The Bottom Club

06 | furtive

IF YOU MET a boy and liked him, you did not stare to a point that it became physically uncomfortable. You did not refuse to let go of his hand during a handshake for a few seconds longer than necessary just because you liked how they wrapped around yours. You did not tell him you jerked-off to his shirtless Instagram pictures. But most importantly, you did not vomit in front of him.

These were faux pas that Wyatt knew like the back of his palm, but whenever he found himself in head-on situations that involved interactions with a crush of his, he lost his chill then things went south.

Canyon and Martha had taken steps a safe distance away from him when he started to puke, but apparently, a meager breakfast resulted in chunks of indigested granola bars and not much else.

"Are you alright, dear?" Martha asked, sidestepping the vomit as she came to stand beside him. She rested the back of her hand against his forehead. "Your temperature's normal. Does your body hurt?"

Wyatt shook his head, pushing her hand away. "I'm alright. It's probably just a side effect of starting my Wednesday with Gym."

He knew he was lying, but telling Martha he retched out of nervousness was not even a direction he intended to go in.

Pulling his hair back, he looked up to see Canyon watching and felt his face heat up. Wyatt had never felt so embarrassed in his entire life.

"I'll," he said, "I'll clean it up."

"Nonsense," Martha waved his suggestion away as if it was a physical presence. "Canyon, go and get Jorge."

Canyon nodded, disappearing without looking back.

Silence fell when he left, and Wyatt had nothing to say to ease the awkwardness so he kept his mouth shut.

"Canyon is my nephew," Martha supplied. "His parents decided that he needed a change, and so he's here to finish off his senior year."

Wyatt sat up, lost in thought as he wondered how you enquired from a person's aunt if they were straight or not.

"He wasn't supposed to come in until I was here so and I would've suggested you show him around, but your lunch break isn't until―" she paused to look at the time on her wristwatch, "fifteen minutes."

"I haven't seen him in any of my classes so maybe we don't have any together. Is he―"

"Queer? Not that I know of," Martha finished promptly. Noticing the expression on his face she grinned mischievously. "I'm old, not blind. You might want to turn down those pheromones though, wouldn't want you scaring the poor kid away."

"I thought you said he wasn't gay."
"I said I don't know if he's gay, which means I wouldn't know if he was straight either―whew, what do you eat?"

Wyatt felt his already cooling face heat up again when he realized she was talking about his puke.

"Sorry about that," he muttered, climbing down the other side of the iron bed frame as he bent down to grab his shoes. He was thankful that he had had the foresight to put them under the bed when he'd first come in, and other than his rumpled uniform shirt and sleep reddened eyes Wyatt was sure he didn't look worse for wear.

The janitor and Canyon arrived just as Martha led him out of the enclosed place, an arm encircled around his elbow. Jorge was short, with greying sideburns, and built like a barrel so that the fabric of his shirt stretched taut around his stomach.

He beamed when he saw Martha, and the both of them began to exchange pleasantries in Spanish just as she pushed Wyatt in her nephew's direction.

He dragged his feet, wishing that the ground would open up and swallow him, but unfortunately, things didn't happen that way, and sooner than he liked Wyatt was standing in front of the reason for his nervousness. He could still taste the vomit.

Canyon smiled pleasantly, revealing a set of white teeth.

"Hey," he greeted Wyatt, who murmured a quick reply and shook the hand he was offered. "Um, sorry about earlier, by the way, my aunt―Mrs. Lopez talks about you a lot."

"No problem," Wyatt said, feeling his stomach lurch once more but settle more quickly than it had earlier. He couldn't risk talking, but refusing to talk would give off the wrong kind of vibe and he wasn't about that. For the thousandth time, he wished he had Tobi's effortless ability to blend interact with strangers, or at least Viv's knack for acting―where she could play at confidence and even succeed.

"Sorry about me too," Wyatt said as he fake-smiled, hoping that Canyon would play along and not mention it.

"If anything's wrong you can meet aunt―Mrs. Lopez."

"It's alright to call her your aunt you know. When nobody's around I call her Martha."

Canyon made an inaudible sound, nodding when he did as Wyatt wracked his brain to come up with something witty to say. Something unexpected, daring, but yet sounding like it hadn't come straight out of an old fashioned romance novel, but he came up blank, and so he started with the next thing that came to mind.

"Hey, um, this is going to sound weird, but we should start again."

Canyon looked at him, the skin on his forehead wrinkling as he tried to process what Wyatt was saying.

"Start again?" He asked.

"Yeah, like, I forget that I woke up to find you breathing on my face."

"Which there is an explanation for," He cut in sheepishly.

Wyatt looked at him questioningly, waiting on his reply as he opened and shut his mouth in an attempt to come up with a reasonable excuse. Finally, he grinned, shrugging.

"I thought so," Wyatt said smugly. "So I forget that you were breathing on my face, made me hurt my elbow (which doesn't hurt as much as it did, thanks for asking by the way) and you forget that you saw me puke, and we're good."

Canyon scratched at his prominent nose, and he looked like he was considering the proposal.

"Do we have a deal?" Wyatt pressed. He could feel his false bravado drain away as fast as it had come.

"We do," he agreed finally with a nod.

"Good."

They appraised each other through the corner of their eyes.

"Is this the part where we reintroduce ourselves?"

Wyatt blinked, once, twice. Then stretching out his hands he said, "Hey, I'm Wyatt Carter, and it's nice to meet you."

"I'm Canyon Gomez, and it's nice to meet me too," he replied, grabbing his hand and squeezing reassuringly.

"Fuck you," The tension in his chest had begun to dissipate with Canyon's casual demeanor, and even though his voice still sent shivers through his spine, Wyatt found that they weren't a problem he couldn't deal with.

He realized that Martha and Jorge had moved away from their earlier positions during their exchange, finding that the former was nowhere to be found and the latter was already cleaning up.

The bell rang as Canyon opened his mouth to say something and Wyatt did the math in his head. He had four periods before lunch on Wednesdays (Gym, Biology, Physics, and Spanish) and three after (a free one, American History, and Art) which meant that concerning Martha's wishes, he could show Canyon around, but only after he got something to eat.

"So... lunch."

"Yeah," Canyon said, smiling.

"I'm heading to the cafeteria, you should come."

"I should cum?"

"Oh my God no," Wyatt said, feeling his face go red. "I mean like, come to eat you perv, Jesus."

"I know, I know," he laughed. "I'll come with, but let me go grab my bag."

He walked to Martha's desk, which was a little distance away, grabbed his messenger bag, and continued towards Wyatt.

"Ladies first," Canyon said, bowing from his waist down as he rotated his wrist in circularly flamboyant movements directed towards the exit.

"Why thank you, my liege." Wyatt teased, at which Canyon winked.

Not straight, he thought to himself.
Food, of course, but first he'd need to rinse out his mouth.