One More Year Ch. 20

Everyone else who knew had mostly just either figured it out based on what was going on with Eric, or been told by Eric directly. Not me. Angela felt like a good first step for me finally learning how to take control. That felt amazing.

Even Caitlyn - who wandered past shortly after we'd gone quiet - couldn't quite dull my mood. But she wasn't glaring at me, like she usually was. She was just staring vaguely in our direction, and when I glanced up her eyes quickly darted away. I wondered what that was about. Another person I didn't quite have energy to deal with.

"Anyway." Angela snapped closed her book and shoved it in her bag. "I need to go get more coffee. Just wait here for Louis. We'll go see if the tutorial is done when I get back."

"Sure." I watched her wander off in the same direction Caitlyn had gone. I chuckled to myself, wondering if I should shout a warning, but the two of them had never really clashed - much to Sue's annoyance. She'd always been quite insistent about loyalty, but Angela would never treat anyone badly. Not even Caitlyn.

Louis got back from the bathroom, and settled down next to me. "Where's Angela?"

"She went off to get a coffee. She'll be back in a sec."

"Good. I think the economics thing will be done in a few minutes."

"Cool." I didn't have a follow-up, because I was still kind of reeling about the Angela thing.

"You okay? Your vibe keeps changing today. You seem a bit nervous."

I laughed, and rubbed the back of my neck. "I just came out to Angela."

"Oh my god. Unprompted?"

"Yeah. It just kind of felt... like, she knew about you, so..."

He nodded, and beamed. "That's so great."

"Yeah." I shrugged.

"I'm proud of you."

"Thanks." I grinned. "You too."

"Thank you. Big day for Angela, though." He laughed. "Her two closest guy friends let her know they're both gay."

"Should we tell Sue?" I asked. "Now she's the only one in our study group who doesn't know."

"Ah, maybe." He shrugged. "How do you think she'll take it?"

"I really have no idea. She'll probably say something horrific and offensive."

He laughed. "Well, we might go out to lunch with her later. We could do it then."

"Yeah, sounds good." I shook my head. "I've been so worried about everyone at school finding out, and maybe the administration doing something homophobic."

"That seems fair. And like a good thing to worry about."

"I know. But at the same time, Nick's threatened to out me. So if that happens, I think it'll be good if none of my friends are surprised."

"If Nick does that, you might get to see me not being nice," Louis said darkly.

"That could almost be worth it." I laughed. "But yeah, he still hasn't, and it's been a couple of weeks now. So who knows? But anyway, my point is that Sue's the only person I still haven't told. So maybe I should tell her. But you don't have to tell her about you."

"I might anyway." He shrugged. "I usually don't keep it a big secret or anything. I just kind of didn't advertise it here, because you're all a bunch of bible-bashers."

"Please." I scoffed. "It's like every other day here that someone else turns out to be not quite straight."

"Yeah, that's a bit of an exaggeration. What, like three of you, so far?"

"That we know of."

"Speaking of which, Jamie was lurking in the bathroom."

"Yeah, he does that."

He cleared his throat, and gave me a weird look. "Did you um... say something to him?"

"Uh, yeah. Why?"

"He looked a little... I don't know. Contemplative."

"Right." I nodded. "I told him I didn't want to do stuff with him anymore."

"Ah, okay." He frowned slightly. "And you're serious about that?"

"Yes. I've told you about this, though. I don't want to get into a messy situation in general, but I'm not even... feeling things for Jamie."

"Right." He grimaced. "Sorry, I guess I just keep not quite believing you when you say that there's not more there."

"I know." I chuckled. "Why not, though?"

"I don't know." Louis shrugged, and looked away.

I couldn't pursue the topic further, because Angela got back at that point, and the three of us set off for the classroom where the economics tutorial was happening. Ellie and Sara were there too, and when the class finished, we all decided to head to the cafe, and Sara called John up. He and Melissa arrived outside the school a few minutes later.

Melissa ran up and wrapped her arms around me. "Jay, baby, I've missed you."

I hugged her back. "Who are you, again?"

"Don't break my heart. Or I'll break your legs." She laughed, and then ran off to hug Ellie and Sara, and to introduce herself to Sue and Angela.

We all started walking to the cafe, and Louis ended up next to me on the sidewalk. "Are we really going to tell Sue now?"

I blinked. "Yeah, I thought so. Why?"

"What if Sue says something homophobic, and Melissa shouts at her, or something?"

"Then it happens, and Sue will probably take the shouting-at in stride." I shrugged. "We don't have to do this if you don't want to."

"No, I do. It's weird, but we're around her so much now, and I don't like feeling like I have to hide it."

"Okay."

"Just... You go first, okay?"

"Sure."

We got to the cafe, got our drinks and all down. The conversation at the table tended to skirt around the issues of finals, which no one seemed to want to mention. I think we were all just enjoying our last few days of freedom, before we began to buckle down and really study. During a lull in the conversation, Louis kicked my foot under the table, gave me a pointed look, and nodded towards Sue.

A funny thought occurred to me. "Sue, Louis and I have something to tell you."

"Oh god, why would you say it like that?" Louis went bright red.

"What is it?" Sue looked up from her phone.

"We're both gay."

"What?" She blinked, and her head darted back and forth between the two of us. "Why are you telling me?"

I shrugged. "Everyone else here knows."

Sue looked around, and then nodded. "Thank you, then. I hate not knowing things." She tilted her head. "Are you two dating?"

At that point, John burst out laughing, and Melissa slapped him.

"No, we're not." Louis sighed.

"Then why did you say 'Louis and I have something to tell you'," she asked me.

"Jay thinks he's funny." Louis said wryly.

"Jay's hilarious." John chuckled, and got a dirty look from Louis. I laughed.

"Yes, Jay likes to make jokes. This isn't a joke, is it? That you two are gay?" Sue asked.

"No." I stopped myself from laughing. "No, sorry, very serious."

"Okay." She shrugged, and her eyes dropped back down to her phone.

Then the conversation had just... moved on. It was kind of great. Louis gently kicked my foot again, and rolled his eyes at me, but he looked relieved. After that, we pretty much all had a peaceful, pleasant afternoon. We walked back to the school, and I took Louis, Ellie and Sue back to my house so we could prepare for the AP maths moderation.

Without Angela's calming influence, Sue went slightly off the rails, obsessing about AP maths even after we'd covered everything. She took a twenty-minute break to play a fevered and fantastic song on my keyboard - one of her own compositions, I think - and then she decided that it was probably time for her to go home. Ellie walked her out, and then it was just me and Louis.

The AP maths moderation was happening at an awkward time the next day, so I'd invited him to stay over for the night. That way, he didn't have to get dropped off in the early hours of the morning by his mother and wait forever, just for something that would only take an hour. We'd also promised Sue we wouldn't do any more preparation without her, so he couldn't even pressure me into more work.

I'd handed him the controller for the Playstation, and told him to pick any game he wanted. He'd gone with a Final Fantasy game - a great choice, I thought - and was working his way through the introduction. I grabbed my phone and paced over to the couch. "Is pizza okay for dinner?"

"Sure." He bit his lip. It looked like he was trying not to laugh.

"What?"

"Oh." He blushed slightly. "Sorry. I just have a bag full of my clothes here, and if we're ordering pizza.... It's like staying at my dad's place. Just colder."

I could see his breath was fogging up in front of him. That happened in my room, unfortunately, especially if you were closer to the windows.

I grimaced. "Yeah, sorry about that. This room's too big to heat, and badly insulated. I don't think it was really built for people to be here in winter. I can get you a blanket, or you can borrow a jersey of mine if you want."

"No, it's fine. I'm warm enough." He shrugged.

"Okay. So... Pizza?"

"Sure."

I put through the order. He always went with the same thing, like me, so we didn't need to discuss. He liked mushrooms on his pizzas, but I tried not to judge. At least he was also anti-pineapple. I grabbed my book, and settled down across from him on the couch to wait.

"Is it weird that we're ordering take out for just us?" he asked. "What's your family having?"

"I have no idea. But it's fine. Special rules apply when I have friends over."

"Like your family just doesn't exist?"

"A little." I shifted uncomfortably.

"Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. It's just that it's always just been me and my mom. I always thought a big family might be kind of nice."

"It's not that great." I scrunched up my face. "Maybe it would be better if it were just my mom and just her actual kids, but... yeah. I kind of get ignored. A lot. So me pretending they don't exist is fair, I think. Getting this room was pretty cool, but it was also me being... shoved outside."

"Ah, shit, sorry. So not so great."

"It's okay." I shrugged. "The privacy is nice. I love the twins, but they're a handful. And I get along with my stepdad, but he doesn't feel like family. But my stepsisters are Satan's handmaidens."

He grinned. "Are they really that bad?"

"Yes." I chuckled. "I mean, they kind of are. They're very antagonistic towards my mom sometimes, and I get very defensive. Sometimes it feels like they don't even make an effort to be nice."

"Sorry. That sounds awful."

"I suppose it's okay." I shook my head. "My mom knows what she's doing, I guess. It's just annoying because Brian and Candy are gone now, but Dan doesn't seem to be going anywhere even though she's Candy's age."

He nodded, and gave me a sympathetic look. "So it's like they scared away your real siblings."

"Yeah. Is that stupid?"

"No, not at all." He shook his head. "So you still like the twins?"

"Yeah, of course." I smiled. "Love those crazy little monsters. They're usually in here all the time, but they're banned until the end of exams. If I let them in here at all this year, I'd never get them out."

"Right." He laughed.

I set my book down. "So can I ask you about your family, too?"

"Sure."

"So your parents are divorced?"

"Never got married, actually."

"Oh wow."

"Yeah, my dad's this aimless, drifting kind of guy. When my mom got pregnant she didn't really want to get married. Not to him. My grandparents just looked after both of us. Our house was actually originally theirs - we lived with them until my granddad retired, and they moved to their holiday home."

"Ah, okay." That explained some things - like why his house looked so old-fashioned, and why he and his mom shared a surname.

He nodded. "So, what about your dad?"

"I see we're back to me."

"I don't like talking about myself." He smiled. "And I actually don't know anything about your dad."

"Okay. Well, he was married to my mom until I was three, and then they split up. Apparently it was a mess - I don't think I was old enough to get it. Brian and Candy kind of understood what was going on and kept me from experiencing most of it."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"It's cool. We don't see him much. He lives in France now and is always pretty busy jetting around the world. Occasionally he'll fly us somewhere with him. He's a business consultant, but I don't really know more than that. He's told me, but I never really listen."

"Do you get along with him?"

"He's okay." I shrugged. "It's a little hard to know him. Brian has some issues with him, because of the divorce, but he's only ever been an okay dad to me. Maybe everybody goes out of their way to keep it that way for me. He's definitely the fun parent, so I try not to get carried away by that, because it feels like selling my mom out for international trips and expensive presents."

"Do they get along?"

I laughed. "Not... really. When he's here it's really awkward. He came down for my birthday last year, bought me a car, and they fought about it until Christmas."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

I shook my head. "Don't be. It's such a ridiculous first-world problem."

"Not about the car. Just... do you always get caught in the middle like that?"

"It's getting rarer. At least I hope so."

"Yeah." He had a look of concern on his face.

I looked down as my phone buzzed. "Pizza's here."

We had a pretty great, relaxed evening eating pizza and playing video games. We didn't get back into heavy topics, but it was nice how comfortable I was telling Louis about my whole history. Ellie was the only other person outside my family who knew all that, and she'd had to drag it out of me, slowly, over many years.

Eventually it got late, and of course Louis was the responsible adult who suggested we go to bed. I got the bedding for the sleeper couch, and we made it up together. Then he changed in the bathroom while I stripped down to my boxers and t-shirt. He actually wore matching pyjamas, which I thought was kind of adorable. He turned off the lights and got into bed.

I lay there reading - in the dark, on my tablet - for around another hour. Louis was probably the one person in the world who I could probably have fallen asleep around fairly easily. He was always mature and calm, and I'd started to feel so comfortable around him. But my book had gotten good, so I kept at it slightly longer than I should have.

I was close to drifting off when I heard an odd, repetitive clicking noise. I couldn't quite figure out what it was, until I'd realised that I'd forgotten to give Louis an extra blanket, because mine was already on my bed, and the spare was in another part of my closet. That noise was probably him, nearly freezing to death.

"Louis?" I asked quietly.

"Yeah?" His trembling voice cut the darkness.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"

"I can hear your teeth chattering."

"Oh, I didn't notice. Sorry."

"Don't apologise." I laughed. "I can get you an extra blanket, if you want."

"No, it's fine. I don't want to make you get out of bed into the cold."

"I'm pretty warm." I slid out of bed, and grabbed one of the extra blankets I was using. The middle one - it was pretty warm, and I thought he could use the head start. I'd just take one out of the closet on the way back. I quickly lay it out on top of him.

"Thanks." He shivered, and I saw his breath fog in front of him.

"Hang on," I ran to my bed to grab my pillow, which I threw down next to his head on my way back. "I have an idea." I lifted up the duvet on the sleeper couch, and climbed in next to him.

"What are you- Oh my god you're hot." He stiffened, and then relaxed, as I cuddled up to his side.

"So I hear, thanks." I snickered. "But see? I'm helping."

"You really are." He laughed, pressing his cold hand on the skin at my neck. "Are you sure you don't have a fever or something?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." I grabbed his hand and rubbed it. "I don't really get cold very easily. Plus, I had two extra blankets."

"Right. So like an Occupy Wall Street situation." He shifted, pressing more of himself against me, running his hand down my back.

"Exactly. I'm redistributing the warmth."

He just laughed, and his hand edged slowly downwards.

"Not there!" I yelped, as his fingers came around to my side and lightly grazed the exposed skin at the bottom of my shirt.

"Sorry." He said. "Cold?"

"Ticklish."

"Ah. Sorry."

"It's okay." I inhaled deeply. "You smell like grapefruit."

"Oh, that's my face-wash. Finest in the bargain bin."

"It's nice." I put my head on his shoulder.

"Yeah..."

I didn't have a follow-up. Drowsiness was washing over me, at that point. It started to seem like he was gradually warming up, and his shivering was replaced by deep, even breaths. I had meant to get up and go back to my bed once he was no longer in danger of freezing to death. But the comforting, emerging heat of his body pressing against mine and the steady rhythm of his breaths had me drifting into unconsciousness.

***

I woke up that morning as some of the light from under my curtains bounced off the tiles of the floor and directly into my eyes. I groaned, but couldn't turn over because Louis was spooning me from behind. As I gradually became more and more awake, I noticed a hard, fleshy object was jabbing into my left butt cheek. I blushed when I realised what it was, and slowly and quietly extracted myself from the sleeper couch.

Louis shifted when I got out, wrapping both his arms around the pillow I'd been on. His chest rose and fell slowly, and he had a faint smile on his face. I had to stifle a chuckle. I hadn't meant to fall asleep in there - I was just trying to let him leech some of my warmth. But it had been really nice, and I'd drifted off too quickly.

He looked so peaceful - his hair ruffled, a ray of sunlight gently falling on the smooth skin of his cheek. Something about the way he looked just made me smile. Until I realised I was standing over my sleeping friend, staring at him. With an erection. Fuck. I quickly went to the bathroom, and then put on the kettle.

"Morning." He'd clearly been woken up by the violently boiling water.

"Morning." I replied, getting out a tea cup for him as well. Louis was like the only other person I knew - outside of my family - who didn't drink much coffee, and preferred tea. Ellie would have tea with me, when I had it, but she said she only ever drank it because it was 'charming and old-fashioned'. Which didn't feel like the compliment she pretended it was.

"Did you sleep in here last night?" He looked down at my pillow, his voice a sleepy croak.

"Yeah, sorry." I busied myself with the teas, so he didn't see me blush. I was still trying to get the awareness of us both having had morning wood out of my mind. "I meant to go back, but then I fell asleep."

"S'okay," he mumbled. "It was nice."

"Yeah." I finished making the teas, and brought them to the table.

He rolled out of bed and shambled off to the bathroom. After a few minutes he emerged, and sat down to join me. "What time is it?"

"Around eight."

"Oh good." He yawned and stretched. "We can get started early."

I sighed. "You're just like Angela."

"Thank you." He laughed.

"Do you want to go out and grab breakfast before Ellie and Sue show up? We can take our notes."

He grinned, and shrugged. "Yeah, we have three hours, and we've already covered everything. I'm up for whatever."