One More Year

Caitlyn's mouth curled into a snarl, her amber eyes glinting like a wolf's, as she opened the grand front door to her house and saw me standing in the entryway. "What are you doing here?"

"HI, Caitlyn." Ellie stepped between us, and then confidently made her way inside, drawing Caitlyn's attention. "We're just meeting up with Eric and a bunch of other people here before we go to Jamie's party. Hi Lea."

"Hi, Ellie." Lea brushed her dark hair out of her face and gave Ellie a quick hug. She turned to face me, and briefly glanced up at my face before dropping her eyes to the floor again. "Hi, Jay."

"Hi, Lea." I'd never held Lea's friendship with Caitlyn against her. Ellie was more or less a part of the same crowd, and I'd never had a problem with that. Our school was small -- you did what you had to do. I avoided Caitlyn whenever I could help it though, so Lea and I weren't really ever around each other much, so we'd barely ever gotten beyond awkward greetings.

Caitlyn's glare briefly flickered off of me, and onto Lea, before she stomped behind me and closed the door. "Are you and Eric dating now or something?"

I had a brief moment of panic before I realised that she was actually talking to Ellie.

"No, no." Ellie smiled gracefully. "Just friends."

"Because I thought you had something going on with that Gary guy. He's certainly better than your other options." She put her hands on her hips and made a dramatic display of looking me up and down.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, but that was the best I could do. "Well, you would know all about inferior options."

Lea let out a quick burst of nervous laughter, but was immediately silenced by Caitlyn's outraged glare, which was then brought to bear on me. I stared back flatly.

"We should get going." Ellie's tone was strained, and full of fake cheer. "Eric's on the balcony, right?"

"Maybe. I don't really care." Caitlyn spun on her heels and walked away.

"I, um- Bye." Lea gave us a shy grin and a shrug, and hurried after her.

"Why do you do that?" Ellie said in an annoyed tone, as we marched through the corridor towards the stairs at the back of the house.

"What?" I scoffed. "Retaliate?"

"Yes! What on earth do you think you're achieving, anyway? It only makes her worse."

"Like she could get any worse." I grinned. "Who's Gary?"

"Absolutely none of your business." She crossed her arms.

"Hypocrite."

"Likewise. Aren't you always telling me I shouldn't pry?" She shrugged. "It isn't really anything at the moment. I'll tell you when it is."

"I'm just making a point," I said, trying not to sound too smug. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"Listen, when I do want to tell you, I WILL tell you." She gave my shoulder a shove. "Whether you want to hear it or not."

"Great." I laughed.

We reached the stairs, and made our way up to the balcony at the top. Seeing the place again was a great feeling -- it was where Eric had brought me that night, and it was where I'd met most of his friends, aside from Louis. Eric looked surprised when we walked in, and he came up to throw his arms around me and give me a quick peck on the lips. I melted into his embrace for a second, and then gave him an annoyed look.

"You didn't answer your phone." I put my hands on his waist and pushed him away slightly. "We had to deal with Caitlyn."

"Oh, god." He grinned sheepishly. "I'm so sorry. I left it in my room -- I'll go get it now."

Eric went back inside, and the rest of us greeted each other. Ellie and Sara settled down at the bistro table to chat, while I grabbed a drink and stood around the cooler with Louis and John. Louis was dressed nicely again, with no glasses on -- he seemed to be making a habit of it now -- and John was just in a t-shirt and shorts. Sara, as always, looked like she'd just stepped out of a beauty pageant, even if she was just in jeans and a sequined top, like Ellie.

"So do all you Elohim kids do this? Rich kid parties where just anyone can show up?" John asked.

"Rich kid parties?" Louis laughed. "Dude, you took us to Switzerland to go skiing for your eighteenth."

"Yeah, but that was just you, Mel and Vince. And my family was going anyway." John shrugged.

"My party was quite small. Just family, and a few friends," I said. That hadn't been by choice, unfortunately, but I still didn't want Louis or John to think of me as a loser.

"I think that's better," Louis said confidently. "I didn't need a whole bunch of people around that I don't even like. I was happier with just you guys."

"I told you not to drink so fast. What's that, your second beer? And you're already getting sentimental." John nudged Louis with his shoulder, laughing softly. "After the next one, you're going to be professing your love for all of us."

"Shut up." Louis shook his head, and blushed slightly.

It seemed like there was a slightly awkward silence after that, so I tried to move the conversation along. "But Jamie actually invited you, right?"

"Yeah," Louis said, seizing on the topic. "He seems like a really nice guy. I was chatting with him and Ellie at AP maths last week, and he mentioned it and sent me an actual invite. It's John and Eric who are the tag-alongs."

"Not too bad. We're both dating people Jamie knows."

"Uh, yeah." I took a big sip of my drink. The fact that Eric's friends all knew about us mostly felt good, but thinking about it too much could still make me panic. I'd probably feel better once we reached the middle of the year, and classes gave way to prelims, moderation and finals. At least by then, if I was accidentally outed somehow, I wouldn't have to see everyone at school all the time.

Fortunately, before I'd had time to spiral about it, Eric walked back through the doors. "Okay, I have my phone. Now that we're all here, we can leave whenever, I guess."

"Well, it started about twenty minutes ago," Louis said. "And it'll take us about ten minutes to get there, so if we leave in then next ten minutes, things will have gotten going, but we won't be those douchebags who get to the party an hour late just to seem cool."

"Wow. That's..." I scratched my head. "A lot of strategising for a party."

"Yup, Louis always has a plan." John clapped him on the shoulder.

"I hate plans." I grimaced. "Mine never work out."

"Sometimes mine don't either." Louis gave me a rueful grin. "But I just keep trying. Eventually, you figure it out."

"Mine normally go pretty well." Eric downed the rest of his drink, and put his arm around me. "And I am ready to go, whenever the plan wants us to."

We ended up waiting for Ellie, who seemed to bask in the attention she received from being the one holding everything up, but she didn't keep us too long. After she'd had her fun, she quickly finished her drink, and we set off for the party. We made our way out onto the street and down the hill to the lifesaver's clubhouse, which Jamie's parents had booked out for his party.

It was a pretty standard place to rent for this sort of thing. The cost wasn't excessive, and while the building wasn't great -- just a messy collection of square blocks with one big one in the middle that served as a hall -- it had three bars, and all the doors tumbled right out on the beach, so it was always a fairly nice place for a relaxed event.

The main hall was being used as a dance floor, so the rest of the guests milled in and out of the other rooms and spilled out onto the beach. Braziers full of burning logs had been set up at odd intervals along the paving that abutted the sand, and people gathered around them to talk while warming themselves against the biting sea air. It was still summer, more or less, but the cold current coming up from Antarctica could always import some of that chill.

All the bartenders were being very strict about ID, so Eric and John -- who didn't have drivers licences on them like the rest of us did -- were turned away. Ellie and Sara had gotten drinks for them instead. After we'd settled around a brazier near a low concrete barrier wall, the two girls had gone off together to get their own drinks from one of the other bars. While we were waiting for them, Jamie showed up, with a very pretty girl hanging off his arm. They'd almost walked right past us, but then he'd looked up, seen me, and wrenched his arm out of her grasp.

"Hey, Jay! You came!"

"Uh, yeah." I grinned as he walked over and shook my hand. "Happy Birthday. Great party."

"Thanks, man. Looks like we'll make a partier out of you yet." He grinned. There was a soft, feminine -- and possibly annoyed -- sound of a throat being cleared behind him, and he winked at me before turning to hold his arm out to the girl he'd been walking with, who approached us. "This is my girlfriend, Megan."

I could be fairly sure it was the girl that I'd seen him kissing at Caitlyn's party, because she'd been all over his social media accounts lately. I normally would have found that sort of thing annoying, and probably would have had a pre-formed low opinion of her. But after meeting Eric, I kind of understood the impulse of feeling happy about being with someone and wanting to share it, even though I wouldn't really do that myself.

"Hello." She smiled sleepily.

"Meg, this is Jay -- he's kind of this genius in our grade. Then that's Louis, he comes to AP maths with us. Also a genius." He gave John and Eric a friendly smile. "I don't think I've met you guys."

I cleared my throat. "This is Eric, and this is John. They go to North Grove with Louis."

"Oh, right." Jamie shook Eric's hand, and then John's. "You're Sara's guy."

"Um, Yeah." John grinned.

"Well, it's been nice meeting you all." Megan's hand went up to the back of Jamie's neck. "But I was just taking Jamie to see some of my friends, so we'll chat later." He shrugged and winked again, and allowed her to steer him away.

"Well, that was kinda rude," John said.

"Yeah. Yikes." Louis chuckled. "Seemed like a bit of a hostage situation."

"Do you think that wink was a cry for help?" Eric asked.

"Oh, no. He does that with everyone." I frowned. Jamie didn't seem unhappy to me. But I was usually pretty bad at telling what kind of behaviour was 'normal'.

At that point, Ellie and Sara got back from the bar. Ellie bumped her hip against mine. "What'd we miss?"

"We just saw Jamie, and his new girlfriend," I said.

"Oh no." Ellie started tapping her foot on the ground, clearly annoyed. "I kind of wanted to see what she was like in real life, without all the filters."

"She was pretty attractive." Eric shrugged.

"John, was she attractive?" Ellie asked.

"What?" John had his arm around Sara, and looked a bit startled at the question. "Uh, No? I don't know."

Louis grinned. "Leave John alone. He's Sara's 'guy', according to Jamie."

"He is." Sara tilted her head back, and John leaned down to kiss her.

Louis made a retching noise, and John gave him an annoyed look while Sara just laughed.

"Well, I want to go find her. Coming, Sara?"

"Ellie..." Sara groaned. "Do we have to?"

"Don't you want to see how pretty she is, so you know how much warm sentiment to have towards John for not noticing?"

"Okay, fine." She laughed, and reached up to tousle John's hair. "Miss me while I'm gone."

"I will." He grinned, and Sara let Ellie lead her off by the arm.

Louis made another retching noise, and Eric and I chuckled.

"Shut up, I'm happy." John raised his chin defiantly.

"Well, that's good." Louis smiled. "Do we want to do anything while they're gone? There's a ping pong table in one of the rooms."

"I could do that." John nodded.

"Well, then maybe let's go. Jay? Eric?"

"I don't really play." Anything that required hand-eye coordination was pretty much a no-go for me.

"Yeah, we'll just hang out here." Eric took a sip of his drink. "You guys go ahead though."

"Okay." Louis shrugged, and he and Jon set off towards the building.

"Finish your beer. I want to go for a walk." Eric said.

"Okay." I was closer to done than he was anyway, and it only took me a few sips to finish.

He downed his drink and grabbed my bottle, tossing them in an empty bin. He led the way around the side of the building, and we started making our way into the gap between the building and the retaining wall that held up the higher ground above it. Eric slipped his hand into my back pocket.

"So... Jamie's hot." He said in a casual voice.

That struck me as a weird thing to say, but then I had a realisation and grinned. "Is he? I hadn't noticed."

"Do you two hang out a lot?"

"Only when he climbs into my bed naked for a cuddle. But that's only like every other Tuesday." I bit my lip and looked across at Eric.

"Hah hah." He did not look impressed.

"Are you jealous?" I laughed.

"No. It's just... that wink thing was a little weird, right?"

"Yeah, but he seriously does do it with everyone. Come here." I grabbed him and pushed him against a wall, kissing him. "See? Who is it that I'm letting drag me behind buildings? Not Jamie."

"Yeah, okay." He grinned, and then pulled me back towards him. He ran his hand over the front of my trousers, causing me to groan slightly. "Want to get out of here?"

"Already?" I gasped, suddenly struggling to speak properly. "But we only just got here."

"Well, who cares? You've said hi to Jamie, and we've had some free drinks." He kissed his way up and down my neck. "Do you want to sit around drinking and watching Louis and John playing ping pong, or..." He lifted his hand and slid it down past the waistband of my jeans and underwear, touching my dick directly. I gasped, and my knees buckled slightly.

It took me a few moments to be able to speak. "Okay, fine. I'll text Ellie."

"Good boy." He pulled his hand out of my pants, and pushed us off the wall.

_____________[Hey, Eric and I are leaving now.]

[Woof!]

_____________[Shut up. : |]

[Make me :D]

Eric and I walked back to his house, his arm around me, my hand in his back pocket and his in mine. Whenever we walked down a street with gaps in the street-lighting, he'd turn to kiss me in the shadows, and we'd delay our journey a bit more each time. By the time we got into his room, having worked our way slowly through the quiet halls, I was already close to exploding.

He locked the door, and turned to face me, smirking. "See how I just turned the lock and that was it?"

I laughed. "Shut up and kiss me."

He quickly made his way across the room and obliged, kissing me with so much force that he nearly knocked me over. As we shuffled our way over to the bed, he did most of the work of removing all our clothing. By the time we'd gotten to the bed, all we had to do was drop our underwear and kick off our socks, and then he sat down and pulled me on top of him, our exposed dicks grazing each other.

He tossed me on the bed next to him and aggressively kissed, licked and nibbled his way from my chest down to my crotch as I stretched out, lying flat on the mattress. Then his hand was cupping my balls, and I could feel his lips slide along my shaft as he guided my tip to the back of his throat, and my breathing began to get heavy.

I was in heaven, watching him bob up and down on my dick while he furiously pumped away with his fist at his own hard-on. He looked up at me, a mischievous glint in his blue eyes, and then let my cock drop out of his mouth.

"I have an idea." He hopped off the bed.

I turned my head to track him as he walked around to the other side, next to my head. He climbed on the bed next to me, and crawled across until his face was at my crotch. Still a bit dumb with lust, I didn't realise what he wanted until his mouth engulfed my cock again, and I saw his bobbing in front of me, precum glistening at the tip.

I grabbed his hip and moved my head over, first lapping at the precum with my tongue, then wrapping my mouth around his shaft and bobbing to a rhythm that matched his. He began to respond enthusiastically, bucking and thrusting his hips, increasing the pace I was setting.

The feeling was overwhelming -- the powerful sensation of his lips wrapped around my dick, his tongue darting back and forth, while the hard throbbing mass of his own pulsed and leaked in my mouth. His hand was also roaming all over -- across my knee, up my thigh, under my balls and down to my ass crack.

He was the first to start breathing in short, quick bursts. His whole body tensed, and he cried out, filling my mouth with his hot, salty cum. I groaned, savouring the flavour, while he pulled his dick away from me and increased his pace as he licked, sucked and slurped away.

I was soon grabbing the sheets and doing some crying out of my own, shooting my load in his mouth, the pulsing shocks of pleasure rocketing through my body. He greedily lapped up every drop, and I had to roll away from him to get him off of my now overly-sensitive dick. He pushed himself up and flipped over, pulling me into a kiss, his taste mingling with mine in our mouths.

"What do you want to do now?" I asked, pulling away eventually.

He grunted, and lay flat on the mattress. "I'm feeling sleepy."

"Already? It's not even ten."

He shrugged as much as he could in that position. "You have your maths class tomorrow, and I have to get up early for that donation thing for my church. You should sleep."

"Don't remind me." I said grimly. As always, I wasn't happy to be going to AP maths at all, but now I didn't even have seeing him afterwards to look forward to -- he was apparently going to be moving furniture all day. I'd made plans with Louis to start work on our catapult science project, since Angela and Sue had already heavily dived into their part. Without Eric around, I'd need something to do for the day anyway.

I shuffled off the bed, leaving Eric lying there. I wasn't going to fall asleep as easily as he did. For starters, I'd have to text my mom if I was planning on sleeping there -- so I quickly did that, before I forgot. I'd already told her a bit about Eric and the others, but as far as she knew, they were all just new friends.

_____________[Hey. A couple of us are crashing at Eric's place after the party. But I won't forget AP maths, and I'll probably stop at home tomorrow morning to get my stuff.]

[Okay, have fun.]

I hadn't technically lied, but I still felt a bit bad. I put my phone down, and decided I wanted to look around Eric's room. It was only fair -- he'd done it with mine, and I'd been in his a few times now, but we'd always been too rushed. I hadn't yet gotten the chance. The first thing my eyes fell on was the box from the garage -- the one he'd gotten me to help him get down on the night we'd met. It was still in the same place I'd put it -- about a month ago -- which I found odd.

"What's in this, anyway?"

"What?" He looked over lazily. "Oh, I don't know. Like some old primary school stuff, maybe."

"Why did you need it?"

He went silent for a second. "I'll tell you, but don't like... get mad or judge me."

"Okay..." I said tentatively.

"When I found you in the garage, I thought you were hot and..." He sighed. "I kind of... I just wanted you to hold the ladder, so I could be close to you and... maybe see if I noticed a response."

"Oh god, that was a move?" I laughed. "Shit. Had no idea."

"Yeah, it didn't really work. I couldn't read you. But I had a plan B."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah." He grinned. "The box was dusty, so I rubbed it on my shirt, so I'd have to change, and you'd see me shirtless. That worked, because I caught you staring."

"Wow."

"Yeah," he said sheepishly. "Thoughts?"

"Our whole relationship is a lie." I arched an eyebrow.

"Oh good." He laughed softly. "You're fine with it."

"You're very good at thinking on your feet." I smiled, and then looked at the box. "I'm a little less impressed that I had to lug that heavy thing here for no damn reason, though."