palm trees on the beach

science partners (clay & justin)

     needless to say, clay was fucked. after everything that happened last year, he'd thought that life would've given him a break. however, life just took clay's feet and shoved them in his mouth.

     "alright class, today's lesson will be about counting the protons and neutrons in any element. open your textbooks to-" the door opened, interrupting the teacher's opening lecture. "you're late, mr foley. take a sit next to mr jensen." justin lazily tossed his tardy pass onto the teacher's desk and slumped his way to the seat. as the player he is, many of the girls in the class threw a smile or a wave to him in which he responded with his signature smirk. he gave a look of disgust when he reached his seat next to clay. clay never got why justin never liked him, but always defended himself and put his walls up.

     their teacher continued on and on and the two boys, much as the majority of the class, did everything but pay attention. jensen was slowly falling asleep until he felt a paper ball reach his face. before he could process what had just happened, another one got him square in the forehead. clay looked over to see a laughing justin next to him. he simply rolled his eyes before the teacher made a loud bang on the desk.

     "alright, i hope you guys have been paying attention this quarter as this lesson was the last one before your quarter final. group up with your desk partner and create a project based on what we've learned so far. this will be due in two weeks' friday."

     the teacher had kept explaining the project but all clay and justin could think about was spending time with the other, which neither of them wanted.

     the bell rang and justin ran out of the room before clay could even get a word out. he let out a huge sigh of disallow before he made his way to lunch. clay sat at his usual table outside under the apple tree where he picked his lunch and read whatever book he found from the library. he was about to take a bite when he suddenly felt air where his apple was supposed to be.

     "hey what gives?" he whined. justin was chewing loudly across from him, already halfway through the apple. "im here to tell you how to do our project." clay's eyes opened wide to this statement and he shook his head in denial. "fuck off, foley." "hey! no need for that potty mouth, jensen. you really need to learn how to relax more." clay was offended, but he chose not to go down that road.

     "how about we do the project the normal way? you know, together? maybe you could learn something for once." clay felt a rush of confidence that made him invincible. justin just his time to answer as he contemplated wether or not to toss his apple core at clay's face. "or you could do all the work and i promise not to annoy you 24/7." clay took him up on his tease. "how about i don't do it at all and you fail? i know for a fact you're not passing and ill pass with a low b at worst." clay crossed his arms as if to say 'checkmate'. justin grunted a 'fine' and walked off. clay almost smiled at what just happened. in fact, a blush ran across his face as he thought about how he and justin foley had a full conversation in a long time.

     "your house is huge." justin looked all around clay's house before walking deeper into the house. clay shut his door before chuckling, "its not all what it looks to be, its alright." justin sat down at the dining room table, casually kicking his feet up and going straight for his phone. clay walked over with their textbooks as his kicked justin's feet off and took his seat. "can we just get this over with already? the faster we finish, the less time we have to spend together." clay chose to ignore justin's comment. justin continued to goof off and play around, anything to not to do work. clay was getting tired and finally spoke up.

     "would it kill you to actually do some work for once?" justin looked up from what he was doing and smirked. "would it kill you to take that stick out of your ass for once?" "i thought you didn't like curse words." justin laughed. "why don't you try letting loose for once?" this is due in two weeks, we have time" clay shook his head to disagree with what justin stated. justin would've gone on about how he could think of ten ways to kill time but from the back of his mind all he could hear was 'you need to do this project, its a way to spend time with clay.' clay looked from his work as he felt justin staring at him. "what?" "nothing much." foley prepared himself for what he was about to say next.

     "you know, if you weren't such a buzzkill sometimes, you'd be pretty cute."

    "i'm cute? if anything, i'm all that and a bag of chips." justin let out a huge cackle before returning back to earth. "so?" "so what?" justin took a deep breath as he readied himself again. " i just called you cute. why do you think that is ?"

     "i don't know, i assumed all assholes liked to make other people nervous." clay didn't wanna believe that justin would actually ever think of him that way. "besides, what about jessica ?" "what about her?" clay was surprised by justin's answer and was contemplating everything that just went down. it's something that even a xanax can't fix. "well, if you're into me, then why have you been kind of a dick to me lately? it's like, the exact opposite of what you're supposed to do." justin sighed in reaction to clay's question. he didn't know what to do but instead, he took clay's hand in his.

     "i know i've been a douche but it was part of my defense mechanism. i started growing these feelings for you a while back, right after everything had blown over. i even had alex and zach talk me down from a panic attack about the conversation i'm having right now. look, all i know is that these feelings aren't gonna go away for a long time so i decided to act on them. i like you, clay jensen." clay had first thought this was one of his jokes, but after hearing the torment he went through just thinking about it, he felt the reality of it all hit him. justin looked down and shed a tear as he took clay's silence as a way of saying that he didn't feel the same.

     clay placed all his money on justin and pulled him in for a kiss. justin didn't react at first, but slowly melted into clay's embrace. neither of the two could ever think that this moment would have happened in a million years. and yet here they are, lips locked in a kiss that would be the first of many.

     two weeks passed and the entirety of their class was waiting for the teacher to post their results on the board. justin was nervous and started to shake so much that clay felt it in their intertwined hands. he gave a reassuring squeeze to which justin used as an anchor and relaxed a little before watching their teacher walking away after posting the final grades. students walked away with either smiles on their faces or frowns that meant bad news. the two boys reached the front and found a bold 'a' next to their names. justin smiled so much it hurt, looking over at clay doing the same. justin gave clay a kiss on his forehead and walked themselves down the hallway. they both seemed to have the same thought process, on how they were so lucky to now call their lab partner, their boyfriend.

- thanks for reading <3 -