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*Tristan’s POV*
I was disappointed. Jessie, the little nuisance that he was, had changed back into the pants he’d worn yesterday. I hadn’t even got a good look at his but! My imagination did a pretty good supplying me with a picture though.
As we sat at their(their as in Vanessa and Jessie) little lunch table, I stared boredly off into the distance. It wasn’t as crowed as it had been yesterday. The strangely pretty red head was at a poetry recital or something, and the semi-cute party boy had a football tryout.
That left four of us: My sister, me, Jessie, and the bookworm. My sister and me sat on one side of the bench, Jessie and Evan on the other. I was fairly certain Jessie had sat across from Vanessa on purpose, and Evan seemed grateful.
I didn’t necessarily blame him. Vanessa was coming on to him pretty strong and he seemed even shyer then Jessie. Speaking of Jessie, once again, I looked over at him. He seemed lost in his own world as he rested his head on the picnic table.
“So… know what’s strange?” Vanessa asked.
No one dared to ask, because Vanessa was probably going to say something smart ass and none of us wanted it directed at us.
“There’s like, six people in our group now. And if you wrote our name’s down it would seem like we were all dating each other. I mean think about it…there’s Jessie and Tristan, Abby and Devon, Evan and me..” she trailed off, fluttering her eyelashes at Evan.
He looked scared, and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“Ahem” Jessie protested.
“What?” Vanessa grumbled, reluctantly turning from Evans flustered face.
“You put two guys together” he pointed out.
She sighed like he was missing something completely obvious. “Jessie, Jessie, Jessie. Think about it. I said if we put our name’s down on paper. And Jessie is a girls name, so it’s alright to put it next to Tristan.”
Jessie’s eyebrows shot up, then furrowed down. He glared at her, once again, attempting to look pissed off. “Ouch!” Vanessa whined, after Jessie stomped on her foot.
Me and Evan couldn’t take it any longer. We started laughing frantically. Jessie shot us dirty looks to, which made us laugh more. When the laughing started to die down, Evan tried to apologize.
“Sorry, Jess” He hiccupped “It was just really funny”
He grumbled under his breath. Vanessa looked offended. “I don’t get why it’s so funny.. It make’s since. Jessie, Jessica. Same thing, right?”
The rest of the lunch period was round after round of me and Evan laughing and Jessie fuming well Vanessa tried to get us to see her logic. She seemed determined to make a point out of it, and every once in a while when she thought me and Evan were to busy laughing, she’d give Jessie a wink, which he ignored.
Soon lunch was over. The day seemed to fly by, and next thing I knew I was in last period. It was luckily just a spare. I was trying to finish the last of my homework at a table alone when a boy walked up and sat down next to me.
“Hey” I could sense him grinning, though I hadn’t looked up from the text book yet.
When I did look, my gaydar went off the charts. He was cute. Not as cute as Jessie, some distant part of me pouted. Who care’s, I retorted. Jessie’s so far in the closet he’s finding Christmas presents. I grinned back at the brown haired cutie.
He was a senior to, his hair lightly messed up, his eye’s a very distant brown. His eyebrows were taken care of, clearly waxed and plucked to perfection. He didn’t flaunt his obvious gayness to much, just spoke in a slightly girly voice, nothing to high. He wore dark purple jeans and a stripped shirt with a dark vest overtop.
“Hey” I replied sheepishly.
“Your new right?” he asked I nodded. “Cool. I’m Marco, where you from?”
“I’m Tristan, I’m from California”
He smirked. “Cool, just like the O.C”
I laughed. For the rest of class we sat together, talking joking, getting to know each other. He was in fact gay, and by the end of class he knew I was to. He lived a few blocks away from Paul’s house. He liked hockey. He wanted to know quite a lot about California.
So I told him. It made me quite a bit homesick, but talking about it almost helped me relive the warm beaches and the gentle surf. By the time the bell rang I was almost wishing I’d never told mom my secret. Almost, though not quite.
“I’ve got to go” I muttered, grumpy about this.
“Oh” he sounded disappointed. “I thought maybe you could walk me home”
We started walking, me going slightly slower then usual so he could keep up.
“Sorry” I apologized “I have detention”
He laughed. “Didn’t you just get here?” I nodded.
“Bad ass” he teased, pushing my shoulder playfully.
I laughed. Then I saw Jessie. He was watching us, and he didn’t look pleased. Catching me noticing him, he wheeled and stalked the other way. Unfair guiltiness and regret surged through me. Why should I feel regret? At least Marco was honest with himself!
But I found myself unsettled, and I now wanted to get to the gym, to my detention, because Jessie would probably be there. “look, Marco, I gotta go. Sorry” I gave him a polite smile, and walked away, but not before seeing the confusion on his face.
When I entered the gym I gave a curt nod to Ms. Lovett which she returned. Then I headed for the art section. Sure enough, Jessie was there talking to some girl who was probably his friend. Automatically I hate her. She was trying to flirt.
Jessie spots me and his face drops. Unlike me, he has no trace’s of guilt, probably because he wasn’t flirting back. But he doesn’t look like he necessarily wants to talk to me. The girl, who is nothing special, the kind of girl you don’t look twice at, follows his gaze.
I walk over. “Hey guys” I say, beaming at Jessie. I ignore the girl completely tying to broadcast the message. He’s mine, I have dibs. Back off.
Jessie give’s me a slight nod, trying for the millionth time not to acknowledge me, and continuo’s talking to the girl in his animated way. “That’s a great idea Cassie. It will mean a lot of re-painting and stuff, but the colors would be a lot better if got picture’s of summer scenery off the internet and matched the coloring.” The girl, Cassie, nodded enthusiastically.
I was bored soon. I knew nothing about art, but no way was I leaving Jessie with this little skank. Never! Soon the little skank has to go back to making costume’s and Jessie has to paint. I follow Jessie to his station.
“So do you need help with anything?” I asked innocently. My thoughts drift to things I could help him with..
“Nope” he mutters, getting all the colors out.
“Are you sure? cuz I’m here to help” he looked up at me sceptically.
“What?” I ask, still playing dumb.
“Stop being nice” he orders. I’m slightly taken aback.
“Why?” the confusion is clear in my voice.
“Because You Tristan Stone, are not nice” he’s dipping the paint brushes in the water now, though I have no idea why. I watch the delicate hairs of the brush loosen and soften. Oh. So that’s why.
“I am so” I disagree.
He rolls his eye’s, and make’s no attempt at speaking back.
Soon I catch Ms. Lovett’s eye’s on me. I give her a little wave and crouch down beside Jessie. “What are you doing?!” he asks startled as I pick up a paint brush. I give him a puppy dog look. “Come on Jessie, I already got in trouble for not working yesterday”
“Than you should have worked yesterday!”
“Just show me what to do” I begged. He sighed and buried his face in his hands for a second. “Fine” he snapped. “Wet the paintbrush” he ordered, removing his hands. I obeyed, gently dipping the paint brush in the water. “Okay now pick a shade of green”
I looked at all the greens. I picked the deepest emerald green. He muttered something under his breath that sounded like ‘YOU would pick your eye color’. “Okay, now see the outline’s of leafs?” nod. “Slowly trace the outside, then paint the middle”
I touched the brush to the large piece of paper, and Jessie yelped in panic. Frantically I pulled back. “Not like that!” he says. I want to laugh at his expression. He’s looking at me like I just shoot someone. “Okay, okay” he says calming down, but still seemingly frustrated.
“Here.” he steadies my hand with his own. I watch his face as he does this, but he refused to look at me. He locks his eye’s firmly on the paper “Pay attention” he commands, so I to look at the paper. He lowers our hands and makes the brush touch the page softly. He starts tracing the leaf for us.
When he’s done, he pulls his hand back. I fight the very strong urge to put it back on top of my hand. I can still feel the ghost of his soft touch “M’kay” he says, letting out a gust of breath. “Color that one in, then with a different color try doing the one next to it”
After ten minute’s of this he declares that I’m useless. It is pretty obvious considering every leaf I paint by myself he has to fix. Soon we start doing a system. He trace’s the leaf and I paint it in. I can manage that at least. The half hour is up in the blink of an eye.
I don’t really want to leave, considering I’ve gotten Jessie to loosen up a little and he would joke and laugh with me. We talked a lot, but he didn’t say much about himself. Which really, is unfair, because he demands to know a lot of things from me.
I walk slowly, taking my time, to Ms. Lovett. “Did I pass today?” I ask hesitantly. She nods absentmindedly. “Yes, I saw you helping the artist boy. Though you seemed to be having a little to much fun” I look away awkwardly.
“Either way, you’ve completed one day of detention. Congratulations” I nod, and soon I’ve left the gym.
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I stare through the darkness of my room. I really have to pee, but I don’t really feel like moving, because I’m really comfortable. Finally I can’t take it anymore, and I know my options are to either wet the bed or go to the bathroom before I drift off. I’m not four, so I get out of bed.
Grumpily I make my way to the bathroom. After peeing I’m about to leave when I see a familiar shirt lying on the floor. He must have forgotten it here. Surprised by the find, I scope it up. Mmmmm. It smells like him. (No this isn’t a vampire story, but people do have different smells you know.)
Taking the shirt with me I go back to my room. I wrap it up in a ball and lie down sing the good smelling shirt as a good smelling pillow and I drift off to sleep.
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