You Complete Me - 1. Chapter 1 - First Day of School

It was the first day of senior year, and Jake woke up feeling like it was the hundred and first. He sleepily reached across his bed to where his phone was charging and shut off the incessant alarm – the third in the last half hour – and sighed as he stretched his long limbs. Jake reluctantly crawled out of bed and into his small bathroom, eager to brush away the stale taste of beer still on his tongue.

Some nagging part of him knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to go out with his teammates the night before the start of school, but that reasonable part of him was often ignored in the wake of free beer and good company. His hangover was mild, thankfully. More importantly, Jake knew that it would be even harder than usual to get up the following morning, which meant he was likely to be late for class. His first class this semester was calculus with Mrs. Arthurs, who always had a fresh scowl for Jake when he sidled into class late and disheveled.

After a quick shower, Jake emerged from his bedroom twenty minutes later to be greeted with the silence of an empty house. His father, Samwell, wouldn’t be back in town for another week from his business trip, but the always made time for one of his long-winded, detached, and slightly condescending emails. There was a long opening paragraph about his senior year was his most important, the repercussions of slacking off, and how it was paramount that Jake send off his college applications this semester. Interspersed with the lecturing, there were tons of pointless little reminders to get up on time, take his meds, introduce himself to all his teachers, write down office hours, and print out his schedule to have on him for the first few days.

“Like I haven’t been doing this for a decade,” Jake grumbled at his phone as he skimmed the email and nibbled on some dry cereal. For the past few years, he had done none of the things his father had instructed him to do on his first day, but it wasn’t like Samwell was around much to enforce them. Jake had worked hard to pull up his grades last year and was moderately successful, but it was as if last semester hadn’t happened as far as Samwell was concerned.

In a thoroughly bad mood now that he was thinking of his father’s overbearing ways, Jake popped another handful of cereal into his mouth, slung his backpack over one shoulder, and headed outside to his car. It was a quarter to eight, only fifteen minutes until the first bell, so he was just barely on schedule. He was lucky that his girlfriend, Meg, was riding with one of her friends to school this morning.

The parking lot of Glendale High was filled to the brim by the time Jake arrived at school, forcing him to park what felt like miles away. He was lightly jogging by the time he had reached the main entrance, quickly assimilating into a sparse crowd of other nearly-tardy students. Meg would be annoyed that he hadn’t arrived early enough for her to debut him to her friends, so he’d have to catch her later for a relatively gentle berating. He had arrived just in time for Mrs. Arthur’s class doors to open, catching one of his closest friends, Luke, just before he walked through it.

Luke flicked his shaggy blond hair out of his eyes in surprise when he saw Jake. “After the texts you sent me, I didn’t expect you to show up until noon."

He had sent drunk texts? Jake winced a little. “Wouldn’t have had to text you if you’d come out.”

Luke huffed. “I wanted to, but I told you I had that stupid family dinner with my cousins.”

“Right – I forgot.” Jake lowered his voice as he followed Luke to a pair of desks near the back of the class. “How did that go?”

Luke had been complaining about a more dysfunctional side of his family that had moved into town early in the summer. Jake had yet to meet his cousins, the older of which was enrolled as a junior at Glendale, but his friend had been spending a lot of time with them. Luke shrugged. “Their dad is a dick. What else is new? You might get to meet Nic later today, but he kinda hates most people.”

“It’s hard to hate me,” Jake said with a smirk.

His friend could only respond with an eyeroll as Mrs. Arthurs launched into her first-day lecture.

***

“What about that guy?”

Nic spared a covert glance at the cute redhead Shiv was indicating with a nod. “He was in my Biology class this morning – kept looking at me. He’s not my type but he’s not straight.”

Shiv shook her head in mock disgust, tossing a tendril of her jet-black hair over a pale shoulder. “This is why I need you in my life. My gaydar is absolute shite.”

“Just because he’s not straight doesn’t mean he’s not into girls.”

“Oh please! Dating bi guys doesn’t do me any favors with you as a friend.” Nic was about to protest with assurances that any guy would be lucky to date his beautifully gothic friend, but Shiv cut him off by grabbing his elbow and pointing her elegant nose to a table across the courtyard. “What about him? The absolute Chad that’s sitting with your cousin?”

Nic spent a little extra time scrutinizing this guy with mild interest, acknowledging to himself that he was easy on the eyes in a rather conventional way. He checked all the boxes: dark brown hair a shade away from black and eyes to match, chiseled jawline, strong, athletic build that just shied away from being too beefy. Much like the love interest in a teen drama, he was just ethnic enough to stick out amongst a very white cast and make you briefly wonder about his background, but not so much that he didn’t “fit in,” whatever that meant.

Nic shook his head. “A little too Abercrombie for your taste, but he seems pretty straight.” He snorted as a pretty girl walked up to the guys’ table and interrupted their conversation by kissing Luke’s friend rather possessively. “Very straight,” he corrected.

Shiv rolled her eyes. “Now who’s engaging in bi-erasure? Oh, I think your cousin is calling you over.”

Indeed, Luke had caught Nic’s eye and was gesturing frantically at him. Nic sighed. It was nice that Luke was trying to socialize him after the rough summer he’d had, but his attempts often missed the mark. Luke was one of his oldest friends, but they had grown up into fundamentally different people in the high school hierarchy. Luke was a talkative stoner that could get along with anyone, which placed him amongst the school’s elite – many of which often looked at Nic as if they were wondering how he could possibly be from the same family as Luke.

Nic reluctantly started to walk towards Luke’s table, but paused when he realized Shiv wasn’t following him. “Don't you want to meet Abercrombie?”

She wrinkled her nose. “And sit in the presence of Megan Watts? No thanks. Tell me all about it later.”

Nic shrugged and continued on his way to Luke’s table. Luke looked somewhat relieved to have someone else there to distract him from the couple next to him. As Nic slid into the bench across from him, the girl didn’t even bother to look up from nuzzling her boyfriend’s neck. Abercrombie, on the other hand, gently shrugged off her affections and gave Nic a disarming, dimpled smile that had probably melted a lot of hearts and he was very aware of it.

“Jake, this is my cousin, Nic. Nic, this is Jake and his girlfriend, Meg.”

Nic didn’t miss the small look of distaste when Luke uttered Meg’s name. Interesting. Two people in less than two minutes had signaled that they didn’t like this girl that he had yet to even speak to. She looked sweet enough, with her dark red hair and heart-shaped face, but her expression was bored when she looked at him and muttered hello.

“Do you really hate everyone?” Jake asked him, causing Luke to smirk.

“Until they give me a reason not to,” Nic said, without missing a beat.

To his credit, Jake’s easy smile didn’t falter. “We should get along just fine, then. You’re a junior, right?”

As Nic was nodding in the affirmative, Meg interjected with, “Jake, you still have Arthurs for first period, don’t you?”

“Yeah, why?”

“My transfer request was approved.”

Jake blinked in confusion for a second before interpreting from Meg’s smile that this was a good thing. “That’s great.”

“Yeah, we have a class together this semester!” As she hooked an arm around Jake’s neck and kissed him on the cheek, Jake sent a sheepish look Luke’s way. He had completely forgotten that Meg had been trying to transfer into AP Calc with him. In turn, Luke rolled his eyes at Nic.

Nic watched this exchange with vague interest. “Calculus senior year, huh? That’s pretty intense.”

This was mostly directed at Luke, who he knew wasn’t an overachiever by any means, but it was Meg that answered him. “I know, right? Jake’s kinda like Rain Man when it comes to numbers, though.”

She chuckled a bit at her own joke, but the other two seniors didn’t so much as crack a smile. Jake furrowed his brow a bit in annoyance. He had no illusions about his academic prowess, but it didn’t feel light-hearted when someone like Meg, who was on track for valedictorian, made jibes at him about it. Especially in the presence of strangers. He cleared his throat. “Uh, how do you like Glendale so far, Nic?”

“The school or the city?”

“Both.”

Nic shrugged. “The town is small, the school is huge.” He wasn’t sure if either of these things were good or bad. On one hand, he felt as if he could fade into the background easier. “Plenty of eye candy, though,” he supplied after a heartbeat.

“Yeah, the girls in town are top notch. Not that I’ve got eyes for anyone else,” Jake added quickly, with a nervous glance in Meg’s direction. Luckily for him, she had retreated to her phone and was no longer paying attention to the conversation.

Luke and Nic shared a look and snickered. “Yeah, Nic’s such a pussy magnet,” Luke said sarcastically, making Nic laugh harder.

Jake had the distinctive feeling that he was the butt of a joke here. He frowned at Luke. “What’s so funny?”

“You didn’t tell him?” Nic asked his cousin.

“I did – Jake’s just forgetful. Nic’s gay, Jake.” Even Meg looked up from her phone at that.

Jake’s eyes widened as he flushed a little. “Fuck, I did forget.” Not that he had a problem with that – he just didn’t personally know many gay guys, if any. He looked at Nic more closely, noting that he was a bit more…feminine than most. He was on the smaller side, with shoulder-length, dark blond hair a similar shade to Luke’s, soft features, and large green eyes accentuated with what looked like eyeliner. Jake had just thought he was a punk rocker type.

Before he could embarrass himself further by trying to come up with something to follow up on this “new” information, the warning bell for the next period went off in the distance. Jake was never more grateful to go to class. “Civics, right?” he asked Luke for confirmation as he rifled through his phone for his schedule.

“Nope, that’s fourth period,” his friend answered with a sigh.

“It’s the first day, give me a break,” Jake chided. “See you around, Nic."

The group parted ways, with Nic slipped into a crowd of juniors on his way to class and the three seniors heading to a separate building.

***

The rest of the day’s classes were even more of a slog than usual for Jake. Most of it was busywork with very little lecturing and going over the individual syllabi in excruciating detail. The one saving grace was that he had a friend in most of his classes to help break up the monotony a bit. The worst by far was Chemistry, where Mr. Uzbeck broke this sacred rule of no real lecturing on the first day and launched into a spiel about covalent bonds that left Jake mostly brain dead by the end it. Luckily, this was the final class of the day and he was free to go to his first rugby practice of the semester, where he wouldn’t have to think too much.

Until, about halfway to the field, he remembered he had been voted in as forwards captain at the end of last semester. That was half the reason they had partied the night before. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate the honor, but he hadn’t prepared an introductory speech or anything for the new members.

In the end, Jake didn’t really have to do much more than stand intimidatingly with the backs captain, Amir, while Coach Reynolds did all the talking. Then they spent most of the allotted two hours doing passing drills and conditioning exercises – the more intensive stuff happened later. He was relieved he had another day to prepare teaching the new guys the parts of rugby that didn’t involve so much running. He walked off the field sweaty, tired, hungry, and most importantly, horny.

With Meg coming out of cheerleading practice around this time and their plans to spend the evening at his empty place, he had the perfect person to take that out on. After emerging from the boys’ locker room freshly showered, he spotted her coming out of the gym with a throng of her gossipy friends.

Jake intercepted her by hooking an arm around her waist and pulling her against him in what he thought was a romantic embrace, resulting in a chorus of hoots from her friends. He had no problems with PDA and figured that Meg would like showing him off to her friends, too. Indeed, she didn’t break the kiss until their audience had moved on.

“I’m really gross right now,” she protested. There was barely a drop of sweat on her.

“So let’s take a shower together. I could use another one.” Jake nodded towards the locker room he had just exited. “I was one of the last ones out; we can have some privacy.”

He fully expected Meg to turn her nose up at fucking in a boys’ locker room, but it was worth a try. She didn’t disappoint, shaking her head. “No way. Take me back to your place and we can shower there.”

Jake reluctantly let her go. “Alright. You hungry?”

“Not for Flaming Amy’s.”

He shrugged. That had been exactly what he was going to suggest. He had worked there as a waiter for the past year, so he got discounts and he firmly believed that you could never go wrong with good Tex-Mex. “Fair enough. You pick, then.”

They ended up picking up food at some pretentious little sandwich shop on the way home. It was tasty, but for the price the portions were so small that Jake was very sure he’d end up ordering pizza later that night as soon as he was alone. He was still a little miffed at her for the Rain Man jibe earlier, but he could overlook most things in favor of hot sex, and capitulating to Meg’s demands inevitably led to hot sex at some point or another.

That made it sound like he was only in the relationship for the sex, Jake chastised himself as he fiddled with a rubber band and idly watched Meg pick at her caprese salad across the kitchen table from him.

He’d had better, which he surmised was a point in favor of the strength of the relationship. They had hung out in the same circles since freshman year but hadn’t been available at the same time until the close of junior year, when they’d started hooking up casually. Even before that, Meg was the type of girl Jake had appreciated from afar. He had a thing for bossy women and she was nice to look at. He couldn’t believe his luck when she’d responded to his flirting at a house party last semester. A few weeks of bedroom romps later, they debuted as a couple at prom in the eyes of the school, but Jake didn’t pop the “relationship question” until nearly the end of summer. It came after two months of spending practically every day together and taking full advantage of Jake’s father being gone for weeks at a time. It was the longest time he’d been involved with one girl since he’d started dating. It only felt right.

Lately, though, Jake was starting to wonder if he’d only wanted to secure Meg to him because he was lonely.

“...on for dinner Friday night?”

Jake was jolted from his thoughts, not realizing Meg had been speaking. “Dinner Friday? With your dad?”

Meg narrowed her eyes. “Yes, with my dad. I’ve only been reminding you for weeks. For god’s sake, stop playing with the rubber band if you’re not going to pay attention.” She smiled a little to take the sting out of her words, but Jake could tell she was legitimately annoyed.

“Yeah, of course I’m still on for it.” He tossed the rubber band aside and slowly rose to his full height, letting the lust darken his expression. As he sauntered over to Meg’s side of the table, he watched her swallow hard with no food in her mouth, causing him to smirk. “You’ve got my full attention now. Go take a shower.” The last part was a whisper against her ear.

Immediately, Meg stood up and kissed him fleetingly on the lips before turning on her heel to head down the hallway. Jake watched her flounce away in her cheerleading shorts until she’d slipped into the master bathroom at the end of the hall, the smirk on his face slowly widening into a cocky grin. Meg may be bossy, but there were some aspects of her life where she liked to be told what to do. Jake was more than happy to be the one to oblige her.

***

Nic busied himself by slowly pacing the dungeon-like basement, nursing a beer as his eyes roved over a wall of laminated, printed tattoo art interspersed with band posters. The artwork had a distinct theme – almost Ed Hardy-like but with a slightly less cartoony flair that lacked that poser quality. Nic’s eyes lingered on the wasp he had chosen to have reworked by the tattoo artist.

Behind him, he could hear the sound of Arnie’s pen working furiously even over the pounding of music overhead. The noise could be distracting, but for an apprentice, Arnie had a good set-up here. His brother owned the bar upstairs and graciously lent the basement for Arnie to do with whatever he wished, so of course he set up an impromptu tattoo parlor to practice on broke friends. That’s what Nic decided he was to Arnie now: a broke friend.

“What do you think of this?” Arnie asked suddenly, dragging Nic from his thoughts.

Nic crossed the room to look over Arnie’s shoulder to see his fellow artist’s work. The wasp had been transformed into a crueler version of the original, with sharper features juxtaposed against delicate, lace-like wings. He nodded approvingly. “That’s perfect. You can draw out what I'm envisioning better than I can.”

Arnie gave him a cocky grin to cover the pinpricks of a blush on his sallow cheeks. “You sure you want this on your shoulder? It might look better on your other hip.”

“That thematically doesn’t make any sense. You just want to get my clothes off.”

“You caught me,” Arnie said sardonically. “Speaking of, let me see the other one so I can take a picture for the portfolio.”

“You took one last time,” Nic protested.

“A year ago, when I first did it. I want to show how it healed over time, idiot.”

Nic sighed, but nevertheless held his long t-shirt up to just above his navel, exposing Arnie’s past work on his jutting hipbone. It was the gay calling card – a star – but reimagined as a star-shaped cutout to reveal intricate steam-punk gears within. It was beautifully done, but marred. Nic rolled his eyes up to the ceiling as Arnie gently touched the linework with a frown, knowing exactly what he was going to say.

“What did I tell you about scratching?”

“Fuck you. Tattoos are itchy, you know that.” Nic dropped the edge of the shirt to cross his arms, eyeing Arnie’s full sleeves.

Arnie narrowed his light brown eyes, but surprisingly, he refrained from chastising Nic any further. “I do know that. I can touch it up for you when we do your wasp.”

Nic raised an eyebrow in suspicion. Arnie had been oddly careful around him since they’d reconciled over the summer, and he wasn’t sure if he liked it. At least he knew what to expect when they were screaming at each other or fucking. “I can pay you something up front,” Nic offered, after deliberately shoving aside those memories.

Arnie shook his head immediately. “Forget it. You know I can’t accept any money. And even if I could, we’re friends – despite your best efforts.”

Nic didn’t have anything snarky to respond with, so he just sipped his lukewarm beer instead. Having caught Nic in a rare speechless moment, Arnie’s lips twitched into a lopsided smile and he playfully tugged at the edge of Nic’s shirt. “But I can think of ways you can pay me back.”

Nic’s expression darkened. “You want sex as payment for a tattoo?”

To his amusement, Arnie’s eyes widened in realization of what he had suggested. “N-no. I’m going to do ink for you regardless of whether or not you let me fuck you. Anything wrong with that framing?”

“What about Harry?” Normally Nic didn’t really care much about the emotional availability of his lovers, but he had met Harry and quite liked him. He couldn’t deny that Arnie seemed happier in the several months they’d been together than the entire time Nic had known him.

“What about him? We’re open, you know that.”

Nic did know that, but he was looking for some sort of excuse to not fuck Arnie despite very much wanting to and feeling angry at himself for wanting to. “Something tells me he didn’t have me in mind when he agreed to that.”

Arnie snickered. “Probably not, but he’s seen you before. He’d understand. Look, it’s off the table if you don’t want to play, but I can tell you’re at least a little interested. It’s just sex.” Arnie’s long fingers traveled under Nic’s shirt, teasing the sensitive skin right above his groin.

Nic hadn’t had sex with anyone since he got out of the hospital, over a month ago now. This was hardly fair: Arnie knew he was feeling an itch and that Nic had enjoyed his cock very much in the past. Logically, however, he was a terrible choice, and most importantly, Shiv would kill him. With great reluctance, Nic removed Arnie’s hand from his crotch. “We both know it wouldn’t be just sex for you,” he said firmly.

There was a spark of something in Arnie’s eyes, and for a heartbeat Nic thought he was going to snap at him. He kind of wanted him to. But then his shoulders slumped and his expression went slack in resignation. He didn’t need to say that Nic was right. “Okay. You wanna go home?”

The change in direction nearly gave Nic whiplash. He had been half-expecting the long, emotional discussion they’d been avoiding was finally going to take place. “That it? I turn you down and you don’t want to hang out with me anymore?”

Arnie looked almost offended. “No, it’s more like I want to smoke a blunt and jerk off and it might be kind of awkward to do that with you here.”

“Fair enough.” Nic drained the rest of his beer and crushed the can. “Yeah, I should go home.” He only had an hour to play Fortnite with his younger brother before his bedtime, and Joey wouldn’t be thrilled with him if he was late. If it wasn’t for that, he’d tell Arnie to drop him off at Luke’s.

Arnie rose to his full, lanky height and took Nic’s hand to lead him up the stairs. Nic didn’t like that, but he didn’t pull away. He sensed that, for reasons Arnie would never talk about, his friend needed this contact from him right now.