It could most certainly be argued that last week had been pretty rough. Ezra had been sleeping in his car, Sophie had admitted to experiencing conversion therapy, Brent had been much more insecure about his body than anyone really realised, and Finley had gone a whole week with blue balls. Despite all this, Colby had a good feeling about this week. With drive and determination he could brighten the lives of those nearest and dearest to him.
First mission of the day: Reunite the three amigos! Finley, Sophie and Colby would be best friends again before the day was up, or at least that was Colby's optimistic thinking getting the best of him.
Colby had managed to wrangle the pair of them to be in the same area without them trying to murder each other. A big step in the right direction!
The three of them were sitting on a wooden picnic table that was situated on the field outside the school. Finely and Sophie sat opposite of each other -clearly not happy about the situation- and Colby sat in the middle of them as an adjudicator of sorts.
"Thanks for coming, guys." Colby began, he smiled at them both. Finley looked pissed and Sophie looked nervous.
"What's going on, man?" Finley sighed with exasperation, "I already know it's something dumb, but I want to see if I can make even a little sense out of this."
Colby kept his smile on, in his mind, he was relieving the tension by smiling but in reality he just looked insane. "Well, I think it's about time that we all sat down together and had a deep discussion about everything. We're all just going to speak honestly to get everything out in the open."
Colby was pretty proud of his plan. Last night, he had been watching a TV show with Ezra and in one of the scenes a character was in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and the person in charge of the meeting spoke calmly and got the character to open up about their problems. He was going for the same vibe with his friends. Ezra had expressed that he didn't have much faith in Colby's plan, but Ezra was definitely wrong.
"Who wants to go first?" Colby asked.
"I will." Finley interjected, still scowling. "I think Sophie is a homophobic bitch and a terrible friend."
"Okay." Said Colby, slightly dejected that they were off to a bad start but it wasn't over yet. "That was definitely honest. Sophie, your thoughts?"
Sophie stared down into her lap and clenched her fists into the white dress she was wearing, her auburn hair falling haphazardly around her face. "I know that I haven't exactly been good to you guys lately-"
"-That's a fucking understatement." Finley mumbled.
Sophie looked up and glared at him. "BUT, I really did think I was helping you two. It's what I've been taught, it's what I've been told. Everything I have done is because I care, I promise."
Finley slammed his hand on the table. "Bullshit! I'm not going to pretend like I know what you've been through or whatever but you've done some inexcusable things that have nothing to do with trying to save our gay souls or whatever. First things first: you tried to blackmail your childhood friend with a picture of him making out with another boy."
"I wasn't trying to blackmail him, I swear!" Sophie rebutdtaled. "I was trying to warn him about what he'd done with Ezra at the party."
"Which leads me into my second point." Finley took over once again. "What the fuck was your obsession with Ezra? Because at the time, none of us really knew him as anything other that the asshole who had slept with Joanna behind Colby's back. You knew as well as I did how hurt he was after that and yet you not only go and crush on him but you became super close with Joanna. How do you explain that?"
How did she explain that? Colby hadn't even thought about that, he'd purposefully pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind in fear of an answer. Sophie cared about Colby, he knew she did... didn't she?
Sophie seemed lost for words as her eyes looked around frantically for an answer. Her mouth would gape open like a fish out of water but she didn't say anything. Eventually she stuttered out, "I- I don't know. All the girls I knew were in love with Ezra, they'd constantly go on about how nice and handsome and that he was totally boyfriend material. At the time all my girl friends kept questioning me why I didn't have a boyfriend and then Joanna said that it was because I was a... lesbian." Her expression became distressed.
Finley sighed. "So your plan was to use Ezra as your beard?" Sophie nodded.
"What's a beard?" Colby asked.
"A beard is when a gay person dates someone of the opposite sex to hide the fact that they're gay. I'm not sure what the lesbian equivalent is." Finley rubbed his face in his hands. He'd redone his hair recently into cornrows and it brought out his high and defined cheekbones. "I'm guessing you didn't realise Ezra was gay."
Sophie shook her head. "Not at first. He was good at hiding it, better than I was. I began to get suspicious though when a majority of what we'd talk about was Colby."
"What?" Colby exclaimed. His face felt hot at the suggestion that Ezra was into him back then.
"Yep." Sophie giggled at his reaction. "I used to think it was so weird that the guy who had slept with Joanna behind your back was obsessed with you. It was only at the party when I saw the two of you kissing round the back that I realised how he felt about you. So, I thought it was perfect. He could cover for me and I could cover for him; I even thought that I could convince myself to be genuinely into him and I think I was for a little bit. I didn't expect for you two to actually get together though, how did that happen?"
Sophie waited expectantly for Colby to answer but it was a much more complicated question than she realised.
"Um... well, you see... when you sent me that picture of us making out I was like 'I'm definitely not gay and I'm not a bottom', so to prove it I-" Colby curled his hand into a fist and pumped it up and down, "you know." Sophie still looked confused. "I gave him a handjob."
"You gave him a handjob to prove you were straight and a top?" Sophie turned to Finley to see if he could make it make sense. Finely shrugged at her with a 'Colby will be Colby' expression.
"It made sense at the time." Colby defended.
"No, it didn't." Finley said. "In Colbyland it makes sense, but in the real world you were just giving Ezra severe whiplash with your constant change in attitudes towards him. He could sue you for damages." He joked.
"He already got compensation when he fucked me in the ass and nearly crippled me."
"You two have already had sex?Like-" She made a small ring with her fingers on one hand and timidly shoved a finger on her other hand through the ring, "Like Penetrative sex? I thought you were kidding, you'd been angry at him like a week before you told me at the party. I thought you were just trying to make me go away. When did this happen?"
"The Friday before the training weekend." Replied Colby.
Sophie's eyes were wide and her mouth hung open.
Finely looked kind of smug at her shock. "Afraid so, Sophie dear. Whilst you were trying your hardest to flirt with darling Ezra, he had already got a slice of the Colby cake." Finely leaned over and smacked Colby's ass causing him to release a loud squeak. "But let's not get distracted here. Being closeted is hard but you didn't have to be such a bitch about it." Finely was back on track.
Sophie snapped out of her little daze. "I know, I realise how awful I was being now when I-" She stopped.
"When you what?" Finely prompted.
"When... when I tried to sign Ezra and Colby up for conversion therapy."
"You did what?!" If Finley was pissed before, he was furious now.
"It's fine, Finley." Colby placed his hand on Finley's shoulder. "She changed her mind and that's what matters."
"Man. No." Finley groaned. "Conversion therapy is no joke. It fucks you up and leaves you a shadow of the person you were before, that's even if you survive the process, most take themselves out because they become so disgusted with themselves." Finely turned his attention back to Sophie. "I can't believe you would do that!"
Her eyes were brimming with tears about to spill down her cheeks. "I know, I know. I didn't think about what they would do to him, only that they'd make him better like they made me better." That's when the tears could no longer be restrained and they stained her soft pink cheeks.
Colby pulled the sleeve of his long sleeved black shirt -technically it was Ezra's shirt but Colby had stolen it for the day- and wiped away the tears with it. He hoped Ezra wouldn't mind the damp sleeves when he gave it back to him.
"I'm sorry you went through that, Sophie." Said Finley, he reached forward and placed his hand on hers. "But what you did wasn't right."
Sophie nodded, her throat too tight to respond. "I'm sorry." It came out quiet and croaked.
"Yeah." Finley took his hand off of hers and stood up. "I'm going to go and think. Don't go and have sex in a public place again, okay, man?"
Colby spluttered. "I don't have sex in public places!"
"You kind of do. You and Ezra are freaky like that."
"Name one time!"
"The handjob in the team showers, making out in a hallway, giving Ezra a blowjob in his living room, fucking in the boys bathroom, making out at Brent's house, getting a blowjob in the team showers, fucking in your living room..."
"Okay, I get the picture. But for your information, it's Ezra who wants to do those things not me."
"Sure, man. Sure." He clapped Colby's shoulder and walked off back into the school building, probably to find Brent.
"I am sorry." Sophie whispered, her head leaning against Colby's arm. "I wasn't thinking for myself, I was just doing what I've been told."
"I know." Colby replied and stroked her hair.
"Hiya!" Colby and Sophie jumped at the sudden and loud greeting.
Avni was walking towards them. She was wearing a yellow crop top and bell bottom jeans that he knew his mom would approve of. Her dark hair was in a long plait down her back and she had a gold nose ring in.
She came closer to the picnic table then stopped when she saw that Sophie was crying.
"Oh my gosh, what's wrong?" She immediately went to Sophie's side and comforted her. However, Sophie wasn't crying anymore, she only looked flustered and embarrassed.
"She's just upset because..." Come on Colby, Ezra and Finley have told you that you are bad at lying so think of something good this time, "... she thinks she failed her biology exam."
Avni looked confused. "But the biology exam isn't till next week?"
FUCK.
Avni lifted Sophie's face and pinched her nose. "You can't have failed a test you haven't taken yet, you worry wart. How about we revise together if you're that worried about it?"
FUCK YES!
"Alright." Sophie agreed, her cheeks ablaze.
Colby decided he should leave them alone for any lesbian activities to occur. He had heard that lesbians moved very quickly in relationships so he thought it best to remove himself so the process could begin.
"I've got to go, see you two later." He ran off before Sophie could call him back.
He triumphantly skipped into the school, assured in the thought that he may be the best wingman on the planet after what he just pulled. Without even thinking about it, he skipped all around the school until he stumbled across Ezra, excited to tell him all about how great a wingman he was.
Ezra was talking to some girls from the hockey club, one of whom Colby was friends with and had been the one to tell him about what friends with benefits relationships were like.
"Hey Parker." He fist bumped his friend from the hockey club, a tall and wild girl with her hair dyed pink.
"'Sup Williams."
"You look happy." Ezra remarked.
"I am over the moon and let me tell you why." Colby was smiling like the Cheshire Cat. "Not only did my Alcoholics Anonymous trick kind of work, it turns out I am a good liar and I am an excellent wingman."
"I doubt all three of those things." Ezra wrapped one arm around his waist and pulled him closer, a move that Ezra did so often that Colby was becoming very used to it due to the amount of times he had done it.
The two other hockey girls whispered to each other about the rumours being true but it was only Lottie Parker that spoke up from the three of them.
"No way. Williams, you actually banging little miss golden boy over here." She shoved her thumb in Ezra's direction.
"Little miss golden boy?" Ezra mumbled under his breath.
"Yeah. I'm disappointed in myself too." Said Colby, earning a tight squeeze from Ezra.
"Lol, that's hilarious." Parker giggled. "Come on." She kicked the other two girls to start walking away.
"Go on then," said Ezra, "how did Operation Alcoholics Anonymous go?"
"Good! Actually, not very good, because Finley and Sophie aren't really friends again, so not that good. But progress!"
Ezra agreed with encouragement.
"The exciting part is that when Finley left, Avni came over and I was the best wingman. Avni saw that she was crying and asked what was wrong and I came up with the perfect lie." Colby explained the rest of the situation to him from his amazing lie to his wingman skills.
Ezra was trying to smother his chuckling by the end of Colby's ramble. "So, basically, you didn't come up with the perfect lie, in fact you really messed up the lie but luckily Avni misinterpreted what you said and comforted Sophie without you really doing anything."
"What do you mean without me doing anything, I was highly involved."
"Okay, babe." Colby's stomach fluttered a little bit at that. For some reason Ezra had been trying out pet names on Colby. Colby already had a pet name for Ezra and that was asshole or -when things were getting a little spicy- dickhead.
"Sophie said that when she was flirting with you, all you would ask about was me. That's embarrassing." Colby tried to tease Ezra but he was unbothered.
"Not really, I've had a crush on you since the moment we met."
"No you haven't!"
"Yes, I have. I just wasn't very good at showing it." He sounded guilty by his last words.
"Are you saying this so that I'll have sex with you in a public space?"
"What?"
"I'm on to you, pervert."