AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, okay! I know I'm so behind on updating "Brian", "Kevin", "Eden" and "Another Journey". But I had a daydream about this story and it wouldn't let go! Please r/r and let me know what you think!
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Adam and his friends talked excitedly at their desks in their new classroom. They were in the fourth grade now and though they were still in elementary school, this year promised to be more interesting than the others. For one thing, they would actually start learning fractions in math class. No more of those silly times tables to memorize. Adam loved math and science and hoped that now he could actually learn something interesting for a change. Waiting for his classmates to catch up was frustrating. His father was a fairly renowned paleontologist and his mom taught advanced calculus in high school, so he was already ahead of his peers. But when they'd tried to convince him to skip a grade so he could get more challenging work, he balked. Leave Ted and David? No way! Adam, Ted and David had been best friends since kindergarten. Though they'd begun fighting that morning of the first day, they'd become best friends by snack time and had been ever since.
Adam sported short chestnut brown hair and chocolate brown eyes. He was taller than most of his friends by at least two inches and was thin and wiry. David was almost as tall as Adam with a lean but fairly solid frame. He had platinum blonde hair and the bluest eyes Adam had ever seen. Ted had light brown hair with green eyes and was short and chubby, but no one dared call him that. Adam and David would take down anyone who did.
The three friends stopped their conversation and looked up when a small, unfamiliar, scrawny black-haired boy entered the room and looked around nervously. His piercing silver eyes peered out at the world through a set of glasses. His clothes looked worn and faded. Adam could sense the kid's fear a mile away. Suddenly, the boy looked his way and shyly walked over to the group of desks they were sitting at.
"May I sit here?" he asked softly, still maintaining eye contact with Adam, who shrugged.
The boy pulled out the chair to the desk and began to sit down.
"What's your name, new kid?" David asked flatly, drawing away the silver gaze.
"Gavin."
"Gavin," David snorted. "A dorky name for a dorkier guy."
He kicked the chair out from under Gavin just as he was about to connect with it, causing the smaller boy to fall flat on his bottom. He looked up at David in shock then his eyes slid to Adam. Much as he felt bad for the kid, he just shrugged and smirked. A sheen of wetness glazed over Gavin's eyes as he picked himself up and stumbled away. David and Ted laughed loudly as he went, but Adam just kept his smirk in place. David was an ass, but he was his friend.
Adam watched Gavin repeat the same request to another group of kids not far off. At first, it looked like the result would be the same. But Suzie Johnson looked over at Adam's group with a scowl, obviously having witnessed the debacle. She gestured to the desk next to hers and Gavin sat down timidly. She gave Adam another baleful look before taking her own seat.
"Well that does it," David sighed. "Looks like New Kid found himself a protector."
"A pretty dangerous one at that," Ted whined as he unconsciously rubbed the arm that Suzie had punched last year at recess after Ted had unwittingly picked on her cousin. "She's a guy in disguise. I swear it!"
Adam just shrugged again and changed the subject.
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Fast forward six years"Hey, New Kid!" David sneered as he and Adam, approached. "Where's your girlfriend?"
"Don't you think that name is getting old?" Gavin asked tiredly. "It's only been what? Six years?"
He shut his locker and turned to walk away … only to be stopped by Ted who had crept up behind him while David distracted him. He grinned at the black-haired boy and waggled his fingers. Adam stood by quietly, not liking when his friends went after Gavin like this. It always led to trouble.
All in all, the boys had matured a great deal. Well, two of them anyway. The other two merely physically, Adam thought sardonically. Ted lost some of his fat and gained a lot of muscle, making him the perfect defensive player for the varsity football team. His hair was longer than most others on the team wore theirs, but he kept it neat. David's platinum hair had turned a rich golden color and he wore it short, though not too short. He was still lean and muscular though, so the coach had recruited him for the school wrestling team. Adam had grown his dark, chestnut brown hair long and kept it back in a ponytail. His wiry frame had developed some muscle over the years, though not as much as his friends. He didn't play on any teams, though, preferring to spend his extracurricular time in the science club, a fact that might have earned him nerd status, if it weren't for his two very popular friends.
And then there was Gavin. Adam could never seem to take his eyes off the boy when they were in the same class. He'd grown taller, though he was still petite for a guy. He was lean and lithe with an almost feminine figure, yet not. Gavin had gone Goth this year, wearing black nail polish and lining his sharp silver eyes with kohl. He'd replaced the glasses with contacts and, though his clothes still looked worn and faded, they were also cool and sophisticated looking now. And they were invariably black.
"I don't have a girlfriend," his luscious lips were saying. They were painted black, too. "You must have me confused."
"Yeah, Dave," Ted taunted in his now-baritone voice. "We must have him confused. He's a fag, remember?"
Adam sighed inwardly at the taunt. None of them had ever encountered any evidence of this, not that Adam would have held it against Gavin. Though his friends didn't know it, he had begun suspecting he was the actual fag of the school, not Gavin. But David and Ted couldn't seem to leave the boy alone. Ever since they'd met him in fourth grade, they taunted him and pushed him around. And yet, Adam hadn't stopped them. He felt guilty, but friends came first, he always said. And what would he do without these two, anyway?
"Guys?" Adam sighed. "Can we just go to lunch? I'm starved."
"In a minute," David replied, not taking his eyes off of Gavin's face. "So delicate." He grinned. "If your chest were a little bigger, I'd swear you were a girl."
"Swear, or wish?" Suzie asked as she suddenly appeared from behind Ted, her boyfriend Bobby in tow. He had six of his friends with him, too. All of them were juniors and seniors. Crap. The three were just sophomores.
"Hey, Suze," Gavin smiled shyly.
"Hey, cutie," she grinned back. "We were waiting and decided to see what was holding you up."
She looked disdainfully at the three boys around him, making sure she gave David her most loathsome glare.
"Looks like nothing important," Bobby said as he, too, surveyed them.
Adam shrunk back self-consciously. Though he'd never actively done anything to earn Suzie's wrath, he'd had it nonetheless, and that meant he had Bobby's too. And the older boy had cornered him in the gym in the beginning of the spring semester and told him he was being watched. That was enough to keep Adam in line.
"We'll be seeing you around," Bobby said as he allowed Suzie and Gavin to pass him and walk to the cafeteria. He and his friends glared at the three boys one more time before stalking off.
"Man, what does he see in her?" Ted asked.
"Forget that," David sneered. "What does she see in New Kid?"
"Hey, don't you think he's right about that nickname?" Adam finally said.
"You developing a crush on him?" Ted asked in amusement.
"No!" Adam shrieked.
Did they sense his fascination with Gavin? If they did, did Gavin? Shit! This can't happen!
"Relax," David laughed. "We know you ain't no fag. Take a joke."
They walked together down the hallway as Adam pondered his situation. He really wished he knew more about Gavin. Unfortunately, with these two constantly around that was unlikely to be rectified any time soon.