NO Love Club (Boy × Boy) ✔

55) I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE ANY MORE THAN YOU DO.

Cole Walker's POV 

I trudged across the paved lawn towards a fancy, two storey house. I had left my crutches in Declan's car, so that I could make a grand entrance to the first tutoring session I would actually get paid of. It took me ages to make it to the front door, and it wasn't just because of the absurdly enormous size of the front yard. I knocked, as I couldn't find a doorbell. 

After a while a woman with hastily tied sand brown hair and blue eyes heavy with exhaustion came to let me in. She was wearing a white tunic and silver bracelets, which jingled along her long strides. I was having a hard time keeping pace with her, and by the time she sat me down to wait for my tutee I was huffing and puffing. In my defense, the house was just as enormous as its yard.

"Thomas, your tutor is here!" The woman shouted, making my ears ring in the process, and in no time equally as loud steps thumped down the stairs.

Thomas was a scrawny 14-year-old with a permanent smirk etched onto his lips and a pointy nose, making him look like an impish character from Peter Pan. That wasn't far off from what he was like, as I was soon to find out. Teaching him was a challenge, from which my otherwise generous pay wasn't nearly enough. 

He plainly ignored one third of my teaching and toyed with his phone instead, making me miss the days when I tutored X. Even if we spent most of the time making out, we still made more progress than I did with this disobedient kid.

"Nuh-uh." I gritted through my clenched teeth and snapped the phone from Thomas, as I finally got enough of him not paying attention. When he bored a murderous glare at me, I hissed at him: "Do you think I want to be here any more than you do?"

"Really?" Thomas asked, lifting an eyebrow. He glanced towards the kitchen, where his mom was baking something of which aroma made my stomach grumble. I could hear the implied question: What do you think my mom would say about that?

"Really. I'm doing this to have the money to surprise my boyfriend after we get the hell out of secondary school." I spoke in a soft, yet deep voice, making sure his mom wouldn't hear what I was saying. "Believe me, I hate algebra just as much as you do."

"Boyfriend?" Thomas asked. I realized too late that I might have just ruined my chances of ever getting paid for the job. I had no idea what sort of people Thomas and his freakishly rich family were, or if their ideas of sexuality were from the stone age. A kid like him could easily just say he didn't want to work with me anymore and another tutor would be waiting in line.

"Yes, deal with it." I told him, pushing back my fears, and pointed at him with my pencil. "I'm being paid based on the progress you make, and I won't just sit and watch while you ruin all your chances of passing that exam."

Thomas peered at me, leaning onto his elbows. Then, just as I was certain that he would tell me to fuck off, he picked up his notebook and pencil. The rest of the tutoring session passed without trouble. Even if Thomas got all his exercises wrong, it wasn't for the lack of trying. He just really, truly hated algebra because he didn't understand the first thing about it. 

"Thank you so much for helping him out." The mother said, offering me and Thomas a plate of cookies still warm from the oven. I took one and Thomas took a whole stack of them, stuffing his mouth so full his cheeks bulged. 

"It's no problem at all." I told her, smiling sweetly despite my earlier statement of hating algebra and that being there was a waste of my time. I held my breath, expecting Thomas to call me out, but instead he just grinned so widely some of the cookie crumbs fell off his mouth.

Before I walked out, I could hear Thomas' mom reproaching him for being 'hoggish' in front of an older student, I believe she even used the words 'smart' and 'responsible'. Oh, just how misplaced her praises could be. But as long as I had made Thomas participate, I had something to be proud about, no matter the methods.

Declan was waiting for me by the tall gates and I was immensely grateful when he handed me my crutches. My knee had stopped aching a long while ago, but sadly I couldn't say the same about my shattered, slow-to-heal tibia. 

"Their house is even bigger than mine." Declan mused, knitting his eyebrows as if he was yet to decide whether it was impressive or ridiculous. No one actually needed a house, a mansion, like that. Declan slung my backpack on his shoulder and started walking by my side. "So, how did it go?"

"I almost blew it all by telling my tutee that I'm gay and that I didn't want to be there any more than he did." I admitted and glimpsed over my shoulder just to make sure that no one was listening to us.

"And why am I not surprised?" Declan asked and let out a bellowing laughter as he opened the car door for me. I scrambled on my seat, while he got to his side, still laughing. 

"But it worked and he started paying attention to the teaching afterwards, so.." I let the rest of the sentence hang in the air, grinning widely.

"You're so happy these days, it's starting to freak me out." Declan pointed out and shook his head, but he was smiling as he steered off the curb.

I couldn't blame Declan, if my wide grins and future planning freaked him out. I could barely recognise that happy person looking back at me in the mirror myself. Somewhere along the line, the future stopped being a hopeless, gray mass of things I couldn't imagine myself doing. I no longer felt like locking myself into my room, unless, of course, it was with X.

"Yeah, I'm terribly sorry for being happy." I told him, rolling my eyes. But then Declan nudged my shoulder and grinned, making me grin as well.

Declan turned on the radio and tapped the wheel along the music, his lips moving but not singing out loud. His phone was in the beverage holder, and the screen lit up when it started ringing. Wilder's name and picture on the caller ID made Declan's grin spread and turn to something.. warmer. Wait, what?

"Hi, dude, you're on speaker." Declan greeted Wilder, before I could demand answers to that smile of his.

"Dude? Why don't you call me bro next?" Wilder hummed, then he was silent for a beat. "Actually, that's worse. But, anyway, I'm craving ice cream."

"Can Cole come too?" Declan asked, even though I had completely missed the part where anyone asked anyone to go anywhere. When Wilder agreed, saying that he'll ask Noah and X to join us, Declan promised we would be at the mall soon and ended the call.

"Speaking of happiness." I said, slowly. "Is there something I should know about you and Wilder?"

Declan frowned, getting lost in his thoughts. It took him a good, long while, before he spoke again: "It wouldn't work. Wilder is Theo's brother, and, besides, I don't think Wilder swings."

"..your way?" I suggested, curious.

"Any way." Declan shrugged, a small smile curving up the corners of his mouth. "So, being friends is enough."

"When did you get so mature?" I asked, sensing the sadness behind Declan's seemingly casual words. I wanted to cheer him up, so I threw his words back to him: "It's starting to freak me out."

If I have changed, so has Declan. I can't remember the last time he got into a fight at school and he has successfully toned down his Declanism, now that he knows I'm not going anywhere even if he didn't constantly remind me how much he needed me. He still annoys about half of our classmates, but none of them hate him anymore.

That is what I call progress. 

"Yeah, whatever." Declan mumbled and let out an amused chuckle. He parked the car in the parking lot of the mall, gesturing to me to follow him to the ice cream shop. "Just don't be all lovey-dovey with your guy, the rest of us want to eat our ice cream without the after-taste of jealousy."

****

Question of the day:
What is something you
learned in the last week?

(Me: This might be a little gory, but I love anything zombie-related, so here we go.. Apparently there's this German folklore about a vampire-zombie creature called The nachzehrer. When someone dies in a specific way, they turn into a nachzehrer and they have to eat their burial shrouds and their own flesh. Then they feed on the life force of their loved ones. I don't know why that was so fascinating to me.. :D)