Best Friends (BxB)

New Friends

Chapter Six: Age Fifteen New Friends

Freshman year at the high school was ... not horrible. The school was a little further away than their immediate neighborhood. So every morning, rain or shine, snow or dry, they met up at Noah's house and waited for the trundling yellow school bus, which was probably older than their parents. They were lucky to have it, because there was grumbling already this year, that due to budget cuts, bus service was probably on its way out.

The high school had two feeder middle schools, so there were lots of new kids, new faces. The area surrounding Mount Shasta was almost a perfect opposite of San Francisco. 

That city was small geographically with a huge urban population, a coastal town through and through. Jamie remembered there were almost no trees in the neighborhoods and only Golden Gate Park as a large, open space. 

Mount Shasta was huge and sprawling, but with a tiny population. Trees outnumbered people ten to one. No ocean but towering mountains and creeks, waterfalls and wide open blue skies unhindered by any buildings taller than two stories. Their middle school had maybe two hundred kids. Their new high school, maybe closer to three fifty.

Jamie and Noah, predictably, hung together, with Joey, a strange third. Jamie had grown to not hate Noah's other close friend, but it was an exaggeration to say that he really liked him. Tolerate was a better word. Joey didn't bend over backward to make buddy buddy with Jamie either. He did resent, at least a little, the time Noah devoted to Jamie; definitely disliked the fact that no matter what plans they made, if Jamie needed Noah, he would instantly drop everything. But they ate lunch together at least for the first month or so, did homework at each other's houses, that kind of thing.

Around October though, things changed.

===

Jamie leaned back against the locker, Noah standing bare inches from him. Personal space was almost nonexistent.  Joey watched the ongoing kdrama with a bored, seen it all expression.

"I'm going to suck," Noah moaned, pushing his body flush against Jamie's, his face in the crook of the blonde boy's neck.

Jamie put his hands up into Noah's hair, holding him closer, secretly relishing the weight of the other boy. "No, you won't. You're going to be amazing. Right Joey, he's amazing." He glanced to the side at the other basketball player, who'd taken out his cell to check the time.

"Yup, totally amazing." Joey drawled. "And we're going to be totally late if you don't kiss your boyfriend goodbye and get changed. Try outs are in like ten minutes."

"Fuck you," Jamie said blandly, his constant reply to Joey's teasing about he and Noah's relationship. He pushed his best friend upright. "Come on, get it together." He pinched Noah's cheek. Hard. "You practiced all summer. You were MVP in eighth grade. You're going to make the team. Come on. You know you will. I'm sorry I can't come. But you know this is important to me."

"Maybe I shouldn't try out. Maybe I should just come with you," Noah said, making Joey groan in frustration.

"We talked about this. It's my thing, ok. Basketball is your thing. We can have different things."

"I want a kiss goodbye, for good luck," Noah murmured, keeping it quiet between them.

Jamie huffed. "We talked about this too. I don't think PDA is a good idea. Everyone's going to misunderstand." And he was already doing damage control. People constantly approached him, eyes glittering and avid, asking him if he and Noah were together. He always set them straight, and said they were just friends, but it was hard to prove when Noah sometimes lay with his head in Jamie's lap or pulled Jamie to sit between his legs at lunch.