Nate inhaled deeply, savoring the lavender scent of his pillow. He'd made it. Somehow, he'd managed to get through the whole week without speaking to Erik. It had been exhausting, nerve-racking, and oddly difficult, but he'd managed.
Alright, so maybe he should be spending his Friday afternoon out partying like most high school kids his age, or at least doing something relatively social, but there was only one thing on his mind. Sleep. And no one, not even Amber, was going to be enough to drag him out of bed.
The next morning, Nate woke up around noon, as was usual for him on the weekends. Thank god it was Saturday. That meant a whole day of nothing but stuffing his face and hibernating on the couch...before work, of course.
Stumbling to his feet, Nate headed down the stairs, eager to begin the 'stuffing his face' part. Almost tripping on his pink piggy slippers, he stumbled around the corner and -
"And this is when little Nathaniel was 2. He never was one much for wearing clothes."
Nate froze. This had to be a nightmare.
Sitting in his living room hunched over some old photo albums were Erik and his mother, chatting it up like old friends.
Oh, and to top things off, he was in his boxers. Just his boxers. Thank god they weren't the ones his mom had bought him for Valentine's Day with little pink hearts on them.
Nope. He already had enough pink in his piggy slippers alone to rule out labeling him anything other than a sissy for the next 5 years.
Glancing up, Erik cleared his throat, flashing Nate a crooked smirk.
"Well, look who's up."
Nate ducked behind the curtains, covering his bare chest and as much of the rest of him as he could.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he hissed, glancing from Erik to his mother accusingly.
"Don't you remember, Nathaniel? We arranged for a tutoring session today. Your mother's not very pleased with your D in math." Erik mused, obviously having a hard time hiding the amusement he was getting out of Nate's horror.
Damn it. He knew that D would come back to bite him in the ass somehow. He was half tempted to tell Erik he was almost failing math because the hole he was burning in the back of his head with that god damn stare of his made it hard to concentrate, but then his mother would ask questions. And that was the only thing that could make the situation worse.
"Uhh.." Shit. What the hell could he do but go along. "Righhhht...just let me get dressed..."
"You know, Nathaniel, it's not very nice to keep your guests waiting. Especially when the school's been so kind to offer you a tutor for free." His mother chided, pointing a bony finger in his direction.
"How long has he been here?" Nate asked, eyeing the photo album warily. "And put those away! I'm sure he's not interested in seeing lame baby pictures."
"Quite the contrary." Erik said, tilting his head to the side with a small smirk. "Your mother's been wonderful company for the past 3 hours."
Holy shit. Erik had been here. In his house. With his mother. For the past three hours!
"3 hours! Why didn't anyone come and wake me?"
"I was going to." Erik mused, "But you looked so peaceful sleeping."
Nate flinched. He'd been in his bedroom. With him. Alone. While he was half naked.
Damn it. What the hell was he going to use to cover himself between the living room and the bedroom?
"Nate, honey. Come out from behind the curtain. It's not as if you haven't seen each other naked in the locker rooms before." His mother prodded, obviously noticing her son's odd behavior.
"Mom!" Nate hissed, turning five shades of red.
It would be different if it was a girl, or even a guy he wasn't attracted to, but Erik was a whole different story.
"Yes, Nathaniel, come out from behind the curtain." Erik repeated in that cool and collected tone of his.
God damn pervert. Nate would have been totally creeped out if he wasn't already busy being flattered in some sick, twisted way that Erik wanted to see him half naked.
"Just give me a blanket!" he demanded, refusing to step out from behind the curtain.
"Very well..." Erik said, getting up from the couch and handing him one of the blankets draped on its backside.
He didn't let go, though. He held it in his grasp for a second, shooting Nate a devilish grin before letting go.
Nate hurriedly draped the blanket over himself, rushing back to his bedroom to get dressed. He didn't want his mother and Erik having any more quality time. God, what could they have possibly talked about for the past 3 hours? He could barely make small talk with his own mother for 10 minutes.
No doubt his mother had reminisced about his most embarrassing childhood moments with him. Just what he needed. More blackmail for Erik to use against him.
Oh crap. What if Erik had told his mother about him being gay? Okay, so maybe he hadn't told her the truth. He was waiting for the right time to tell her...which would probably be in another 50 years when she was good and dead.
Doing his best to cover himself, Nate stumbled back up to his room, getting ready as fast as he could.
15 minutes later, Nate closed the door to his front house securely behind him.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" He hissed in a hushed tone, glaring at Erik. "You can't just do stuff like this! People have privacy, and-and boundaries that other people just shouldn't cross. And you just crossed a fucking huge ass boundary!"
Erik glanced over at him amusedly, unfazed by his outburst. "Cause and effect, Nathaniel."
"That's all you have to say?" Nate could barely control himself as he continued yelling at Erik. "Are you telling me this is my fault? It's not! I didn't give you a key to my house and tell you to come and intrude and lie to my mother!"
Erik tilted his head to the side, raising an eyebrow. "I don't believe you're in any position to preach to me about lying to your mother."
"What?" Nate asked, too angry to think clearly.
"You haven't told her you're gay."
Nate swallowed hard, his rage quickly replaced by fear. "Did you tell her?"
"No."
Thank god he'd decided to keep that little piece of information to himself, though he couldn't imagine why. He seemed to get off on seeing him squirm, and revealing the truth to his mother would do exactly that.
"Well, let's keep it that way." Nate growled, crossing his arms. "Why are you here anyways?"
Erik raised an eyebrow at Nate, as if to imply to say 'is answering that really necessary'? He answered anyways, beginning to move forward towards his red corvette parked outside Nate's house.
"You've recently become quite a busy person, with all the sneaking around you've been doing."
"I haven't been sneaking around."
"And what exactly would you call it then?"
"I've just had other priorities to attend to."
Erik let out a slight sigh, as if he'd been expecting this reaction from Nate. "Nathaniel, I know you've been avoiding me. Understand something. We have long passed the point where something as petty as this will make any substantial difference. You are only prolonging the inevitable."
Nate rolled his eyes. "There's no we. There's me, and you, and that's it."
"Alright. So why have you been avoiding me?" he asked, deciding to humor Nate, at least for the time being.
"I don't like you. How much more clear can I make that? You're annoying, obnoxious, conceited, and pushy."
"Indeed." Erik agreed, a crooked smile playing across his face. "You know what they say, opposites attract."
"Yeah, well not always." Nate scowled, realizing he'd followed him to his car. Crap.
"Get in." Erik said, walking around his car to the driver's side.
"Yeah right. What the hell makes you think I'm going to spend my Saturday with you?"
Erik flashed him a small smirk. "The fact that, if I wanted to, I could tell your mother I'm not your tutor. I'm this guy that you kissed at a high school party you went to."
"I didn't know it was you! And I was not the one who did the kissing. I pushed you away!"
Erik chuckled, raising an eyebrow. "Maybe so, but you definitely enjoyed it."
A hot flush crept onto Nate's face. "That's only because I didn't know it was you!" Crap. That had so not come out the way he wanted it to.
Erik shrugged, unlocking his car and getting in. "You still would've gotten hot if you'd known."
"No, I wouldn't have!" Nate shot back, hesitating as Erik leaned over and opened the passenger door for him.
"We could always find out."
Nate's face turned tomato red. "I don't even want to talk to you, let alone kiss you."
Erik raised an eyebrow. "Again with the denial?" Looking past Nate for a second, Erik cleared his throat slightly. "I suggest you get in. Your mother's looking out the window. I told her we were going to the library, but if we sit here much longer I think she'll probably start to get suspicious."
Nate let out a frustrated huff before joining Erik in the car. Leaning back in his seat, he crossed his arms, staring straight ahead. "Fine. Whatever. Don't expect me to have fun. I'm already mad at you for wasting half of my weekend by making me hang out with you."
Not to mention the fact that by blackmailing him, he was putting his little deal with Sean in jeopardy, not that he knew that. Nate didn't intend on telling him either. That would only complicate things more.
"Nathaniel, what happened to your hand?" Erik asked, concern marring his features as he glanced over at Nate's two bandaged fingers.
Nate paused for a second, surprised by how worried Erik seemed. Then again, he was a good liar, which also meant he was probably a good actor.
"Please, don't act like you really give a crap."
Erik's features hardened slightly , his mouth twitching. "Make no mistake, Nathaniel, I do not pretend to concern myself with matters I am not genuinely invested in. I have nothing to gain by putting up false pretenses about your well-being."
Nate blinked twice. Wow, he almost sounded honest. How could he be though?
"I don't really care, Erik. Can we just go already?"
"No. Not until you tell me what happened."
Gah. He was so annoyingly persistent. "I accidentally slammed my hand in a door, alright."
Erik didn't look like he believed him, not even for a second. "Is that so?"
"Yes. It is."
He hesitated for a second before starting the car. "Fine. You don't have to tell me, but I want to take a look at it before the day ends."
Nate snorted in response. "What are you, my mother?"
Erik let out a small chuckle, though he still seemed a bit troubled. "She will want some proof of us having studied, you know."
Nate wrinkled his nose. "Yeah, well, I sure as hell hope we're not actually going to the library to study math. I have a D, that's passing. I'm doing fine in the rest of my classes, so one bad grade shouldn't matter."
"We will have to take care of that, though."
"Huh?"
"Your grade. I can't have you failing math."
"And why the hell not? My grade is none of your freakin' business."
"You'd be surprised..." Erik mused, a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips.
Nate didn't like the sound of that. "So what exactly are you trying to say?"
"That we'll have to meet up during lunches for tutoring sessions. 45 minutes a day should be enough time, don't you think?"
Nate almost choked. "I am not spending my lunches with you!"
"Then we'll have to hang out outside of school."
"Are you even good at math?"
"I have a 98% in the class."
Gah. He was popular and smart. Wasn't there some law of nature that he was defying here? You were supposed to be either one or the other. Not both. Then again, Nate was neither, so he supposed it was possible for the opposite to happen.
Well...he really did need help in math. And if it was only 45 minutes a day, it wouldn't completely kill him.
"Fine, but only on the days I don't have work."
Gah. He'd just committed himself to actually spending time with Erik...every week. Well, it wasn't as if Erik wouldn't have found out a way to do so anyways.
"Any guesses as to where were going?" Erik asked, grinning as he glanced over at Nate.
Nate let out a small sigh. The hell if he knew. With Erik, he couldn't even predict how the next 5 minutes would go, let alone a whole day. Yes, this day would definitely prove to be interesting. Whether that was good or bad was yet to be seen.
A/N: Please vote if you liked the chapter, and if not let me know why. Thank you for taking the time to read my work.