Chapter Twenty-Five
Noah
The piercing shriek of the first bell echoed in my ears as I pottered into my lab with an enormous mug of tea in hand, ready to register my form for the first time this term.
Because it was Halloween, I had dutifully dug out the old lab coat I’d smeared with fake blood several years ago as a fun but gentle way to scare my students.
I’d also come in early to place a few decorations that wouldn’t get in the way or be a hazard around the lab classroom, which meant there was a very large, purple, glittery spider sitting on my front bench with a top hat on and several fake pumpkins on the sides since none of my classes had practicals today.
I’d also taped some Halloween bunting to the front.
It was a cursory effort, but it would do.
“Morning, all,” I said as I looked around the motley collection of teenagers sitting in front of me.
They were in year ten, which meant they were a raging mix of stubborn, hormonal fourteen-and-fifteen-year-olds, who largely didn’t think I knew very much and thought they knew everything.
But when they weren’t being argumentative, they were a genuinely interesting and funny group, who’d been astounded I actually knew most of their pop culture references.
Apparently, at least half of them hadn’t expected me to know what a meme was, despite the fact I was barely twelve years older than most of them.
“Morning, sir,” came the semi-enthusiastic response.
Probably because I was also holding a large tub of Cadbury Heroes in the other hand, which they’d already twigged was for them.
Which it was because it was both Halloween and their first day back, and all of us were going to need chocolate to survive.
“Nice coat, sir,” said Jack Harris, who had a reputation for being a bit of a troublemaker but mostly just reminded me of Lane. He sat on one of the desks at the back, surrounded by his friends.
“Thanks.”
“What did you cover it in?”
“The blood of year tens who put their feet on my desks,” I said deadpan as I put my tea down and gave him a pointed look. A couple of people laughed, and Jack hopped down. “Right, let’s make this as painless as possible, then you can all have some chocolate and go to wherever you’re going next.”
“English,” added another voice. “We’ve got more Shakespeare.” There was a collective groan.
“How fun,” I said with a wry smile. “Don’t worry, if you come back here at lunchtime, I’ll let you watch Frankenstein or something.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, it’s raining, so you can hang out here,” I said. Mostly they were supposed to be outside at lunchtime, but most of the teachers kept the classrooms open for our forms to come and hang out since they weren’t allowed to leave the school premises, and there wasn’t much outdoor shelter.
The school only had about nine hundred students aged eleven to eighteen, so it wasn’t like we had to do split lunch shifts or didn’t have room for them to be indoors.
Besides, I’d rather they hung out here than annoy the elderly librarian, Mr. Finch, or get caught making out in the music rooms again.
“I’ll find a classic monster movie for you.
It won’t be gory or anything, but it’ll be fun. ”
“Cheers, sir,” Jack said with a grin. “Can we have some chocolate now?”
“Two minutes,” I said. “Let me do the register first, or Mrs. Healey will be down here to lecture me.” Mrs. Healey was the head administrator, and both teachers and students lived in fear of her grumbling and her endless talks about punctuality and efficiency.
Jack winced, then threw me a mock salute. “All right, sir, carry on.”
I chuckled and shook my head, opening the school tablet and pulling up the registration list.
Despite my initial grumbling, the day turned out better than I’d expected, especially when virtually all my form had turned up at lunch, armed with some Halloween cookies from the canteen, to watch as much of a film as we could squeeze in.
They’d had a choice between the Hammer Horror versions of Frankenstein or Dracula, and while Dracula had won, it had been very close, and there had been a lot of vehement disapproval, so I’d promised them that if they behaved and I didn’t hear any complaints about their behaviour, I’d make it a regular thing.
There was already a heated discussion going on about what they wanted to watch after that and whether it was too early to start Christmas movies.
I’d just chuckled to myself and made a mental note to dig out more classics for them.
My last class of the day were my year elevens, who were already wading towards their GCSE exams with grim resignation, but I’d tried to make their lesson fun by spending the last twenty minutes talking about whether Frankenstein would ever work in real life.
Afterwards, I spent a few minutes packing up the stuff I needed to take home for marking before leaving for the day.
Hareford Grammar wasn’t too far from the centre of town, and it was only a twenty-minute walk back to my flat.
It was one I made most days, unless I had a ton of books to bring home, but I still wasn’t used to the hills.
But as I’d had a lot of work to bring from home that morning, I’d driven to work in the old car I’d bought right after university. I only needed it occasionally, and it did make things so much easier, even if trying to find a parking spot on our street could be a nightmare.
The earlier drizzle had let up by the time I left, although it was virtually dark by the time I made it home.
Which was probably why I didn’t notice Spencer standing outside, wrapped in a coat and holding a white cake box, until I almost walked into him.
“Hey,” I said. “I didn’t know you were waiting.”
“You’re fine,” he said, leaning over to kiss me. “I just wanted to bring you something for your film night.” He lifted up the box and grinned. “And would it be weird to say that I wanted to see you again? Even though I literally just saw you yesterday.”
“It’s not weird. I missed you today. Being back at school was strange.” I pulled my keys out of my pocket and unlocked the building’s front door. “I think it’s because we’ve just existed in this bubble for a week, and now I have to go back to work.”
“How was it?” Spencer asked as he followed me up the stairs to the flat. “Did you set anything on fire?”
I chuckled. “Sadly not. But I did get to make a pig’s foot wave at my year sevens, and I got a Halloween cookie from the canteen at lunchtime. They weren’t as good as yours, though. How was your day?”
“It was fine. Just did some baking for the next few days, went to the gym… nothing special.”
We’d reached the flat, and as I let us in, I was filled with this strange feeling of future familiarity.
Like I could see us doing this on a regular basis—meeting outside, walking in together, and talking about our days or making plans for the evening or the weekend.
Doing normal, everyday things together and building a life with each other.
Both Spencer and I had admitted we were experiencing a rapid onset of feelings for each other, but neither of us seemed to view this as just some brief infatuation that would burn itself out in a few weeks.
There was a weight of certainty to my emotions I’d never experienced before, a feeling of rightness like something had clicked inside me.
I’d met people who’d said they’d known, right from the first moment they met their partner, that they were the one.
Someone I knew had said she’d known the first moment she saw her husband, before he’d even said anything, that he was the one she was going to marry, and they were still together nearly twenty years later.
And now I was starting to understand what those people had meant when they said they just knew.
I didn’t know how to explain it, but all I could think of was that as sure as I knew lightning strikes produced ozone or copper flames were blueish-green, I was sure Spencer and I had a future together.
“How’s your ankle today?” I asked, trying not to give away the fact that I’d just casually realised how much all this meant to me. “Is it sore from yesterday?”
“No, not really.” Spencer sounded surprised as if he hadn’t expected his body to react as well as it sounded like it had. “I’m a little sore all over, but it’s probably just from running across the sand.”
“That and picking me up to stop me scoring.”
“I just wanted a kiss,” Spencer said innocently.
“Yeah, right,” I said, putting my stuff down, then walking over to take the box out of his hands, giving him a kiss over the top. “Can I open this?”
“Of course. You’re not just supposed to look at it.”
I shook my head and grinned before carefully teasing the edge of the box up with one hand. Inside were six perfect ghost cupcakes, each with different expressions piped in chocolate across the fluffy marshmallow icing. “Oh, Spencer, they’re amazing. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said. “I thought you and Alex might like them.”
“You really are the sweetest,” I said, sliding the box onto the edge of the table before drawing him into a hug and kissing him softly. “I don’t deserve you.”
“It’s just cupcakes.”
“It’s the thought, though,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”
A pink tint flared across Spencer’s nose, and he shrugged. “I just thought you might like them,” he said again like he really didn’t have any idea why I appreciated this as much as I did. “Since you had a busy day and everything.”
Maybe my bar for relationships was really that low, but showing up with a box of homemade cupcakes just because he thought I’d like them really wasn’t something most men would do. But Spencer seemed to think it was normal. How on earth had he still been single?
“Do you want to stay for a bit?” I asked. “Maybe have some dinner?”
Spencer glanced back at the door. “I don’t want to intrude. This is your thing with Alex.”
“You can at least stay for a drink,” I said. “Even if it’s just a cup of tea.”
“Tea sounds great actually.”
“Okay, then tea it is.”
I made us some tea, and by the time Alex came back, the pair of us were sitting on the sofa with two empty mugs and two cupcake wrappers after I’d persuaded Spencer he could have one of mine.
“Hey,” Alex said, looking at the pair of us as he kicked off his shoes and stretched. “How was school?”
“Not as bad as it could have been. Got to freak out some year sevens.”
“Cool.” He glanced at Spencer. “You staying for the film?”
“Nah, it’s fine. I don’t want to intrude,” Spencer said, standing up, but Alex just waved a hand at him.
“It’s fine. Sit down. I’m going to get changed and order pizza. You okay with spicy pepperoni and barbecue chicken? I’ll get some garlic bread too.”
“Er, yeah,” Spencer said, looking at me to see if he was really allowed to stay. “That sounds great.”
“Cool,” Alex said and headed for the door. “Noah, do you want to find the film and get it set up? I’ll be back in a minute.”
I watched him go, a smile playing about my lips. Spencer was looking back and forth between me and the door his brother had disappeared through.
“I don’t get it,” Spencer said quietly. “I don’t want to intrude, and he said he didn’t want us to be gross in front of him. But then he does that.”
“That’s Alex for you. It means he wants you to stay. That’s the most open invitation you’ll ever get.” I grinned and handed him the Blu-ray I’d grabbed off the shelf earlier. “You stick this in. I’m going to throw some joggers on.”
“Okay,” Spencer said, still not sounding convinced as I kissed him and followed Alex.
Alex’s bedroom door was ajar, but I still knocked and waited before sticking my head around it.
Alex was sitting on the edge of the bed in his boxers, scrolling through his phone.
His room, as per usual, was a mess, but Alex said he always knew where everything was, so I didn’t question it.
He was fastidious about the rest of the flat, especially the kitchen, but his room was the one place you could trust to look like it had been hit by a hurricane.
“Hey,” I said, “are you sure about Spencer staying? He doesn’t want to butt into our evening together.”
“Why would I mind? He’s my brother and your boyfriend.”
“I know, but…” I walked over and sat on the bed next to him. “You’re still my best friend, and I don’t want us to lose what we have because I’m dating Spencer.”
“That’s sweet,” Alex said. “But it’s also complete bollocks. I mean, I know I’ll still be your best mate, but things are going to change between us. They were always going to when one of us got a serious boyfriend.”
“I… I mean, it’s only been a couple of weeks…”
Alex chuckled and looked at me, his grey eyes soft for once.
Alex might come off as a bastard sometimes, but he was a squishy, soft one at heart.
One day, I hoped he’d find someone who could worm their way inside the walls he’d built over the years and flatten them because if there was anyone who deserved to be loved, it was Alex.
People had asked us a lot over the years if we’d end up together, but the truth was neither of us could be the person the other needed. We were more like brothers than anything else, and while I loved Alex with all my heart, I’d never be in love with him. And I knew he’d say the same about me.
“Come on,” Alex said. “It’s obvious when I look at either of you. This might be new, but it’s not some fast and dirty hook-up. It’s something. I mean, you finally got my brother to admit he likes men, which I never thought would happen.”
“You knew?”
Alex shrugged. “I had a hunch. He spent so much time watching fan vids of footballers as a teenager—the sort of ones where they’re all like shirtless and everything.
I was just waiting for him to figure it out.
Didn’t think it would take this fucking long to be honest. That’s Spencer, though.
” He shook his head fondly. For all their bickering, I knew Alex loved his brother.
He wouldn’t have worked with him for so long otherwise.
“Anyway, that’s not my point. I don’t think Spencer would’ve done that for just anyone, and you…
you’ve always had a crush on him, but I’ve seen you two together when you think nobody is looking.
There’s just something there. Call it another hunch.
If you’re not still together in like two years, I’ll…
I don’t know, get a tattoo or something. ”
“Seriously? A tattoo?”
“Yeah.” He grinned. “Tell you what, if you two don’t get married or end up in an equally serious relationship, I’ll get a tattoo, and you can choose the design. And if you do, then you have to get one. Chosen by me.”
I snorted. “Wait, are we betting on my potential heartbreak?”
“If you want to look at it like that,” Alex said. “But I think we’re betting on you being happy for once.”
“Fine,” I said, holding out my hand so we could swear on it. “But I hope you’re right.”
Alex gripped my hand and grinned slyly. “Come on, when have I ever been wrong?”