Teach Me Something New (Boyxboy)

Chapter Eleven

Lawson was expecting to spend the entire rest of his day studying with Sean to make up for not showing up earlier, but it became clear that this would be difficult when they encountered their first interruption ten minutes after taking a seat.

They were on the second math problem when the chair next to Lawson was pulled out, and Nathan was suddenly occupying it. "Where have you been? I've been looking for you everywhere," Nathan said, and Lawson's eyebrows raised, because he had spent the morning in the two places on campus he was most likely to be found: the courts and his room. Nate must not have been looking hard.

"Uh... hi," Lawson greeted, and the he brought his attention to Sean, who was sitting across from him, watching with raised eyebrows. When their eyes met, Sean smiled a little, and Lawson returned it before looking back at Nathan.

"Hi," Nathan responded, and Lawson noted that his friend looked absolutely exhausted, most likely due to the night before.

"How are you feeling?"

"I threw up this morning," was Nathan's immediate response, which made Lawson's lips twitch in amusement. He had been expecting it, honestly, since Nathan's alcohol tolerance had drastically decreased since high school, and he consumed mostly sugary drinks the night before. "It was awful".

"I'm sure," Lawson sympathized, but he was unable to his the fact that he thought it was funny, and Nathan's blue eyes narrowed in response. "Look, I'm guessing you weren't looking everywhere for me to make small talk, right?"

"Correct. Have you checked social media this morning?" Nathan inquired. Lawson hadn't, but he had the night before, so he assumed he knew what Nate was referring to.

"If you're asking if I saw the video of you and Reese, I saw it last night. Jean texted me about it so you might need to answer some questions if you haven't already explained the whole situation to him," Lawson responded, and Nathan's eyebrows furrowed in confusion for a second before his expression neutralized and he leaned back to take his phone from the pocket of his jeans.

"I already talked to Jean. Besides, that's not what I'm talking about, I'm talking about Glenn". Lawson's eyebrows raised at the vagueness of that statement, but he had to wait for an explanation as Nathan unlocked his phone and began searching for something. Lawson's eyes locked with Sean's across the table and he hoped his gaze held how sorry he was for the interruption. In response, Sean's teeth tugged at his lower lip, and his head shook a little bit: no problem. Lawson's attention was pulled away when Nathan thrust his phone in front not if him obnoxiously, and he took it from the other boy's hand to hold it at a further distance from his face. As he looked at the post, Nathan addressed Sean with a, "Hey man, how's it going?"

Tuning out the response, Lawson narrowed his eyes at the picture Glenn had posted that morning. It was a photo of him with some abnormally tall guy- or Lawson was guessing based on how far the kids legs were stretched out in front of him- sitting on a beat up couch together, drinking from solo cups. Both of their faces were stretched into grins, but Lawson knew Glenn well enough to tell that only one of them in the photo was truly happy.

Glenn looked tired, and sad. There were circles under his eyes, which were red, and his smile wasn't what it usually was. Typically, when Glenn smiled, he glowed, and it made him look even more beautiful, but that quality was lacking in this picture, and to Lawson, knowing the truth, he found the expression totally unpleasant. That's not Glenn.

Upon further examination, he noticed that the picture was accompanied with a caption. Friday nights with the best <3. It had over three hundred likes.

Silently, Lawson passed the phone back to Nathan, who took it, immediately cutting off his casual conversation with Sean to ask, "well?"

"Yeah man, he looks like shit," Lawson answered, assuming that's what they were going to address until the second he said it, because suddenly, Nathan looked downright offended, his mouth dropping open as he glared at Lawson.