One More Year Ch. 21

"Wow, you really have it all planned out."

"I do. I've even talked to my dad, and he's letting us have a whole set of rooms for free."

"Wow. That's pretty generous." Ellie's dad owned a few small hotels in the city, so he'd be the owner of whichever hotel we ended up staying at. But the crowd Ellie was gathering seemed like it'd need a lot of rooms.

"Yeah, I still have to map it out - some of the single people might have to share." She shrugged. "And Sue's organised the limos, so we're pretty much all set."

We reached a red light, and I turned to give her a searching look.

"What?" She let out a tinkle of laughter.

"It's just kind of a lot to take in, all at once." I grinned. "Not that I'm not grateful."

"Right." She nodded, and beamed. "I'm just so excited. This time last year, I didn't think I'd have this many friends to go to the dance with. You know that Sue got two limos? We possibly could have all squeezed into a stretch, but she didn't want to crowd it."

"Go Sue. Do we have to pay her back?" The light turned green, so we pulled off again.

"No, she's making her dad pay. I think they sort of want to, because I've organised the hotel rooms." She sighed happily. "It's all just going to work out, and be a magical night."

I sighed. "So I suppose I should consider myself convinced."

"Yup." She cheerfully threw herself back on the seat.

"All right. Sounds fun." I shrugged.

"Wow. Hearing you say the word fun without complaining is... eerie."

"Thanks." I laughed. "I guess I've learnt a lot this year."

"Yeah, I think you have." She nodded seriously. "I think the stuff with Eric was probably good for you, even if he was a bit of an asshole. A complete write-off of a person."

"The mess with him and Nick, too?"

"Yeah, maybe not that." She tapped her hand on her arm rest. "But at least you provided me with drama."

"I live to entertain." I grinned. "Do you think you've learned anything this year?"

"No, but then, it's hard to learn anything when you're already so perfect."

I let out a loud bark of laughter, and nodded. "True."

She actually looked a bit disappointed, and didn't immediately respond.

"What?" I asked.

"You're too earnest these days. My self-aggrandising humour feels weird now." She shook her head. "Too much time with Louis."

I grinned. "Well, maybe you need some new material."

"Maybe." She pursed her lips.

Her sulking stopped after a while, and she started talking to me about her plans for her dress. She was wearing purple and gold, from what I could gather, and Gary would wear a matching gold tie. I was a bit tired to take much of it in, or participate enthusiastically. Not that she seemed to mind much - as always, Ellie was just happy for the audience.

I dropped her off at her house, and then headed to my own bed, collapsing onto it with a happy sigh. One more exam, and then I was done. I'd go to the stupid dance - with my friends there, it could even be fun. I'd dance with Mel, watch Sue navigate a formal evening which she'd find boring, roll my eyes at Ellie every time she wanted a photo, and chat about all the ridiculousness with Louis. It actually sounded pretty great.

***

Louis walked from the glass door and into my room. His face was scrunched up, and he was shielding his eyes from the light outside. He groaned as I cheerfully slapped down my AP maths textbook on the desk with a loud thunk.

"Hey. How's your head?" I grinned broadly.

He gave me a wry smile. "I was just trying to be a good friend and support John in his drunkenness."

"And it nearly killed you."

"Pretty much." He nodded slowly, and lowered himself gently onto my couch.

"Do you want some coffee?" I asked.

He sighed. "You don't have coffee."

"I'll get some from the main house." I shrugged. "Just wait here."

"Will do. My hero."

I laughed, and headed through the laundry room and the garage, and into the main house's kitchen. It was the middle of the day on a Wednesday, so no one was home. I didn't think there was any rush, but I was happy to see Louis - even though he was barely functional - and I didn't want to make him wait for too long. I quickly made his coffee, and carefully carried the cup back to my room.

He'd spread out into a lying-down position on the couch. Faint, reflected sunlight from outside lit up his head - he'd thrown his arm over his eyes, probably to block it out. I watched him for a few seconds - the gentle way his chest moved up and down with his breath, pulling his shirt up to reveal a sliver of his flat stomach and treasure trail. It occurred after a second that I was just creepily standing there staring, so I shook myself out of it and walked over to the coffee table, setting the drink down next to him.

He pulled his arm away from his face, and smiled weakly up at me. "Thank you."

"No problem." I sat down on the edge of the couch, pressed up against his legs. "I assume you're not ready to go right this instant."

"Yeah." His voice was croaky. "Give me a few minutes, and we'll get on it."

"No rush from me. I've revised everything twice, so I'm happy to just go over whatever you want." I shrugged, and squeezed his knee. "How long are you going to be here? Are you staying over until tomorrow?"

"No. My mom is actually going to be around tonight, and she wants me to go home with her. Something about it being the last exam she'll ever get to drive me to."

"Right." Well, that was annoying. It seemed like the last time he'd have a good reason to sleep over at my place.

"Yeah, that thing she's going to is just down the street, too."

"Hopefully not at Eric's house."

He grinned. "No, the other side of the hill. Probably even closer."

"Okay. Well, I'm going to read a bit, but when you're ready, we'll get started."

"Great." He pulled himself up into a sitting position. "I didn't bring any of my stuff. I've got the question numbers I want to look at on my phone. I just need your textbook, and something to write on."

"Yeah, that's fine. I've got a spare notepad and everything."

"Ah, good. Thanks. What would I do without you?"

"Honestly?" I laughed. "Probably have a lot less stress in your life."

"Don't be ridiculous." He grabbed his cup of coffee, and took a tentative sip. "I'd have a lot less fun, and one less best friend."

Hearing that kind of made my stomach flutter. I guess we'd spent so much time together that being as close to him as John and Melissa were shouldn't have been too surprising. But it was a great feeling, anyway. Louis and Ellie were who I considered my best friends, and to hear that he felt that way too was kind of great.

I let him finish his coffee in peace, and I lay down on my bed to read. I was rereading Jekyll and Hyde, less because I liked it, and more because the moderation session had made me wonder if Angela had been right that I was more like Utterson than Jekyll. She probably was. At least I was talking to people.

Most of Jekyll's problem seemed to be that he was navigating what was happening to him alone. The 'baser urges' thing I'd thought about myself seemed a little bit dramatic. People had sex, people made mistakes. I probably had all the unwilling bible-studies sessions that school had forced on us to blame for that. It seemed the best explanation for why I thought being a little bit promiscuous was tantamount to going around beating people to death.

It was a short book, even if I'd been dragging my feet when reading it, so when Louis flopped down on the bed next to me, I was only a few pages away from the end. He'd buried his face in the pillow, and he didn't make a noise while I worked my way through the rest of it.

The book ended with a big dramatic letter from Jekyll, full of philosophical musings and anguish - honestly, it was enough to make me doubt Angela's opinion, because that was the most me-like thing I'd probably ever seen in a book. I wasn't in the same place about the Eric thing though, so I didn't take it too seriously. I set the finished book on my bedside table, and shifted to lay facing Louis.

He turned his head to look at me. "Hi."

"Hey." I grinned. "Is this you letting me know you're ready to get started, or are you giving up and having a nap."

He pulled himself up, and propped himself on his elbows. "No, I'm ready. Kind of. A nap would be nice, but I'll hold out until tonight. I'd rather get your help while I still can."

"What time do you think you'll leave?"

"I don't know. My mom likes to bail on work functions early. So probably around nine, if we're not done by then. But I'll just walk over there sooner if we finish up earlier." He flopped back down.

"You could hang around, even if we finish." I rolled over onto my stomach, like he was, and shifted closer to him, until our arms were touching. "You don't need to rush off."

He paused, and smiled at me. "Thanks, but she'll probably want an excuse to ditch the thing early, anyway. And it's probably good if I get more sleep."

"Okay." I rolled, and nudged him. "Want to get started then?"

"In a second." He groaned. "Your bed is so comfortable."

I laughed softly, and closed my eyes. I didn't really want to study any more for AP maths, anyway. Sue and I were the top scorers there, so she'd been sending me questions, sometimes because she'd needed help, and sometimes because she wanted to show off. I'd gotten slightly competitive, so I'd blown through the subject matter a lot faster than I usually would have.

It was pretty nice to relax like this, feeling Louis' warmth as the bare skin of our arms pressed together. Hearing the slow rhythm of his breath. Smelling the scent of lemongrass as it drifted off of him.

"Hey, you smell different," I said lazily. It almost sounded like a complaint. Maybe it was. I liked the way he normally smelled.

"What?" He laughed.

"You usually smell like grapefruit."

He raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, because of my bargain-bin face wash. I showered at Johns - this fancy stuff is his."

"Ah, okay." I grumbled. "I prefer the grapefruit."

"Thanks, I guess." He laughed. "I'm about to run out of it anyway, actually."

"Tragic."

"Absolutely." He chuckled, and propped himself up again. "Okay, are we going to lie around all day smelling each other, or are we going to do some maths?"

"Ugh. The first one." I buried my face in the pillow.

Louis, laughing, rolled me over, poking me in the ribs. I sat up and grinned at him and, with one last groan, I pulled myself onto my feet. We both shuffled over to my desk, and sat down. He was suddenly all business, consulting the list on his phone, opening the text book to the right question, and diving right in.

We each had a notepad, so I'd do the questions he wanted to alongside him. I'd done them before, but it was easier to explain that way, when I needed to. I made a bit of a joke about racing him, but it seemed to stress him out, so I eventually stopped mentioning it when I finished a question before him.

For a lot of it, I was just watching him as he worked. It would have bugged me if someone had done that to me, but he didn't seem to notice the attention. He had a way of fixing his eyes to the paper and biting his lip as he focused, and he'd only look up at when he'd stopped - with a happy expression if he'd finished, or an unhappy one if he'd gotten stuck. I didn't mind the relaxed pace, and I was happy to help.

"Okay, so I hit a wall with this one. What am I supposed to do here?" He pulled off his glasses, tossing them on the table, and rubbing his eyes.

"Oh god, this one's painful." I pulled the question paper closer. "You need to factorise the denominator, and then you use that thing where you guess the numerators to break it down into three fractions."

"The cover-up method?"

"If that's what it's called." I shrugged. He knew by now I didn't really bother remembering proper terminology - it wasn't really the way my brain worked. My general motto was that you could put the formula in front of me, and I could wrangle my way through it, but you should never ask me what anything was called.

"Okay, sure." He laughed. "But I did the cover-up method, and I'm still not getting the right answer. You skipped about half the steps when you did it, and I can't even read most of what's there."

"Hey!" I frowned, and pulled my answers over and checked the question. He wasn't wrong, it was a garbled mess. I'd written the answer neatly, and I was fairly sure it was right, but the rest was only just clear enough to let me follow my own thoughts. I braced my arm on top of the backrest of his chair and leaned in to look at what he'd written, to compare and see where he'd gone wrong. It took me a few seconds, but then I got it.

"Oh, here it is. When you have a repeated root you can't have two of your new fractions with that same root. One of them needs to be that root, and the other one needs to be that root squared. It's easy to miss."

"Right." His voice was soft, but I could feel his breath on my cheek.

I turned to look at him, and realised with a bit of a jolt how much I'd leaned in. He was looking right at me, and our faces were less than hand-width apart. I don't think I'd ever gotten the chance to study his features this up close. I knew his eyes were brown, but I'd never realised that they were actually a very light brown, with flecks in the iris that seemed almost gold.

This near to him, the scent of lemongrass flooded over me. It wasn't half bad. Not as good as the grapefruit, but it still kind of suited him. I suddenly got a bit self-conscious, wondering how long I'd just been quietly looking at him, when he leaned forward and kissed me.

My first reaction was shock. My thoughts were still marching through the steps of the question he'd just asked me, substituting one for A, simplifying the resultant equation and solving for B and C. If life were a comic strip, I would have had a thought bubble above my head full of equations, only to have it shatter when our lips made contact.

Then I moved on to feeling like an idiot, as my mind threw itself back in time, and I remembered little things - the way he'd nestled into me at the dive bar. The way he'd held me when I'd climbed into his bed to warm him up. The way he'd look at me sometimes - just the expression on his face. I hadn't known what it had meant. But I thought I knew now.

Then, with a bit of a jolt, I realised how much I liked to touch Louis. I'd hug him all the time. I'd put my hand on his shoulder casually. Fuck, I'd climbed into bed with him, wearing only my boxers and t-shirt. Would I have done that with anyone else? Even with the best of my friends? Even Ellie? Probably not. I didn't like it when just anyone touched me. Usually, I'd tense up, or avoid contact wherever I could. But Louis wasn't just anyone.

I'd barely had time to finish processing my feelings, and acknowledge how good the kiss was - god, it was so good - before he was pulling away, leaving me panting, disoriented. Delirious. I pulled back as well, my brain still reeling.

"I'm so sorry. I don't know why I did that." His voice was strained.

I was still struggling to string a sentence together, and my hand went up to my lips involuntarily. My eyes dropped to the table - there was still a tiny fragment of my mind that was trying to solve the question he'd asked me - and then flicked back up to him.

But he was already standing up, his expression horrified. I was struggling to piece it together. Hadn't we had the same kiss? That wasn't the expression I wanted him to have. And why wasn't he still kissing me? I felt like a stuck record, lingering over the same track only to produce an unsatisfying conclusion.

"I'm just going to go. My mom's probably about ready to leave." He took a deep breath, and took another step away from me. "I'm really sorry."

I still couldn't quite figure out why, but I finally managed to get some words out. "Don't apologise."

He shook his head, and turned away from me. I was frozen where I sat, as he walked over to the glass door, wrenched it open and stepped out into the night. I wasn't sure how long I sat there before my brain kicked in again.

"Fuck." I leapt to my feet, and practically sprinted out the glass door, down the path and through the gate.

I stumbled out onto the street. Shit. I didn't know where his mom's party was, and I wasn't entirely sure how long it had been since he'd left. His kiss still had me feeling pretty disoriented. I looked in both directions, but saw no sign of him, so I jogged to the right - the forking of the road was closer there - and looked down both ways. Nothing.

Then I remembered what he'd said about it being the other side of the hill from Eric's house, and I ran back over to the fork at the left. Also nothing. I could have wandered around looking for houses that seemed like they were having a party, but that was unlikely to help. It was already too late.

Louis was gone.

I kicked a stone, sending it skittering across the street. "FUCK."