Catfish (Minizerk)

Chapter 15

Josh's POV:

Simon and I had gotten into the habit of calling every night. And at school we'd been having lunch together in the library every day. We were getting really close now.

I know the circumstances of how we started talking were wrong, but he never would've been in my life if I hadn't done what I did. And now that he was here, I didn't want that to change.

Besides, I'd completely changed my mind. This wasn't some dare anymore. There was no end goal here. I actually cared about Simon.

We were sitting in the library together for our free period, doing a practice paper to prepare me for maths.

Simon had split in half exactly by the number of marks so that it would be a thirty minute paper. Once I was done, I handed it to him so that he could mark it.

I bit my nails anxiously as I waited.

"Okay, you got 17 out of 30. That's 57%." He told me.

"I failed?" I asked miserably.

"Josh, you've never paid attention to the grade boundaries, have you?" He grinned.

"There's no point when you get under 10% on everything. The only boundaries I know are the ones to get a D. I've never gotten anything higher than a U in maths, I've never gotten a grade." I admitted.

"Then why aren't you proud of yourself right now? You just got 57%!" He said excitedly.

"What grade is it?" I asked nervously.

"Josh, you were two marks off a B. You got a C+." He beamed.

"You're joking. You can't be serious." I said in disbelief.

"I'm not joking. This is a hard paper, so the boundaries are lower. It's a C+." He smiled, his hand on my thigh, squeezing it.

"Thank you so much, I couldn't have done it without you." I said quietly, looking deeply into his eyes.

"You should be so proud of yourself." He smiled, eyes flickering between mine.

"I'm proud of us." I grinned.

"Well, we do make a good team, don't we?" He grinned back.

"That we do." I said quietly, my breath hitching in my throat as I saw his eyes flicker down to my lips.

I wasn't sure at what point or why, but the distance between us started closing as we both leaned in towards each other. I looked down at his lips and back up at his eyes, pulse climbing.

His lips met mine, and my eyes instinctively fell shut. I held the side of his face with one hand, his hand still on my thigh as we kissed slowly.

It felt like every nerve in my body had come to life, my stomach tingling. I don't know at what point I'd developed feelings for Simon, but I felt so much during this moment that I knew I had.