Love's No Accident | Jojian

XII

George practically ran down the stairs to get the door for Ian, his keys jangling in his pocket as he kept the rose out of sight, loosely tucked in the back of his jeans, and opened the door. Ian immediately hugged the shorter boy, smiling as he did so. "Get on your converse." He said with a laugh, lifting a leg to show the all black vans on his feet.

Joji managed to hide the rose while he put on (and didn't tie) his sneakers. He waited until he closed and locked the door to hand the gorgeous flower to Ian. "I thought I might get you something to match a tenth of your beauty." He flirted, making his friend/crush's face turn a shade of pink and grin practically ear to ear.

"Why are you so fucking sweet?" Ian asked rhetorically with a happy laugh, Joji glad to see they were taking his old car, and only them. Ian must've realized the Asian's thoughts, launching into a short explanation. "He said I didn't have to be there the WHOLE time, so I'm going an hour or so later than him."

Joji nodded, opening the passanger car door and swiftly sliding into the car, oddly synced with Ian. "Now, all we're gonna need is FBI sunglasses." The taller boy joked as George lit a cig, offering Ian one.

"I don't usually smoke while driving, thanks though." He responded, starting it up and driving quickly. "And my car better not smell like tobacco or you'll be cleaning the fuck out of it." George laughed at the empty threat, admiring Ian's rather gorgeous face.

"Thanks again for joining me Joj. This party usually makes me wanna fuckin kill myself, but my dad wants me to go anyways. Says it's good for me to get a taste of social events or whatever." Ian rolled his eyes as he talked, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. "I swear, I'm going to spend my entire career surrounded by computers and mechanics so I don't have to socialize."

"Do you live with your mom, too?" Joji asked, a question which had been on his mind for quite a while, since she was never mentioned.

"Nope. My dad and I moved away from her when I was four, due to quite a myriad of issues." Ian responded, Joji deciding it was probably a topic best left for another time.

Ian couldn't help but look at Joji as he took a long drag from his cigarette. "You smoke too much." He commented, definitely not paying much attention to the road.

"You gay too much." George responded quickly, looking for a comeback yet not succeeding. Ian cracked up laughing at that, nearly crashing the car in doing so.

As his signature music played in the background, Ian lightly placed his right hand on Joji's knee, still staring ahead. George rather liked the contact.

"How long are we planning on staying there?" George asked, sitting with arms crossed and slouching a bit.

"Only an hour or so, hopefully. I'm gonna have you to talk to though, so this night won't be too unbearable." Ian explained, absentmindedly tapping his index finger on both his steering wheel and Joji's knee simultaneously.

"You're nervous." George stated, having noticed a long while ago Ian had certain habits when he was nervous, such as tapping his fingers and reorganizing everything. (And his car had seemed considerably orderly at the moment.)

Ian laughed, although it was obviously fake. "What would I have to be nervous about?" Ian said with mock confidence, even though he should've known he wasn't gonna fool George.

"I'm not sure, you should tell me, why are you nervous?" Joji asked sincerely, Ian making a point to stop drumming his fingers and to keep a straight face. "Ian, talk to me, what's up? Is something going to happen tonight?"

Ian gritted his teeth, tightly gripping the steering wheel with his left hand but keeping his right one loose. "A surprise of sorts." Was Ian's only response, vague to a point where it would definitely annoy George all night.

He kept bugging Ian to say something about it, but he refused, seemingly amused by it. "I'll suck your dick if you tell me." Joji offered, looking Ian dead in the eye with complete seriousness. And he was being serious at that point, although Ian was unfortunately unable to accept the offer because he pulled over into the parking lot of a restaurant George vaguely recognized from visiting it a few times with his parents.

"So... my dad has weird co-workers. Especially his friends, they're like, obsessed with me finding a new boyfriend, so don't mind them." Ian instructed Joji before he turned off the car and got out, opening George's door for him. He normally protested about it, although the both of them knew that George secretly loved Ian doing the sweet yet small gesture.

"You should meet my parents' coworkers. I think the larger the income, the weirder the people. Like seriously. I had a guy talk to me about the scent of model trains for fifteen minutes straight until his wife found him." George responded with a laugh.

He held open the door to the restaurant for Ian, bowing mockingly as he did so. Upon seeing the rather large crowd inside, his hand immediately found Ian's, holding onto him tightly. "Don't worry Joj. I have my designated introvert space, barely anybody's over there. I used to make my dad bring me food from the tables but he stopped letting me do that."

"What's your dad's job anyways? I never got the chance to ask." George questioned, allowing Ian to lead him through the rather crowded restaurant. It was fairly nice indoors, having  a theme of mainly white and dark blue.

"Budget manager at some big clothing company. Surprisingly though, he doesn't make a whole lot, despite totally fuckin killing it at his job." Ian answered, stopping by a table and briefly letting go of Joji's hand. "Hey dad, this is George." Ian introduced his friend to the man who showed a surprisingly small amount of resemblance to Ian, despite the glasses, height and jawline.

"Pleasure to meet you, George." Ian's father said, sticking out a hand to shake it. Joji followed suit, also gave the man a small smile, seeing no need to be insanely formal.

"The same to you, Mr. Carter." George responded, resuming a stance that was unintentionally close to Ian, leaving close to zero space between the two.

"Better not let my boys catch you and George together, I'll never hear the end of it. I assume that neither of you are going to be socializing much, considering you're hanging out with Ian, the definition of introverted loser." His dad joked, winking at Ian.

"Most definitely not. We're staying secluded as much as possible, people are gross. Especially mathematicians, no offense dad. Bye, don't bother to come get me when food's here." Ian stated, once again lacing his fingers with Joji's. "I'm not lying by the way Joj. We're going to make an effort to avoid as much human conversation as possible, got it?"

Joji couldn't help but laugh at how serious Ian was being about all of this. "It's social interaction Ian, not end of the world, my scientific team hasn't completed all of its research yet for that." Ian chuckled at George's snarky humour, which he absolutely adored.

"Thought you were working on total annihilation of our dearly beloved universe?" Ian asked as he practically dragged George through the crowd.

"Can't a man have a side project?" Was all Joji said as Ian had him sit down at a two sweated table with, as promised, a considerably less amount of people surrounding it. "If you don't socialize at all, how come your dad still has you come?" George asked, which was only answered with a shrug from Ian.

And so the pair spent the next hour and a half talking, joking, and even subtly flirting freely. And just as Ian anticipated, it wasn't very bad at all. But there was more to come.