perf*ct (boy × boy) ✔

three: the false god nicholas

solar clarke's pov

Just two weeks ago my parents packed all our stuff in cardboard boxes — well, technically they hired a moving service to do that — and told me it was time to change scenery. New school, new friends and a new baseball team.

So far I hated it here. 

Not because I had to make new friends and leave the old ones behind. Getting to know people was easy for me, and I even knew one of my classmates beforehand, so I didn't have to be alone or anything like that.

It was just that in Frostford High* everyone and everything was so fake and polished. Of course there were popular kids in my old school as well, but here it was all taken to the next level. Seeing them being put on a pedestal and worshiped like some gods was seriously pissing me off.

The ultimate worst of all those false gods was our team captain Nicholas Dawson. The mere sight of his wide self-righteous smile and oh so perf*ct set of blue eyes made me scowl. It was even worse when he started talking. He spoke his words lazily, like having a conversation with his inferiors was a waste of time and talent.

Yet everyone seemed to love the guy.

I had been waiting for a good enough reason to smack that smug grin off his flawless face since the first day I met him. Nevertheless, once I finally got to do it, it was nothing like I had pictured it to be. When I knocked him off his feet, it was so easy. Too easy. Surely I got him by surprise, but I had imagined it would take a little more to clobber a team captain. 

Then Nicholas had opened his mouth and he had stammered so badly he couldn't even finish his sentence. That was so unlike the smug false god Nicholas that at first I worried I had hit him too hard. Everything about him was different from the frantic gaze in his sky blue eyes to his posture. He seemed to have outright lost his arrogant aura — and I doubt anyone could hit him that hard.

It was almost like I had knocked down the wrong.. person?

"C'mon Solar, stop showing off." Johnny complained and before I could even blink, my face was covered with something dark and soft. "The coach's gonna kill us if we're late again."

I have a sun shaped birthmark on my left shoulder, so my parents have this idea that I'm their little sunshine. When I was younger I used to hate my name and I kept asking my parents if they were deliberately trying to make my life difficult. 

Today I like it, because it's different. There aren't many other Solars around. Besides, I love space and anything related to it. I even have a golden sun necklace, which I carry with me wherever I go. I wouldn't exactly call myself a sunshine — I'm more like a thunderstorm — but I liked the idea of being someone's sun.

"And who's the reason we're always late?" I snorted at Johnny and pulled on the shirt he had just tossed on my face. 

"Clarke, St. James, why am I not surprised to see you here at the last minute?" Speaking of the devil, the false god Nicholas was waiting for us on the sports field and giving us disapproving looks.

There was no sign of a bruising of his face, which must have had something to do with his godly powers. Somehow that made my deep annoyance towards him grow bigger. That wasn't even the worst of it: Nicholas barely glanced at me or in any way indicated there had been any kind of an incident between us. 

Maybe he was ashamed of the way he had behaved? Maybe he didn't want his friends to know how scared he had been? Maybe he didn't want them to know he couldn't take a beating? But could anyone be that chill? To show no sign of recognition at all?

"You can start by running around the field three times, maybe that'll teach you to be on time." Nicholas smirked at us and started slouching back to the coach.

°°°°

After the practice I was walking back to the locker room with Johnny. He was boasting about his 'evident development' at pitching, but I was more interested in the conversation between the false god Nicholas and his group of less known false gods.

"Where did you disappear last night?" One of them, a guy who had an obsession to keep his white sneakers spotless, asked.

"What? Nowhere. I just went to say hello to a friend." Nicholas fenced. He wasn't uttering the words languidly like he normally did.

"What friend?" That one was Alex Crespo. Don't ask me why I remember his name and not the others, I'm probably just going to lie anyway.

"You don't know.." Nicholas' voice trailed off, when I halted abruptly and he stumbled on my back. I barely even registered the surprised groan he made.

I was staring into a pair of all too familiar sky blue eyes that had widened in shock as soon as they spotted me. Then my gaze landed on the bruised nose and the parted lips. I stared at him as he took a step back, still not taking his eyes off me. Before I could get a word out of my mouth, he had already turned on his heels and sprinted out of the door.

There are two Nicholases?

"Why was Nathan afraid of you?" Apparently it was possible to startle Nicholas after all. The incredulity turned to anger when he accosted me: "What the fuck did you do to my brother?"

* Frostford High and Frostford city are fictional and if there is really a school or a city named that way, you probably cannot find Solar or the other characters of this book from there. If you do though, please let me know.