Page 12 of Footlights and Forever

“Sorry, Mr. Dunne, just one thing.” I turned to see Austin with his hand in the air. “If there is any extra credit work I can do to catch up, then please assign it to me. I’m going to be going over to my buddy Dylan’s house tonight anyway to hang out, so it will give me something to do if I get bored.”

My brain struggled to catch up to the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions swirling around inside my head at the moment. A tempest consisting of white hot rage at his absolute fucking audacity of assuming that he can just Austin his way back into being my friend, the piercing sting of embarrassment at being called out in front of the rest of the class when I worked so hard at trying to make myself invisible, and a warmth in my chest at the realization that in his head, he probably believed he was doing a good and noble deed.

The rumor mill once more grinded its gears as the whispers moved from desk to desk.Did he just say he and Dylan are hanging out? Austin and Dylan? No fucking way girl. What the fuck is Austin doing hanging out with the nerd?

“Dylan?” I shook my head as the incredulous sound came from the teacher’s mouth.

“Yeah we are friends.” Austin looked genuinely confused at why people seemed to be having a hard time with the fact that he was voluntarily coming to hang out with me at my house. “I thought I would kill two birds with one stone.”

Lovely.

“Okay then.” Mr. Dunne clasped his hands together, nodding vigorously at Austin. “Weren’t you going to the bathroom Dylan?”

I stalked out of the room, vowing in that moment to take sweet revenge on my so-called friend.

Later that evening I lay on my bed facedown. My head lolled over the end of the bed, my arms stretched downwards, flipping the pages of some glossy trash magazine that I’d found on the coffee table in the living room. I assumed it was my sister’s, as the mere thought of my dad enquiring about the latest fall trends and how to get that matte look with oily skin didn’t bear thinking about.

“Dylan!” My dad yelled up the stairs. “Austin is here, shall I send him up?”

“Yeah,” I yelled back.Showtime.

The door to my room opened, and Austin poked his head around the corner. I might not have taken all eventualities into account. Austin came into the room dressed in a loose pair of shorts and his football jersey. The thin material clung to his stomach like a second skin. “Sorry man, I came straight from practice. I thought you wouldn’t mind if I took a quick shower here?”

A warm smile spread across his face as he found me perched on the end of the bed. He was opening his mouth to say hello as he registered the scene around me. Set up on poster boards around the room were various topics pertinent to this term’s Physics syllabus.

“Hey man,” he gulped, “what’s all this?”

“This is what you here for right?” I smiled innocently. “I have enough study material here to last you several sessions. I even have mock tests for you to take so we can see how well you retain what I’m tutoring you in.”

“Dylan, I….” He looked helplessly from board to board as if he might find the solution of how to get out of this situation on one of them.

“Shall we?” I gestured to the first board. His shoulders sagged in defeat as he moves towards the it.

For the next two hours I proceeded to take Austin on a magical mystery tour through the world of Physics for seniors. Actually, scratch that, I’d looked up some topics that wouldn’t be covered unless you took Physics as a major as a second year in college. Like a champ Austin tried his best to keep up as I regaled him with tales of the characters and properties of waves, geometrical optics and the mathematical properties of vectors.

“So vectors are something which have both magnitude and direction; I hear you cry, ‘but what type of things’?” I rubbed my chin between my index finger and thumb.

“Trust me man, that’s not what I’m crying about,” he groaned, his fingers rubbing against his temples. “You know you’re torturing me right?”

“I don’t think this can be classed as torture.” I cast my arm across the multitude of poster boards. “Do you realize how much effort I put into these?”

“I appreciate it.” Austin moved forward with the grace of a panther, his hands coming down to grip my wrists. “I honestly do, but if it hasn’t escaped your keen notice, I was done with tutoring about two weeks ago and I still come over here every other day doofus.”

“So you mean…”

“I mean I come over here because I really like spending time with my friend, and it really sucks to think that he thinks it was for any other reason than that. If I really needed tutoring that bad, I could have just hired a tutor you know?” He was right, the Ridge family were old money in our hometown. Austin’s mother was some kind of big wig within the state Republican Party, andhis dad was a pediatric surgeon at the local city hospital. He didn’t need my help really when it came down to it.

“Okay so maybe I did do this to torture you a little bit.” I squeezed my finger and thumb together in front of my face to emphasize my words.

“Duh,” he deadpanned.

“But we can totally get back to studying if it helps you though?” I offered innocently.

Austin flipped me the bird and jumped face first onto my bed. He mumbles something into my pillow, which he’d pushed into his face.

I sneaked a glimpse of his unbelievable sexy and round butt.

“Mmmmmmm.”

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