Disclaimer: All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Fuck!
Sam couldn't stop staring at it. The damn thing kept teasing him, playing peek-a-boo from right under the edge of Jamie's shirt collar. Purple and angry looking, the bruise had to be a hickey. The little fucker with his white-blond, baby hair and those enormous chocolate brown Bambi eyes always got on his last damn nerve. This was strange in itself because he doubted the boy had ever said more than a handful of words to him so far, and they were well past the middle of the school year. But ever since Mrs. Hollingsworth assigned Jamie Bayer the chair in front of him, Sam felt, well... antsy. The kid was a tiny, quiet nerd. Not the thick glasses, pocket protector, and high-waist-pants nerd, but more of a head-always-in-a-book, super-polite, and no-sign-of-a-girlfriend sort of nerd.
Maybe that's why he kept obsessing about the fucking hickey. If there was no girlfriend, how the hell did he get the hickey? Sam glanced up at the front of the class and saw Mrs. H writing on the chalk board, droning on about what was going to be on their Spanish test Friday, so he leaned back in his desk and straightened his legs out. He slid his feet under the kid's desk, and oh-so-slowly started to raise the back of it up. Jamie never budged from his position bent over his notebook taking notes or whatever the fuck he was so intent on, but Sam watched a dark red flush slowly crawl up the pale skin of his neck. He started gently rocking the desk from side to side, careful not to make any noise. Jamie leaned even further over his scribbling, obviously having no intention of acknowledging that Sam was fucking with him.
He dropped the desk down abruptly and made a loud shushing noise at Jamie when their classmates looked their way. Jamie turned and glared at him. Sam smirked right back. Mrs. Hollingsworth, the old bat, immediately looked hard at Sam who raised his hands in a gesture of innocent appeal. Luckily the bell rang before she could say anything, so he quickly gathered his books to head for the door, and damn if the little brat didn't slip his foot out into the aisle and try to trip him. Years of running track made it easy for him to readjust his stride and not fall. Then he stopped and indicated Jamie should go first. He even gave him a sheepish grin to make up for messing with him earlier.
Jamie looked at him suspiciously as he left the classroom. Sam followed him down the hall, noticing how the kid's angry stride made his little ass all twitchy. Whoa! Why was he looking at the boy's ass? He jerked his eyes back up and fuck it all if his gaze didn't land right back on that goddamned hickey again. At his locker, he stopped to switch out his books and heard someone call Jamie's name. He looked down the hall to where Jamie was pulling his lunch out of his own locker and saw Trey, the tall, lanky, goth freak, coming up behind Jamie. Jamie looked back over his shoulder and smiled hesitantly before turning back to close his locker.
Sam felt his lips tighten when Trey reached down, flicked his finger over the hickey, then leaned down to whisper in Jamie's ear. The kid whirled around, blushing furiously and stammering. Trey laughed, slung his arm around Jamie's neck, and led him down the hallway toward the lunchroom.
Oh...
Well, that explained a lot. What it did not explain was why Sam was still standing in the hallway two minutes later, grinding his teeth, clenching and releasing his fists when he should have been heading down to get his own lunch. So what if the kid was gay? He'd never really thought a lot about it, but he knew he didn't have anything against gay guys. It wasn't like the kid had ever tried to come onto him. It looked as if Jamie was into narrow-fucking punk-ass losers who wore black nail polish, didn't know their ass from their iPod, and sucked like a Hoover. What the fuck-ever.
Jamie could still feel a blush hot on his face. He stared down at his shoes as he and Trey walked into the lunchroom. He sat and started on his lunch as Trey left to get a soda and some crackers from the vending machines.
"That stuff is so bad for you, you know," Jamie said, as Trey returned, popped the soda can open, and tore into the crackers.
"Whatever, Romeo."
Trey snickered and continued munching. Jamie scowled at him.
"I told you, man, it's not a hickey. My sister did it pinching the shit outta me."
"No need to lie, Jamie. It's not like it's any of my business what you and your girlfriend do anyway, man."
"I don't have a girlfriend," Jamie muttered into his sandwich. He knew Trey was teasing, but was really hoping he'd just drop it.
"Really?" Trey asked, suddenly serious. "That chick that was with my girlfriend when you were over last weekend was asking about you. She kept going on and on about how cute you were. Do you want me to ask her to come over after we finish the project Sunday? I know we were going to do it at your house, but we can do it at mine instead, if you think your mom might freak about girls coming over. Your mom is kinda scary, dude."
"Mom's cool. She's just a little intense. She'd probably be overjoyed if I brought a girl home, but..." Jamie's voice trailed off as he put his sandwich down and he gripped his hands together in his lap nervously.
"But what, dude?" Trey asked.
Jamie looked over to see Trey's eyes on him intently. He had the sickening feeling Trey already knew what; he was just waiting for Jamie to confirm it. Jamie felt his face burning again as he faced forward and blinked rapidly to keep his sudden tears at bay. He was really enjoying the budding camaraderie he'd experienced with Trey since they'd been assigned this psychology project. Now, though, he saw it all going up in flames. He got control of himself and realized he was inadvertently making eye contact with Sam Bricker from Spanish class.
Sam was leaning up against the wall with some of his track buddies. He was a few inches taller than most of them, so he was hard to ignore. Jamie tried to avoid the guy, because there was something in the icy blue glare the black-haired boy always gave him that made him horribly self-conscious. That didn't keep him from using the image of the stud as jerk-off material though. Sam was wicked hot. Though at eighteen he'd already achieved perfection; the next few years might well produce mouth-watering miracles. Sam was scowling at him right now for God-only-knew why. What a prick. Jamie had never done anything to the guy, and yet he seemed determined to give Jamie shit. Well, at least they were both graduating in a few months, so he wouldn't have to deal with him much longer. His mental molestation of the muscular jock helped to take the sting out of Sam's constant attitude towards him. HA!
"Jamie..." Trey said, bumping their shoulders together and bringing his attention back to the bit of hell he was dealing with at the moment. "We're cool, man. Just say it."
"It," Jamie said instantly, looking back at Trey with a weak grin.
Trey barked out a laugh and thumped his ear.
"Ouch!"
Jamie mock-cried and found that his smile came a little easier. He took a deep breath and let it out on a shuddering sigh.
"Ooh-kay. I... I..."
Trey nodded encouragingly.
Jamie leaned in a little closer and whispered it.
"I'm gay."
Trey looked around in consideration. "See man? Nothing blew up or fell from the sky. I think everything's going to be all right."
Jamie looked down at his hands again to try and hide the goofy-ass grin he felt cover his face.
"Seriously though, dude, you should tell your guy to go easy on you. You look like you went a losing round with a vacuum."
"Dammit man! Honest, it was my sister paying me back for ignoring her. I don't have a boyfriend either," Jamie whispered furiously. He vowed he would wear a turtleneck tomorrow. Trey, the sorry fucker, just laughed.
Sam felt his stomach cramp and got this cold feeling as he watched Jamie and Trey interacting. The kid was visibly upset, and then the freak said something to him that had him grinning like a pig in shit, as Sam's granddad always said. He'd never seen the boy smile like that before, and for some reason it pissed him off that Trey made it happen. He pushed away from the wall and stomped out of the lunchroom, ignoring the calls from his friends. He went to the bathroom and splashed water on his face, trying to cool down. What the fuck was wrong with him? What did he care if the nerd and the mutant hooked up? He looked hard at his reflection in the mirror, trying to figure out exactly what he felt. The face looking back at him was angry and... sad? SAD? What the fuck! He stumbled away from the mirror and left the bathroom. He felt almost drunk, as if nothing was where or what it should be. Damn if that ass wipe Trey wasn't in the hall outside the restroom, talking on his cell.
"Hey, baby girl," Trey said, cradling the phone intimately. "How about you come over tonight? My mom is working third shift." He paused briefly. "No, Jamie isn't expecting us to hook back up till Sunday, so I'm all free." Another pause. "Yeah, he's cool and all, but I need some one-on-one time with your breasts...uh, I mean you, Tonia." The fucker laughed, told the girl he was just kidding, and walked further down the hallway out of Sam's earshot.
That son of a bitch! Playing a sweet little thing like Jamie boy. Sweet little thing? Fuck! That settled it. He was nutting up! Damn it all, though, the boy did not deserve that type of treatment. Sam headed back down the hall, determined to throw himself into the rest of the school day, then maybe run some laps after school to see if he could get his head back on straight.