Extra Credit: A Gay Love Story (Elliot Extra Book 1)

by Erin Bilton-Hayes

  Extra Credit

  A gay love story

  By

  Erin Bilton-Hayes

  © 2019 Erin Bilton-Hayes, all rights reserved.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1.

  Chapter 2.

  Chapter 3.

  Chapter 4.

  Chapter 5.

  Chapter 6.

  Chapter 7.

  Chapter 8.

  Chapter 9.

  Chapter 10.

  Chapter 11.

  Chapter 12.

  Epilogue

  Contact and other works:

  Chapter 1.

  William unlocked the door, toed off his shoes, or rather, toed off one and trapped himself in the other, falling sideways into the wall and cursing. He knew better than to go drinking with Stacey. The last time they’d had an after-work drink he’d wound up… well. Getting trapped in his shoes was the least of his worries after how that night ended up. It was a small mercy that Stacey’s phone had died early on that evening so there was no incriminating evidence, although William still couldn’t look at a bottle of Midori without feeling deeply unwell. Stacey could put down a deceptive amount of liquor and took karaoke incredibly seriously, both things William tended to forget until he was faced with the evidence. He landed heavily on the couch, picking at the knot in his laces and frowning as it swam in and out of focus, then frowning more when he noticed the stack of exams sitting ominously in the middle of his coffee table. He needed a glass of water, he needed his bed, and most unhappily, he needed to set an alarm for a Saturday morning.

  A few hours later William was woken by the trilling of his alarm and reached groggily from under the covers to snooze it. A few minutes later it chimed again, and he pulled his phone towards the pillow, switching off the alarm and scrolling through his notifications with one eye still closed. Over half of them were notifications from hook-up apps, so evidently drunk William had been pondering his romantic prospects and firing off what were presumably mortifying opening lines left, right, and center. He dismissed those notifications and toyed with, then decided against, the idea of deleting the app altogether. He lay in bed for a few more minutes, aimlessly scrolling through his phone and delaying having to look at the pile of grading that he knew would take up his entire afternoon. “Love to live a life of the mind” he muttered grimly to himself, pulling his dressing gown around himself and sloping off to the kitchen to make a coffee.

  William had a very particular morning routine, and he was loathe to deviate from it. He picked up the pot of coffee, his phone and cigarettes in the other hand, a cup dangling precariously from one finger, opened his balcony door with his elbow and carefully placed everything down on a table he’d rescued from the curb a few months back. He scrolled back and forth between his social media, chain smoking and downing the coffee, blinking in the morning light. It wasn’t early, not really, but William wasn’t what you might call a morning person. It was mid-term break right now, and if he had his way he’d be sleeping until noon every day.

  Unfortunately, it looked like he wouldn’t be getting his way, because there was a giant stack of exams calling his name with increasing urgency. He had courses he should be prepping for as well, which he had made a half-hearted gesture towards on Tuesday afternoon, but had since been guiltily procrastinating on as well. Now it was a Saturday, with a week to go until classes started back and he was staring down the barrel of an entire weekend of grading with no one to blame but himself. Last night had also been the first time he’d left the house in a few days, which he suspected he should probably find worrying. William was still getting used to living alone, after Gen moved out two months ago. The apartment had been left to him as the only grandchild, and he felt faintly guilty that he’d managed to skip the rental hell his friends seemed to be trapped in. Then again, friends who had more sense than to go to grad school were mostly working jobs which offered contracts of more than three months, so he figured it evened out.

  William carried the now empty coffee pot back inside and steeled himself to face whatever was waiting in the pile of exams. His phone gave one final ominous ding and yet another dating app notification consisting only of winky emojis danced across his screen. He turned his phone facedown, threw his boxers into the laundry basket, and went to go and contemplate his life choices until the shower ran cold.

  William groaned, leaning back in his chair. He’d been here for four hours but the pile of exams didn’t look any smaller. The paper he was marking now looked like it’d been written through a spirograph, the one before that had made some alarmingly inaccurate claims about the male gaze and the Handmaid’s Tale. Somewhere in the distressingly small ‘marked’ pile was one which tried to sound philosophical by questioning the nature of every word in the question (“what is an author, really?”). William was not fooled. He’d written enough padded out essays in his time to know a stalling tactic when he saw it. He was starting to second-guess his teaching skills, when he finally happened across an essay which was both legible and good. He’d mark this one then break for lunch, well, for coffee at any rate, he decided. If he didn’t get another few cups into himself soon the quality of the comments he was leaving was going to slide even further downhill. William stretched, feeling his shoulders click. Waiting for the jug to boil he flicked through his phone (no more emoji laden messages, thank god) and saw a post from Tyler and felt his stomach pull uncomfortably. Aside from the relentless phone checking, and his procrastination, an abiding, and unrequited, crush on Tyler was easily William’s worst and most self-destructive habit.

  “Long story, but Sydney didn’t work out”, read the post “I’m heading back home ASAP. Any leads on a flat gratefully accepted, I’m tidy and house trained”.

  Tyler had moved to Sydney to be with his girlfriend about eight months ago. They’d met while she was visiting, fallen hard and fast for each other, tried the long-distance thing and after less than a year of dating Tyler decided to follow her to Australia. Privately, William thought this was very stupid, but he would concede that his all-consuming crush on Tyler might have something to do with that. Other, less bitter, people described it as romantic or congratulated Tyler on finally getting out to “see the world”. William had seen a bit of it before he’d settled here and given the choice, he probably wouldn’t have selected Australia. Tyler’s posts over the last couple of months suggested he shared William’s aversion to the heat, and the spiders.

  Driven by some unknown urge, William tabbed open a conversation with Tyler and thumbed out a message.

  “Hey Ty, I saw your post – I guess things with Jules didn’t work out? I’ve got a spare room these days if you get caught out and need somewhere to stay for a few weeks. Hope you’re holding up ok”

  He stared at the chat box, closed the tab and gently leaned forward until his head rested on the kitchen counter. “Why am I like this” he muttered to himself.

  William and Tyler had met in a seminar class several years ago. Tyler was slightly older, with a bouncing disposition and a precocious wrinkle forming between his eyebrows. He seemed to be composed almost of equal parts enthusiasm and a concern for the feelings of everyone around him which radiated from him like a mist. He reminded William of an anxious Labrador. William’s dating and crushing history tended towards men who didn’t text back, either out of laziness or a desire to gain the upper hand in whatever powerplay they’d ensconced him in. William also tended to date men who bore at least a passing resemblance to himself. (“That’s your Libra Venus, or your narcissism”, observed his barista and a
pparently now his personal astrologer, Jodie). Tyler ran very distinctly against type. He was a little taller than William, with close cropped hair and full eyebrows. Where William never had to bother separating out the colors when he did his washing, seeing as everything was a shade of black, Tyler dressed like he had a wormhole direct to the 80s he picked outfits from each morning.

  Tyler was also very clever. This was the most annoying thing to William, when they first met. He’d heard, of course, that the most difficult part of post grad was getting used to not being the smartest person in the room, but he’d kind of assumed it wouldn’t apply to him. There still had to be a smartest person, right? He was aggrieved to discover that yes, there did have to be a smartest person, and it was someone else. William was fully prepared to hate Tyler for this, but unfortunately, he was so fucking nice that was impossible too.

  Luckily for William, Tyler also seemed to be completely indifferent to making any solid plans about what he might do after he graduated. Where William had been carefully cultivating a series of academia-friendly gigs to make his resume appealing, no one seemed completely sure on what exactly it was Tyler did. In one of his early forays into some light internet stalking (in an incognito tab, William was nosy, not insane) he found Tyler’s name attached to some magazine articles, so he wondered if maybe Tyler had found his way into some writing work on the side. That would have explained the ease with which he moved halfway around the world without a job waiting for him. It was all irritatingly mysterious and alluring but did at least mean they weren’t in any kind of direct competition, aside from the one in William’s mind.

  He and Tyler been friendly enough, getting dinner after class a few times, and exchanging numbers. Then William had done what he did best, which was falling hard for yet another straight guy, and was both relieved and disappointed when the timing never worked to hang out much more after the semester finished. They got along with an easy familiarity, but William had done quite enough pining without any further encouragement.

  Now though, he’d extended an invitation for Tyler to come and stay? Or maybe live? with him. He blamed his hangover and the vague sense of loneliness that crept in after too long cruising through the apps. He wondered if he could put it down to a moment of charity, and hoped that was how Tyler would see it too. Of course, Tyler might not reply, or might decline, or might have a million other better offers. He very carefully left his phone in the lounge, carried his coffee back to his desk, and tried to decipher the looping scrawl in the paper at the top of the pile.

  Chapter 2.

  William pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. It had gotten dark hours ago, and while he was closer to finishing his grading it still wasn’t done. He’d also walked to the lounge to check his phone five times, picked up a fresh cup of coffee each time, and was now uncomfortably awake and needed to use the bathroom what felt like every three seconds. So far Tyler hadn’t read the message, and William was carefully ignoring any kind of emotional response he was having to that fact. He stretched his legs forward, pressing his feet against the wall in front of him and feeling bolts of pain run through his calves. Instead of nursing an ancient crush he should probably focus a little more on the here and now, and maybe think about setting aside some of his next pay cheque for a massage. Or a gym membership. William was glad he wasn’t quite as impulsive as he’d been in his twenties (although this afternoon certainly made a compelling counterargument to that claim) but he wasn’t thrilled that his body demanded maintenance now, or that he couldn’t shrug off a hangover with the ease he had a few years ago.

  He walked back to the lounge, past his phone, which was still sitting face down on the table and rifled through the fridge for something he could eat with his fingers. Maybe he should think about getting a roommate, at least over the summer, to curb his worst bachelor habits. He picked up his phone, having proved to himself that he didn’t really care by ignoring it for an entire 90 seconds, and saw that Tyler had replied, three messages waiting for him.

  “Hey!! Omg, you’re a lifesaver. Trying to look for a place mid-semester SUCKS”

  “Me and Jules called it quits a couple of weeks back, and I’ve been on the lookout for cheap fares home”

  “I get in next Sunday night, is that too soon for you? I can sort a hotel or w/e for a few nights if that’s easier. Thanks again, it’s super kind of you”

  William felt his stomach lurch suddenly, and the thrum of arousal or anxiety (or both) run through his blood. He’d solved the roommate problem.

  A week turned out to be more than enough time for William to get the spare room ready. The following day was the most productive Sunday he’d had in recent memory, as he moved his desk into a corner of the lounge, aired the bedroom out, laundered curtains (he should probably do this in his own bedroom at some point, he supposed) and made the bed. Gen stopped by with a six pack of beer in the late afternoon and regarded his newly spotless lounge with undisguised curiosity.

  “Is your mother coming to stay?”

  “I just thought it was time for a spring clean, is all”

  “William, I lived with you for a year, I didn’t think you knew which end of a mop goes in the bucket.”

  She popped the cap on a can, handed it to him, then opened one for herself.

  “I thought all that writing might make you better at making up stories. What’s actually going on?”

  William felt a flush rising high in his cheeks, and Gen’s eyes narrowed.

  “Did you have a date?”

  William could feel the blush moving up to the tips of his ears. “I’ve got an old friend coming to stay next week.”

  Gen looked delighted and flopped heavily onto the couch. “Go on...”

  “I just thought, you know, it’d be nice to make it…. nice, for him” he finished.

  “’Make it nice’? Have you considered possibly you’re turning into your mother, rather than having her to stay?” Gen sounded dubious.

  “We all have to set aside childish things and become adults sometime, Genevieve” William replied, with chiding humor.

  Gen flicked a bottlecap that had evaded the clean-up effort at him and flipped him off. “Well make sure you introduce me to this friend while he’s here. Now what are we watching tonight Billy baby?”

  Movie nights with Gen were a highlight of William’s week, although he’d never tell her in so many words. They’d lived together and bonded over a shared love of 90s romcoms – Gen was getting over a break-up and watching them on repeat, William offered to watch one with her as a show of support, then revealed himself as a closet fan when he explained his well-developed theory of Hugh Grant’s development as the leading man du jour. Gen had invented approximately a million annoying nicknames for him (Billy, Billiam, Billy-baby, Big Baby, and the week she’d hummed Waltzing Matilda several hundred times, singing the “billy boiling” line, then calling him “boiling Billy” when he eventually snapped), and had an incredible talent for puncturing William’s melodramatic turns. In turn, he was excellent at helping her with the kind of life admin that she found boring or impenetrable. He missed living with her, but she looked much happier now she lived closer to her job and didn’t have to trek back and forth across town each day.

  They made a good team, and William curled in next to her on the couch after hitting play on his laptop, tucking his toes under her thigh. He suspected it didn’t say anything good about his choices that he was avoiding telling her about Tyler coming to stay. He wondered how long it would take until the jig was up and he was stuck as ‘blushing Billy’ for a week or two.

  The next week inched by. William sent a few more messages back and forth with Tyler, feeling his stomach clench every time a message notification chimed, and organized to meet him at the airport on Sunday night. Tyler sounded impossibly grateful, which made William feel even worse. His lonely gesture towards an unrequited crush was being interpreted as selfless generosity, and as the week wore on, he felt an oily anxiety that
he was being duplicitous pooling in his gut. With no teaching and the grading finally complete, he only had course preparation to do, and his own writing. Focusing on either felt impossible, and he resorted to not just leaving his phone in another room but switching it off altogether to try and get any work done.

  On Thursday afternoon William stuffed a print-out of the article he was struggling with, a dog-earned paperback, and three colors of ballpoint pen into his satchel, and walked to the coffee shop beside campus. He’d been hiding away at home all week, again, and he thought seeing sunlight and other people might be a good idea. Through the glass door he could see Jodie behind the register and Ben behind the espresso machine, punctuating a story with a tea towel in his hand and accidentally flicking Jodie with grounds as he did, judging from her reaction.

  “Will!” Jodie trilled across the mostly empty shop. William was surprised they’d rostered two people on, given midterm break seemed to cut out over half of their regular clientele.

  “How’ve you been? Regular quad-shot, or are you on light duties?” Ben peeked over the espresso machine, hand hovering over the stack of cups.

  “Quad-shot, god. How much espresso can you legally put in a cup, anyway?”

  “I’ll bend the rules for you baby” Ben purred, then erupted into giggles. “Marking going that well huh?”

  “Marking is done. It’s my own writing that I’m mad at now” said William mournfully.

  “Chin up sweetness, at least you didn’t hand in 3000 words where you wrote about parochial systems of oppression” chimed in Jodie, “my professor emailed to check and all I could do was blame spell-check for screwing me over.”

  William snorted out a laugh and dropped an extra dollar in the tip jar.

  “Find a seat, I’ll bring it over in a tick” said Ben, as Jodie headed into the back room humming the chorus from Hot for Teacher.