“I need to tell you something,” Collin admitted.
There was some sort of guilt in his voice. “What’s wrong?” Timothy asked.
His friend just sat there for a whole minute and finally took a deep breath. “Tara and I kissed,” admitted Collin.
They did what? Timothy thought to himself. How could they do that? Tara was his girlfriend. Timothy thought about that for another second. Tara WAS his girlfriend. Timothy had literally just done more than kiss someone else in the course of eighteen hours. They technically were over but still, “Do you like her?” Timothy finally got it out.
Collin bit his lip for a second, “Yeah, man, I kind of do. I mean, I do a lot. Please don’t be mad.”
“I’m not. I mean, it’s weird because I never really thought you liked Tara.” He had to admit, though, that he always wondered if Tara liked Collin. Timothy wasn’t angry, just sort of thrown off, “Look, you are one of my best friends. Tara and I might not be together anymore, but she is also one of my best friends. I want you both to be happy.”
His friend smiled, “You are taking this a lot better than Phillip and Tara thought you would.”
Timothy laughed, “I mean, there might be someone that I like around here, to be honest.” He can’t believe he just said that out loud.
“No shit. What is her name?” Collin asked.
Could he tell Collin the truth? This was his best friend since before pre-school, “If it turns into something, I’ll tell you their name.”
Collin smiled even larger than before, “I’m happy that you are at least meeting people. You seemed so miserable yesterday and the past week or so.”
Yeah, he really had been. Noah made him feel happy. As he was thinking this, he got a text. It was from Noah. He was outside and looked up at Collin, “Talk this weekend? I’ve got to go and do a few things.”
“Yeah, totally!” Collin said. He waved goodbye and hung up the call.
* * *
Timothy ran out his front door, eager to see the boy he had only seen a little bit ago. He got back into the car that he had spent half the day in. “What’s up?” the curly-haired boy asked.
“I managed to get your homework, I mean the stuff that you would have been doing in class today,” Noah said with a smile as he handed him a few pieces of paper.
“How did you get this? I mean, we don’t have all the same classes together,” Timothy pointed out.
Noah laughed, “Oh, well, considering I work in the counseling office, I figured out how to hack into lesson plans a while ago. The school has a really weak system.”
Timothy smiled, “Thanks! This will help keep my mom off my back just in case she asks.”
“Oh yeah, no problem,” he looked at Timothy with reluctance. “I’m sure that you have stuff you need to do, so I’ll let you go. I mean, look over this stuff. Maybe catch up on some reading,” Timothy really needed to find a club or job. Regardless of whatever he currently had with Noah, he knew very well that he was going to need to find new hobbies independent of him as well. He looked at his house and could see his mother cooking from a distance. “You want to stay for dinner?” Timothy asked, sort of reluctantly and sort of excited at the prospect.
Noah looked nervous, “Sure. Yeah that should he fine.”
CHAPTER NINE
NOAH
The inside of Timothy’s house was recently renovated. This was a popular trend in this particular part of the city. Older homes were given modern refinements to suit people new to town. It was definitely much larger than Noah’s house but only had one bedroom more than his. The major differences were that Timothy had a formal dining room and a spacious living room. The kitchen was slightly large and much more up to date than his own. He had only ever lived in one house, and aside from the fridge dying on them a few years ago, they had never bought new appliances. It was weird to be in a home where he clearly was the cheapest thing inside. Yet, Timothy didn’t seem to notice or care. However, his parents might.
“I just got word from your father. He is working late at the office,” Ana, Timothy’s mother, told her son. She seemed really nice. It was obvious that on top of being a career woman, she was a homemaker and most of the fine details around the house were her doing; she said as much. Right before they walked into the house, Timothy whispered that his mother was a perfectionist and to just go along with whatever she said. It was the only way.
Something smelled really good. Much better than anything that his family ever cooked, which mostly consisted of family-sized frozen meals from his mom’s work. None of the Peters family were really big on cooking, even his extended family. Holiday meals were always trivial and an adventure because of this. “It smells amazing, whatever you are making,” Noah explained to Mrs. Powell.
Ana smiled, “You’re so thin. I’m going to put some meat on your bones after tonight.” She smiled as she left the living room to go do something upstairs.
“She tells all my friends that,” Timothy explained to him very quickly after she left.
Noah laughed, “She seems really nice. I’d love for you to meet my mom soon. You’ve obviously met my brother and sister already.”
“Oh yeah, they seem nice. I’m sure that your mom is too,” Timothy said with a smile as he put his hand close to Noah’s.
“Your house is so nice,” Noah said. He had probably said it a good ten times. The word he was really looking for was that it looked clean. His own home was clean, but it still looked lived in even after their weekly scrubbings and dustings. This house looked like a showroom.
Timothy shrugged, “It’s not as nice as our old house,” he said.
This made Noah a little nervous. If this was not up to par with where they used to live, then lord knows how Timothy had felt being at his own house today. “Hopefully, you get to visit Connecticut soon.”
“Not until November, which feels like a lifetime from now,” Timothy sighed.
Noah frowned. He couldn’t imagine leaving the only life he had ever known. Yet, that was exactly his plan once he graduated. He wondered if things would change if he and Timothy were growing as close as it seemed they were. He was still unsure of how close they were at this point.
“You could maybe come up there with us if you wanted,” the curly-haired boy said this almost reluctantly.
It was weird to be invited to a different state by someone that he really didn’t know all that well. Yet, he knew him much better than most of the people that he had grown up around. “This is just so weird,” Noah whispered.
Timothy looked confused, “What do you mean?”