chapter 35

Third Person POV:

In the end, he had stayed at Zavier's house for the whole day; helping Zavier to kick hung-over people out, cleaning up and doing a lot of talking with their lips.

He had been thinking a lot over the feelings he had for Zavier, they were weird soppy ones, and he had never gotten over emotional about anyone.

Until Zavier had entered the picture.

In school, they were acting as acquaintances, not exactly good friends but also not enemies anymore. However, that didn't stop them from giving each other sly side looks, or sneaking in a kiss in the janitor's closet when the hallway was empty.

Maybe he had to tone his side down a bit since it seemed his friends were catching on, slowly, but he knew they had their suspicions.

"Isaac... Isaac fucking Hill Jones." Gemma shook him, snapping him out of the daydream he was having.

"What is it?" He huffed, not liking the use of his middle name.

"I called your name over a million times, this is literally the 5th time you've spaced out and it's only been 2 minutes... what are you thinking about?"

"Nobody." Isaac baited himself out then tried to correct himself but it was too late.

"So who are you thinking about?" She altered her sentence, smirking.

"Nothing and nobody, I'm gonna go to English, I'll see you later." Isaac walked away but he knew Gemma would do her best to find out and judging their lack of subtlety, it wouldn't take her long to find out it was Zavier.

Speaking of Zavier, there he stood by the door of their English class with a frown, looking to see an unrecognisable face in Zavier's usual seat.

"Who the fuck is he?" Zavier exclaimed.

Isaac stared closely at the boy, seeing the way his cinnamon coloured eyes glistened in fear at the sight of Zavier's anger. "Calm down, there's probably a reason why he's there." Isaac tried to reason but Zavier ignored him and stormed up to Mrs Turner, being very animated with his hand motions pointing to the unnamed boy.

With a scowl on his face, he walked back to Isaac, "He's new-"

"Yeah, no shit." Isaac butted in.

"And Mrs Turner just gave me a detention for arguing about where I was sitting when it was her fucking seating plan in the first place and now I've got a detention for wanting to keep to it. Bullshit. I have to sit at the back next to Candace. There's a spare seat that the new guy could've sat in." Zavier half rambled and half explained, walking past his original table.

Isaac gave him a sympathetic smile at the fact Zavier would have to deal with Candace then sat in his own seat.

Isaac didn't bother introducing himself at first but when he could feel a stare on him coming from the boy's direction, he turned his head and caught the new boy's eye. "Hello, I'm Isaac."

The new boy was about to respond when Bella interrupted, "Don't talk to Isaac, he's a fucking nobody. I'm Bella and you are...?" Bella adjusted her cropped cami top, pulling it down to show more cleavage, causing Isaac to roll his eyes.

The new boy squirmed a bit at the sudden attention on him, "Er- Garcia. I mean, Myles Garcia."

"Nice to meet you Garcia." Isaac replied back, ignoring Bella's glare.

Myles did a small smile and nodded.

"Shut up Isaac." Bella frowned, leaning over Isaac to see Myles. Isaac saw how uncomfortable Myles looked and leaned forward, blocking the view of Bella. She muttered something under her breath but nonetheless gave up, and leaned back into her chair.

"I'm giving you all 45 minutes to write up an essay describing how Othello's pride led to his fall." Mrs Turner instructed, turning to write on the board.

A series of groans followed but Isaac didn't really mind, he sometimes liked writing essays. At the end of the 45 minutes, he had about a million writing bumps but he couldn't help but wonder what Myles would've been writing since he had only just joined their class.

At the end of the lesson, everyone gladly walked out, leaving their essays on Mrs Turner's desk whilst Myles stayed behind, having a quick chat with her before also leaving.

Isaac was now standing by his locker and didn't notice Myles standing there until he heard a faint tap next to his locker.

"Isaac, hey." Myles watched as Isaac took a bag out of his locker. "I'm kind of behind in English." He started to explain when Isaac shut his locker, walking a few steps away, making him think Isaac was ignoring him until Isaac stopped and turned around, gesturing for him to follow.

Myles quickly sped up to Isaac, following him into an empty room that seemed like the changing rooms. "Anyways, I was just saying that Mrs Turner said... wants- uh- me to tutor you- NO, I mean you tutor me." Myles had started to stumble over his words because Isaac had decided to take off his shirt... right in the middle of the conversation.

Myles thanked God that Isaac was turned around until he realised he had spoken too soon and Isaac now faced him.

Still shirtless.

Myles tried his best to focus on Isaac's words but how could he when Isaac's abs glistened there on display. He also noticed a few marks decorating Isaac's chest, seeming quite painful. Maybe he'd gotten attacked?

"Myles, MYLES." Myles hadn't even noticed how close Isaac had gotten until Isaac waved his hand in front of his face. "Are you listening to me?"

"Yeah, yeah of course." Myles lied, gulping and looking at the locker to avoid accidentally getting transfixed by Isaac's abs again.

"Okay then, we can do it at your house after school."

"Huh?" Myles looked back at Isaac again who had a kind of concerned but also weirded out expression showing.

"The tutoring. The English tutoring." Isaac repeated, finally putting on a shirt.

"Oh yeah, that's fine." But it wasn't really. He never really had people around his house and bringing Isaac who was obviously creeped out by him didn't help the situation.

"Cool. Don't you have somewhere to be?" Isaac in an unsubtle manner tried to get Myles to leave.

"Yeah... I guess I'll be going now." He should've just left but he couldn't get the image of the bruises on Isaac's chest and neck and his curiosity got the best of him. "What are those bruises on your chest?"

"Bruises?" Isaac raised a brow at him before realising what those 'bruises' actually were. "Oh fuck." He rushed to the mirror, pulling down the top of his shirt to indeed see 'bruises'. He then remembered Myles was still there watching intrigued and turned back to him. "I hurt myself; I tripped over."

"You trip over a lot?" Myles questioned, not knowing where he got the courage to ask that.

"Apparently." Isaac shrugged to try play it off. If he didn't know what hickies were, he surely couldn't be suspecting anything.

"Oh. Are they painful?"

Isaac couldn't help but smile at his innocence and shook his head. "Nah, they're not too bad, kinda nice."

Myles' brows furrowed, not understanding at all, "Nice? Tripping over wouldn't be nice."

"You'll agree one day, don't worry." Isaac lightly squeezed Myles' shoulder before going into the gym, leaving Myles alone.

He didn't believe he'd ever agree but he could agree with himself that Isaac was strange but intriguing.

Whilst Myles was jumbled up in his thoughts, Isaac had headed to the gym, eager to start basketball.

First, they were going to have to pair up. This would've been easy for Isaac before the incident with Harrison, he would've easily chosen Harrison but he still felt slightly awkward around him.

Isaac's fears were taken away when Coach announced he was choosing the pairs based on abilities. However, when Coach put Zavier and him together, although he was secretly overjoyed, he was still worried about Zavier's 'tactics' he liked to use.

To sum it up, in gym, Zavier could be very touchy, masking it as him being unaware that he was doing it but Isaac knew better than that.

"Isaac you've got to keep your stance well, look, I'll help." Zavier stood pressed deliberately into Isaac, ushering his arms into the 'correct position'.

Isaac already knew his position was fine, he was great at shooting.

"You need to keep your eyes on the rim." He whispered, letting his lips graze Isaac's neck. "And then shoot."

Isaac was not focussed anymore, he was more focussed on the other ball on his ass. He threw the ball, watching the way it went nowhere near the rim.

"Good try, maybe next time you'll be luckier." Zavier patted Isaac's shoulder and went to get the ball, leaving a flustered Isaac feeling hot and bothered, and not from basketball.

That's how it went for most of the period with Zavier even 'accidentally' running into Isaac making him fall over with Zavier on top. Nobody really batted an eyelid since it was usual for Zavier and Isaac to be competitive during any kind of sport games but if they were to look closer, they would be able to spot Zavier always wearing a smirk, getting closer to Isaac than needed and Isaac sometimes keeping his hands in front of his crotch when he could and glancing at the clock to urge it to move faster to relive him from Zavier's teasing.

"You're the fucking worse." Isaac gave Zavier a shove as soon as they were alone in the changing rooms.

"But you like it." He pulled Isaac to him, leaning in but Isaac swerved his head, letting Zavier's lips skim his cheek.

"I think my friends might suspect something's up." Isaac warned since even the new boy was able to spot Isaac's hickies.

"Yeah, something sure is up." Zavier teased, looking up and down.

Isaac sighed and shook his head, walking away, "Jesus you're horny."

"That's not what you were saying last night." He jogged to catch up with Isaac, walking by his side to Isaac's locker.

"Shut up." Isaac responded simply as he opened his locker.

"You coming to mine after school?" Zavier leaned against the lockers.

"I can't anymore." Isaac bluntly declined, missing the look of disappointment on Zavier's face quickly covered up with confusion.

"Uh why not?"

"I've got to tutor the new kid, Myles." He explained, sighing after.

"Are you replacing him with me or something?" Zavier joked but inside he could feel a bit of jealousy trying to come out.

"You know I could never replace you Zavier."

Isaac didn't seem to notice the depths of his words but Zavier did. Did he really mean that? Or was he just saying it to try and reassure him? Either way, Zavier couldn't deny how happy it had made him feel when Isaac had said that.

"I'm gonna go find Gemma. You can come round to mine after; I'll text you." Isaac shut his locker and gave Zavier a sneaky wink before slipping into the crowd in the hallways.

***

Isaac stood at the door to Myles' house and rang the doorbell, waiting for someone to answer. When someone did eventually answer, it wasn't Myles, but his mom who had a distasteful look on her face seeing Isaac.

"Who are you?" She asked a completely innocent question but with the tone she used, it sounded like a trick one.

"Isaac, one of Myles' friends'." He responded truthfully but looking at her face made him think he had answered it wrongly.

"What are you doing here?"

"I have to tutor him in English."

"You? Tutor him?" She repeated with obvious disbelief but Isaac nodded all the same. "Tell me boy, do you play any sports?"

Isaac cringed at the use of 'boy' and was confused on why he needed a full on character profile before being allowed to come inside but he answered anyways. "Uh yeah, I play soccer."

"Soccer." She echoed with a frown on her face. "And what is your sexuality?"

This time Isaac was visibly uncomfortable, shifting his weight from one foot to another. "My sexuality?" He would not be coming out to her- he barely even knew her and she didn't seem to appear as someone who would be very accepting.

"Mom?" Myles finally decided to make his presence known, emerging from behind. Isaac wanted to scream at him and ask where he had been this whole time but he didn't and instead kept a strained smile on. "Isaac, come in."

As much as Isaac would've just liked to run away, he summoned up all the courage he could find and walked into Myles' uninviting house. Inside, he took off his shoes in front of the sign that clearly said 'SHOES HERE' .

"Why do you need an English tutor Myles? Are you failing already?" Myles' mom turned her attention to Myles, letting Isaac take this time to observe the house.

It had a sort of saddening theme to it, like all the happiness being sucked away and there were many paintings of Jesus and memory verses splattered over the walls. In all the photos they had, it only seemed to be Myles' mom and dad and him, showing him to be an only child.

Suddenly it began to make sense to Isaac, looking to see Myles' mum wearing a cross necklace. "Whatever you do up there, keep it down and keep the door open, I don't want to find any inappropriate and sinful acts going on in my house." She ordered sternly, assessing Isaac with her eyes, seeming disappointed by the look of him.

Isaac just felt glad to get away from that lady as they walked into Myles' room. His room was the only colourful part of his house, and the least religious from what Isaac was guessing. There was only one memory verse framed on the wall which Myles had immediately mentioned his mom had forced him to have when he saw Isaac glancing at it. Except from that, this room didn't really fit in with the theme of the other rooms.

"Sorry about her, she's really religious and, I guess, I don't know, she thinks being gay is a sin which isn't great for me." Myles' hand quickly shot out to cover his mouth, realising what he'd said but Isaac didn't seem to care.

"She's homophobic? Are both your parents homophobic?" He instead asked, brushing past Myles' accidental confession.

"My dad's the pastor of our church if that answers your question."

Isaac noticed the sorrow in Myles' eyes so he quickly changed the subject to focus on why he was really here: to help tutor Myles in English. Myles sat on his desk chair whilst Isaac sat on the bed next to him.

An hour passed with Myles' mom coming multiple times to check on them and each time wearing a scowl on her face that would grow if she saw Isaac closer than 2 metres to Myles.

"I'm going out but I won't be gone for longer than 30 minutes. I may not be here but your dad is, Myles, so behave." Myles' mom informed them, keeping her eyes on Isaac's elbow that seemed to have moved 2mm closer than it was before storming out.

"She really loves me, doesn't she?" Isaac chuckled.

"She's just being protective, that's all." Myles weakly defended but he knew she just thought Isaac was a bad influence despite not knowing him at all.

"I guess." Weird way to be protective though, Isaac thought, but didn't say anything.

Myles actually didn't need too much tutoring, he was just a bit behind but except from that, his essays were in fact quite good. This was good for Isaac who took this as time to chill and gossip whilst Myles corrected a few spelling mistakes in his essay.

"-but now they're friends again." Isaac finished explaining the drama that had gone on between Sapphire and Candace when Candace had accused Sapphire of stealing Zavier away from her even when Zavier had shown no interest in her.

"He doesn't like me."

"He? You mean Zavier?" Isaac asked to which Myles nodded. "You don't know that."

"He was angry at me because I stole his seat. I didn't mean to though. The teacher told me I could sit there."

"It's fine, he's probably forgotten about it." Isaac tried to reassure him but even though he wasn't fully convinced, he decided to drop the matter. "Here, look at this." Isaac got off of the bed and leaned into Myles, showing him the video of Sapphire and Candace's fight.

Myles tried to concentrate on the two girls but he was more aware of the boy stood right next to him. He was immediately wrapped by a sweet, cinnamon and vanilla smell and used all the self resistance he could to not inhale deeply.

"But all of a sudden they're best friends again. Girls are so dramatic." Isaac sighed, pulling his phone away from Myles and sitting back on the bed.

Myles didn't really have much experience with girls so he just nodded in agreement. It went silent again when a couple of minutes later, bored by the silence, Isaac spoke up again. "I'm bored."

"Oh...uh, I don't really have any good suggestions." Myles frowned, but Isaac was already standing up, shuffling around the room to see if he could find anything interesting to do except from go on his phone.

Isaac couldn't believe his luck when he found a hover board parked in the corner of the room. "You should've told me you had one of these."

"One of what?" Myles was going to turn around but he just wanted to correct these last two mistakes he had, then he would focus on whatever Isaac was doing.

Isaac switched it on and slowly positioned his feet on it. "A hover board."

This caught Myles' attention immediately who quickly turned around. "Get off that Isaac."

"Why?" Isaac didn't listen and started to move on it.

"Because it's-" Myles' sentence was cut off by a whirring sound before a crash and groans. "-faulty."

"Fuck, fuck, fuck I can't move my arm." If it wasn't for the pain he was feeling, Isaac would be dying in shame, however, the fact his arm was trapped underneath the book shelf that he had crashed into and gone tumbling down with him overpowered that embarrassment. "Please get it off... NOW." It felt like his arm had shifted into a position that shouldn't have been possible.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, I should've looked. I didn't know you were- and I just... oh no." Myles panicked, rushing over to Isaac and using up all the small strength he had to lift the bookshelf off of Isaac's arm, hearing him wince.

His arm was a different story; it was starting to swell and was bent the other way.

"That doesn't look good." Myles cringed, getting an annoyed look from Isaac.

"Yeah well no shit. It's probably broken." Isaac stood up, holding onto his deformed arm. "Can your dad take me to the hospital?"

Myles nodded quickly then ran out of the room to get his dad, realising how their tutor session had ended up in them going to a hospital.

***

"Repeat what you said one last time. " Gemma spoke between heavy laughter. "You broke your arm from riding a fucking hover- hoverboard. What are you, six?" Jax and Harrison joined in with Gemma's laughs whilst Isaac sat there moodily with his hand in a cast as they sat on the grass outside.

"Shut the fuck up guys." Isaac grumbled at their continuous laughter. "Even Zavier didn't laugh as much as this."

As soon as Isaac let those words slip, he knew he'd fucked up.

Harrison and Gemma's laughter stopped, Gemma looking at him with her mouth slightly open, a full understanding of what was going on whilst Harrison had a kind of disappointed look on his face with Jax's laughter slowly dying down when he realised nobody else was laughing anymore.

"Zavier?" Gemma questioned before her eyes widened. "ZAVIER! That's who you've been messing around with. No fucking way. I should've known sooner, it was bound to happen."

Bound to happen? Isaac wanted to ask but it was like she read his mind, answering the question for him.

"I mean, you two were always at each other's throats until suddenly, after suspiciously spending a week sleeping in the same room, you two became friends." She revelled in her discovery but did feel a little stupid at not figuring it out sooner. "No wonder you didn't want to say. It all makes perfect sense now."

"Uh... no." Isaac mumbled but she had truly figured it out. All because of one stupid slip up. A sentence that could've meant nothing if he hadn't been so obvious about his fuck escapades.?

"I knew it." Harrison mumbled, saying something else inaudible that sounded angry.

"Wait... you and Zavier are having sex? Like fuck in the ass type?" Jax asked, half understanding what Gemma was saying.

"Well what other sex would it be? We don't have vaginas do we?" Isaac looked down at the grass, picking it with the unbroken hand he had. Why did he have to be embarrassed so much in the space of 24 hours? Was there some kind of curse placed on him?

"I want to speak to Zavier." Gemma suddenly announced, heightening Isaac's fears.

"No way, no fucking way. It's nothing serious that you need to get involved with and anyways, I wasn't meant to tell anyone."

"But you didn't tell me, I figured it out." Gemma pointed out smartly as she stood up.

"It doesn't matter, just leave it alright."

Gemma could see Isaac's reluctance so sat back down. "Alright, but don't think that I'm gonna let you get away with this so easily. I need all the details and why Zavier in the first place. I thought we all hated him."

"Yeah so did I." Isaac sighed, glancing up to see a familiar black haired boy going into the school.

a/n: the order of how i wrote some of these chapters is so messy cuz i took out a major plot 'twist' that i didn't like so i had to modify a few chapters but introducing myles :) hope you enjoyed!

(written 25/01/21)