It’s the cute one. Or, at least I think it’s him. I’m pretty sure that it’s the same boy whom I saw in the back of my English classroom the first day, huddled close to a girl that I’d seen in passing. I’m also certain that he’s the baseball player who sprinted into our field almost two weeks ago for tryouts to make that incredible diving catch.
The one who my brother tried to intimidate when they accidentally stumbled upon us talking outside of the classroom. My friends are all loud, almost obnoxiously loud, but somehow I’m only jolted out of my thoughts when my best friend Axel nudges me.
“You’ve spaced out again.” He notes, arching a brow. I roll my eyes, but he follows my eyes to where I was previously staring, and a shit-eating grin crosses his lips. Before he can say anything, I shoot him a warning look to keep it down.
Axel is one of the only three to know that I swing for the same team.
“He’s cute.” Axel muses, and I fight the urge to blush.
“Who’s cute?” Lea pipes up, before gesturing to the boy I’d been staring at earlier. “That waiter over there?” Axel and I exchange a brief glance.
“Sure.” Axel settles on. Suddenly, the boy looks up to catch the three of us staring at him. He immediately freezes like a deer in headlights, eyes wide. He seems to catch himself, and furrows his brow, before gesturing to his notepad.
Axel shoots him a thumbs up, because I can’t formulate any words in my muddled brain and Lea’s too busy giving him googly eyes. The rest of my friends are too busy being loud. The waiter makes his way over, almost tripping over someone’s bag. The customer quickly apologizes, pulling their bag closer, but it seems that the waiter is also apologizing for tripping over it.
I want to drop face down on the table, and have an internal gay panic at how adorable he is. Axel can tell, because he snorts. I kick his shin beneath the table in retaliation.
“Hello, my name’s Keanu and I’ll be your waiter this evening. What can I get you to start?” Keanu. It’s a pretty name.
“A number, possibly.” Lea says, batting her eyes flirtatiously. Keanu blinks.
“We have a series of different numbered orders. I’m not sure what you mean by that.” Keanu’s brow furrows, looking confused. His voice is soft, a little shy, and it’s obvious that he’s not quite used to talking to other people. Lea flushes when she realizes her flirtation went right over Keanu’s head, and Althea and Jasmine snicker.
“I’ll take a large Sprite, a bacon cheeseburger and a small order of fries.” Axel says, breaking the awkward tension. Keanu looks relieved, and jots down Axel’s order. We give him the rest of our orders, and he tips his head politely before heading back to the cash register.
“He goes to our school, right?” I ask. My friends shrug.
“He doesn’t look familiar.” Devan, our goalie, frowns.
“The only people you pay attention to are us and other athletes.” Axel arches a brow, and Devan grins, holding his hands up in the air as if to say, guilty as charged. Keanu comes back with our drinks a few minutes later, and when he’s about to head back beneath the little bar at the diner, the doors burst open.
“Keen!” A girl with wavy brunette hair pulled up into a high ponytail and green eyes launches herself at Keanu, wrapping her arms around him in a hug. Keanu immediately shoves her off.
“Wren, I’m working!” I can hear Keanu hiss, and Wren responds with a wide grin. I recognize her as the girl he was with when my brother was talking to me, and for some reason, I don’t like her.
“But look!” She thrusts her phone beneath his nose, and he goes still fora few moments.
“My break is in ten minutes, so you’d better wait for me, Miststück.” Keanu warns. I have no idea what the hell that last word meant.
“Oh, Schatz, you break my heart with those cruel words.” Wren rolls her eyes, to which Keanu responds with a smack to her ponytail. Wren lets out a yelp, and shoves at Keanu, who dodges and ducks behind the bar. Wren plops down in an empty booth, and Keanu comes back over with a glass of what looks like orange soda.
“Flynn, your gay is showing.” Axel murmurs quietly, and I quickly tear my gaze away.
“What?”
“The staring.” Axel responds simply, a smirk on his lips.
“It’s not that obvious!” I protest, and Lea’s nosy voice shoves itself into our conversation.
“What’s not that obvious?” She asks.
“Leave them alone, Lea.” Jasmine rolls her eyes. “You don’t need to be involved in everyone’s business.”
“But-” she’s cut off when Keanu suddenly comes back over with another waiter, sliding our food on the table. I try not to stare at him, but I’m intrigued. How come I haven’t seen him since the second day of school? At least, I’m pretty certain he goes to Glendale.
Keanu plops himself down next to Wren in her booth, and immediately, they start talking, pointing at what’s on her phone. Their conversation is rather animated, and I force myself to turn to my food: the same order as Axel’s.
Like always, the food is delicious. Like always, Devan, Chase and Max are disgustingly messy eaters. Althea, Chase’s girlfriend looks put off, but she says nothing about it.
Axel and I linger behind when everyone’s done eating, thankfully leaving money to pay for themselves. There’s been a couple of occasions when they’ve just left to leave me to pay since “I’m rich enough”, and it pissed me off. I generally try to be a easy-going person, but when people use that to their advantage, it ticks me off.
Hence why I’ve never dated anyone. All anyone wants it to get benefits from my last name, and to mooch off of me for money. Axel elbows me not-too subtly when Keanu comes over. Axel tips an imaginary hat at me, winks, and ducks out of the diner.
“Anything else I can get you?” He asks.
“Ah… no. How much?” Real smooth, Flynn. Real smooth.
“That will be sixty one fifty.” Keanu says, showing me the calculator. I hand him my friends’ money, and mine, tipping him to total it up to sixty five.
“Keep the change.” I say, fighting the urge to want to ruffle his hair. It looks so soft and fluffy, but I know that it would be weird if I did. Keanu arches a brow at my expression, and slips the extra change into his breast pocket.
“Thank you, have a nice day...” Keanu tips his head, hazel eyes curious. “Flynn Graysen.” I feel my heart leap into my throat when my name falls from his lips. So we do go to the same school! Keanu startles me by smirking, and turns to leave to go back behind the counter.
I’m left standing there, stunned, before I break out of my reverie, and force myself to leave the Bear’s Den to rejoin my friends.
“So?” Axel prompts as we fall into step with each other.
“He knows who I am.” Axel snorts.
“Who doesn’t know who you are, Flynn? Especially at Glendale.” I shrug sheepishly.
“You know I don’t like it, Axel.”
“Ever thought of being an actor, then? You pull that act off well.” Axel arches an eyebrow, and I eye him warily.
“You know that my father would skin me alive if I did.” He flinches. The rest of our friend group is waiting impatiently for us, piled into Chase’s car, and waiting for me to unlock mine so the rest of us can drive back.
The rumors and stories about me being some sort of wild party animal and hooking up with people left and right are all false. I’ve never actually dated anyone in my eighteen years alive, let alone kiss anyone. My parents were always so hellbent on my brother and I focusing on the best education possible so we could eventually take over the company.
Well, Elijah was. He was four years older than I was, and much better suited to take over the company. Though my parents didn’t seem to care, wanting me to be Elijah’s assistant, or some bullshit like that. Elijah and I knew that I wanted something different, away from the business world.
That was why we’d been talking in the hallway, and Elijah was likely hostile because he was wary of who might hear our conversation. Not that talking in the middle of one of my high school corridors was discreet or anything.
“Flynn, I know that you’re not keen on this, but at some point you’ve gotta tell Mother and Father about your sexuality.” Elijah shifts his weight from foot to foot, jaw gritting.
“Elijah, they’ll skin me alive.” I whisper, and those dark blue eyes soften. “They already hate me for not wanting to take over the company with you.”
“I’m not sure what was going through their heads when they wanted us to both take over a company. It doesn’t work like that.” Elijah snorts.
“Besides, you’re older, hence the heir.” I add, frowning and crossing my arms over my chest. I wanted to go down the path of liberal arts. I loved anything to do with art and theater, but my parents sneered at the idea of a male going down that career path.
Father raised both Elijah and I to have very specific mindsets, though I guess his teachings didn’t stick. My friends knew that my parents were homophobic, sexist and racist, hence why Axel was always hesitant to come over when I invited him when we were younger.
“Flynn.” Elijah snapping his fingers before my face has me jerking my head up. “Look. We… we’ll figure something out, okay? You don’t have to come out to Mother, or Father. We’ll get through this together.” His eyes catch something, and the two of us freeze.
Two other students stand there, wide-eyed. The boy has some distinctive Asian features to him, and the girl I recognize from passing. Elijah clicks his tongue quietly.
“See you around, Flynn. Be careful.” It’s all he says before he strides down the hall. The girl lets out a soft squeak, jumping to press herself closer to the boy. The two of them are wide-eyed, and I give an internal sigh. Elijah, you idiot. The girl lets out a flurry of foreign-sounding words, and I decide to speak up. My eyes are drawn to the boy.
“Sorry about that. That was my brother. He has a… habit of intimidating anyone he meets.”
“Hence the mafia rumor.” Mafia rumor? The boy elbows the girl in the ribs, and she flinches. “Ow! Der Fick war das für dich, Misstück?” I blink, arching a brow, but the boy shakes his head in response, dragging the girl into our classroom, hissing something at her in the same language.
Although I know that I should’ve been worried about them potentially overhearing our conversation, the only thought that had crossed my mind was: he’s cute.
Comments (0)
See all