Playing The Straight Game [boyxboy]

13

Farren sat into his chair, leaning his head back until he was facing the ceiling and closed his eyes.

It was the third class of the morning, and already he was tired. The good news, he supposed, was that it Wednesday so he'd have the house to himself when he got home. Grace and Jenny would be at work, Rowan had a swim lesson she went to with her friend, and Kaden would be at football practice.

The bell rang, signalling that classes were resuming. He doodled lazily on the cover of his notebook, mostly just random shapes and the likes.

He glanced up at the clock, wondering where Mrs Baker was. She was usually never late for class. Hopefully this meant they would have a free period, so he could do the maths homework he had due next class.

And then in maths he would probably spend all his time doing the Spanish homework he had due for the class after.

Oh the joys. You'd think that, considering he didn't really sleep and had all this free time, he would actually bother to do his homework on time.

But nope. Instead of spending his waking hours actually doing something productive, more often than not he just resorted to the usual.

Movies, movies and more movies.

The door of the classroom opened moments later, and Mrs Baker strode in, apologising for her tardiness.

However, she was not alone. Following behind her was a boy Farren had never seen before. Black hair, tall, athletic build. Who was this guy?

His question was promptly answered when Mrs Baker spoke up. The class had already fall silent upon her entrance and looked at the boy curiously. He just looked at Mrs Baker awkwardly, as if he was silently pleading for her to break the tension in the room.

She cleared her throat, standing tall at the top of the classroom. "Hello class, how is everyone?" She asked with a polite smile. This was the same routine as every day, the same opening question.

There was a mumble of "goods" to be heard from the class, before Mrs Baker went on speaking.

"Well class, I'm not sure if any of you were aware of this but we have a new student joining our school today." She smiled at the mystery boy encouragingly, as if urging him to step forward.

He gave her an unsure glance, looking up to face the class with an awkward smile. His eyes flitted around the room, never staying on any one person for longer than a split second.

"Erm.. hi. I'm Lee Dalton, and I just moved here from Ohio." He said, but it came out more as a question than a statement.

There were murmurings of 'Hi Lee's' which seemed to calm the boy down. Though Farren couldn't blame him for being nervous.

The teacher spoke with Lee quietly for another few moments before telling him to take the free seat next to Farren for today, which was normally where Jesse sat but he was out 'sick' today. In other words, some new video game has just been dropped so he would be faking a flu for the next few days.

Farren looked up as Lee dropped into the seat next to him. "Hey," he said with a friendly smile, trying to make the new kid feel a little more relaxed.

It seemed to do the trick, as Lee visibly eased a little, smiling back at Farren. "Hi." He responded quietly, sliding into the table.

"So.." Farren said, trying to break the ice. "Ohio huh? That's not too far away is it?"

"Couple of hours, so I guess not." Lee answered after a moment of consideration.

"Cool," replied Farren. "Why did you move?"