Sorry I took so long with this chapter guys!! Working, Exams, Study Abroad paperwork, a guy is swamped these days, but I had to finish the chapter tonight. Hope you enjoy the rainy aftermath!!!!
I woke up today feeling extremely tired, yet at the exact same time I felt well-rested, if that makes any sense at all. It's probably just how I feel every morning, but I'm just now more in tune with it. I look outside and it's raining, not hard but it has the potential to. I grab my towel and head into the shower. I scratch my head and I start seeing flakes. Ugh, I have to wash my hair.
One of the the things I hate about being me is that I have to wash my hair more than 4 times a week. I hate the feeling of shampoo in my hair. It feels like all the moisture is being dried out of my head. And I don't put conditioner in it directly after because my hair get's all knotty. Even when it's short it can be a pain in the ass to get my comb through it. A white gay complaining about his thin and uninteresting hair; can we pick a different struggle today, sir..
After I rinse the gunk out of my hair and wash my body, I get out and brush my teeth while getting dressed. I get a text from Jayna saying she's downstairs waiting for me to get ready. Since it's raining I just throw on sweatpants and an old Yale hoodie my aunt gave me when she visited the school last year.
I grab my bag and head downstairs, and Jayna is just sitting at the table talking to Steph about something that I don't really care to know about. Whoever said all gays cared about gossip obviously never met me.
"Is that my box of Golden Hornets?!" I yell at Jayna. She knows that no one is allowed to touch my Golden Hornets cereal. Not even Bryce is allowed and he's an adorable little thing who normally gets what he wants from me. That cereal is my salvation, and I will commit murder on whomever touches it.
"Relax, I grabbed the first thing I saw. And when I realized it was yours it was already in my mouth and it would have been a waste to pour it out and substitute." She says calmly. I hate how she never raises her voice at me to get a point across, which is weird because I shouldn't want her yelling at me. "Hurry up and eat, we gotta go and I have some news to tell you."
Out of the four of us, Jayna shares the least with us, and it's not even because she doesn't trust us. She just thinks if it isn't related to life and death, school, or super personal it shouldn't be categorized as "news". The fact that she said news must be something bigger than the both of us. I grab the muffin sitting in the jar by the microwave and a boxed milk belonging to Bryce and grab her to leave. The second we walk down the street I ambush her with questions.
"What the hell is so important that you couldn't share with us last night?" I pester as we hit a red light waiting for cars to pass.
"First of all, this all happened after I left, and second even if I did know before then I wouldn't have said anything because last night was your night." She deadpans. "Anyways, I didn't wanna tell anyone but you because you're indifferent to this topic so you'll be the perfect mediator."
I raise an eyebrow at that. What could I possibly be a mediator for? Last I checked, I was the one with a situation people were trying to mediate for me. If she thinks I'm indifferent to it maybe I am, Jayna is the most in-tune to me aside from Alice.
"Anyway, when I left your house last night I was walking toward my house and I saw Dennis running with his dog, which scared the hell out of me (she hates dogs), and I was freaking out a little since this dog was really big. But it wasn't barking so I calmed down, and Dennis said 'hi' and I said 'hey' and we walked down the street together a little bit talking about class and he switched streets but then he gave me his number to text and stuff and I said 'okay'." She pauses for a long breath.
"So then when I walk in the house and change I send him a quick text saying 'hey it's Jayna' and he responds like a rabbit by the way. He responded like 3 seconds later saying 'hi' with a smiley at the end. So we're texting for a little while and I say 'I'm tired, I'm gonna head to bed' and he says 'maybe we can get coffee to help you stay up later Saturday' and to that I said 'maybe' with a big smiley face. So basically I think we have a coffee date or something.
"And the only reason I'm saying all this is because I thought he wasn't interested because yesterday when you pushed us together some girl was right behind him using some seductive tactic to get him away from me. I mean it's just coffee so it's not anything serious but I don't know. Plus he's bisexual so i'm fearful about if we did become something he might leave me for some guy, or you for that matter."
She sounds like Caroline when she rants like that. She's only talked like this once before, and thats when she was dating her first ex years ago. She broke her elbow and she was in the hospital and her now ex was there for a sprained ankle, and she thought he was like an angel sent from heaven.
He was nice, but he is the reason she's so cautious about dating now. He was a flirt, like big time. And though I could tell he meant nothing by it, Jayna got really insecure about it. She always thought that he would leave her, and he did eventually. But not for another girl, he just moved and long distance would have killed her.
I do understand her dilemma with Dennis, because bisexuals are wild cards. Because they like both, who knows what could happen. I mean, Dennis seems decent to not cheat, but you never know. And as for that comment when she said he might go for me, I doubt that. I don't even think Dennis is all that cute if i'm being honest. The black hair just doesn't do it for me, it doesn't fit his face at all.
We walk into the school and I spot Caroline, looking extremely tired and almost zombie like. She only ever looks like that when she's handling her niece. The last time she had that look was the day after her sisters birthday, when Riley ate too much cake and started acting hyper and annoying. The girl is cute as a button, but all cute kids have their limits.
"Let me guess: you had Riley after you left." Jayna claims as we approach our spaced out friend. The weather is definitely not helping Caroline transition back into the world. Rain makes her gloomy. Without sunshine, Caroline has no fire. And as cheesy as it sounds, it's true.
"Ugh, yes. Kyle took Carly out for dinner since he got promoted at work and I stupidly said I'll watch her. I was working on my physics homework and she came and got juice all over my books and It took me two extra hours to re-do everything while trying to get her little butt to go to sleep. I never want kids, ever." She decided confidently.
"Being a god-mother will have to suffice, if I have any kids. Odds are I won't so Jayna and Brad are your only hopes."
"Brad will have like eight with six different women. He'll keep you covered, I promise you." Jayna retorts.
"Probably." I agree. Brad is a slut. But I guess in every group of friends you need one. Speaking of sluts, I see Usmana walking down the hallway with a nice dress on. She's going for Hawaiian escort today, good for her.
Usmana Khalieida is literally the biggest slut to ever attend this school. She las literally slept with everyone, and she has no shame about it. One teacher, a few football players, half the baseball team, all of the swim team, two girls from the soccer team, some foreign exchange student last year, and that's just in this school. Can you imagine the numbers she's racked up in other towns. How she has no STDs I will never know.
One good thing about her is that she openly admits to everything. She owns her slut ways, and if you have something you wanna know, she will tell you. I asked her five different times if the rumors were true, and only once has she said one was a lie. I admire her, but she needs to slow it down, too. She's an okay girl, pretty friendly and cool, she's just really slutty.
"I heard that she got it on with the quarterback from Woodstock at a party last week, and she got Gonorrhea again." Caroline says, wanting to change the subject.
"You know she's never had an STD, Caroline. I should know, I asked her twice." I said, oddly defending her slutty actions.
"All good things must come to an end." Jayna says, and with that the warning bell rings. I walk by Usmana and she's talking to some boy I have never seen before, probably a freshman. Good luck, fresh meat.
I walk into French with Caroline and Jayna, and it looks like we need to link up into partners. I obviously am gonna choose Caroline, because she does all the work. Jayna normally gets with Derek, who also ends up doing all the work. We both win in this regard. I take my seat next to Caroline about to start, when Raine comes up next to me.
"Hey, Mike, Do you mind being my partner today, Jeremy is being creepy and I don't understand the assignment." She gives me that look that says you have no choice, move and no one gets hurt.
Caroline definitely understood this look, and gave me the okay to go, while she grabbed Jayna before she got to Derek. I walked over to where she was sitting and we started the assignment, but twenty minutes in I just stopped. "Why did you want to be my partner again?"
She closes her textbook as well and leans in. "I need to talk to you. It's about Paul." I rolled my eyes. Of course it was! I hadn't even thought about him the entire morning, or even last night since my date with Craig. Yet, here I am, being reminding of his existence and his apparent feelings for me.
"While I'm not too thrilled about my ex boyfriend being gay (you get used to it, go ask Alice), he still means a lot to me, considering I did cheat on him. And he told me about his dilemma and I put the pieces together and he's talking about you. I owe him so I'm gonna get you two together."
When she says this, her eyes get that sinister glare, and it actually starts to freak me out. First of all, you can't force two people together, life doesn't work that way. Secondly, I haven't seen Paul since yesterday afternoon, and I was still a little mad that he assumed that I would just get with him just because he knew i liked him. Circumstances have changed, sorry not sorry.
"That's not gonna happen." I retort, pretty confidently i must add.
"He told me he was sure that you were into him." She nonchalantly breathed out.
"Yeah, well things have changed. There's someone new now." I said, automatically smiling, thinking about Craig.
As I say this, the bell starts to ring, and as I walk out the door I get a text from the boy I was just talking about.
'Morning cutie, how'd you cleep?'
'sleep* lol'
To which I replied with, 'More like did you sleep last night? and I slept well thanks to a special someone ;p'
I grinned like an idiot toward English, and then it suddenly dawned on me: I forgot to write the last poem for the week! Dammit!
I have three minutes before class, there is no way in hell i can write an entire poem that fast. I end up doing the honorable thing and telling Mr.Richardson I forgot to write it in time, and he gives me until the end of the day to submit something. I feel relieved he didn't just say no and that be the end of it. Some teachers do have hearts.
I looked around the classroom and I didn't see Paul anywhere. Huh. I guess I'm a little happy about that. I don't have to really focus on him if he's not in the room. I watch everyone going up t the front of the room to hand in the poems, and then there's me just sitting down looking stupid because I forgot to do it. At least I can make it up.
Overall, Mr. Richardson just asked us how we all liked the assignment, and to be honest it wasn't that bad. I mean it could have been way worse, like the essays that Caroline had to do for her English class project. She looked just as bad as she did earlier today for almost a week straight last year.
He started to hand out our poems from earlier in the week and since Paul was out, he gave me both of our poems. I got pretty good grades on my work, as did Paul. I didn't bother reading Paul's poems just because it didn't feel right for me to I guess.
The day went by pretty quickly, pretty soon I was in math class, which was a sign the day was almost over. It was still raining, and it was raining harder if I may add. Since I live relatively close, it won't be a big deal to walk back. It would be cute if Craig picked me up from school. He's not my boyfriend so of course I can't expect him to do that.
I zone out during math until I get a text from Paul, in the form of a poem.
'Roses are red, violets are blue, I promise that I will see you after school.' His little poem almost rhymed, and it reminds of Easy A when Woodchuck Todd tried to rhyme back to Olive at the party. God I love that movie.
I didn't feel like replying, but I also didn't feel like being a jerk right now. I type out on my screen 'I haven't even seen you all day, I don't know how you expect that to happen.'
I shove my phone in my bag, not even wanting to see his reply. I just look back up at the board and try to understand the nonsense Mr. Kellenbass wrote up on it. I see a bunch of formulas, and this is normally a sign that I zoned out a little too much. Ugh, I swear to god I hate this class.
The bell rings and I slowly pack up my undented notebook and unused pencil into my bookbag. I walk up to the front of the class and pick up my quiz from wednesday. I look through the pile of names and find my weird handwriting, and slide it out, and I find a giant red 93% on the top of my paper. What. My eyes go wide and I'm left totally speechless. I got a freaking 93 on a math quiz. No freakin way.
"Congratulations on your grade, Mike. I'm happy you've been improving lately." Mr. Kellenbass says over my shoulder, heading toward the board to erase stuff.
"Yeah, me too sir." I say back in almost an alien voice. Paul got me a 93. Damn.
I'm still stunned when I make my way to art. I mean, I know I wasn't dumb, but my grades weren't Einstein caliber either. Math was my worst subject, and I managed to pull a 93%. I got a freaking 54% on the last quiz we took. I pull out my phone and text Paul what I got in math and thank him for his excellent tutoring skills. He saved me from possibly going to private school. But then again, would my parents really pull me out of public school because my math sucks?
Did my dad have sex with boys when he was my age? I think that answers my question: anything is possible. I walk into art and, thank god, we have a sub. Our actual teacher hates me, probably because I tried to get her fired last year when she tried to fail me for home economics when clearly I had sewn the damn pillows correctly.
It was not my fault that she got them mixed up with the kid with horrible hand-eye coordination that sat behind me. He hasn't tried to fail me, but she has added some barriers to make my passing a miracle.
I take my normal seat next to the supplies and watch this substitute, who is pretty young and cute but overall not my type and his voice is too raspy for my liking, take attendance and botch up almost 4 of my classmates last names. Once that painful five minutes is over, he hands us out this packet that my Satanic teacher left us to do. It doesn't look very long, and I have nothing else to do so I just do it just because.
I end up making eye contact with Lauren by accident, and she comes over and asks me for my answers, which I willingly relinquish. She's a nice girl, regardless of her choices of study habits, which in this case are none at all. She's done pretty fast and when she walks away back to her seat I get a dozen vibrations coming from my back pocket.
Brad: 'We hanging out today? Your place?'
Craig: 'Wanna hang out after school?' *crosses fingers*' (He's so cute)
Paul: 'I told you I was good at math. BTW where are you gonna be later on?'
Jayna: 'I have no food at home so I'm raiding your fridge.'
Of course Jayna doesn't even bother to ask. Out of the four of them I only really want to see three. Im trying to put off seeing Paul until tomorrow, so I don't respond to his text at all and tell Brad yes and Craig to come over to hang out with us. Hopefully Brad and Jayna don't interrogate the guy, we aren't even a thing yet so that would be awkward. I only have fifteen minutes left until war breaks out at my house possibly.
THE POEM, I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT THE POEM! I have to come up with something fast, that thing has to be in before the second after school bell! Luckily I can write about anything, so I write some jumbled up brain teaser and make it extra fancy sounding so it'll come up like I meant for you to be confused.
See what these boys are doing to my brain? Forgetting assignments, jumbled up feelings, stressing out, all the fun teenage stuff. Girls seriously get all of my respect. This type of ordeal makes up their entire existence essentially. The bell finally rings and I just barely finish by the time I head out of the door. I have a feeling Mr. Richardson won't be in the room, so I just go to the main office and look for his mailbox and slide the poem in there. Mission accomplished.
I walk back out into the hall and head outside, where it's raining somewhat hard, but I could walk in it and not complain. I wait for Brad for another five minutes until he texts me saying he ran to my house with Jayna to get food. Those bitches. I have to walk home alone in the rain?! Awesomesauce.
As if a great miracle had been granted, I see Craig's car pull up across the street waiting for me. I trudge my way through the great wave of windy rain and get into his car, which smells so much like cinnamon and heat. It's warm in the car, thank god, and I immediately feel comfortable, like I'm in a little shack with a fireplace. I look over to say hi to Craig but he just pulls me in for a kiss and I almost give in, but I realize that my face is all wet.
"Wait-wait-wait" I put my hands up as I grab a napkin from my bag and wipe the water from my face and dry up my hair a little bit. He looks at me and chuckles at me as he waits. His lips look so inviting, so hungry for me to touch them. Once I'm done I grab him and pull him in for a kiss.
It's soft at first, and I can feel him smiling a few seconds into it. Pretty soon his hands are in my damp hair, and my hands are grabbing his neck to come in closer. After 5 minutes we decide to stop because we need to breathe and people have probably been watching us while we weren't paying attention. My lips feel numb from the touch.
"Hello to you too." he says as he starts to drive toward my house.
"Hi." I say whilst blushing at the same time. I feel like those couples who kiss before saying hello to each other, and at one end it's corny, but at the other it's sweet and adorable. "Oh, I hope you don't mind but my friends are coming over too to hang out. Well, they invited themselves so don't be surprised."
He laughs a little to that, "That's fine with me, it would be nice to meet your friends officially, especially if we become boyfriends." He just said boyfriends. He's thinking about it oh god. Breathe, Mike, Breathe.
"Yeah, that's true. Hopefully they're in a good mood right now." I put on the most unphased voice I can for that sentence. I'm still internally freaking out about the boyfriends remark.
"I think they'll like me. I can be pretty charming, so I've been told." He sends me a wink and I blush a little. He is so cute it's not even fair.
I tell him to pull up in the driveway, and as he does I notice my dads car is here. Huh. My dad normally doesn't come home until 5:30, and it's almost 3. I did not plan on my possibly future boyfriend meeting my parents so soon. I hope everyone is eating something, or is somewhere not in the areas I plan on being with him.
I unlock the door and walk inside and hear a lot of noise in the kitchen. I walk toward it with Craig behind me and literally everyone minus my mother is here. My dad is cooking stuff on the stove while Brad and Stephanie are yapping about something, and Jayna is playing with little Bryce by the table. We walk in and everyone turns around to look at us.
"Took you long enough. Your dad is making burgers and beans so I'm moving in forever." Jayna says from across the room. I roll my eyes and walk up further in. I see little Bryce run up to give Craig a hug, and it's only then that I realize we've been holding hands the entire time walking in the house. Is that why everyone was looking at us?
"So you finally figured out the pizza guy had a thing for you?" Steph says when she goes to the fridge, and I turn around and Craig literally changes a different color. I feel so bad, he's being indirectly interrogated, which I think is worse than actual interrogation.
"I guess I did." I said back, just so she can back down a little bit.
When my dad was done cooking the burgers, he came over to introduce himself to Craig formally, even though they had met I don't know how many times.
"Nice to formally meet you, Craig. I'm Bryson senior, Mike and Stephanie's father." He stuck his hand out to shake, and Craig grabbed hold and returned the shake. This felt so surreal, most of my friends and most of my family were meeting the guy I may end up calling my boyfriend someday. I need to sit down.
I grab some buns from the top of the fridge and plates and everyone goes and grabs what they want. We all ended up eating at the dining room table, talking about random things. Jayna and Brad are here all the time so my dad sometimes treats them like they're his own kids too, which is nice.
Craig sits next to me and I sit next to Jayna and dad directly across from us, with little Bryce and Brad next to him on both sides. Steph is the only one who doesn't want to sit with us so she left. Thank god.
"Wait, you're cooking dinner tonight right?" Jayna asks my dad. I think she prefers my dads cooking over my moms.
"No, it's Rachel's (my mom) turn tonight. Sunday night I will be though." My dad says enthusiastically.
"Eh, I'll still eat here. But I will be here Sunday for dinner, count a seat for me." Jayna responds. I wonder if she really just wants food from me instead of actual friendship. She's told me yes every time, and I just roll my eyes every time.
"Mike, you should invite your boyfriend to dinner on Sunday." My dad suggests
"Oh, he's not my boy-"
"I would be delighted to come, thank you for inviting me." he says, cutting me off. He is charming, I will give him that.
It's not that I didn't like him being called my boyfriend, it's just that we aren't boyfriends, yet at least. And until the day comes I can't call him that, but what else do you call a boy you're in the transition stage with? I guess Bryce's "special friend" is gonna have to do for a little while.
We all decide to go upstairs and watch some Youtube videos, with Craig and I on the floor near my bed sort of snuggled up together for almost two hours. We were so close that I could hear his heartbeat race or slow down when he was coming down from the cry-laughing high from a Teens React video. This episode was pretty funny, they were talking about Miley Cyrus and her video for We Can't Stop.
Pretty soon Craig had to go, he had a shift at work tonight. I was so comfortable with him being here I didn't want him to leave. He told me that he would try to see me early tomorrow before he had work, to which I told him that he didn't have to, but I wouldn't say no if he came to my door.
From my window upstairs, I watched him walk out to his car and unlock his door, sending me one last glance and wave before he got in his car. I smiled like little Bryce at the toy store. This boy is going to be the death of me I swear.
"Okay, I approve" I hear Jayna say behind me, still locked onto the screen of my computer.
"Approve of what?" I was confused. "Of their channel?"
"I think she means she approves of Craig." Oh. "I do too, he's a real cool guy, and I can tell he likes you, bro." Brad adds.
"Yeah, he's pretty cute, and really polite. He had your dad in the palm of his hands, and Bryce was in love with him too." Jayna piles on.
"I really like him, guys. If he asked me out I think I would have said yes." I say, but I know I would probably say no initially, because Paul is still in the picture. The more time I spend with Craig, the more i question how I feel about Paul. Do I really like him like I thought I did or was just lust talking?
"Just be glad Caroline got stuck with Riley. Had she been here she would not have let up on asking a million questions." Brad interjects. The sad part is he's actually right. Caroline would run us both into the ground with her questions. All for my benefit of course, but overall still embarrassing.
I get a text from Paul just as he makes that point. 'Open your door.'
'Are you here???'
*3 minutes later* 'Just open the door.'
I mentally groan, not even being close to being prepared to talk to him at the moment. I suck all that up and make my way toward the door, but when I open it, no one is here. I look around and no one is on the street except for Mr. Brigm three houses down. I look at the door and I see a ticket hanging on the door to the premier of My Deadly Weapon tomorrow night at 7.
'Of all the possible ideas for a date you decide on a scary movie?!?! WHY?!'
*25 seconds later* 'See you tomorrow Mike ;)'
Awesomesauce.
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