17. Happy

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Caspar Lee
"I can't believe we've only got 5 more days left." Niomi squealed excitedly.

"Yeah I know, I can't wait for Christmas! It's gonna be amazing!" Louise also squealed, equally as excitedly and I almost had to put my fingers in my ears to block out the high pitched-ness. I looked down at Joe, who looked just about as uncomfortable as I felt. He was looking over at Alfie, who was sat next to Zoe. She was smiling at her friends, but didn't look quite as ecstatic as them. I wondered why that was, but just assumed that it was because of her mum and tried to put it to the back of my mind. I hated thinking about how much pain the two of them must be in at this time of year.

I looked back down at Joe. He noticed my movement and peered up at me. I smiled warmly at him and he returned the smile, putting his arms around me and giving me a sideways hug.

"What was that for?" I asked quietly.

"Not sure; I just wanted to hug you." He softly muttered. I laughed through my nose.
"Can I kiss you?" I whispered as he pulled away from the hug.

"Why?" He whispered back.

"Not sure; I just want to kiss you." I mimicked. Joe giggled quietly and pecked me on the lips.

"I meant: why did you ask? Not that it matters." Joe laughed.

"Oh right." I replied. I playfully slumped my shoulders in fake annoyance, which caused him to giggle and I smiled to myself at how adorable he was.

"You guys are so cute, you make me sick." Tyler scoffed.

"Thanks!" Joe exclaimed, smiling brightly. He looked a bit strange.

"Why are you smiling like that?" I chuckled, looking down at him.

"I don't know. I'm just happy." Joe laughed. I shook my head and kissed him on the temple.

Zoe was smiling warmly at us. She looked so happy and emotional that I couldn't help but wonder if she was going to cry. She saw me looking at her and her smile grew. Then she mouthed something to me, it was easy to make out as it was only two words. She said: "thank you."

In return, I smiled at her and shook my head. She didn't have to thank me for helping Joe, she had to thank Joe for letting me help him. He was the one who was doing all the work, I was simply there as someone to fall back on.

I saw Tyler's face light up, and it wasn't hard to know that Troye was standing behind me. But what I didn't realise was that he wasn't alone. As Troye made his way around the table to his boyfriend, saw another person out of the corner of my eye and turned to face him. Connor stood anxiously next to the table, his hand interlocked with that of another boy.

"Hey guys, this is Oli. He's gonna sit with us if that's ok." Connor told us.

"Of course Bro, that's fine." Alfie smiled. Connor led the boy around the table and they say down. Everyone had gone silent since they had arrived. Even Tyler, who had neglected to suck the face off of his boyfriend as he usually did when Troye arrived, instead he stared at Oli and Connor with a smug grin on his face, similar to that with which he always looked at me and Joe.

"So, how is everyone?" Connor asked, nervously aware of everyone's eyes on him. I felt really bad for him, knowing how hard it was when everyone's attention was on you. I took pity on him and answered, seeing as no one else was going to.

"I think we're good Con, how are you?" I asked, laughing slightly at the awkward small talk.

"I'm alright." Connor replied.

"Great." I said. Everyone was silent for about a minute. You could feel the awkward tension in the air. It was so thick and intense you could probably slice through it with a knife.

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