it once. He immediately started coughing, which caused the other to laugh at him. But Garrett was determined to keep his lie in tact. So he tried to hit it a few more times, still coughing. Until suddenly it felt like he hit a wall.
"I feel sick.." He said, handing the blunt back to Justin, who quickly took it from the boy.
"Just open the door and lean out. Here." Justin moved and took the ponytail holder out of his hair, his brunette locks spilling over his shoulders as he handed it to the other. Garrett quickly put it on, tying his long blonde hair up behind his head before opening the door and retching soon after. The now panicked boy threw up his lunch from earlier. He was surprised to feel a hand rubbing his back as he hurled. He wanted to pull away from the older boy, but it honestly felt kinda nice. It made him think Justin wasn't judging him for this.
Once Garrett leaned back into the car, laying the seat back and breathing heavily.
Justin chuckled. "So, you definitely don't smoke."
Garrett shook his head, crossing his arms. "No." He cleared his throat, "No, I feel kinda weird.."
Justin reached behind him and grabbed a bottle of water, handing it over to him. The blonde boy happily sat up, took it and gulped it down. Immediately he felt immensely better, and more calm.
"Thank you." He sighed, closing his eyes and smiling contently.
Justin grinned at him, "How does it feel?"
Garrett looked over at him about to say something before he was suddenly stuck on him. Justin was kinda nice to look at.. his facial features were sharp, and his hook nose suited him so well. His beard was short and trimmed, but filled out. His shoulder length brown hair was feathered and raggedy. Garrett's eyes started to wander down to his defined collar bone until Justin cleared his throat, bringing the younger boy back to reality.
"I'm sorry, I feel so slow.." Garrett said, looking down at his own feet to try and hide the shade of red his face was turning.
"What were you thinking? You were staring kinda hard there, buddy." Justin laughed, and Garrett looked back at him.
"I don't remember." Garrett lied, "Everything's kinda moving.." He said, trying to change the subject.
"Yea, that goes away after like the fourth or fifth time you do it." He turned forward and leaned his seat back a bit.
Garrett had a hard time looking away as Justin puffed on the blunt, doing all kinds of smoke tricks. As lame as it was, Justin looked so cool to the other. "You've been doing this for a while?"
Justin shrugged in response, hitting the blunt a few more times before putting it out to save the rest for later. "Does your stomach feel any better?"
The blonde boy nodded, crossing his arms. "I just feel odd..."
"Well, Gar Bear, you have two options that I can see. You can crash in here until school's over, and I'll take you home. Or," He started, causing Garrett's interest to peak. "We can get out and pretend we're in middle school again." The brunette said, pointing to the swings. This made the other boy grin. "Race you." Justin said, turning his car off and hopping out quickly.
"Wait up, asshat! Let me remember how to get up.." the younger boy said, slowly getting out of the car and making his way over to the other. Who was already on his claimed swing. He chose the swing beside him and sat down, a smile creeping on his face as a feeling of nostalgia washed over him.
His emotions were heightened by the weed, so it's not all that shocking that tears welled up inside of his eyes. Justin noticed this. "You ok?" Garrett just nodded in return, not sure if he should just open up to the other.
"Yeah, I'm just sensitive to nostalgia I suppose.." The younger answered simply, receiving a nod from the other.
"I get it, man." Justin thought for a moment before quickly changing the subject, "What do you think about the region music? Mine is absolute bullshit, it's like 8th grade level."
Garrett felt relief at the change of conversation, his thoughts steering to more positive directions. "Our music is actually pretty fun! Honestly... You wanna hear it?" He said, having remembered his instrument was inside of the other boy's car.
The brunette smirked, "I'd love to." He said, getting up and running to his car before the other could protest. He grabbed his sax and folder and brought it to Garrett, who had moved to a nearby bench. "Wow me, Mr. Section Leader."
"Maybe I will." The younger said, pulling his instrument out and putting it together. He asked Justin to hold a sheet of music he'd pulled out of his folder for him as he tested his reed's position.
Once he had it adjusted, Garrett sat forward on his seat and started playing the music in front of him. The other watched in silent awe, as he'd known the sax player was good, but the talent he held was actually kind of incredible. He noticed the boy's eyes closed as he played, and his eyebrows arched with passion. His tone was smooth, jazzy. And his vibrato was soulful, bluesy. The kid definitely played better than anyone else in that band in Justin's ears.
When he was done playing, Garrett's eyes opened, and his face turned red when he noticed Justin's reaction. He actually... looked impressed.
"Well you definitely live up to the title," Justin laughed, causing the other to smile shyly.
"Yeah..? I just like to practice, honestly..." He thought for a moment, "Hey, Justin?"
"What's up?"
"Do you have your trumpet?" Garrett asked, taking the sheet music from Justin's hand and putting back in his folder.
"You thinking duet?" A smirk plastered itself on Justin's lips.
"No, but I am now! Go get it!" The blonde said excitedly as Justin got up to go retrieve his own instrument. When he returned, Garrett had a two page sheet of music out.
"What's this?" Justin asked, sitting down beside the other and scanning over the music.
"Um.. it's actually a trumpet/sax duet..." The younger boy said, brushing some hair behind his ear.
"Batucada? This is like.. Some God shit, I've been looking for someone to play this with for the longest. You've got good taste."
"Thanks.." Garrett smiled at him, adjusting his sax. Indicating to the other he was ready to play.
Justin tested his trumpet a few times before holding it up to his face. "Count us off, Mr. Wells." He said to the shorter boy.
They played for about an hour, just replaying and perfecting their duet until both of their mouths felt like jello.
"You know... If you're not doing anything 'after school', you can come over and play some video games at my place if you want." The brunette offered.
"Sure, I'm kind of having fun anyway." Garrett answered, smiling shyly at him as he finished putting his saxophone up.
And with that, the two boys headed off to Justin's house. Both still buzzed, and both talking and laughing about stupid things. It was the most fun Garrett had had in years.
Ok so uh, I have like 10000000000 books I've written/am writing/will never finish
But I've got high hopes for this one so like
Just bear w me and hopefully it'll all go down smoothly
👀