Rumors About You and Me

It’s a shorter chapter and I’m not sure how I feel about it.

Chapter 3

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Monday arrived faster then Brandon was really ready for. He was really nervous about having to face Matt that day. They normally didn’t see each other until lunch and he didn’t know if Matt would be sitting with them. His stomach felt like it was in knots and he felt like if he actually saw Matt, he might end up vomiting on him.

The feeling in his stomach increased in direct proportion to the minutes leading to their lunch hour. Tyler was already at their table when he arrived.

Tyler smiled. “Hey. What’s up?”

“Hey,” Brandon smiled weakly. He glanced around the cafeteria but he didn’t see Matt anywhere.

“I haven’t seen him yet,” Tyler was giving him a knowing look. “Relax. You look like you’re gonna have a heart attack. It’ll be fine.”

“Says you.”

Brandon knew that was an immature answer, but he really was upset. He really liked Matt and he hoped he didn’t make things all weird between them. That kiss. He’d been thinking about it all night, about how one action could complicate everything.

He was brought out of his thoughts as Matt and Amanda came over and sat at the table. Matt gave him a shy smile as he sat next to him.

“Hey,” Brandon’s voice was almost a whisper. He could practically feel the tension in the air.

“Hey,” Matt replied just as softly. His head was tilted to the side as he looked at Brandon, the corners of his mouth lifted slightly, not enough to bring out his dimples, but enough to bring Brandon’s attention to his mouth. Brandon had kissed that mouth. He had slid his tongue past those lips and had tasted him. He could acutely remember just how nice Matt’s lower lip felt between his teeth.

“Can you not have eye-sex with your boyfriend right now?” Tyler’s inappropriate comment broke through Brandon’s embarrassing train of thought.

Amanda was giggling, her eyes shining with amusement. “Awww…don’t stop them. It’s too cute.”

“I wasn’t…” Brandon swallowed. This was awkward. And he didn’t really know what to say.

Matt chimed in, as casual as could be. “But I just can’t help myself, my baby is just that amazing.” He was smiling a full smile now, and leaned over to ruffle Brandon’s hair.

Brandon was pretty much speechless. He didn’t think that Matt would continue joking like that after what had happened. Brandon had crossed a boundary and had expected that things would change, that something would happen. But looking at Matt, he didn’t sense tension, anger, or any hostile feelings, he only could see affection and amusement.

Brandon glanced at Tyler to see his best friend give him a knowing look and a wink.

Okay, his best friend continued to be annoyingly always right. Maybe Brandon really did over think the whole situation.

He tried to relax and join in the banter for the rest of their free period.

xxxxxx

After his last class, Brandon went looking for Matt. There was so much he wanted to say to the other boy. He was going to start out small, with the result of his math test. He couldn’t have gotten the grade he did without Matt’s help. So he was searching, with the paper clutched in his hand.

The first place he looked was the first place he saw Matt, which was in the library.

Matt wasn’t alone. Ben, the barista from the coffee shop, was talking to him. Brandon could see Matt smile, then laugh at something Ben had said. Ben’s hand then touched Matt’s shoulder, a sly smile on his face. And Matt was just grinning up at him with full-blown dimples.

They were flirting.

It made something twist inside of Brandon’s chest, kind of like how his fist was twisting his test paper, mangling it into something unrecognizable.

He was about to back out the door when Matt noticed him and waved. Ben turned in his direction, an eyebrow raised and looking smug.

Damn it.

He didn’t want to go over there, but it was too late to escape now.

“Hey,” he greeted, attempting to plaster a somewhat friendly expression on his face and hoped he looked more genuine than he felt.

“Hi Brandon,” Ben greeted. “Sorry, I have to run. Gotta get to work.” He turned to Matt. “It was good talking to you again Matt. I hope we can do it again sometime.”

“Sure,” Matt grinned.

“See ya,” Ben still had a self-satisfied expression on his face and it made Brandon want to punch him.

He stood there steaming for a minute before Matt brought him out of his thoughts.

“Hey Brandon, what’s up?” Matt gently touched his arm, his expression was concerned.

“Hey,” Brandon tried to shake off his tension. “I just wanted to talk to you. Umm…I got my math test back today.”

“Was it a bad grade?” Matt was looking to where Brandon had demolished the piece of paper in his hands.

“What? No, I mean, I got an 85% on it.”

“Really?” Matt beamed. “That’s fantastic!”

“Yeah,” Brandon laughed nervously. “I couldn’t have done it without you. Really. You helped so much. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, but really, you earned that grade yourself, by trying and working on things you got wrong. Without trying to sound completely corny, I’m proud of you Brandon.” Matt put his arms around Brandon’s neck and pulled him into a hug.

Brandon went with it, his hands ending up on Matt’s waist as he leaned into him. The hug lasted longer than Brandon expected, Matt’s fingers were lightly tracing along his shoulders. It seemed like all the tension and anxiety he had been feeling over this boy had completely vanished, and he was left with that warm comfortable feeling once again. It was nice.

Giggling broke the moment.

Matt pulled away and Brandon could see some girls close by, watching them and whispering.

He turned back to Matt, who was grinning and blushing a little.

“Sorry. I guess we aren’t breaking up anytime soon,” Matt‘s tone was joking, but Brandon could see some nervousness in his eyes, most likely because Brandon had been the one who brought up fake breaking up.

“Well, we’ve already concluded that I have the best boyfriend in the world, so it makes sense that I wouldn’t want to break up with him,” Brandon joked back, hoping that he would put Matt at ease.

It seemed to work. Matt grinned and replied, “Baby, you say the sweetest things to me.”

Apparently the girls overheard that comment, because there was more giggling and Brandon thought he heard one of them say “that’s so cute!”

“Sorry,” Matt leaned in and whispered the word just below Brandon’s ear. “I didn’t think they could hear me.” his lips were barely touching Brandon’s skin, but the brush of contact sent shivers down his spine. His neck had always been a sensitive spot that drove Brandon nuts, and Matt was unknowingly accessing that point of pleasure.

He backed up a bit. “Hey it’s all good.”

“Do you want to come over to my place tonight? Lily keeps pestering me about when you’re going to come and play with her again since yesterday…” Matt trailed off blushing.

Yeah. Yesterday.

When he was only at Matt’s house for a grand total of 10 minutes. When he ran off after kissing him.

“Sure, I’ll come over.”

“Great. I’ll see you at six?”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

As he moved away, he could feel the focused attention of the girls, they were silent and watching his every move.

One of the girls boldly called out, “You’re not going to kiss him goodbye?”

Brandon turned to her. “Nah, Mattie doesn’t like an audience, but his kisses in private make up for it.”

That had the girls grinning and Matt blushing completely crimson. Brandon winked at him before leaving.

xxxxxx

When he arrived at Matt’s house, Brandon was greeted by an excited Lily and Dizzy.

“Brandon!” The little girl flung her arms around him as the dog jumped on his legs.

He laughed and lifted her up in his arms. “Hey, how are you princess?”

“Good.” She grinned at him. “Wanna play?”

“Sure. We should probably find that brother of yours too.” He continued to carry her as moved to go upstairs.

On cue, Matt came down the stairs. He smiled at them. “Hey, looks like the munchkin found you first.”

“Yep.” She had her arms around Brandon’s neck and was leaning into his shoulder.

“So what are we playing today?” Brandon asked her.

“Go fish!” She told him.

“That sounds awesome.”

They went into her room and he set her down. She scrambled to find her cards. It was a pack made for young kids with different fish and aquatic animals on them so they were easier to play with.

Matt leaned towards Brandon and in a stage-whisper said, “Lily is too good at this game. I think she cheats.”

“I do not! You’re just bad at go fish.” She handed the cards to Brandon. “Brandon shuffles. I’ll hand them out.”

Brandon did as she asked. She was so serious as she counted the cards she was giving them, making sure it was the right amount. And they began to play. Lily ended up winning the first game.

“Told you she always wins,” Matt nudged his shoulder.

She won the next three games as well.

Again, Brandon had fun playing with the little girl. She was completely adorable and such a sweetheart. It was too easy to like her.

After a few more games, Matt stopped them from dealing again. “Hey Lily, Brandon and I are going to spend some time alone now okay? He’ll be back to play again sometime.”

“Ok,” Lily answered, but she was pouting a bit.

“Hey, I had fun. You’re awesome at go fish princess,” Brandon told her.

She gave him a big hug. “Brandon, you are my favorite-est.”

“What? I’m not your favorite-est anymore?” Matt doled out the puppy-dog eyes.

Lily giggled. “You and Brandon are my favorite-ests.”

“Ok. I guess I can share the title.”

Brandon laughed at the sibling antics before saying, “Come on, let’s go. Lily, I’ll play with you again soon!”

They went into Matt’s room, Matt shut the door before they sat down. Brandon fidgeted, tugging on the edge of his sleeve nervously. Matt put a hand over his to stop his fussing.

“You can relax you know.”

“Relax? How can I relax…I mean, last time I was here…” Brandon just felt too awkward and couldn’t understand how Matt was so, not awkward.

“You don’t have to be so nervous. I mean, you seem so tense. I want you to know it’s okay,” Matt was looking at him so earnestly.

“It’s okay?” Brandon repeated.

“Well,” Matt‘s cheeks began to turn pink. “It wasn’t exactly how I imagined my first kiss to be, but it was okay.”

“It was okay?” Brandon couldn’t seem to come up with original thought process and was parroting Matt.

Matt’s blushing increased. “Yeah. It was okay. And I still want to be your friend, but I don’t want us to be weird around each other. Are we going to be okay?”

Brandon just felt out of his element. Why couldn’t Matt be like a normal straight guy and just punch him? That Brandon might be able to deal with better than this easy acceptance.

He swallowed as he examined Matt’s face. Matt just seemed so sincere and almost pleading with him.

“Yeah. We’re going to be okay.” He laughed nervously. “I’ve just been a little confused. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Matt replied. “I just want to make sure that we stay friends. I like you. I like being your friend.”

“Me too.”

Matt gave him a small smile. “Want to stay for dinner?”

xxxxxx

Within the next few days, Brandon began to feel more at ease around Matt and that comfortable feeling returned. When he told Tyler, Tyler wasn’t surprised. He had just given Brandon a knowing look and told him that he was a spaz.

Rumors continued to circulate about him and Matt. He was honestly surprised. He had expected it to be done by now, or to have it at least die down a little. That just didn’t seem to be the case. People were still interested in their personal lives.

One good thing about the situation was that he was getting to know Matt and Amanda better. He really liked them and hanging out with them was always fun. He might not have ever gotten to know them if the rumors hadn’t started. He was ashamed to think that if they met in normal circumstances, he probably would have assumed that they had nothing in common and wouldn’t have known that they would be such good friends. Sometimes he was almost thankful for it all. Like now.

He was at his house watching a movie with Matt. They were making jokes and commentary during it as per their usual. It was nice.

There was a moment where Matt fell silent and was just looking at him.

“Hey, what’s up?” Brandon asked.

Matt blushed a little and looked away. “Nothing.”

They continued commenting on the movie once more.

Then it happened again. The looking at him thing.

This time, before Brandon could ask anything, Matt leaned in and brushed his mouth over Brandon’s. It was barely a touch, withdrawn, Matt’s breath light and warm against his mouth, then pressed in again. Brandon’s lips parted automatically welcoming a deeper kiss, but Matt didn’t pursue it. It was soft and gentle, Brandon would almost describe it as innocent.

Then Matt pulled away and sat back against the couch, not looking at him. Brandon could only stare at him, confused and feeling tension.

“Do we have to talk about that now?” Matt asked softly.

“Ummm could we?”

Matt paused the movie and glanced shyly at Brandon. “It’s going to sound dumb. Promise you won’t laugh?”

“I promise.”

“Remember when we talked about the one kiss, how I said it wasn’t how I imagined my first kiss?”

Brandon nodded.

“Well, I was thinking about it recently and I wanted a kiss like I imagined and I thought, or I hoped, you wouldn’t mind um, what I just did is kind of how I imagined my first kiss. I mean, it wasn‘t exactly since I never imagined a guy, but I feel comfortable with you. I don‘t want things to be weird, I just was curious…”

Matt was babbling

This was the first time Brandon had ever seen Matt really nervous.

It was kind of endearing.

And a little bit of a role-reversal since Brandon was usually the one that did or said impulsive things then freaked out about them.

He touched Matt’s shoulder and it got him to stop talking.

“It’s okay. I didn’t mind.”

“Really?”

“Yeah it’s okay.”

“Okay,” Matt smiled and unpaused the movie and they went back to their commentary.

xxxxxx

I hope it was okay! Thanks!