Michael pulled up outside the Hanz family home and honked the horn a few times. Even with the windows rolled up and car heater on, Michael could hear the commotion coming from inside. If there was one thing guaranteed every time he visited, it was the liveliness of the Hanz family.
The front door opened, and Michael spotted Jessica waving energetically from the doorway. Only half-dressed, she still wore a dressing gown on her top half while her bottom half was fully kitted for school. He waved briefly before Sam squeezed past her and then shoved her back indoors, barking for her to get dressed properly.
The hulking blond squeezed into the car with a great huff.
Michael asked his customary question. "Everything okay?"
Sam nodded as he turned the car heater on full blast, but there was always something. There was never a dull moment. He rubbed his hands together. "Our heating stopped working yesterday. Something wrong with the radiators" he muttered.
Michael pursed his lips together. "Shall I-"
"Calm it, I've got it covered, you can put your noble steed away" Sam tossed a quick grin his way. "They probably need bleeding," he paused before his smile widened. "You can babysit while I do it."
Michael smiled briefly. "Great. Can't wait for that."
Michael had allowed Jess and Tammy to give him a makeover once to keep them happy and now it had become expected of him to play salons with them. There was nothing more emasculating than being told how pretty you looked in blue eyeshadow while a five-year-old clipped costume earring's to your earlobes. The girls didn't need babysitting, Sam just wanted someone else to be their victim so he could have five minutes peace.
One of the passenger doors opened, and Hadie clambered into the backseat. "Give us a lift, it's freezing!"
She leant through the middle and reached for the heating nozzle.
"I've already put it on full" Sam snapped, "and nobody said you're getting a lift, get out. You'll make us late!"
"Er, it's actually up to Michael" Hadie retorted.
Michael propped his elbow against his car door window and rested the side of his head on his palm, knitting his fingers into his hair. Why were they involving him?
The other passenger door opened, and in climbed Tammy and Jess.
"Oh, yes, so warm. Turn the heating up-"
"It's already on full, would you hurry up or get out! You're making us late."
"Since when did you care about being late!"
"Jess, you can't wear your dressing gown, where's your coat?"
"I've got her coat, don't worry."
"Stop touching shit and sit back, I've already told you the heating's on full."
"Stop moaning!"
"You can't say shit in front of Jess."
"You just said it too!"
"Hey, Mikey!"
Tammy and Hadie paused to also, briefly, bid Michael good morning before the bickering started up again.
"Seat belts" Michael sighed out before taking the hand break off. There was a moment of silence as seatbelts clicked into place, then it was nothing but noise.
Peace didn't return to the car until they arrived at school. After dropping the girls off, Sam continued to moan about them, and Michael gave the odd murmur of an agreement to show he was listening, not that his silence would have stopped Sam. After he was finished complaining, Sam switched to talking about training and school. Michael noticed, now that Sam was comfortable, he was extremely talkative. Sam was the first person Michael had met who could have a conversation with himself. Sometimes he assumed what Michael would say and proceeded to answer him without Michael having to say a word. He didn't mind, he preferred to listen.
They climbed out of the car and Sam continued talking animatedly. Ever since he made a show of his brute strength on the rugby pitch, he acquired something he wasn't used to- respect. Though he was still unliked and treated with suspicion, some, like Ed and Marcus, paid him the courtesy of a nod or at least acknowledged him without the customary glare. It was a small change, but one that appeared to make going to school a little more bearable.
Michael had noticed a fair amount of change. Sam no longer acted like a wounded animal under attack. While being acknowledged by peers never mattered much to Michael, it seemed to mean a lot to Sam. Despite all his front, Sam wanted to be liked. In Michael's eyes, this revelation had made Sam more predictable. In fact, since Michael had introduced himself into Sam's life, Sam gained stability and, in doing so, had become much more 'average.' Now he openly spoke to Michael about playing sport, doing well at school and the future. Things that tended to bore Michael.
"You know you could do it too Michael, you've been training just as hard. With your brains, you could easily get a scholarship. We could go together y' know," Sam pitched as they strolled through the school car park.
Michael was frustratingly impassive towards the idea.
The coach invited Sam to sit with him in his office within the days following his first rugby match. There wasn't much conversation, the coach did most of the talking and tossed a few rhetorical questions at him. Did Sam have a plan after finishing school? Would he chase a scholarship if he knew it was an option? Did he have the drive to succeed?
Sam had ambition, he wanted better for his family. On an individual level, he wanted to escape the small town he lived in. The coach gave him an ultimatum, he had to achieve a specific academic and athletic level to be considered for a scholarship. The coach admitted he could be jumping the gun as he'd only seen Sam play once, but he believed Sam had raw potential if he was willing to cultivate it.
Sam had left the meeting feeling weightless. He'd thought about the future before, but not with any real direction. The coach had given him a clear incentive to work hard towards a goal. Every day since Sam had revisited the meeting in his mind at least once. He promised his mum this year would be better that they would both work harder. She was holding up her end of the bargain, and finally, Sam could begin to hold up his own. With Michael and now the coach on his side, he had a real chance of doing something with his life.
They entered the school and found the hallway abnormally crowded. Sam frowned as he noticed people were looking at him and holding pieces of paper. It wasn't until he paid attention to the walls that he realised why. Pieces of paper were loosely stuck all over the place. He reached his locker and found a bunch pinned there. He ripped them off, discovering they were print outs of explicit messages sent to some of the lads at school, romantic messages even. Dread pierced his chest when he realised they were sent from his school email account. Most of the print outs were addressed to Michael and Tom Mercy who, for the record, was the only known gay one out of all of them.
He glanced around, his presence triggering a chain reaction of laughter and whispering. They all thought it was one hell of a joke. He screwed the papers up in his fists and chucked them forcefully on the floor.
Michael gently pulled another print-out off of the wall and read it.
Students seemed to throng closer, blocking Sam from escaping.
"Never knew you felt that way," chimed one girl, holding up a print out. The group of girls around her simpered at her teasing.
Sam reached her within two steps and snatched the paper out of her hands angrily.
"Hey, watch it" she muttered irritably like his outburst was utterly unneeded.
"These aren't mine" he mumbled, feeling like he needed to make that irrevocably clear. "This wasn't me" he added a little louder, looking at all the judgmental eyes.
"Sam?"
There was no mistaking Mr Mendez' stern voice. Sam turned to face his homeroom teacher, his fists balled around one of the many print outs. Mr Mendez gestured for Sam to follow him and paused only to capture Michael too. Sam walked dutifully towards his office through the crowds of eyes quietly mocking him, the back of his neck burning with embarrassment.
Once inside the office, Sam was dismayed to see Tom sitting patiently by the desk. Sam swallowed thickly as Mr Mendez took a seat and gestured for Sam and Michael to do the same.
"I'm not sitting" Sam grunted. His heart was going a thousand beats per second. A moment ago, everything was fine, and now he was in the most uncomfortable of situations.
"Sam, please?" Mr Mendez insisted with a careful smile. "This is important."
Sam reluctantly shunted himself a chair on the other side of Tom.
Mr Mendez surveyed them all before glancing down at his hands. They were lightly clasped in front of him on his desk. He began carefully, his accent soft and reassuring. "Now, I want to be clear that the school supports all of its students in their sexualities, and this meeting is in no way meant to embarrass or seclude you in any way. However, private emails were shared with the general populace this morning, some of which are explicit and must be addressed."
"I didn't write them" Sam interrupted quickly. "Someone hacked my email. I'm not gay!"
"I am," Tom injected unhelpfully, holding his hand up. He smiled as he glanced from Mr Mendez to Sam. "And I for one, don't blame Sam for the messages he sent, I mean, I am attractive."
Sam turned to glare at the side of Tom's head with the sear of a thousand hot pokers. Anger bubbled in his chest and frothed to the surface.
"I bet you were in on it you piece of-"
"Sam!" Mr Mendez snapped sternly. "Enough!"
Mr Mendez turned to Michael, who hadn't said a word.
"What have you got to say about these messages?" He encouraged.
Michael lent forth and pulled a print out from the desk so he could read it. His lips quirked up at the edges as his eyes travelled down the page. "Mm, no offence to Sam but he's not nearly this articulate," he mused before handing the paper back to Mr Mendez. "And unless it was an out-of-body experience, I have never done and will hopefully never do any of that with Sam. He's my friend, not my er, lover? I can back him up when he says this was a hacker."
Mr Mendez sat back in his chair and rubbed his beard. "Can you think of why someone would do this? These are not simple love messages, these emails are-" He didn't finish the sentence, he didn't know how to.
The heat at the back of Sam's neck spread to this face. He couldn't stand the doubtful look in Mr Mendez' eyes, and he couldn't stand sitting next to Tom, who had a disgusting little simper on his lips. This had to be what Charlie and his group had been up to this whole time.
"Why does anyone do anything" Michael replied artfully, "it's just a prank in bad taste."
"There is no trivialising this Michael. This sort of thing should never be sent on school grounds, and if someone has hacked into Sam's account, it is a severe thing." Mr Mendez rebuked before he turned to Sam. "Have other things happened Sam? Other things like this that we don't know about?"
Sam licked his lips and glimpsed Tom looking at him intently, daring him to say something, to admit weakness and confess how much Charlie and his goons were getting to him.
"No" he murmured lowly.
Mr Mendez' eyes narrowed subtly as if he might press for more. It appeared, for a split second, he might make Sam spill the beans on the months, nay years, he'd endured of people chip, chip, chipping away at him but instead, he sat back in his chair.
"There will be an investigation into this but let there be an understanding here today that this sort of thing is unacceptable. Regardless of who wrote it, the school will not tolerate smut being sent to students. As for the culprits who posted this all around the school, there's a reason we have CCTV." He pushed back from his desk and gestured to the door. "I want you to go round and remove all of these before you head to class."
"What?" Tom exclaimed, his face falling for the first time. "But I didn't do anything!"
"Do you want things like this, about you, to be posted all over the school?" Mr Mendez quipped.
Tom scowled. The answer to that was yes, but he couldn't admit it here while playing the innocent.
They left Mr Mendez's office, and the three of them slowly walked away until he closed his door. Sam launched himself at Tom, pinning him to the lockers with a forearm to the chest.
"You stay the fuck away from me!" He snarled, raising his forearm to push on Tom's neck.
Tom sneered at him, unperturbed by Sam. "Maybe you should have thought before you went after Amelia."
Sam pulled back a little, his forehead contorting into a frown. "I didn't touch her" he exclaimed before his temper rose a notch, "perhaps Charlie should take a good look at the so-called friends around him! And don't even pretend this is about her, you just can't handle getting as good as you give on the field."
Tom chuckled, "think what you want shithead-"
"No, you're nothing without Charlie" Sam growled, pushing harder against Tom until he showed discomfort. "Just a little sidekick who can't hold his own, throwing a tantrum."
"Come on, let's go" Michael muttered behind them, completely disengaged from the heat of the moment.
Sam released Tom. He didn't want to get caught in a scrap, not when the coach had only just given him a shot. He turned to follow Michael.
"That's right, do as you're told," Tom taunted. "At least before you had some balls, now you're just a rich boy's bitch. Why don't you go suck his dick, and maybe he'll buy you a handbag."
Anger rippled through Sam, but he couldn't do anything with it. He cared about his future more than he cared about putting Tom in his place, but that didn't negate his rage. Tom's words struck him. Did everyone think that he was somehow dependent on Michael? Is that how everyone pegged him now, as some kind of whipped pony? The fact Michael didn't seem to mind the emails irritated him further. His coolness towards the situation added a realness to the claims against them, against him. Sam's frustration quickly reached new heights. It was Michael's fault he went to the party too. He'd wanted to go trick or treating with his sisters now, thanks to the party, he was the guy who tried to assault Amelia Johnson. He'd been a badboy, but never a bad person.
Michael glanced back in time to catch Sam shove Tom against the lockers before he stormed back towards the school entrance.
Michael glared at Tom who winced and clutched his chest.
"Sam?" He called after him.
Sam shunted the doors open. "Just fuck off."