One More Year 8 ~ Nifty

One More Year

by Bradley Scott

**Note:

This is a rewrite of an older story of mine on here called Another Day, which I never finished, and no longer really like, but I'm hoping to redeem it.

This is written in British/South African English, although almost all similar media I consume is American, so that will probably have its influence, but not on spelling. For the purposes of keeping this note short, I'll include specific non-common words I use in a list at the bottom.

**

**Disclaimer:

No underage sex happens between any of my characters. I tend to make that quite clear in the narrative, but just in case it isn't, I state it here. (This is also more Romance than Erotica, so the sex doesn't happen right away, but when it does, everyone is 18.)**

Chapter 8

Caitlyn’s mouth curled into a snarl, her amber eyes glinting like a wolf's, as she opened the grand front door to her house and saw me standing in the entryway. "What are you doing here?"

"HI, Caitlyn." Ellie stepped between us, and then confidently made her way inside, drawing Caitlyn's attention. "We're just meeting up with Eric and a bunch of other people here before we go to Jamie's party. Hi Lea."

"Hi, Ellie." Lea brushed her dark hair out of her face and gave Ellie a quick hug. She turned to face me, and briefly glanced up at my face before dropping her eyes to the floor again. "Hi, Jay."

"Hi, Lea." I'd never held Lea's friendship with Caitlyn against her. Ellie was more or less a part of the same crowd, and I'd never had a problem with that. Our school was small — you did what you had to do. I avoided Caitlyn whenever I could help it though, so Lea and I weren’t really ever around each other much, so we’d barely ever gotten beyond awkward greetings.

Caitlyn's glare briefly flickered off of me, and onto Lea, before she stomped behind me and closed the door. "Are you and Eric dating now or something?"

I had a brief moment of panic before I realised that she was actually talking to Ellie.

"No, no." Ellie smiled gracefully. "Just friends."

"Because I thought you had something going on with that Gary guy. He's certainly better than your other options." She put her hands on her hips and made a dramatic display of looking me up and down.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, but that was the best I could do. "Well, you would know all about inferior options."

Lea let out a quick burst of nervous laughter, but was immediately silenced by Caitlyn's outraged glare, which was then brought to bear on me. I stared back flatly.

"We should get going." Ellie's tone was strained, and full of fake cheer. "Eric's on the balcony, right?"

"Maybe. I don't really care." Caitlyn spun on her heels and walked away.

"I, um- Bye." Lea gave us a shy grin and a shrug, and hurried after her.

"Why do you do that?" Ellie said in an annoyed tone, as we marched through the corridor towards the stairs at the back of the house.

"What?" I scoffed. "Retaliate?"

"Yes! What on earth do you think you're achieving, anyway? It only makes her worse."

"Like she could get any worse." I grinned. "Who's Gary?"

"Absolutely none of your business." She crossed her arms.

"Hypocrite."

"Likewise. Aren't you always telling me I shouldn't pry?" She shrugged. "It isn't really anything at the moment. I'll tell you when it is."

"I'm just making a point," I said, trying not to sound too smug. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"Listen, when I do want to tell you, I WILL tell you." She gave my shoulder a shove. "Whether you want to hear it or not."

"Great." I laughed.

We reached the stairs, and made our way up to the balcony at the top. Seeing the place again was a great feeling — it was where Eric had brought me that night, and it was where I'd met most of his friends, aside from Louis. Eric looked surprised when we walked in, and he came up to throw his arms around me and give me a quick peck on the lips. I melted into his embrace for a second, and then gave him an annoyed look.

"You didn't answer your phone." I put my hands on his waist and pushed him away slightly. "We had to deal with Caitlyn."

"Oh, god." He grinned sheepishly. "I'm so sorry. I left it in my room — I'll go get it now."

Eric went back inside, and the rest of us greeted each other. Ellie and Sara settled down at the bistro table to chat, while I grabbed a drink and stood around the cooler with Louis and John. Louis was dressed nicely again, with no glasses on — he seemed to be making a habit of it now — and John was just in a t-shirt and shorts. Sara, as always, looked like she'd just stepped out of a beauty pageant, even if she was just in jeans and a sequined top, like Ellie.

"So do all you Elohim kids do this? Rich kid parties where just anyone can show up?" John asked.

"Rich kid parties?" Louis laughed. "Dude, you took us to Switzerland to go skiing for your eighteenth."

"Yeah, but that was just you, Mel and Vince. And my family was going anyway." John shrugged.

"My party was quite small. Just family, and a few friends," I said. That hadn't been by choice, unfortunately, but I still didn't want Louis or John to think of me as a loser.

"I think that's better," Louis said confidently. "I didn't need a whole bunch of people around that I don't even like. I was happier with just you guys."

"I told you not to drink so fast. What's that, your second beer? And you're already getting sentimental." John nudged Louis with his shoulder, laughing softly. "After the next one, you're going to be professing your love for all of us."

"Shut up." Louis shook his head, and blushed slightly.

It seemed like there was a slightly awkward silence after that, so I tried to move the conversation along. "But Jamie actually invited you, right?"

"Yeah," Louis said, seizing on the topic. "He seems like a really nice guy. I was chatting with him and Ellie at AP maths last week, and he mentioned it and sent me an actual invite. It's John and Eric who are the tag-alongs."

"Not too bad. We're both dating people Jamie knows."

"Uh, yeah." I took a big sip of my drink. The fact that Eric's friends all knew about us mostly felt good, but thinking about it too much could still make me panic. I'd probably feel better once we reached the middle of the year, and classes gave way to prelims, moderation and finals. At least by then, if I was accidentally outed somehow, I wouldn't have to see everyone at school all the time.

Fortunately, before I'd had time to spiral about it, Eric walked back through the doors. "Okay, I have my phone. Now that we're all here, we can leave whenever, I guess."

"Well, it started about twenty minutes ago," Louis said. "And it'll take us about ten minutes to get there, so if we leave in then next ten minutes, things will have gotten going, but we won't be those douchebags who get to the party an hour late just to seem cool."

"Wow. That's..." I scratched my head. "A lot of strategising for a party."

"Yup, Louis always has a plan." John clapped him on the shoulder.

"I hate plans." I grimaced. "Mine never work out."

"Sometimes mine don't either." Louis gave me a rueful grin. "But I just keep trying. Eventually, you figure it out."

"Mine normally go pretty well." Eric downed the rest of his drink, and put his arm around me. "And I am ready to go, whenever the plan wants us to."

We ended up waiting for Ellie, who seemed to bask in the attention she received from being the one holding everything up, but she didn't keep us too long. After she'd had her fun, she quickly finished her drink, and we set off for the party. We made our way out onto the street and down the hill to the lifesaver's clubhouse, which Jamie's parents had booked out for his party.

It was a pretty standard place to rent for this sort of thing. The cost wasn't excessive, and while the building wasn't great — just a messy collection of square blocks with one big one in the middle that served as a hall — it had three bars, and all the doors tumbled right out on the beach, so it was always a fairly nice place for a relaxed event.

The main hall was being used as a dance floor, so the rest of the guests milled in and out of the other rooms and spilled out onto the beach. Braziers full of burning logs had been set up at odd intervals along the paving that abutted the sand, and people gathered around them to talk while warming themselves against the biting sea air. It was still summer, more or less, but the cold current coming up from Antarctica could always import some of that chill.

All the bartenders were being very strict about ID, so Eric and John — who didn't have drivers licences on them like the rest of us did — were turned away. Ellie and Sara had gotten drinks for them instead. After we'd settled around a brazier near a low concrete barrier wall, the two girls had gone off together to get their own drinks from one of the other bars. While we were waiting for them, Jamie showed up, with a very pretty girl hanging off his arm. They'd almost walked right past us, but then he'd looked up, seen me, and wrenched his arm out of her grasp.

"Hey, Jay! You came!"

"Uh, yeah." I grinned as he walked over and shook my hand. "Happy Birthday. Great party."

"Thanks, man. Looks like we'll make a partier out of you yet." He grinned. There was a soft, feminine — and possibly annoyed — sound of a throat being cleared behind him, and he winked at me before turning to hold his arm out to the girl he'd been walking with, who approached us. "This is my girlfriend, Megan."

I could be fairly sure it was the girl that I'd seen him kissing at Caitlyn's party, because she'd been all over his social media accounts lately. I normally would have found that sort of thing annoying, and probably would have had a pre-formed low opinion of her. But after meeting Eric, I kind of understood the impulse of feeling happy about being with someone and wanting to share it, even though I wouldn't really do that myself.

"Hello." She smiled sleepily.

"Meg, this is Jay — he's kind of this genius in our grade. Then that's Louis, he comes to AP maths with us. Also a genius." He gave John and Eric a friendly smile. "I don't think I've met you guys."

I cleared my throat. "This is Eric, and this is John. They go to North Grove with Louis."

"Oh, right." Jamie shook Eric's hand, and then John's. "You're Sara's guy."

"Um, Yeah." John grinned.

"Well, it's been nice meeting you all." Megan's hand went up to the back of Jamie's neck. "But I was just taking Jamie to see some of my friends, so we'll chat later." He shrugged and winked again, and allowed her to steer him away.

"Well, that was kinda rude," John said.

"Yeah. Yikes." Louis chuckled. "Seemed like a bit of a hostage situation."

"Do you think that wink was a cry for help?" Eric asked.

"Oh, no. He does that with everyone." I frowned. Jamie didn't seem unhappy to me. But I was usually pretty bad at telling what kind of behaviour was 'normal'.

At that point, Ellie and Sara got back from the bar. Ellie bumped her hip against mine. "What'd we miss?"

"We just saw Jamie, and his new girlfriend," I said.

"Oh no." Ellie started tapping her foot on the ground, clearly annoyed. "I kind of wanted to see what she was like in real life, without all the filters."

"She was pretty attractive." Eric shrugged.

"John, was she attractive?" Ellie asked.

"What?" John had his arm around Sara, and looked a bit startled at the question. "Uh, No? I don't know."

Louis grinned. "Leave John alone. He's Sara's 'guy', according to Jamie."

"He is." Sara tilted her head back, and John leaned down to kiss her.

Louis made a retching noise, and John gave him an annoyed look while Sara just laughed.

"Well, I want to go find her. Coming, Sara?"

"Ellie..." Sara groaned. "Do we have to?"

"Don't you want to see how pretty she is, so you know how much warm sentiment to have towards John for not noticing?"

"Okay, fine." She laughed, and reached up to tousle John's hair. "Miss me while I'm gone."

"I will." He grinned, and Sara let Ellie lead her off by the arm.

Louis made another retching noise, and Eric and I chuckled.

"Shut up, I'm happy." John raised his chin defiantly.

"Well, that's good." Louis smiled. "Do we want to do anything while they're gone? There's a ping pong table in one of the rooms."

"I could do that." John nodded.

"Well, then maybe let's go. Jay? Eric?"

"I don't really play." Anything that required hand-eye coordination was pretty much a no-go for me.

"Yeah, we'll just hang out here." Eric took a sip of his drink. "You guys go ahead though."

"Okay." Louis shrugged, and he and Jon set off towards the building.

"Finish your beer. I want to go for a walk." Eric said.

"Okay." I was closer to done than he was anyway, and it only took me a few sips to finish.

He downed his drink and grabbed my bottle, tossing them in an empty bin. He led the way around the side of the building, and we started making our way into the gap between the building and the retaining wall that held up the higher ground above it. Eric slipped his hand into my back pocket.

"So... Jamie's hot." He said in a casual voice.

That struck me as a weird thing to say, but then I had a realisation and grinned. "Is he? I hadn't noticed."

"Do you two hang out a lot?"

"Only when he climbs into my bed naked for a cuddle. But that's only like every other Tuesday." I bit my lip and looked across at Eric.

"Hah hah." He did not look impressed.

"Are you jealous?" I laughed.

"No. It's just... that wink thing was a little weird, right?"

"Yeah, but he seriously does do it with everyone. Come here." I grabbed him and pushed him against a wall, kissing him. "See? Who is it that I'm letting drag me behind buildings? Not Jamie."

"Yeah, okay." He grinned, and then pulled me back towards him. He ran his hand over the front of my trousers, causing me to groan slightly. "Want to get out of here?"

"Already?" I gasped, suddenly struggling to speak properly. "But we only just got here."

"Well, who cares? You've said hi to Jamie, and we've had some free drinks." He kissed his way up and down my neck. "Do you want to sit around drinking and watching Louis and John playing ping pong, or..." He lifted his hand and slid it down past the waistband of my jeans and underwear, touching my dick directly. I gasped, and my knees buckled slightly.

It took me a few moments to be able to speak. "Okay, fine. I'll text Ellie."

"Good boy." He pulled his hand out of my pants, and pushed us off the wall.

Hey, Eric and I are leaving now.

Woof!

Shut up. 😐

Make me 😁

Eric and I walked back to his house, his arm around me, my hand in his back pocket and his in mine. Whenever we walked down a street with gaps in the street-lighting, he'd turn to kiss me in the shadows, and we'd delay our journey a bit more each time. By the time we got into his room, having worked our way slowly through the quiet halls, I was already close to exploding.

He locked the door, and turned to face me, smirking. "See how I just turned the lock and that was it?"

I laughed. "Shut up and kiss me."

He quickly made his way across the room and obliged, kissing me with so much force that he nearly knocked me over. As we shuffled our way over to the bed, he did most of the work of removing all our clothing. By the time we'd gotten to the bed, all we had to do was drop our underwear and kick off our socks, and then he sat down and pulled me on top of him, our exposed dicks grazing each other.

He tossed me on the bed next to him and aggressively kissed, licked and nibbled his way from my chest down to my crotch as I stretched out, lying flat on the mattress. Then his hand was cupping my balls, and I could feel his lips slide along my shaft as he guided my tip to the back of his throat, and my breathing began to get heavy.

I was in heaven, watching him bob up and down on my dick while he furiously pumped away with his fist at his own hard-on. He looked up at me, a mischievous glint in his blue eyes, and then let my cock drop out of his mouth.

"I have an idea." He hopped off the bed.

I turned my head to track him as he walked around to the other side, next to my head. He climbed on the bed next to me, and crawled across until his face was at my crotch. Still a bit dumb with lust, I didn't realise what he wanted until his mouth engulfed my cock again, and I saw his bobbing in front of me, precum glistening at the tip.

I grabbed his hip and moved my head over, first lapping at the precum with my tongue, then wrapping my mouth around his shaft and bobbing to a rhythm that matched his. He began to respond enthusiastically, bucking and thrusting his hips, increasing the pace I was setting.

The feeling was overwhelming — the powerful sensation of his lips wrapped around my dick, his tongue darting back and forth, while the hard throbbing mass of his own pulsed and leaked in my mouth. His hand was also roaming all over — across my knee, up my thigh, under my balls and down to my ass crack.

He was the first to start breathing in short, quick bursts. His whole body tensed, and he cried out, filling my mouth with his hot, salty cum. I groaned, savouring the flavour, while he pulled his dick away from me and increased his pace as he licked, sucked and slurped away.

I was soon grabbing the sheets and doing some crying out of my own, shooting my load in his mouth, the pulsing shocks of pleasure rocketing through my body. He greedily lapped up every drop, and I had to roll away from him to get him off of my now overly-sensitive dick. He pushed himself up and flipped over, pulling me into a kiss, his taste mingling with mine in our mouths.

"What do you want to do now?" I asked, pulling away eventually.

He grunted, and lay flat on the mattress. "I'm feeling sleepy."

"Already? It's not even ten."

He shrugged as much as he could in that position. "You have your maths class tomorrow, and I have to get up early for that donation thing for my church. You should sleep."

"Don't remind me." I said grimly. As always, I wasn’t happy to be going to AP maths at all, but now I didn’t even have seeing him afterwards to look forward to — he was apparently going to be moving furniture all day. I’d made plans with Louis to start work on our catapult science project, since Angela and Sue had already heavily dived into their part. Without Eric around, I'd need something to do for the day anyway.

I shuffled off the bed, leaving Eric lying there. I wasn't going to fall asleep as easily as he did. For starters, I'd have to text my mom if I was planning on sleeping there — so I quickly did that, before I forgot. I'd already told her a bit about Eric and the others, but as far as she knew, they were all just new friends.

Hey. A couple of us are crashing at Eric's place after the party. But I won't forget AP maths, and I'll probably stop at home tomorrow morning to get my stuff.

Okay, have fun.

I hadn't technically lied, but I still felt a bit bad. I put my phone down, and decided I wanted to look around Eric's room. It was only fair — he'd done it with mine, and I'd been in his a few times now, but we'd always been too rushed. I hadn't yet gotten the chance. The first thing my eyes fell on was the box from the garage — the one he'd gotten me to help him get down on the night we'd met. It was still in the same place I'd put it — about a month ago — which I found odd.

"What's in this, anyway?"

"What?" He looked over lazily. "Oh, I don't know. Like some old primary school stuff, maybe."

"Why did you need it?"

He went silent for a second. "I'll tell you, but don't like... get mad or judge me."

"Okay..." I said tentatively.

"When I found you in the garage, I thought you were hot and..." He sighed. "I kind of... I just wanted you to hold the ladder, so I could be close to you and... maybe see if I noticed a response."

"Oh god, that was a move?" I laughed. "Shit. Had no idea."

"Yeah, it didn't really work. I couldn't read you. But I had a plan B."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah." He grinned. "The box was dusty, so I rubbed it on my shirt, so I'd have to change, and you'd see me shirtless. That worked, because I caught you staring."

"Wow."

"Yeah," he said sheepishly. "Thoughts?"

"Our whole relationship is a lie." I arched an eyebrow.

"Oh good." He laughed softly. "You're fine with it."

"You're very good at thinking on your feet." I smiled, and then looked at the box. "I'm a little less impressed that I had to lug that heavy thing here for no damn reason, though."

"I'll make it up to you," he said sleepily. "Come to bed."

"In a bit." I wasn't done exploring. He groaned, crawling under the covers and burying his head in a pillow.

We both had big rooms, but whereas mine was a rough — if advantageous — adaptation of a big area into my own crowded and cosy nest, his was a carefully crafted and designed luxury space. With a glass desk, a sleek leather couch facing a huge TV, and rows of shelving along the wall, all tied together by a very well-thought-out colour scheme of white with splashes of vibrant greens and blues, it didn't resemble a teenager's room so much as a hotel.

His room even had its own little garden area just outside, with a glass door that led to it, and a hot tub on a small wooden deck — which he protested wasn't exactly 'his' hot tub, because he shared it with the guest room next door. But amidst all this luxury, there didn't seem too much of anything that could tell me about Eric — which was very frustrating.

I walked along the wall of shelves, looking at some of the items on display. Most of it was just artwork — small, modern sculptures of twisted, abstracted figures. Nothing that really seemed like he'd even been the one to put them there. There was a row of textbooks, all from this year, neatly arranged by size. At the end of the middle shelf was a small collection of random items. My eyes locked on a few in particular — a pocket watch, a few random stones, a small trophy that didn't really indicate what it was for.

Among them sat my Valentine's Day gift to him — a delicate glass rose set in a sphere. I smiled, and picked it up, feeling its cool weight as I tried to puzzle out the histories of the other items. There was still a lot about Eric that I didn't know. We talked a lot, but he'd always been cagey about his own history, outside of a few topics.

He had a script that he kept to — divorced parents, preacher dad, moving back and forth, romantic history, hating the step-family. If you ever tried to move past those, or even try to get more details, he'd shut down or change the subject.

It didn't bug me so much, but I kept finding myself wondering. I was still trying to guess what the trophy could have been for, and who the pocket-watch could have been from as I climbed under the covers next to him, and he wrapped his arms around me, so we could drift off to sleep together.

***

Another Saturday, another gruelling AP maths lesson — made all the worse because I'd had to rush home early in the morning, pick up Ellie at her house and sit through the whole lesson while seriously low on sleep. At least I wasn't having as bad a time as Louis, who'd clearly drunk way too much at Jamie's party.

"Are you sure you still want to do this?" I asked him as he climbed in the back seat of my car, rubbing his forehead and grimacing at the noise of the slamming doors. I turned my key in the ignition, and started easing us out of the parking lot. "I could drop you off at home instead, if you want?"

"No, I'm okay." He ran his hand through his messy hair, and pushed his glasses back up his nose. "I don't think it will take long, anyway. And I'm really worried Sue will kill us if we don't get this part done soon. I've already gotten like fifty emails from her."

We'd made plans to do initial testing of our catapult designs for the science project. I was tired, but I thought it would be nice to get it out of the way, and it would be something that I'd enjoy doing. Eric was going to be busy for most of the day anyway, so I was also at a bit of a loose end.

"She goes straight to my spam folder, to be honest." I stopped at a traffic light, and turned back to grin at him. "You only really need to worry when she calls. She hates phoning people, so if she's mad enough to make one, you're in trouble."

"Wouldn't it be more relaxing to take a step back, and join an easy-going group that could use your help instead?" Ellie piped in, fluttering her lashes at him from the front seat.

"Sorry, there's already a schedule and a roster." Louis shrugged and grinned.

"Can't argue with that," I said. "Well, you could try, but Sue gets scary."

"Boo." Ellie sighed dramatically. "Oh well, who needs to pass science anyway?"

"I definitely do." Louis said.

I shrugged. "I could go either way."

"Encouraging thing to hear from a group member, thanks." Louis laughed.

"No problem."

The rest of the drive passed pretty quickly, and soon I had pulled up in front of Ellie's house and let her out. When we turned around the corner to park in my spot, we found Eric sitting against the wall, tapping away on his phone. I got out, pleasantly surprised and probably sporting a ridiculous grin.

"Hey," he said, getting up and dusting the grass off his pants, and walking over to peck me on the cheek. "The people donating the stuff had a family emergency or something, so the whole thing got cancelled. We have to go back tomorrow. Sorry, I would have texted you, but I didn't know if you were still in class. Hey Louis."

"Hey."

"Louis and I are doing that science project thing today, remember?" I drummed my fingers on Eric's shoulder.

"Oh, right. Sorry. I completely forgot. Should I go?"

"Um," I looked over at Louis. "I don't think it'll take us long, right?"

"Yeah, it'll be quick," Louis said, shielding his eyes from the sunlight. "You can hang around. Maybe you can even help."

"Hard pass on extra schoolwork, thanks." Eric laughed. "I'll watch TV or something. I'll be very quiet, and not get in your way. I promise."

Louis and I were actually able to build the little cardboard catapults even more quickly than I had predicted — he was already shaping up to be a great partner for the project. We'd finalised our two designs in a few minutes, and he was pretty helpful with guiding me through them while I cut the pieces and glued everything together.

He had helpful suggestions too, when the design needed tweaking to work with cardboard, and we both got pretty invested in the process, which turned into a lot of fun. We both cheered when my makeshift trebuchet managed to throw a wadded up paper ball across the room.

"Are you guys done?" Eric said, pausing the TV and turning around.

"Not yet. We still have to test out the other design." I was already cutting out the next set of struts.

"Okay," he shrugged, and turned back to the TV.

Louis and I chatted happily, our spirits lifted by our success, while I made the other catapult — the mangonel — and he jotted down some notes on what we'd changed for the designs, and took some photos of the trebuchet to send to Angela. I finished the mangonel, and the range wasn't impressive, but it did manage to make the distance between me and Louis, the wadded up paper I'd fired bouncing off the desk and landing in his lap.

"That's pretty good." he said, picking it up and placing it on the desk.

"I know." I repositioned it and fired another one, which hit him in the shoulder.

"Cut it out." He placed the second projectile next to the first, smiling.

"I'm just stress testing it." I fired another one, hitting him on the forehead.

"Hey!" Louis was still grinning as he grabbed the paper ball from where it had fallen, and lobbed it back at me. "Eric, control your boyfriend."

"Hey, I'm just visiting," Eric said over his shoulder. "If you two can't work together, it's your project manager's problem."

"Jay IS the project manager." Louis sighed. "Of course you'd take his side."

"I'm not taking anyone's side. I'm neutral."

"Sorry," I said to Louis. "I'll stop. It's a pretty good proof of concept though."

"It is. Give me one. I have a theory I'd like to test out." He pointed at Eric's back.

I grinned and passed him the trebuchet, while I positioned myself slightly closer to Eric with the mangonel. We both got our paper balls ready to launch and then Louis nodded, and we both released. Louis' projectile went flying over Eric's left shoulder, but mine hit him in the back of the head.

"Hey!" He turned around indignantly.

"How's that neutrality working out for you, Switzerland?" Louis asked.

"Not well," Eric said, frowning. "Does this mean you guys are done?"

"Yeah, I think so." Louis said, turning to me. "We'll need better materials, but I think we know what we're going to build now."

"Great," I said. "That went really quickly."

"Yeah," Louis agreed. "I'll call myself an Uber. Give you two some alone time."

"You can hang out if you want."

Eric smirked. "Yeah. And if we do sex stuff, we'll give you noise-cancelling headphones."

Louis blushed, and tapped away at his phone quietly.

"We won't 'do sex stuff' while you're here," I said, slapping Eric on the shoulder. "I promise."

"No, it's really fine. I've got other things I need to get done." He checked his phone. "Plus, the driver is Only two minutes away. It'd be rude to cancel at this point."

"Okay." I shrugged.

He packed up his things, and Eric said goodbye from the couch, then I walked him out.

"That worked so well." Louis said while we were waiting for the car to show up. "This project's going to be great."

"I know. I'll let Angela know we've got rough working prototypes. Just send her all those photos you took today."

"I will. Do you think we need to help with the report and the poster?"

"I really don't." Most of that was probably already done — all of it, maybe. It was more likely that we'd get a message back from Angela telling us about the weak spots in our designs, if anything. "We should just focus on our part. When do you want to go buy the materials?"

"Um, three weeks from now. It is in Angela's schedule." He grinned. "We've got that AP maths test coming up, that last Saturday of term. Do you want to just head out to get it after that?"

"Yeah, that'd work. We won't have much else to worry about after that. I'll give you a ride."

"Cool." He smiled awkwardly, and didn't say anything as his Uber arrived, and he got in.

I waved as they drove off and made my way back inside. Eric was standing at my desk. As he heard me come in he wandered over, wrapped his arms around me, and buried his head in the crook of my neck.

"Yes?" I kissed the back of his head.

He pulled his head back and smiled at me. "Louis called you my boyfriend."

"Yes."

"You didn't seem to mind."

"No," I said. "I am your boyfriend, right?"

"Yes, you're my boyfriend." He smiled, and shrugged. "We've just never called each other that before. It's kind of nice."

"Yeah, it is." I said. "Do you and Louis normally refer to me as your boyfriend?"

He blushed. It wasn't often I got to see that.

"You do!" I laughed. "So clingy. I have a clingy boyfriend."

"Shut up." He bit his lip. "Do you and Ellie never call me your boyfriend?"

"Have you met Ellie? Obviously we don't. You've been called my beau, my companion, my sweetheart, my suitor, my intimate flame and my lover."

"Ellie likes words." He grinned.

"She does."

"I'm not hating 'lover', though."

"Ugh, that's the worst one." I groaned. "I'd rather call you my 'intimate flame'."

"I'll be forced to shut you up if you do." He pressed his mouth against mine, and we melted into a kiss.

"I've thought of you as my boyfriend for a while." I admitted, when we broke apart for air.

"Now THAT I will let you say."

"Well, if I only get kissed when I use the weird terms-"

I didn't get a chance to finish. He'd shut me up again, and I didn't mind. I dragged him over to the bed, pulling off my shirt while he pulled off his. We didn't get around to properly taking off anything else — he just collapsed on top of me, both of us with our pants around our ankles, caught above our shoes.

We kissed passionately and rubbed our dicks together, groaning and breathing heavily. It didn't take long for either of us to get there. With a guttural moan, he blew his load all over me, and I followed after a few strokes from his cum slicked hand pumping at my dick. He collapsed on top of me, and we lay there kissing for a few minutes.

I grabbed a towel from my bedside table, and we mopped ourselves up. We threw on some underwear and grabbed the duvet from my bed, settling down on the couch and draping it over us, our bare skin touching underneath the cover while we watched some TV.

Later in the day, Eric decided we needed to shower, so we went into the bathroom and stripped while we waited for the water to heat up. I held out my hand to check the temperature and, satisfied, stepped under the warm spray. He followed closely behind me, and when I turned to face him, he pulled me in to plant his face against mine again.

"So romantic." He grinned. "Like kissing in the rain."

We both grabbed some body-wash and began to lather each other up. It didn't take long for either of us to get hard again, doing that. We began tugging at each other's dicks, all thoughts of properly cleaning ourselves on hold. His other hand wandered around, down my back, into my ass-crack. He pushed a finger gently at my hole.

"Hey!" I jumped slightly.

"Sorry." He pulled back his hand and grinned, then kissed me. "Wasn't thinking. Just a bit... you know. I know we haven't talked about that."

"No." I rinsed some of the lather off my skin.

"Do you think you would let me fuck you, eventually?"

"Um, I don't know." I could suddenly feel myself blushing furiously. "Would you let me?"

"I don't really like it." He shrugged, grinning at my embarrassment. "If I let you, would you let me?"

I couldn't speak for a few seconds. "Uh... maybe?"

"We don't have to decide right now."

"Okay, good." I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Whenever you're ready."

"Sure. Can we stop talking about it?"

"You're so repressed." He kissed me again. "But fine, yeah. Let's finish up in here."

"Yeah."

I think the discussion had excited us. As nervous as I was, I still found the idea pretty thrilling, and he clearly had nothing in the way of him finding it to be an incredibly stimulating thought. It wasn't long before we'd both cum on the other's thighs, and then washed it all down the drain with warm water and soap. We dried ourselves off, and I crawled into bed, naked, while he started getting dressed.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I have to go."

I groaned, throwing myself onto my pillow. He grinned, and made his way back over to the bed, sitting down next to me and planting a kiss on my forehead. He ran his hand up and down the exposed flesh of my upper arm, smiling down at me. "Sorry. Maybe I should've said earlier that I couldn't stay all night. I have to get up early again tomorrow, and I'm pretty tired already."

"It's fine. Am I going to see you tomorrow after you're done?"

"Probably not, sorry. I'll let you know if it gets cancelled again, but if it doesn't, I'll be there all day — and exhausted afterwards. But I'll visit during the week. And you're coming to Jess's party on Friday, right?"

"Yeah, but I can't stay long. We've got that AP maths test the next morning."

"Crap. But at least we'll have the rest of that weekend. I'm not doing anything." He reached down, and finished putting on his other shoe. "Okay, I really need to go."

"Okay, just close the gate behind you. I'll get up and lock it later."

He leaned forward and gave me a real kiss. "Okay, bye."

"Bye. I'll miss you."

"Yeah, I'll miss you too." He hopped up and left through the glass door.

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Terms: (Not necessarily appearing in this chapter)

• Matric - Final year of schooling in South Africa. (Senior year is the American equivalent, I think.)

• Moderation - Sort of an educational audit, where external moderators check up on the school's standards.

• Prelims - Mock finals, essentially mid-terms, but specifically geared to prepare you for finals.

• Maths - Self explanatory, of course, but I just want to make the point that the are MANY mathematics, so calling it Math is bizarre. Get your shit together, America.

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