Stress Relief

To Flirt, or Not To Flirt

"You remember when we had to read Romeo and Juliet sophomore year?" Elijah balanced a pencil on his nose, bored out of his mind. Not even the "no wifi" game could appease him at this very moment.

After grabbing breakfast- Elijah didn't talk much from being so tired, they went about their normal routines for the day, but Elijah made sure to notify Chase that he'd be taking a nap instead of watching their afternoon practice. It did wonders, he felt alive again when he woke up to be greeted by his handsome face at his door.

From his peripheral, he saw that same handsome face look up from his spot sitting against his bed. "Yeah, why?"

"What if he wrote it based off of his own experience with love, and the person he likes is someone society doesn't see fit for him?"

From the way Chase's head tilted, he was clearly a perplexed by the question. "Are you asking if Shakespeare was gay?"

He thought for a moment after finally getting the weight of his pencil level on either end. "Yeah." Through it's angle was crooked, he still managed to balance it just fine.

Chase pondered aloud at the question. "Well...Horatio was pretty fruity with Hamlet."

"He literally tells him, "Goodnight, sweet prince."" He took the pencil off his nose and leaned back on his hands.  "Shakespeare himself would have to rise from the dead to tell me that wasn't queer-coded in order for me to believe it." Chase chuckled, continuing to type his paper.

"Antonio and Bassanio from The Merchant of Venice had something going on too." He pointed out. "It's heavily implied Antonio is in love with him, and what really sells it is how he lends him a huge loan and then willingly dies for him when Bassanio can't pay it back." He picked up the can of Ginger Ale sitting next to him, taking a sip. "He even ropes his wife into it."

"Damn, how much Shakespeare have you read?" Elijah smirked as Chase looked up with a shy smile.

"It's my guilty pleasure." He shrugged.

"Really, it's not football?" Elijah asked honestly.

Chase all but laughed. "No. I don't like football."

Elijah gasped and Chase smiled, no doubt amused by his shock. "No way."

"My parents were the ones who kept signing me up for it and I just never mentioned I didn't like it." He stopped working on his assignment for English and set his laptop aside. Resting his arms across one knee, he swirled his soda in thought. "Don't get me wrong, the guys are my best friends and I love them to death, and I like being part of a team, but football just isn't interesting."

"At least we can agree on that." Elijah didn't like football either, or any sort of sport. Nothing really piqued his interest enough to give it a shot apart from one time in middle school. "In middle school I played baseball for about a year, but that's about it for me."

That piqued Chase's interest. "Really? What made you quit?"

Embarrassment rose up his neck in itchy flares as he recalled probably the most embarrassing day of his life. "The first serious game we had there was a huge audience, and I got so nervous about them staring at me that I made my team lose." He remembered the argument his parents had that day when his mom complained about the waste of money they spent on his practices. "I quit after that. I had pretty bad stage fright from there on out."

Chase smiled, adjusting his hold of his can of Ginger Ale to the bottom and putting his hand on his chest. "To be or not to be-that is the question:"

Elijah scoffed. "Seriously Chase?"