Frustration -SERIES- [Part 1] [boyxboy]

Chapter Seventeen

Hours later the party was starting to wind down and rather than a huge bunch of people all congregating and celebrating together, the crowd had separated out into its natural cliques, the members of which were sitting quietly and chatting amongst themselves. The TV was still on but the volume was muted and empty drinks cans, bottles, and plastic cups were littered everywhere.

I was having a little trouble comprehending my reality; holding hands with Conor Archibald, surrounded by my friends, my ex, and Name Withheld, and nobody was fighting with or glaring at anybody else. It was surreal.

The main topic of conversation was still Conor and I; namely our shameless displays of affection both onstage at the bar and on this very couch, but we were becoming less and less embarrassed every time somebody brought it up.

'When are you gonna tell your family?' Sally asked gently, her eyes wide as she looked at Conor. At her question, everybody else looked at him too.

'Um,' he squirmed uncomfortably. 'I dunno. Over Christmas, I guess.' I squeezed his hand gently but didn't say anything.

'Are you nervous?' Loopy asked, her eyes shining. She enjoys getting in trouble with her parents, and tends to go ahead and assume that everybody else does too.

Conor shrugged, clearly not comfortable discussing this in front of so many people.

'My family are gonna kill me when I tell them about Rachel,' Josh interjected, saving him from further scrutiny. 'They really wanted me to end up with Tyler.'

Everybody laughed, and Conor shot Josh a grateful smile.

'Okay,' Tarquin announced, standing up. 'Enough of this couple shit. It's two-thirty, we need to start clearing up this mess.'

The school employed a full cleaning staff but even though it was the weekend we would be in a lot of trouble if they found the common room in this much of a mess in the morning. Groaning, we all stood up as Tarquin moved around the room cajoling the other groups to get up and help. As people fanned out around the room, picking up party debris and complaining about it, Conor pulled me by the hand around the edge of the room and towards the door, then out into the hall surreptitiously.

I tripped along after him, not at all bothered about missing out on the clean up, and was just about to ask where we were going when we rounded the corner and saw two familiar people who had obviously had a similar idea.

I dragged Conor back behind the wall and shushed him, leaning in to try and hear what Sally and Jackson were talking about.

'I'm really annoyed with you,' Sally was saying.

'I know,' Jackson agreed evenly. 'I deserve it. I'm a fucking idiot.'

'I can't believe that our first kiss was... Was... A fucking drunken, drugged up, anti-Tyler prank. I'm not just a fucking tool that you can use in mind games that you're playing on other people. It's the most unromantic thing that's ever happened to me and not how I wanted it to be at all. And it's not who I thought you were either. Tyler was tearing himself apart with guilt over what went down with you and Conor and he was only responsible for like a third of it. What you did was downright malicious, and you used me to do it. I really liked you and I thought, wow, maybe when this whole shit show is over my best friend can finally be with the boy he loves and maybe I could end up with Jackson and everybody would be happy. Instead you just made it all fucky and weird.'

'I know. I get it. I really do. You deserve way better than that and I regret it like crazy. It's the dumbest mistake I've ever made.'

'Yeah. You fucked up.' Sally let out a breath she had been holding in. 'But I was talking to Tyler tonight.'