One More Year Ch. 02

Matt had declined to go for another round, so two of the guys who'd been waiting had taken over. I noticed Jamie was no longer hanging around, and I felt a bit annoyed. I'd ignored him when he started pouting about losing, just focusing on my game with Matt, and at some point he'd slipped away without me noticing. He and Ellie had dragged me here, we were barely two hours in, and I'd already been abandoned.

"Thanks," Matt said, grinning. "You too. You play a lot?"

"Just with my brother, and my dad, sometimes. He has a table at his house." We were barely ever there, but we spent a lot of time playing it when we were.

"Nice." he leaned casually against the wall. "My uncle had a bar with a pool table, when I was little. I used to hustle people. Everyone wanted to bet money against the scrawny little kid. Then, bam, pocket money."

"Sounds fun." It was kind of difficult to imagine Matt ever being scrawny.

"It was." He shook his head. "Probably not good that I was running around a bar and gambling as a kid."

"You turned out alright." I shrugged.

"Thanks." We clinked our drinks together.

"So what are you doing at Caitlyn's party? Doesn't she hate you?"

"She doesn't know I'm here." I smirked.

"Right, right. Jamie bring you?"

"Yeah, and Ellie."

"That's a weird combo."

"Is it?" I asked.

"Yeah. Are they dating again?"

"No."

"Are you dating her?"

"No." I shrugged. "We were just all at AP maths this morning."

"Oh shit. I completely forgot." he frowned. "Fucking Saturdays, right? Can I borrow your notes?"

"I'll email you a copy."

"Thanks man, appreciate it."

"No problem."

"Anyway, speaking of our boy Jamie." Matt pointed his bottle at the dance floor. "Looks like he's about to get some action."

I looked up, and he was right. Jamie was dancing very close to a girl with long, curly, light brown hair, which was held against her head at the top by a garland of flowers. She wore a floral, flowing dress, and smiled sweetly at Jamie as she danced fleetingly towards him and away from him. I felt an irrational surge of annoyance at her existence. Did she seriously have flowers in her hair? Were we at a fucking music festival?

It felt like it only took seconds after us noticing them for them to close the gap and begin kissing. Matt seemed pretty happy that his friend was getting to make out with a hot girl at a party, but I was just trying not to give away how crushed I was suddenly feeling. I'd plastered on what I'd hoped was a convincing grin, and took maybe too big of a sip of my drink, which was running a little low.

I forced myself to rationalise, telling myself that I had no reason to be upset. Jamie being into girls was obviously no surprise, Jamie being into me was unlikely to happen, and I had no claim on him. We weren't even really friends — we'd spent about half an hour together, and with Ellie, before a party. Once. I hadn't lost anything, because I hadn't HAD anything. But the cold hand clenching my insides refused to get on board with that argument.

"Nice!" Matt said, nodding enthusiastically.

I just kept drinking, quietly.

"I think Jamie's got the right idea." He downed the rest of his drink. "I'm heading over. Her friends are probably lonely. You coming?"

"No, I'm going to need a few more drinks before I'm willing to dance."

Probably more than someone could drink and still live. But, aside from that, I was going to need a few more drinks in general.

"You do you, man." He laughed, and gathered a few other guys from the group to join him.

Now there was no one left at the pool table who I really knew or liked, so I finished my drink and went to get another one. On my way there, I saw Caitlyn flitting around from group to group, playing the gracious host, in a fluffy pink dress that made her look like a disney princess who was on her way to becoming an evil stepmother. I got a bit nervous that I'd end up in her path, so instead of heading to the drink buckets, I made my way down the hallway that led to the guest bathroom. I didn't need to use it, so when I got there I just casually walked past, looking around the house. There wasn't really much to see. Mostly just a big, empty hallway with lots of closed doors. Pretty disappointing.

The hallway eventually turned a corner, and part of the way down there was a big, industrial door that must have led to the multi-doored garage I'd seen from outside. I thought it might be kind of fun to have a look at what I assumed would be an unnecessarily expensive collection of cars. The lock was one of those things with a knob that you could turn to open. I wasn't sure I had the nerve to go in, but then I heard voices behind me, too close to be someone going to the bathroom. Somehow, I didn't think it would be convincing to say that I'd gotten lost, so I made a snap decision.

I quietly opened the mechanism and squeezed in, not opening the door further than I had to. The room I'd gone into was actually a separate, narrow section at the back of the garage. There were long rows of shelves running along the wall on either side, and they were packed with boxes of varying sizes. I couldn't make out in the dim light what any of the labels said. There was a door at the far end that I assumed I'd have to go through to get to the main garage. I stood off to the side of the door, trying to listen at the gap to determine if the voices or footsteps were coming closer. Then I heard a clicking sound.

I jumped back. My mind had immediately assumed that they had come this way and I just hadn't heard them, and now I'd have to explain why I was in here. After a while the door still hadn't moved, and I realised what had happened. The door had one of those pneumatic mechanisms that makes it automatically swing itself shut. I exhaled, and grabbed the handle to try to open it, even though I knew — and dreaded — what I was about to find out.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. The lock must have gone back into position. This was a very awkward place to be stuck. I messaged Ellie immediately. No response. I paced nervously for a few minutes, and I considered messaging Jamie, but I was fairly sure that wasn't a viable option. It was doubtful that he'd be looking at his phone right now, anyway. Not that Ellie was, and who knew what she was even doing.

I walked over to the other door, wondering if there was maybe a way I could get out on that side. If I could, then maybe I could open the garage doors, start closing them and make a run for it. But unfortunately, that door was locked too, with a proper lock that needed a key. I looked around to see if it was maybe hanging somewhere, but it was nowhere obvious. I looked up at the windows. There was a ladder in the room, so I could get up to them, but I didn't know if they even opened. They were definitely high up though, and I had no way to get down on the other side. Hopefully Ellie would respond, and not leave the party before she could help me.

Before I'd come up with a satisfactory escape plan, or gotten a response from Ellie, I heard the door handle turning, and I briefly contemplated hiding. But the shelves lining the walls didn't leave much space to hide in, and I was too close to the door to the house to get behind them quickly. It also seemed unlikely that I'd be able to sneak around whoever was coming into the room now, and hiding just to end up stuck in here again seemed suboptimal. I just had to hope that I'd manage to convince whoever it turned out to be that I wasn't up to anything sinister — and that it wasn't Caitlyn, which would obviously be a nightmare.

Fortunately, it was not. It was a guy in a blue t-shirt. I immediately assumed he was a North Grove student. He looked about my age, but his hair was golden blonde, and more importantly, was long enough to curl down around his ears. Every nearby school except North Grove had uniform codes that didn't let guys have long hair. Sure, he could have been in university or something, but he didn't look that old, and I vaguely remembered seeing him at the joint sports day our schools had hosted last week to 'kick off the year'.

I couldn't be entirely sure though, because I generally tried not to stare too much at fit guys with amazing jawlines, because it could become difficult to stop. He was definitely someone I could drift off while staring at, although at that moment I was more worried about how I was going to explain being in this room. His vividly blue eyes widened as he spotted me, but his face quickly settled into an amused grin.

"Did you get locked in?" He asked, his eyes sparkling with amusement.

"Yeah," I said sheepishly.

He nonchalantly turned back and fiddled with the door's lock, and then let it close — the lock, now fixed in the extended position, caught on the outside of the door frame, holding it slightly ajar.

"I got stuck in here for half a day once. No one heard me yelling — it was awful."

"Oh, that sucks."

"Yeah." He grinned at me.

"Sorry," I blurted out. "I wasn't being nosy or anything, I was just-"

"Oh no, it's fine. I get like that at parties too. Looking for rooms that don't smell like vodka and desperation. It's okay."

I just nodded, and smiled gratefully.

"So," He stepped into the room. "Are you one of Caitlyn's friends?"

"No," I said, maybe too quickly. "Definitely not."

He burst out laughing, and I shifted nervously.

"Yeah, she has a lot of those."

My grin widened. Honestly, I was no longer really invested in the Caitlyn rivalry. It was such a stupid high school thing, and after the year was over I'd probably never see her again. But it was always funny how many people you came across who didn't like her, and were happy to admit it.

"I'm Eric, by the way. My mom is married to Caitlyn's dad."

"You're her stepbrother."

I don't know why I suddenly felt the need to state the obvious. It did confirm my suspicions that he was a North Grove guy. I don't know why I knew it — probably Ellie's gossip — but I knew that Caitlyn's stepbrother was her age, and that she'd freaked out at the possibility he might start going to school at Elohim.

"We don't use that word." He laughed, and his mouth twisted into a wry grin. "We're more like unwilling housemates."

"Right. I'm Jay. Caitlyn and I are in the same school."

"Sorry to hear." He said. "Wait, Jay as in Jason?"

"Yes, but I don't generally go by that."

"Oh, sorry. There's this guy she's always complaining about. His name's Jason. Is that you?"

"There are two Jasons in our year." I hedged.

He probably meant me, but it wasn't impossible that Caitlyn didn't like Jason Harlow.

"Oh. Well, are you the one who always gets better grades than her?"

"Oh. Yes." That definitely wasn't Jason Harlow. He'd nearly failed English last year.

"Well then it's an honour to meet you." He made a mock bow.

"Thank you." I laughed.

"Since you're here," he said, moving past me to the other end of the room. "Help me? I need something from that shelf up there, and this ladder is rickety and awful. Can you hold it steady for me?"

Eric pulled the rough-looking wooden fold-out ladder off the wall. It did look unsafe. Good thing I hadn't tried escaping with it.

"Sure," I said, stepping back, letting him move the ladder into place.

I stepped up and braced myself against it, trying to hold it as rigidly as possible.

"Thanks."

He made his way up, putting a hand on my shoulder as he climbed the first few rungs. He reached the top, and steadied himself, then began to move boxes around, and picked up a small one that looked heavy, holding it against his chest.

"Crap."

"What?"

"I just got dust all over my shirt." The ladder creaked as he shifted around. "It's fine, I can change in a second. I might as well just dust this off now. Don't look up."

I tilted my head down, holding on tightly to the ladder, and I heard some rustling as he put the box down and dusted it. A light cloud of dust drifted down, and I lightly blew some air out of my mouth to keep too much of it from getting on me — I was pretty sensitive to dust, and the last thing I needed to be right now was a sneezing, snivelling mess. I'd already embarrassed myself enough.

"Sorry about that. I think it's clean now. Can I pass it to you?"

"Yeah, sure."

I let go of the ladder carefully, and slowly took the weight of the box as he lowered it to me. It was heavy, but relatively small and manageable. I couldn't avoid it touching my shirt, but it did look as if he'd gotten the dust off. I put it down gently on the ground, and braced myself against the ladder again so that he could descend.

He rubbed his dusty hand on his shirt, and then started down the ladder slowly, gingerly putting his feet down on each step. It was incredibly unstable, despite my best efforts to hold it still. When he was on the last step, he gripped my shoulder firmly and stumbled slightly as he dismounted, leaning on me and pressing his chest against my arm.

I'd still been a little distracted, and my mind was stuck on Jamie and his flowery make-out partner, but that contact was like an electric shock that set sirens ringing in my head, alerting me to the fact that right next to me — pressed up against me, actually — was a boy who was very attractive, and smelled like sandalwood soap and tonic water. It kind of short-circuited my brain for a second, and I was honestly happy to have the ladder to divert my attention to. I folded it up and handed it to him, and he set it back against the wall.

"Thanks." He crouched down, and reached into another box on a low shelf to pull out a bottle of gin. "Will you grab that for me?"

He nodded towards the box we'd gotten down from the shelf.

"Um, sure."

I was just happy to have something to do. I grabbed the box, and followed him as he stepped out of the garage, holding the door open for me.

"Freedom!" He mimicked the roar of a crowd, and I laughed nervously.

He flipped the lock and let the door shut, and led me down the corridor that went further into the house, to one of the many closed doors. We went in, and the room was clearly a bedroom, although it looked overly designed for a teenagers bedroom — like something from a magazine. Like everything in this house, it was huge, if not quite as big as my room. But there was room for a desk, a couch and a TV, and it all looked out through a wall of glass to a quiet, private garden area.

"Just put it there, I'll deal with it later. Thanks." He indicated a blank stretch of wall next to the door.

I quickly put it down, and Eric set down the bottle of gin on a desk. As he was walking across the room, he just casually pulled off his shirt. My eyes flicked briefly down to his very defined torso, before I forced myself to glance away and around the room, then back at his face, in a way that I hoped was casual. He didn't seem to notice.

"Just give me a sec." He said, heading into what seemed like a pretty huge closet.

He emerged a few seconds later with a t-shirt that was a slightly darker blue. I didn't know what to do, other than trying not to occasionally peek at his torso while he shrugged his way into it. He took an annoyingly long time to put it on, so I wasn't that successful, but he probably didn't see me looking. Once it was on, he quickly stepped in front of the mirror and brushed his hair back into place, and then grabbed the bottle of gin and smiled at me.

"Come on. I'll show you where the cool kids hang out."