stutter

10. - he knows

MARK

"So when will we meet with the kid whose house you're staying at?" asked my dad during dinner.

"Dunno," I shrugged. "When do you want to?" I honestly didn't care now that I was a hundred percent sure that I'll have a place to stay. 

"As soon as possible!" chimed in mom. "I've never met any of your school friends, this is so exciting!"

"You're overreacting. I have a bunch of friends."

"Do you?" I gave my dad an annoyed look. "Sorry, I guess that was rude."

"You guess?" Dad didn't answer, just continued eating his food. "I don't even know why you want to meet him so badly. I'm not eight anymore, I don't need your approval for my friends."

Okay, Rory wasn't my friend. We only talked about me staying over and I felt like if I'd started a conversation about something he wouldn't answer normally. It was quite irritating to be honest but I tried my best to ignore it. 

"It's not unreasonable to want to meet your friends," mom said softly. "And I want to thank their parents for allowing you to stay over."

I groaned, "Can you not? It's embarrassing."

"It'll be fine, don't worry! Just introduce us before we're going."

"Whatever."

The next day at school I saw Rory talking with someone. I went up to them casually, "Hi! Rory, can I get your number?" I asked. I hoped he talked better via texts. He froze for a second before nodding rapidly. 

"Um, sure! Or like do you want to put yours in mine? Or-"

"Yeah that'll be cool," I spoke before he could continue. I felt the third person's eyes on us as Rory unlocked his phone with shaky hands. I quickly saved my number in his.

"Mark you haven't sat with us nowadays, everything's good?" asked the guy whose name I didn't know. Was he on the hockey team too? Fuck, I forgot his name. Awkward.

"Yeah. Sorry," I answered, not sure what I was apologizing for.

"Don't be. We'll wait for you," he sang and went back to talking with Rory.

. . .

RORY

"So you're freaking out because...?" Adam asked as we were walking to lunch. 

"I have his number!" I said, grinning so wide it hurt. Adam just shook his head but didn't say anything. "This is huge."

"You'll finally make a move on a kid or what?" After I shot him a dirty look, "What? You need to do it sometime. When will he be over yours anyways?"

"Uh, in like two weeks I guess. He didn't say an exact date," I shrugged.

We stopped talking as we sat down at our usual spot. We were the last ones to arrive, thanks to my rumbling about how I had Mark's number. I tried hard not to smile at the thought but based on Adam's eye roll I was doing a bad job. After a few minutes I noticed that barely anybody talked around me, and most of the team stared at me.

"What?" I asked with my mouth full.

"So you and this crush of yours..." started Oliver which made me stop eating completely. I forgot that I vented to them about Mark. I felt my face getting hotter as I carefully glanced at Mark. He looked stunned. 

"Not up for discussion," I mumbled which earned a groan from the others except Mike and Adam. Mike stared at me with a weird expression on his face. 

"Come on. You never talked about anyone romantically. You can't blame us for being curious." 

I slowly pushed away my food. The thought of talking about my crush while the said crush was sitting almost next to me made me nauseous.

"Is she hot?" questions like this flew at me and I dodged most of them pretty smoothly in my opinion but I kept getting distracted with Mark. He didn't say anything but I've never seen him being interested in one of our conversation like this before. Why did he care so much about this topic specifically?

What if he was into me too but now all my chances are gone because he thought that I was into a girl? What if he assumed that I was straight? What if-

"Okay enough," Mike spoke for the first time since we sat down. "Honestly, who cares?"

"You literally do. You texted me about-"

"I don't," he cut off Paul. Most of us looked at him weirdly because he was way too curious for his own good. He started to talk about something else, distracting the others from me.

"The fuck," Adam whispered to me in disbelief. I just shrugged, happy that he saved me.

After classes we went to practice where we did played better. Coach Morgan even praised me for being a good captain who can keep the team together, which earned me a few eye rolls and hit on the shoulders. I just stuck my tongue out to them. 

When practice was over I noticed Mike glancing at me in the locker room. I shot him a questioning look but he just shook his head as an answer. Even though Mike acted like he didn't have anything to say, I stayed behind to talk to him.

"Is everything alright?" I asked. He was uncharacteristically quiet. "You know you can talk to me about whatever, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, all's cool, I just..." Mike looked kind of uncomfortable. "I don't wanna make assumptions, uh, I just noticed that... You never said that you liked a girl...?" he stated but it rather sounded like a question. I was stunned for a few seconds, tried my best to not show my shaking hands.

"What?" I said with a nervous laugh. 

"You don't need to tell me anything dude. Really," Mike sounded rather awkward. "Just know that you're my bro whatever you... do, I guess." He didn't wait for my answer, just patted my shoulder and left the room. 

Oh my fucking god, he knows. He so knows. 

God knows how long did I stayed there, frozen when I decided to go to Adam's. I basically ran there. When he opened the door I was sweaty.

"Uh-"

"He knows," I cut him off. "Mike fucking knows that I'm gay and he..."

"Okay, okay, it's alright," he reacted and invited me in. I was still spiraling as we went to his room. "I think he knows for a while now. It's okay."

"What do you mean?!" 

"You aren't subtle about your feeling dude. Your heart eyes around Mark are pretty obvious. Also the way you glanced at him during lunch after almost every question... Yeah, the others are just oblivious morons."

"Why didn't you say anything?" I cried. 

"I tried," he shrugged. "I kept pinching you but you didn't notice. It's fine I promise. You know Mike. He has a big mouth but would never do anything against you."

His words somewhat calmed me down but still. Mike knew and it made me uncomfortable. It made me feel exposed.

"Just kill me already."

a/n: happy holidays!!