Above The World (BoyxBoy)

Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

I ended up spending the night at Aurora's house. Her parents didn't mind once they found out that I was gay. I wasn't sure if my parents knew I was gay. I mean, there were obvious signs, but we had never talked about it. I'm sure they would be cool though. They weren't like crazy religious or anything like that. Either way, they didn't make a big deal about me sleeping at Aurora's house.

Brooke came over too! We mostly watched movies and ate junk food. Bliss! We pulled an all nighter since it was a Friday night and we didn't have to go to school the next day. I hadn't had a night like that since I left Cali. It was nice. It definitely kept me from thinking about too much.

The next morning I went home and slept until like five in the afternoon, until Mom woke me up.

"Are you gonna sleep the day away?" She asked.

"If that's okay," I laughed.

"No sir, it's not. We have company coming over."

"What company? You and dad don't have friends." I joked.

"Our neighbors. The Cova...cova..." Mom stuttered with the name, but I knew exactly what she was going to say.

"Covarrubias," I said.

"Yes! Your dad works with Mr. Covarrubias. You know them?"

"I'm friends with," I paused, "his son goes to my school."

"Well this should be nice," Mom smiled.

If only she knew the half of it. My heart started racing. Gabriel in my house? Why mom?

I sat in my room debating whether or not I was going to jump out of my bedroom window and bail. It was tempting, but what kind of coward would I look like then? I needed to show Gabriel that I couldn't care less about him. Even though that wasn't true at all. I cared about him more than he could possibly know. But he needed to believe that he was the last thing on my mind.

I got dressed in a nice shirt and pressed jeans. I brushed my hair a bit and sprayed a little cologne. 7 o'clock rolled around and Gabriel and his dad weren't at our house yet. Maybe they wouldn't show up. As soon as I got my hopes up for them to not be there the doorbell rang. Damnit!

Mom went to the door after carefully checking herself in the mirror. She was big on first impressions. She opened the door and standing there was Gabriel and his dad with a dish. I couldn't tell what it was. Mom invited them in and Dad introduced everyone.

"Bill, this is my wife Carol, my daughter Amanda, and my son Clay."

Gabriel's dad hugged Mom and handed her the dish. It was macaroni and cheese, Amanda's favorite! He came over to give me a handshake. He smelled like alcohol. Crap! I remembered Gabriel telling me about his dad's drinking problem. I'm sure my parents smelled it, but they were probably the least judgemental people on the planet so I'm sure neither one of them was going to say anything about it.

"Nice to meet you," he said with a smile, "Tim has told me a lot of cool things about you all. This is my son Gabriel."

Gabriel gave an awkward wave to everyone but didn't really look my way. His dad had obviously been drinking but he seemed nice enough. He wasn't sloppy drunk like Gabriel had described before, so that was a plus! We made our way into our freshly painted dining room. It had had just enough time to dry and Mom was excited to finally be able to use it. The adults made small talk and Amanda chimed in sometimes with her random thoughts. They thought it was cute. I just thought it was annoying. Gabriel sat silently, and so did I. I would catch him glance over at me from time to time, but I could see he was trying his hardest not to look at me. Mom poured the adults a glass of wine. Could she not see that Mr. Covarrubias should obviously not be drinking?