One Shots 3.0 [boyxboy]

Schoolboy Crush

The best part of my day is walking to and from school. Because for twenty precious minutes each way, I get to be around Doyle Wilson.

Doyle lives a block away from me, and our parents are friends. We grew up having play dates a couple of times a month and going to each others' family parties, so even though we're not terribly close I like to think that we're pretty old friends. Well. As old a friend as you can have at sixteen.

Doyle goes to the local public school for our district and I go the private one three blocks down on scholarship. So even though we don't have any classes together, or get to hang out during lunch, we do walk with one another most mornings.

Typically I leave my house at seven-thirty and pick him up outside his five minutes later; then we walk into town and along Main Street, up Willow Hill and across the bridge to Willow Hill High, then I continue alone to Dalton Academy even though my classes start a half hour earlier than his do.

This started last year when for a couple of weeks I happened to be passing his house at the same time as he was leaving. He had a bunch of projects due that he was behind on, and wanted to get to school early to work on them. After a month of this I laughingly asked him how many projects exactly his teachers thought their students were capable of and, looking surprised, he said, 'Oh, no, I finished those weeks ago. I just prefer walking in with you than alone.'

This made me happier than it should have and I took a few days to reflect on that, coming out the other side with the troubling realisation that I was developing feelings for him. This was kind of jarring because I was also just coming to terms with the possibility that I liked boys, and so to have an actual human to focus these feelings on shook me a bit.

Still, I kept quiet about it and made sure not to act any differently around him, keeping any emotions or daydreams I had about him well in check. It wasn't just that he was physically attractive and fit pretty firmly into what it became clear my "type" was - athletic, slim, dark featured - he was also funny, and charming, and kind, and intelligent, and entertaining, and engaging, and I wasn't about to fuck up the good fortune of being his friend just because of some pesky romantic urges knocking around in the back of my brain.

It wasn't until close to the end of our junior year that Doyle and I began hanging out more than just on these walks to school, and it started on a Friday. It was late April and the weather was just nice enough that we didn't have to wear our jackets every day; weak, watery sunshine broke through the gaps in the leafy trees as we approached the bottom of Willow Hill. I got a text.

'What's up?' Doyle asked, glancing over at me casually as I let out a small noise of surprise.

'It's from the office at school,' I told him; the text alert system was relatively new and I was still surprised every time I got one reminding me about sports events or assemblies. 'My first class is cancelled.'

'Sick,' he said appreciatively as we climbed the hill. Cars belonging to the wealthy students at my school passed us as we struggled on the steep incline, a couple honking and laughing as I tried not to sweat through my uniform. I'm pretty invisible when I'm at school, like the other scholarship students, but when they see me walking anywhere in my uniform instead of driving there in a goddamn Lexus they know I'm poor. Fortunately or unfortunately, both Doyle and I are used to this by now and it's since faded to background noise. 'Will you have to do independent study or something instead?'

I shook my head. 'Just have the time free, I think.'

'Oh, cool!' he exclaimed, as we finally broke the top of the hill and strolled more easily across the bridge. 'You should come meet some of my friends then. You can hang out until we start class.'