Hearts of Azure (boyxboy)

Part Four

“Hurry up, dude!” Trace yelled back into the locker room after practice.

He was holding the heavy, dark brown door open by standing in the doorway. The official swim season and practices had started at the end of November, almost three weeks ago. Our first meet was last Friday and we won by roughly twenty points. Now that winter break had just started after school today, we wouldn’t have another meet until after the first of the year, but we’d still practice almost every day.

What I liked about swimming was that it was basically something you did all year round. I was always watching my diet during the swimming season--I cut way back on my sugar intake, and I tried to eat less greasy and fatty foods. During the summer and fall, though, I didn’t monitor it as much.

I also worked out at least once a week throughout the entire year. And whether it was swimming season or not, I swam at the gym’s pool three times a week. A lot of the time, Trace and Ascah would go with me. They were kind of my designated workout buddies. Every now and then a few guys from the team would join, but I could mostly count on my best friend and my older brother to be there for me.

I slammed my locker shut and picked up my bags. “Calm yourself, man,” I told Trace as I made my way towards him. I almost ran into Micah because he suddenly stepped back into my path when I was walking by. “Whoa, dude!”

Micah glanced at me, shutting his own locker. I kept walking and he grabbed his things following after me towards the exit. “Sorry, Elliot. Didn’t even see you.”

“No biggie,” I shrugged.

“It’s gonna be a biggie if you don’t hurry your ass up,” Trace grumbled from the door. “You gotta get me home like ASAP so my mom doesn’t freak.”

“Why can’t you drive yourself?” Micah asked him when we finally got through the door and out into the hall.

Trace sighed. “My car’s in the shop, it just randomly decided to stop working yesterday morning so Elliot’s been driving me around.”

We reached the end of the hall and Trace pushed open the door that allowed us to exit the building.

As Micah walked out, he said, “Well if Elliot can’t drive you and you need a ride, you can call me.”

“Sweet, bro. Thanks.”

When it was my turn to walk out of the door, I felt a rush of the cold winter air hit me right in the face. It smelled like snow and I cringed. I hated this time of the year when it came to weather. I preferred warmer temperatures and sunshine--or even a light rain or a thunderstorm. But blizzards were definitely not my thing.

I was preoccupied with getting outside when I heard Micah say, “Hey, what are you doing here?”

I snapped my head up to look through the darkening sky to see Will walking in our direction. I let out a huff of hot breath that caused the air to fog in a cloud in front of my face.

It had been a little while since I’d spent time with him. When the first quarter of the year ended a couple weeks ago, so did our Economics class we had together. I was also busy with swimming and homework most nights, so Will and I never really had much time or reason to talk to each other since our pot-infused kiss at his house.

After that night, we exchanged phone numbers, but so far neither of us had utilized them. It was like we were in an awkward standstill. We didn’t know what we were doing--if we were still friends, if we were more--it was complicated. But I still stayed up an extra hour most nights reminiscing about Will’s taste and his feel.

“You know we’re just leaving, right?” Micah asked his cousin.

“Yeah, I know,” Will said, stepping up onto the curb where the three of us were standing. He looked past Micah and Trace and his eyes landed on me. “I wanted to talk to Elliot for a couple minutes.”