Usual disclaimers apply. Nothing explicit in the first chapter, but if you're not into gay erotica, then get out of here. Same applies if you're under 18.
"...using chain rule, how do we apply this to take the derivative of an exponential?" queried the middle aged man standing at the front of the room, holding a piece of chalk in one hand and a lesson plan in the other. After a few moments of thought, a hand shot up in the air. "George?"
"Well, work from the inside out... so we know the derivative of the exponent is going to be 3, multiplied by the derivative of the exponential, which is itself, so we have 3e to the power 3x," proudly beamed the bookish teenager, while tucking some stray black hair behind his ears.
"Good! You guys are gonna need to review this anyways, so get acquainted with your rules for taking derivatives," the calculus teacher advised. As he wrote the homework done on the board, George glanced to his far left, concentrating on the boy sitting beside his blonde friend. If she'd move a bit, I'd have a better look. Ugh, George thought. A wave of concentration passed on the object of the dark haired boy's interest, as he squinted his eyes just slightly and turned his head more towards the board, and subsequently George. That's better. The other boy was so focused on copying down the information that he didn't notice George gazing at him, admiring everything from his ashen brown hair, always spiked and a little ruffled at the back, to his minutely upturned nose, but most especially on his eyes. Two depths of emerald green stared out into the world, topped with lashes so dark and thick, George could have sworn he was wearing mascara. Somehow, even the school's uniform seemed to accentuate every muscled feature of this beauty. The black pants, normally unshaped and baggy on all the other guys seemed tight in just the right places. The small white polo shirt bulged at the sleeves a little from his biceps and was tugged up a few inches from the waist of his pants, revealing a tiny, miniscule amount of bare skin.
"George, how do I do 3b?" asked Ashley, nudging him from his right. He stared into her slightly sun-burned face, a few wisps of red hair dangling from her forehead. She scrunched up her nose, compressing her freckles and asked again.
"Oh. Hold on a second," George replied, slightly vexed that his chance to gaze at Marc was cut short. When duty calls though... George's helpful manner meant he always helped out his friends in class when he could. It didn't feel right to turn down an offer of help when he knew exactly what was going on and exactly how to explain it. After a few more questions with Ashley, the bell rang so he packed up his stuff and told Pat that he'd meet him by their lockers. Marc had already left. If he hurried a bit, maybe he could see him near his locker, conveniently located a few feet from George's, before he left with his friends for lunch. As he rushed up the stairs and was about to turn a corner, he heard Sarah call his name. Shit shit shit shit shit, he thought.
"Hi Sar-HA! Didn't you have enough of me in math?" George playfully joked around. Barely a minute passed before they said their goodbyes and he hurried to his locker. Fate wasn't on George's side this time; Marc could already be seen leaving his locker, headed downstairs. George's deep brown eyes drooped a bit as he fumbled with his lock. Thankfully, he didn't have to wait long before a tall dirty blonde boy and a short golden blonde girl greeted him.
"Pat, Vans! Where's Em?" George questioned, noting that Pat's girlfriend was missing. "She's got a guidance appointment dude. Let's take off for lunch," he suggested as they walked downstairs to Pat's car as Vanna regaled them with oft-sexual jokes. As they headed out towards one of the surrounding fast-food places, the purple Mazda they were in passed a dark blue Beamer SUV. George could glance Marc in the driver's seat. Seeing that they were headed to a Tim Hortons, George asked Pat to stop there for lunch. Pat looked at him with his blue eyes, imploring him to choose somewhere else. George reminded him of the Wendy's right beside and Pat laughed, followed by an echo of `dude'.
George walked in a bit ahead of his two friends, drawing a look from the short blonde. Her blue-green eyes looked to where George was staring and she thought to herself, Bingo. He's here, no wonder he insisted on stopping at Timmy's for lunch. She sidled up beside George in the lane while Pat went to order at the Wendy's adjacent to the Tim Hortons.
"You're pretty transparent you know?" Vanna told her friend, looking up quite a bit to see his reaction. George brushed his pin straight hair out of his eyes and asked her what she meant. "Marc's here," she whispered.
"Duh."
"You suggested to go here..."
"Double duh."
"Well... when are you gonna make a move on him? It's five weeks til we graduate you know," Vanna reminded her friend.
"And you think I would have forgotten that minor detail? I know. Geeze. It's not just like I can go up to him and tell him I pretty much want to have his babies. First of all, look at him. He's so cute, short but muscled. And he plays hockey; you know I love a man in uniform. But we've barely said five words to each other. I don't hang out with his friends, he doesn't hang out with my friends. There's just NO reason to approach him. Plus, I'm pretty sure he knows I'm gay. He's not going to want to lose face with his jock friends by talking to me," George unpleasantly stated.
"Whatever. I say go after what you want, because pretty soon you're not going to be able to at all and then what? You're going to go off to one university, he's going to go off to another one and you're always going to wonder `what if?' Am I right or what?" she beamed at him.
"Or what. Why don't you find a pole and make some money to pay for your lunch, striperella," George kidded.
"What did I say about stripper comments in public?" Vanna asked as she shot George a look of pure evil.
"Hey look, time to order. I'd like a plain bagel, toasted, with herb and garlic cream cheese and a small iced cappucino. Thanks," George commanded effortlessly as he pulled out some money to cover the cost for his light lunch. As he waited for his order and then his friend's order, they joined Pat at the table. Conveniently enough, it was right across from Marc and his friends. George slipped in and out of conversation as he kept his eyes trained on the milk-skinned beauty laughing playfully with his buddies.
"Time to jet, lunch is practically over and we've all got class. C'mon!" Pat urged. George ripped his eyes off the boy of his dreams and popped in his earphones. He didn't feel much like talking until he got back to school. Old dirt road, mushaboom mushaboom, knee deep snow, mushaboom mushaboom, watching the fire as we grow, mushaboom mushaboom, o-o-o-o-o-old, mushaboom mushaboom. Good old Feist. Nothing cheered him up a little knowing that he wouldn't get to see Marc for another 24 hours than a bit of upbeat music. As the purple car pulled into the school's parking lot, the three friends bid each other farewell as they all took seperate paths to their respective classes.
George endured another period of physics, waiting for the bell to ring so he could go home. He suddenly realized that he'd forgotten to ask his math questions in class today, and after a brief stint to his locker (no sign of Marc), he rushed to the extra-help room for math. He didn't see his teacher, distinguishable by his boyish looks, in the room so he went and dragged him from the math department thereto. "Someone's a bit insistent eh?" asked Mr. Spinerello.
"Sir, this unit's bugging me. If you were in the room already, I wouldn't have had to bug you. And we'd already be working on a question by now," George told his wise-cracking teacher as they entered the math help room. It was nearly empty, with only a small grade nine and her senior tutor tucked away in a far corner of the room. The consequences of a Friday was that everyone wanted to leave the building as fast as they could.
"Ouch! Reprimanded by a student. Let me pick up the pieces of my pride while you get your homework out," the math teacher said, a smile in his honey tinted eyes. George took a seat in the middle of the desks and rummaged through his worn-out backpack for his math notebook. After the teacher spent some time explaining the finer points of a few questions to George, the eager teenager picked up the concepts and felt relieved. He hated not understanding things; it made him feel stupid and that was one thing he did not consider himself. While George was getting help, he didn't notice that an extra person had entered the room until a baritone voice rang in his ears.
"Sir, when you're done over there, I need some help too. I missed a lesson or two this week." George turned and saw the owner of the voice: Marc. That's why he wasn't at his locker, he was probably looking for Mr. Spinerello for extra help, George thought.
"Actually Marc, I have a few things to take care of. Why don't you let George here explain what you need, and I'll pop in after I'm done," the teacher suggested.
"Um. I was sorta hoping you'd help me..." but his pleas fell to deaf ears as the seasoned teacher assured him that George was an excellent student. Marc took a seat beside George and seemed to study his face. George panicked. Was he noticing the pimple that wouldn't go away by my nose? Or perhaps the little bit of scruff that had grown on my face since that morning? Maybe he doesn't like my hair; it's too unnaturally straight, but that was the purpose of using a hair straightener right? What if he's looking at my big nose? No, he's too busy concentrating how sickly my skin tone is. I can't wait to tan, and then at least I'll look a bit healthy rather than this weird shade of peach. Oh shit, I knew I should have worn a long sleeve polo shirt today, he can see how skinny my arms are with these short sleeves. George antagonized over every little imperfection before he was interrupted from his thoughts.
"Dude, can we get started?" Marc implored, causing George to flush red from the realization he had zoned out while looking at the other boy.
"Sorry. Ummmm, which lessons did you need help with again?" George asked, making a mental note to keep his distance. He didn't want Marc to go tell his friends that he'd made a pass on him and then be humiliated. Plus, that would screw up anything he'd hoped to establish with this god in the future.
Marc informed him that he'd missed Thursday's lesson and needed help with todays. Thankfully, yesterday was just the first lesson of this new unit and after having just received help, George knew exactly what he was doing. "Okay, so you've got the note right?" George asked. Marc shook his head, and George sighed a bit. "Okay, here it is. Ask me if you can't read my writing. It's not too long, thankfully," he told Marc as he handed the note over.
Given this free time, George just perved over Marc working away on copying down the lesson and understanding what was going on at the same time. His hair was still held in place by a copious amount of gel, yet it was slightly deflated from the day's heat. His emerald eyes seemed to darken, to a deep shade of jade green that George hadn't noticed before. Marc was biting down on his lip as his eyes scanned the chicken-scratch George liked to call writing. The fact that Marc was significantly shorter than George gave him an opportunity to study the pale boy's face easily.
"You're completely lost aren't you?" George asked the seemingly struggling athlete. Marc looked up a bit and nodded.
"Yeah," he grumbled out.
"Let's start from the beginning; logical enough right? The whole point of this unit is to try and develop skills to help us take derivatives of logarithmic and exponential functions. This note is just basically the summarization of an activity to help introduce us to the natural number, e. We can take the limit, step by step as shown here, of y equals any number to the power x, divided by x. So, let's use two and three. We can both see that as x gets smaller and smaller, a more definite value is approached. Yeah, those two numbers, 0.69 and 1.09. Anyways, the teacher went easy on us and told us that there's a number we can use to determine this point that will hit 1 on the graph, since it'll be between 2 and 3. That number is e, 2.72," George explained, speaking slowly and going step by step. Halfway through this speech, he'd noticed the other two girls exit, leaving just him and Marc alone.
"Ok. I get that. And all these explanations are just your proofs and trial and error right?" Marc asked his new tutor.
"Right. We spent most of the class doing this actually, because he wanted to give us a bit of a break considering we're ahead of all the other classes. So there's the homework, let's do a couple questions to make sure you really understand what I just explained," George suggested and soon they fell into a pattern he usually adopted when explaining concepts to his friends. George's pencil rolled from his fingers to the space between the two desks, and both Marc and he reached out to grab it. George's hand wound up on top of Marc's, due to the latter's quicker reflexes. He yanked his hand back a bit too enthusiastically and blushed profusely. "Thanks," the embarrassed boy muttered, noticing that a slight tinge of pink stained Marc's face.
George quickly finished explaining what Marc had trouble with, in hopes to leave. He was getting nervous around Marc again, and he was sure Marc thought he was getting off on the time they spent together. They left the room after packing their bags, turned off the light and stood at the doorway. Their teacher didn't resurface, so they just assumed he'd left them behind and after a quick thank you to George, they parted ways. George felt stupid for having been put into that situation, analyzing everything he'd said and done, hoping he hadn't come off as flamboyant to Marc, eagerly awaiting to jump his bones. As he made his way through the halls, he decided to stop by his locker once more to see if he forgot anything. After reassuring himself that everything he needed to work on for the weekend was in his bag, he closed the green locker and found himself looking at Vanessa, her curly blonde hair bouncing a bit as she waved to him and smiled, exposing her pearly whites.
"Hi George!" she emphatically greeted.
"Hey Nessa. How are ya?" he casually asked. Vanessa was dating Jeff, Marc's best friend. Jeff and Vanessa were serious, having dated for two years and then some and he figured Jeff told her anything. That means she should know quite a bit about Marc. Plus, they all hung out together all the time. Seems like she'd know the people she frequently spent time with well; George knew everyone in his group of friends really intimately.
"Good, good! Excited for the weekend, my prom dress should be finished by then," she gleefully exclaimed. "And you?"
"Can't complain. Just got back from a session of tutoring," he stated. He had been wanting to talk to Vanessa for a while. They used to be really good friends in elementary schools, but had drifted apart in high school as she found her circle of friends and he found his. Out of all of the big crew Vanessa, Jeff, Marc and the rest of them associated with (lovingly dubbed the White Crew by George, due to their wealth, pop culture inspired popularity, and the fact that they were all Canadian or of some Caucasian European descent), George felt the closest with Vanessa. Still, he hadn't really talked to Vanessa one-on-one since grade eight, and he felt awkward asking. "Vanessa... ummm, are you busy right now?"
"Why, what do you have in mind? I have to go to this party tonight so..." she left her statement hanging.
"Well, I just wanted to talk to you about something that's been troubling me. If I'm gonna take up too much of your time, that's fine. Don't worry," George said, giving her a half smile.
"Don't be silly! Let's go out for coffee, okay? I don't have to be there until later anyways," she said as she smiled at him. She led George out to her car, and they drove to a local Starbucks, talking mostly about Bianca. George's best friend, Bianca, was also friends with Vanessa but had graduated a semester early. George just filled her in on what was going on in Bianca's life, as Vanessa hadn't heard from her in a while. They arrived at Starbucks, ordered and took their drinks to a table facing the window.
"What did you want to talk about? It seemed like you had a lot on your mind back at school," she said as she blew on the surface of her coffee before taking a sip.
"Well... I just want to let you know that I still think I can confide and trust in you after all these years because you were there for me in elementary school. Okay?" he asked as Vanessa nodded. "I don't want you to feel obligated to help either. If you want to stay out of this, just butt in and tell me anytime. So, here goes. You probably know that... I don't exactly like girls right?" Vanessa nodded again at George's pause. "Okay. So I've had this crush... well a bit more than a crush, I guess, on one of your friends for uh, three years now. Don't worry, it's not Jeff," he said to her relief.
"So who is it then?" she asked sweetly.
"Jeff's best friend... Marc. Yeah, yeah I know he's straight. But he just drives me up the wall Ness. I know this sounds crazy, but I feel like I know so much about him even though I've never talked to him. Just by watching I can tell he's strong, independent, quiet but not shy. He'll support a friend who needs help, and he's appreciative when he gets help although he won't admit it. It's like he's borne some pain, and took it upon himself to try to keep things in check. I sound crazy right now don't I? I don't care. He's just so beautiful and well, I don't know what to do. We're graduating and I'm probably never going to see him again. The last thing I want to do is be regretful when I look back on my high school days. I don't want three years of my life spent secretly devoted to someone amount to nothing, not even an effort on my part," George explained, out of breath.
"Wow. That was a kit to take in. What do you want me to do though? How can I help you?" Vanessa asked.
"I want you to tell me if I have any chance with him. Well, no I know that: definitely not. I just want to tell him at this point that I like him. That I've pretty much ALWAYS liked him. He can take that however he wishes, but I want him to know. But at the same time, I don't want him to freak out and run away from me and just... be scarred for life. You know?" George pondered.
"Well, Marc... is different. To be honest, I don't even know him that well."
"But you're going out with his best friend!" George interjected.
"Yeah, but Jeff's a guy. How much does he tell me about his friends' feelings? From what I do know though, Marc is pretty mellow. Tell him. Get it off your chest, I think you need to do that for sure. I'll make sure nothing happens to you. Wait until he's a bit drunk though. He'll probably take it better when he's more relaxed," Vanessa calmly planned. She continued sipping her coffee while George thought about what she just said.
"How am I even going to see a slightly intoxicated Marc, let alone talk to him?" George asked.
"Aggie is having a party tonight. You're coming with me. I'll pick you up at 8, I still know where you live," Vanessa proudly stated.
"Are you sure this plan is the best route? I mean, you haven't had much time to process what I just said. Plus, what if Ag doesn't want me to come? I'm sorta uninvited," George pointed out.
"Relax! It's a party and you get along with all my friends anyways. They won't mind that you're there. Just stick by me for the night, we'll wait for the boys to get a little bit of beer in their systems, then you can go ahead. I'm going to spend the night though, so you could try getting a ride with a DD, or spending the night at Aggie's house. Is that fine?" Vanessa asked.
"Yeah, I'll ask someone for a ride home. You all live pretty close to me anyhow. Vanessa... you don't know how much I appreciate this. I've been trying to get the nerve to ask you for weeks and you just made my life so much simpler. How can I pay you back?" the newly hopeful George asked.
"Don't thank me yet. And don't worry! We'll get through this night. And George? You're always welcome," the cheery blonde started, as she got up and gave the stunned boy a hug.
Inside though, George's stomach was churning. Was he really going to get the chance to get his feelings off his chest? Would the seemingly cocky, jockish Marc even give the nerdy, scene' boy a chance to explain? George pondered what to wear and immediately decided against traditional scene' garb of tight jeans, tight shirt, studded belt and whatnot. He'd fit right in with his more preppy clothes though. George, you know you're gay when you're already planning what to wear for a party before even getting home, he chuckled to himself.
Vanessa dropped George off at his house, reminded him she'd be back in a few hours and took off. George felt like he could skip to the door. He'd finally be relieved of this giant weight on his shoulders, and then finally, he could move on to better things.