Coffee & Nerves (boyxboy)

[8] A Three-Way Incident

I open the door and scan the faces in the room. I let out a sigh of relief at the fact that I don't have Jack in this class.

That would be bad luck.

So my luck isn't that bad, but it's still pretty bad. Because...

Well... Spanish 4 sucks.

I mean, it's not awful. When I think about it, everyone's nice enough and the class itself is actually pretty fun, but I can't enjoy it. I'm all jittery and nervous.

I'm even too anxious to be capable of laughing at Mr. Sanchez's awful puns.

Which should be hard because they really are awful. And I'm a sucker for awful jokes. But I'm not even slightly fazed by his joke about higher education and studying on airplanes.

Something must be wrong with me.

I just can't stop worrying about lunch. I'm dreading the interaction with Jack. I'm sure that he will not be too happy about being forced to sit with me either. I'm hoping I can keep the talking between us to a minimum, but you never know with Jack. He's so unpredictable. Also, there's Max, our kid.

Oh god, that makes us sound like parents, yikes.

We would be awful parents.

Anyways, the bell rings and I can already feel the loud, anxious thumping of my heart inside my chest. That's how much Jack is controlling me.

I hate it. I hate how he has so much influence on my bodily functions.

Like influence on heart rate and sweating, I'm n-not talking- about-

not those bodily functions.

Ew.

I pack up my bag and sling it over my shoulder as I anxiously check my phone, trying to occupy my brain with something unrelated to Jack. I continually refresh my feed, wishing for a notification to pop up. That would give me a reason to avoid the fact that I'm walking to my most certain agonizing death by intense glares.

And... cold shoulders, confusing conversations, passive aggressive body language, etc., etc.

Gosh, my life must either be really sad or really first-world white person easy for my biggest problem to be Jack Summers.

It's too late to turn back now, though, because I will have him as a part of my life whether I like it or not.

Hopefully, I can manage to keep him occupying the smallest part of my life as possible. But, then again, that might just make things even worse.

Maybe if I don't resist too much, it will be easiest to achieve my goal of a Jack-free life and he'll slowly evaporate out of my thoughts. Then I could relax.

Yeah.

I'm liking the sound of that plan.

This situation with Jack might be like those Chinese finger traps. The more you resist and pull, the worse you make it. So I guess that means I have to push us together to be able to pull us apart. Pushing myself and Jack together has to happen.

B-but not like tha-

"Jack! Ja-JACK!"

I've reached the lunchroom and Mrs. Aspen waves me toward her. She's finally gotten the attention of Jack (after a decent amount of screaming of course), who is now walking hesitantly toward us.

The closer he gets, the faster my heart beats, the more nervous I am. By the time he reaches us, I think I'm going to be sick.

"There you are. Phew. Now that I finally have you both here, meet your fresh-" she stops herself, stumbling on her sentence.

It's only now that I realize the figure standing next to Mrs. Aspen.

"your..." she waves her hand furiously, currently struggling to find the proper words.

Shoving him forward with a 'whatever' look on her face, she gives up.

"just-...meet Max."

The figure shrinks from the spotlight, his shoulders hunched almost defensively. He attempts to make himself small, shying away from us.

This boy seems like he'd rather stay hidden in the shadows and his appearance reflects it. He has dirty blonde hair that sticks out at odd places, relatively plain clothes, and an overall disheveled appearance that blends in with the background. His square glasses peek out under hair that covers his eyes. When he brushes the hair away, the glasses magnify his grey-blue eyes, making them look big.

Mrs. Aspen seems to have disappeared, probably deeming me responsible enough to take it from here.

"Hi, Max! It's great to meet you." I say cheerfully, sending him my best smile.

When he doesn't respond, I begin to introduce myself, "I'm Spencer and th-"

Jack shakes his head and slings his arm around Max's shoulders, steering him away from me. "-Don't worry about Mr. Sunshine back there," he says, pointing a thumb back at me. "You can ignore him."

He starts walking.

"Hey!" I yell angrily, running to catch up to them as they start heading for the lunch line.

Jack just sends me a glare over his shoulder and continues, "I'm Jack, also known as the cool one. I'll help you figure out all this high school b.s. they steer your way."

Max shifts uncomfortably under Jack's arm and nods quietly.

I clear my throat loudly.

"Okay cool one, maybe you should cool down and stop getting ahead of yourself. We need to get a table first... unless you plan on having us eat on the floor in the hallway."

Jack doesn't reply, just turns 90 degrees and takes two steps forward. He then removes his backpack and throws it on a nearby table, saving the spot for us.

Continuing to ignore me, he takes a deep sigh turns his back to me again. "Okay, Max, before Mr. Sunshine so rudely interrupted us, I was explaining how I can help you avoid a lot of the crappy parts of daily high school life."

I scramble to drop my backpack down next to the table and catch up with them.

"We will do this using my genius." Jack taps his forehead, saying, "There is an abundance of slightly useful knowledge held inside of here."

I have to force myself to not roll my eyes.

"So, let's go through the motions. First things first: lunch."

----

AN:

Sorry for a somewhat filler chapter and I know this is short compared to the previous chapter that was more than 2,000 words lol

But...

I've decided I'm going to do them about this long (1,000 words or so) to be able to update frequently

In fact, I'm hoping to update again tonight!

P.S. I know I probably sound like a broken record here, but if you have any suggestions for what you'd like to see in the story, please let me know!

Love,

Leah