You Can't Choose (BoyxBoy)

Chapter Twenty One

"What'd you paint today?" Sarah asked at lunch, looking down at his grey shirt that had purple smeared all over the front of it and then a bit of green.

"Flowers," Collier mumbled absently, straightening his back to look over her head and glance around the lunch room. He could feel Henry's eyes on the side of his face, watching him, calculating him, but Cole forced himself to ignore it.

It wasn't going anywhere.

"You draw flowers when you're nervous, or worried," Sarah remembered, reaching forwards and taking a carrot of of their shared tray. Cole nodded his head in agreement. "So which was it".

"A bit of both," Collier admitted honestly.

At first, he had only been nervous to see Jake. The night before he had agreed to go on a date with him, which was something Cole had never really done before.

But then, for the first time since school began, Jake hadn't come to painting class, and Collier had begun to worry.

"What are you worried about?" Sarah asked, looking up at him and then raising her eyebrows. "Who are you looking for?"

"Jake," Collier said softly and Sarah's eyes flashed. They had yet to talk since their call he afternoon before, but Collier was pretty sure Sarah knew exactly what was going on.

"Are you excited?" She questioned, confirming his suspicion.

"Excited for what?" Henry and Emerson asked in unison before they both turned their heads to look at something at the end of the table and Henry's expression hardened.

"Our date," Jake said and Collier jumped a foot in the air, pushing his water bottle off the edge of the table. Henry caught it with fast reflexes and returned it to the table.

"Jake!" Collier exclaimed loudly, feeling both relieved and nervous to be near Henry and Jake at the same time. Cole glance nervously at Henry. "Where were you this morning?" He asked after returning his attention to the tall boy with the brown eyes.

"I slept through my alarm," Jake explained. Cole shifted uncomfortably in his seat and the boy standing at the end of the moved to pull out the chair to Collier's left side. Cole watched as Jake's eyes casually flicked over to Henry, and the boy to his right tensed and growled softly. "Hi Sarah".

"Hey Jake," She greeted, chewing her lower lip, her blue eyes very wide.

"So," Jake said, turning back to Cole and leaning forward a bit. "Are you going to answer the question?"

"What question?" Cole asked immediately, his eyes quickly searching the face of the man before him for any hints.

"Are you excited for our date?" Jake's brown eyes were alive with mischief and Collier swallowed heavily.

Was he?

Part of Collier was excited. He wanted to go out with Jake and have a good time and forget about Henry.

But another part of Cole was dreading it. Dreading that he was unable to kiss Henry as long as something with Jake as happening.

"Yeah," Cole said, channeling the happy part of himself and giving Jake a honest smile. "I'm very excited".

"Good". Jake reached his hand up to brush against Collier's arm softly. "What time should I be picking you up tonight?"

"Tonight?" Henry asked and Collier turned to face him quickly.

Henry had asked him over right before he had left his house the day before, but Collier didn't really think it would be a big deal to the other boy if he didn't show, especially since Henry had made it clear that their relationship didn't mean anything.