Forward (BoyxBoy)

Chapter Six

"I'm telling you man, when I told her you would be coming home with me and staying for dinner she pulled out an entire French cookbook and made me sit there for like an hour and point out all the recipes I thought you'd like," Tyler explained as he dug through his locker.

"Doesn't she know I'll eat anything?" James inquired absent mindedly, his eyes looking past his friend to where Kalen was standing at his own locker with his brothers.

The triplets were standing behind the boy rifling through his locker, talking amongst themselves, ignoring all of the gazes on their backs. James found this to be helpful, since it meant he could examine Kalen from a distance without being caught.

"I would have said that, man, but I was afraid she'd make the whole damn cookbook. Honestly, you have no idea how excited she is for you to actually be eating with us. She was so pissed at me when I told her we got take out last week for like three days," Ty continued, ducking down to sort through the stack of papers at the bottom of his locker for his missing homework assignment. It was almost impressive how quickly his friend had mussed his locker. Books and papers were everywhere, leading James to believe that his friend had been careless when putting them in there in the first place.

"Why was she mad?" James inquired. Down the hall, Kalen finished putting his things in his locker and swung the door shut. He didn't turn to his brothers right away, instead closing his eyes for a long moment. When they opened, they moved quickly in James direction.

It took Kalen's eyes widening for James to process the fact that the younger boy was staring right back at him. Before he could even have a reaction to this fact, Tyler was rising back to his feet. "What are you looking at?" His friend inquired, and James eyes shot away from Kalen's, hoping he had done so fast enough that Tyler wouldn't catch him. Sadly, his friend wasn't an idiot, and Tyler only needed to turn his head in the direction James had been looking for half a second before turning and giving James a pointed look. "You want to be killed, right? That's what this is about?"

"It's not really a preference of mine," James admitted guiltily, shrugging his shoulders. Tyler's eyes rolled, and he turned his head to look the other way before his head whipped back around to stare at James with wide eyes.

"Shit man, they're coming over here".

James confirmed this with a quick glance over Tyler's shoulder. The triplets were on their way down the hall towards them with Kalen trailing slightly behind, seeming unsure of what was about to happen. "It's fine man. I've got this".

"What the hell are you talking about?" Tyler hissed, clearly panicked. "You don't got this. You most definitely don't got this, James. Oh my god. This is how I die. They're going to try to hurt you and I'm going to have to try to stop them, and they're going to kill me".

"Why not just let them hurt me?" James suggested calmly, hoping he could get his best friend to relax if he just spoke soothingly. It wasn't faked either. Perhaps it was due to James's lack of experience at the school, but he was unconcerned about the group of boys approaching, and as long as he stayed that way, they had nothing over him.

So much for avoiding the Bradfords at all costs.

"Don't be a fucking idiot, James," Tyler insisted, looking at him with an Are you serious? look on his face.

"Amore!" One of the Bradfords called, and Tyler's eyes got huge.

"Oh shit". His friend turned them, putting his back to James, who watched as the four boys slowed to a stop in front of them with raised eyebrows. Nervously, Kalen fiddled with his hands, which James found oddly cute. This would probably not be a smart thing to mention to Tyler.