Love, Lust & Friendship

by Elizabeth Stevens

  “Uh, yeah.” I smiled at him.

  “Very cool.” He gave me a nod before heading towards the staff room.

  “He’s just jealous he can’t let his inner 90s freak flag fly at school,” Ander sniggered.

  “You don’t know he was one of us,” I said to him as we wandered in the direction of the building doors.

  “I do. I’ve seen his screen saver.” He gave me a rocker fist and mock-snarl. “Anarchy, dude.”

  I snorted and shook my head.

  “Addy and, er Ander!” On the way out, people said hi to us the only real way they knew how.

  Well, they said hi to Hendo Jr. and his surly sidekick.

  Ander and I were popular (enough) by default. Default here being that he was the younger brother of one Christopher Henderson. People liked us in the sense they’d talk to us and say hi, but not in the sense that we’d ever hang out with them as friends. We’d been ‘Addy and, er Ander’ since I’d decided in Year 6 that people had teased Ander enough for his shyness and started making it cool.

  And, we nodded back to them because it was way easier to be polite than it was to try to keep hold of our bad reputations and scorn all social interaction.

  On the way to the boys, we also had to pass the Year 12 Common Room, which was usually a source of amusement. And, that day was no different.

  I huffed a laugh as we stopped and Ander muttered under his breath, “He’s a total twat.”

  Because, there was Topher on top of one of the tables doing God knew what as the other kids in there gawked up at him like the inventor of sliced bread. Ander and I paused to watch him haul a girl up with him and he gave her a serious kiss. We could hear the other kids cheering even through the glass and I shook my head.

  “I mean, you’d think they’d have learned by now,” I said, always impressed with the Basils’ female population’s ability to just throw themselves at Topher.

  Ander snorted and elbowed me. “I’d have said that about you, too.”

  I elbowed him back harder. “Funny, dude.”

  “What? I’m not the one who wants to kiss my brother.”

  “No. That would be incest.”

  “As would you kissing him.”

  I laughed. “Babe, you and me kissing wouldn’t be incest. Not legally.”

  “Yeah, but morally?

  I shuddered. “Ew. Yeah. Morally.”

  He put his arm around me again. “But, I guess Toph’s different because you don’t love him.”

  “Okay, I really don’t want to kiss your brother. But, how would that be better?”

  “I never said it was better. I said it was different. It’s not incest when you just lust after him.”

  I frowned as we stopped watching Topher’s antics and kept walking. “I’m not sure that’s how incest works, Alexander…” I said slowly, trying to wrap my head around in what universe that might work.

  “Sure it is,” he said, matter-of-fact. “You don’t love him like you love me–”

  “I couldn’t love anyone like I love you, dude.”

  But, he continued like I hadn’t interrupted. “–you just want him to rock your world.”

  “Ew. I want nothing of the sort.”

  And look, I didn’t. Not really.

  So, yeah. Topher sort of ended up in slow motion sometimes; when he pulled himself out of the pool and ran his hand through his hair, when he smiled as he jogged up the stairs to his room, even a little bit when he was flirting with other girls. But, I couldn’t help it. Something about him just made me drool a little. I got a total lady boner for him whenever he was in the room. But, that didn’t amount to any positive feelings or any urges to kiss him or touch him or desire to let him rock my world in any way. Plus, I was a firm believer that no one could live up to what the girls said about him in the changing rooms. Not that I was convinced that most of the stories – or the number of girls – were even true in the first place; what eighteen year old guy is actually like that?

  “You’ve got a total lady boner for him,” Ander said like he could read my mind, because he totally could.

  “So not my fault,” I grumbled.

  “Babe, a boner never is. It’s something that happens to us, not something we choose.”

  “Who’s got a boner?” Tate asked, looking up from his phone.

  “Hopefully none of you,” I answered as Ander said, “Addy.”

  Tate, Will and Derek all cooed.

  “Kit’s eyes are so dreamy,” Will teased, clasping his hands under his chin and swinging his shoulders before dropping onto the grass.

  “Shut up,” I grumbled, but couldn’t help smiling, and we went about our business without too much more teasing of me.

  Tate showed me a skating video he’d made on his phone while Will stuffed his face and Ander and Derek alternately got into a pretend scuffle or sat around. And, that was about the usual level of our at-school activity.

  “See there?” Tate asked after a while as he pointed at his phone screen and I tried very hard to work out what was particularly exciting about that section of footage. I mean, I got the skating, it was the nuances of the filming that were a little lost on me.

  “Ye-es?” I said uncertainly.

  Tate chuckled and I looked up into his eyes, which as usual half-hid behind his sandy blond hair. His eyes were this really odd pale green colour. I mean, nice. Just not exactly common. And, they had this sort of silver ring around them that had only intensified since he’d got the eyebrow piercing. Next to Ander, Tate was the tallest and he had the très chic lanky frame most of the skaters I knew had.

  “Cool though, right?” he said, knowing it was useless to try to explain anything about film stuff to me.

  I nodded because it did look cool; there was a slow motion thing he’d done as Derek sailed up the bowl and then Ander had taken his place coming down. “Yes. Very cool.” We laughed again and I realised something. “Oh! You’ll totally have Ander to talk to about this stuff now he’s all into AV club.”

  Tate snorted. “Sure. Because there’s no reason I quit AV club.”

  “You’re such a snob,” I joked.

  “The art comes first, Ads.”

  He was totally joking – he wasn’t actually a complete ponce – but when he said stuff like that, it made you believe he’d just cracked the code to the facts of life; like, in everything, the art actually had to come first or the world was going to unravel or something. Tate just had that weirdly enigmatic vibe about him. It didn’t hurt that the guy was hot. Not that he really let anyone see because he was so wrapped up in his own stuff. But, he was. I was man enough to admit that my legs got a little wobbly around him sometimes as well.

  “Go on. Show me again.” I swatted him.

  “Uh, Ads…” I heard Derek say and looked up with a smirk.

  Ander had him in a head lock. Derek was smiling, hazel eyes shining, while Ander was giving me his cheekiest grin.

  Derek was the shortest of the boys. And, despite the fact he still towered over me, he hated that. Like Ander and Tate, he was a lanky dude. Not skin and bones, just lacking unnecessary bulge like the overly muscular guys on the rugby team. With his hair dyed black and styled just right, he pulled off the old emo look quite well. The black and white striped long-sleeved tee under his white school shirt – shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows of course – didn’t hurt any and neither did his attitude.

  “Little help?” Derek squeaked and I shook my head; he was only a badass on the outside.

  “Drop,” I told Ander, pointing at the grass.

  Ander threw both his arms up and his eyes widened in innocence.

  Derek hit the ground with a chuckled, “oof, dude!”

  I tried to frown at Ander, but failed. “Not cool.”

  “What?” he asked. “You said drop. I was a very good boy.” But, he did reach down and pull Derek to standing.

  “I’d give you a biscuit, but
someone ate them all,” I said, looking at Will.

  He looked at me from his spot on the grass and he knew what he’d done.

  At a little over six foot, Will was cute in a completely nerdy kind of way. He wasn’t hot, he couldn’t pull off sexy if he tried, but he was cute. Brown eyes hid behind blue glasses frames and red curls tumbled over his forehead. He was almost always smiling, which could have been because he was almost always eating and food was Will’s first love. But, all the time we spent running around or skating meant that, while he wasn’t as lanky as the other boys, he wasn’t in any danger of Mr Filmore (the dreaded PE teacher) trying to con him into hanging out in the school gym either.

  “Did you want one?” Will asked, mouth full of said biscuits as he looked around.

  We all laughed.

  “Nah, man. Enjoy,” Ander said. “You…deserve…the…”

  At the sound of Ander turning into a slow-motion record, I followed his gaze and rolled my eyes when I saw Tess March strolling across the quad.

  Honestly, I understood the appeal just by looking at her. Tess March was one of those girls everyone lusted over. She had perfect chestnut brown hair, she had big boobs, she wore glasses like she was made for them on that cute little button nose of hers. And, she had the awkwardly shy thing down when she wanted to. Problem was, I also knew that she thought she was going to be the next Sofia Coppola and looked down on the rest of us mere mortals who didn’t understand The Art (anyone else hear Miranda Hart there?).

  And, unlike Tate, when she talked about The Art, she meant every wanky word.

  Tess and her stupid lofty ideals and ridiculous art standards were the main reason Tate had quit AV club in the first place. So, funny then, that Tess was the only reason Ander had decided to join.

  “Has he even spoken to her?” Tate asked also looking at Tess as she swanned over the quad.

  Okay, so swanned wasn’t really the right word for it. She wore a long grey cardigan over her uniform and it sort of swished– Oh, you know what? She kind of reminded me of Snape. You know the way Alan Rickman (God rest his beautiful soul) strides purposefully all over the place and his robes flare out dramatically? Yeah. That was Tess March. Hot or not, chick was evil. I’d bet my tacky bomb secrets on it. The only redeeming feature so far was that she hadn’t used Ander’s crush against him to get closer to Topher. Yet. They all did in the end and he refused to see it coming. I, meanwhile, saw it coming from a thousand miles away and was powerless to stop it.

  “He has not. Closest he got was she looked at him that one time he said hi to you back in the day before a meeting.”

  Tate nodded and grimaced. “Eh, well. Could be worse.”

  “How? How could it be worse?”

  “He could be drooling over Laney Hamilton.”

  I grimaced as well, but I felt for him. “Ew.”

  Laney was the most popular girl at our school. Everyone knew her name, everyone fawned over her, and most of us drooled over her. Much like Topher, people tended to magically forget she was actually a dillweed when she smiled at them, gave that cutesy giggle, and flicked her curled blonde hair back. It had even happened to me on numerous occasions and the likelihood it would happen again was strong; girl just made you want to fall all over her and do her bidding.

  Laney was the girl you actively lusted after and she welcomed the attention as though she’d die without it like the succubus she was. Tess was the girl you thought was too sweet to actively lust over so you just did it in the privacy of your own brain.

  “How is your thing for Laney going?” I asked Tate as we watched Derek and Ander scuffle again, then fall onto the grass and get distracted by an argument with Will.

  I felt him shrug. “Eh, you know how it is. Girl’s evil incarnate, but I want her.”

  “Oh, you want her?” I teased as the bell rang, but we weren’t going to make a move yet. “That’s almost sweet.”

  “What’s sweet about wanting to do a ton of dirty things to her?” he asked wryly.

  I scoffed and looked at him. “Dirty things?”

  His eyes shone with humour as he leant towards me. “Seriously dirty things.”

  “You want to make her scream your name?”

  “Among other things.”

  “Other things?” I laughed.

  “Yeah…other things.” It was oddly vague for Tate.

  I snorted and our noses were almost brushing. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say that cold exterior of yours was melting, dude. You want to cuddle her after, too?”

  He was trying to fight a smile, but it was useless. “I don’t cuddle,” he muttered as he hauled me over his shoulder and a very embarrassing squeal left my person. “I leave them begging for more.”

  At the risk of sharing all my friends’ most personal backstories and caring very little if I did, rumour suggested (although, I think we’ve established that rumour suggested a lot of things at Saint Basils) that Tate was more than capable of doing just that. How the lanky nerd got as much as he did (by which I do mean any), I would never know. But, power to my freakishly socially inept people.

  I rested my elbow on his back and my chin in my hand. “You know, that’s tame for you. I’m impressed with your growth as a person.” A shadow fell over me and I twisted my head awkwardly to see an upside down Topher frowning at me. “Oh, hey.” I saluted him.

  “Hey.”

  “You’re upside down.”

  Topher’s eyebrow rose, or fell depending on which way you looked at it. “No. You’re upside down.”

  Tate swung me around so I was nestled against his chest and nodded at Topher.

  “For what did you leave the safety of your kingdom’s borders?” Tate asked him, a cocky smirk on his face I knew Topher would hate.

  Topher looked between Tate and me like something confused him. “Class…” he said slowly, like he thought the concept eluded us. Which, to be fair, it often did.

  I snorted and Tate let me down. “Right, of course.”

  “See you after school,” Topher said then gave a nod to his brother before he kept moving.

  “Yup, see you then!” I called after him, then Will and I dissolved into giggles as Ander was heard muttering “class” in perfect sarcastic imitation of his brother as he got up.

  I held my hands out to Will and dragged him off the grass and Ander hauled Derek to his feet with much complaining from the both of them. Honestly, you’d have thought they’d been blown in half or something the way they carried on.

  Ander draped his arm around my shoulder and the five of us headed for class much like we did after any other Recess; totally awesomely.

  Chapter Three

  The next few weeks went as you’d have expected the first few weeks of the school year to go. We all put off actually doing any work for as long as possible until the teachers got a little pissy with us and managed to cajole us into focussing.

  There was some smiling and chatting and flirting with crush six, Liam, who seemed to be responding to my normally terrible flirting skills far more favourably than anyone else had so far. Which of course meant that I just crushed on him just a little bit more and Ander had higher hopes for him.

  Ander went off to AV club on Mondays and Wednesdays, leaving me in Topher’s incapable hands. But, at least I got to sit in his beautiful car. I never mentioned driving it again because, in all honesty, the idea of driving that monster was terrifying – can you imagine if I scratched it? Or worse, crashed it? (Or worse, got expelled?) No, but seriously, if I even got a smudge on the glass I’d freak out.

  Anyway, Topher and I interacted much like we usually would; we bantered and traded insults like people who’ve known each other for too long, we laughed, we sang along to the few songs we both liked and surprisingly found a few more we had in common, we talked about nothing in particular, and we were just comfortably uncomfortable together. He either drove me to their place so I could wait for Ander to finish A
V club, or past my parents’ house to grab something else to store at the Hendersons’, as we were doing two weeks later.

  So, at this point, it might be worthwhile pointing out that I didn’t spend a lot of time at the place most kids would call home. Namely, the place my parents lived. There was a lot of history that made up why that was, but it boiled down to the fact that it wasn’t a very pleasant place to be. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t really mistreated, I wasn’t starved, my parents just had some…issues that meant I tried to be home as little as possible. Then again, that seemed to be my dad’s theory, too.

  My parents had got married young. Like right out of school young. All had started well, along came my older brother Richard, fondly known as Mac. So, Dad worked his ass off to get through uni to get a good job on the other end so they wouldn’t have to rely on Mum’s parents’ money forever (not that she would have minded). Enter my second brother Lincoln, also Mac or Linc, a couple of years later. Dad’s still getting through uni and Mum’s taking some Arts courses while she cruises off her parents’ money and looks after the boys. A few years later sees the birth of the youngest Mac, born as Peter also known as Pacman.

  By now, Dad’s graduated and starts working his ass off to climb up the ranks at his firm. He’s successful, hardworking, and well-liked, and gets promotion after promotion until he’s not just staying late in the office but needs to travel a lot, too. Somewhere in there, I was born and Mum had thrown herself into a social scene of her own making that apparently gave her a deeper sense of accomplishment and affection than four doting children ever could.

  Now, not long after Ander came into my life, it came out that my dad had been sleeping around. I’m not just talking one slipup for which he was deathly apologetic and still trying to make amends. I’m talking, every opportunity he got, he was sleeping around on my mum. And, what did Mum do? Well, she did what every other social sycophant would do. She buried her head in the sand and pretended her marriage was perfect. Unless they were under the same roof for longer than like two hours, in which case they argued about everything except the fact my dad had turned into a piece of shit and Mum should just leave him already. But, Mum was never going to leave him no matter what because she was hopelessly in love with him and even just having some of him was better than none.