Sparkling Combustion - 4. Chapter 4

Sparkling Combustion
Part 4
I apologize for any errors, I don’t have an editor.
What do you say to someone after they've told you making out with you was a complete mistake, that the one thing you thought was one of the most exciting things to happen to you, they thought was a complete mess-up? Personally, I didn't ever want to bring it up with Nathan again, I wanted to act like I didn't care. So that's what I did, I acted normal around him. Within a week of doing this, I didn't really have to act anymore. I found that I actually didn't really care about his nonchalant and rather dismissive response to our kissing incident. This got me thinking, as just a week ago I felt terrible about what had happened. Laura's words came back to me and I realized she was right. I had always just been interested in the idea of Nathan, not Nathan himself. I had built up fantasy after fantasy until I made myself feel as if I truly felt those things for him.

I looked at him just then from across the room, and felt a sense of friendship and camaraderie, not desire or lust. Sure he was physically attractive and I had fun with him that time we kissed, but truth be told, the more I got to know him, the more I realized that he was right. I thought of him as a friend, not boy-friend material. Imagine if I had ruined our friendship by giving him the cold shoulder after his apparent rejection of me! That would have been terrible.

I mean he was gorgeous and if he'd told me he felt those things for me, I would have said yes. Honestly, but that didn't make things different. He was a friend, gorgeous nonetheless.

I was about to turn my attention back to the teacher when another face caught my eye. Ryan Melbourne. Goodness, I resent the fact that he has to be in every class I have with Nathan. It really is annoying. I know what you're thinking. This is the classic I hate you but I love you, you're hot but you're annoying sort of relationship, but it's not! I really don't like Ryan. He has to be the biggest jerk in the entire history of jerks. At least to me anyway. Well, that makes my case on him weak, but I can't explain why he's so abominable towards me.

Ryan caught my eye at that moment and smirked at me. I gave him a disgusted look and picked up my pencil to copy down what the teacher had written on the board several minutes ago when I had been busy daydreaming. Just as I wrote down the very last word, the bell signaling for next class rang and I got up, gathering my papers. One loose paper fell on the ground, and as I picked it up, Ryan approached me. “You better not skip English next with that boyfriend of yours,” he said to me.

“He's not my boyfriend, douche-bag, and...why not?” I was nonplussed as to why he would say that.

“I don't care whether or not you're in the class, but truth be told, I got assigned to being your partner last class when you were off being stupid. I had to do work on a project by myself which consists of interviewing your partner. You can't imagine how bored I was.”

“Uh alright, I won't skip,” I said, feeling that it was fair not to say some smart-ass comment back to him. He turned to leave, “you coming or what, slow-poke?” This was the first conversation we'd ever had where we hadn't sworn at each other. This was a big turning point for both of us. Of course, I didn't know that then.

“Yeah, yeah, I'm coming,” I got up.

He stopped, turned around, and gave me a funny look, “what's wrong with you today? You sure you feeling okay, because you're being...polite?” His eyebrows creased when he said this, and his face looked absolutely adorable. I turned away quickly.

I sighed, “I really don't feel like arguing like a bunch of five year old girls right now, got a problem with that?”

He thought, “Nah, not really. We can do that tomorrow I guess.” We looked at each other, out the window, back at each other, and burst into laughter. “You realize this is the first conversation we've had where we haven't slit one another's throats?” We were both silent for a bit, then I looked up into his face and saw him looking at me.

“Yeah, I think I'm gonna be sick,” I said.

“Shut up loser,” he said in a particularly childish and whiney voice, imitating a child. I burst out laughing again, “Never thought I'd see the day,” I said and walked ahead of him. He jogged to catch up with me.

“What?What?”

“Nothing, just you being slightly okay and being funny, never thought I'd see that.”

“You know I'm only a dick around you, right?” He asked.

“Yeah, I pretty much figured that out a while ago.” We both entered the portable and took our regular seats...away from each other, thank-you!

The teacher came in and went over the activity for that day. At the end of the instructions, our teacher said in a particularly bored voice, “and you won't be working on those peer profiles in class today. Last class was enough time to have gotten the interview portion done. You had the entire class. Now you can do it on your own time. It's to be five pages typed, single spaced, and twelve point font. Make sure to make it descriptive. I want to know what they look like, what their personality is like. By the end of the report I should feel as if I've known the person you're writing about my whole life. It is due at the end of the week.”

Ryan and I looked at each other. We were both worried. I put my hand up, “but, how are we going to get it done? Ryan and I, I mean. I've missed the last couple of classes and haven't gotten any time to work on it. Do you think Ryan and I could do our interviewing this period?”

“No. It's not my fault you chose to miss valuable class time. Now you have to do that on your own time. We are moving on with the unit and I can't give you extra time or you'll fall even more behind. Understood?”

“Yes, understood.” Ryan and I both said. We looked at each other and realized we'd have to meet up to do this piece of shit. How great. Except the idea didn't seem that bad to me anymore...what am I thinking?

During that entire exchange, Nathan was studying Ryan and I very closely. I didn't know what was going through the guys head, but he looked deep in thought. Afterwards when I asked him he said it was nothing so I shrugged it off.

Ryan had decided for the both of us that we were going to meet after school. Apparently I would wait for him during football practice and he would drive the both of us to his house, where we would work for exactly one hour, and then he'd drive me home.

I don't know what he thought I was, but he sure had it wrong. I wasn't going to wait around for him like a total loser, and then go home with him. So what I did was, just gave him my phone number, but I didn't tell him that I wasn't going to be waiting for him. He'd figure it out on his own.

At home, I made it a point not to go anywhere since I knew he would call and would want to meet up to work. My parents were smiling at me as I read a book in the den. Yeah, I know but hey my father is an author, I get the love of reading from him. Blame him.

“So how's school lately son? You never mention anything anymore?” This was my dad speaking, one eye on the lap-top in front of him and the other on me

I shrugged, “school's alright, I guess.”

“That's a really typical answer. Would you care to elaborate on that, Kyle Moore?” This was not my mom, but rather the shrink in her talking. I smiled at her and said, “honestly Mom, I don't really want to but I will, just for you, and because I'm so nice.” I sighed, “school has been annoying lately. It's like the teachers are trying to pack in all the homework they possibly can before Christmas break. Like right now I have this assignment--” just then the phone rang, and I got up. “Sorry but that's probably for me, probably my partner for this project I have to do.”

I picked up, “hello?”

“May I speak to Kyle Moore?” Ryan's voice was so nice and polite when he wasn't speaking to me, it's not even funny. Maybe because he thought it was my parents and didn't want to freak them out by talking like he normally did, which was very obnoxious.

Speaking.”

“Kyle? You shit-head!” He yelled into the phone, demeanor changing instantly. I held the phone away from my ear due to his outburst and looked over at my parents, who were pretending not to listen. Then I began to walk towards the vicinity of the kitchen, where my parents wouldn't have to hear me swear if I felt like it. And god knows I would since this was Ryan Melbourne. “I looked for you everywhere. Didn't you have the decency to tell me you weren't going to wait? I even...got out early so you wouldn't have to wait too long.” He added softly.

Great, now I felt like crap. It felt like all of the fight washed away from me the instant he said those words, and so I said something, I said, “I'm sorry I guess,” and we were both silent for a few moments, just washing in these new words, thinking about this new step we'd taken.

“You still want to do it today?” He finally asked.

“Yeah, come pick me up.” I told him.

“Okay, I'll be there in ten minutes, alright?” He told me, but I stopped him, “wait—you don't even know my address--” he too interrupted me, “I know where you live doofus,” and hung up. Vaguely, I wondered how he knew but shrugged it off.

When he arrived, I walked up to the car and got in. He asked me instantly, “where are your things?”

“Uh-what things?”

“Your school things moron. As in your books.”

“Well, I didn't bring them; we're only doing the interview anyway. It's not like I'm going to need them or anything.” He didn't say anything. Instead he drove in silence. It was when we arrived at his mansion of a house that he finally said something, “my parents aren't home, so you can help yourself to anything from the fridge. Mind if I take a shower first?”

“Nah,” I said, a vision of a wet, naked, and warm Ryan zapped through my brain before I quickly shook my head. Inside, I didn't grab anything to eat since I wasn't hungry. Instead I sat in the family room and watched some TV. Ten minutes later, Ryan's voice could be heard bellowing down the stairs, “Kyle, come on up.”

When I was at the top of the stairs, the sight that greeted me, was so erotic, so fucking sexy that I felt my cock get as hard as a metal rod instantly. Ryan stood, leaning against the stair rail, a towel draped around his lean and narrow waist. His calves were dusted with light blond hair and his chest was virtually hair free. The muscles of his shoulders were powerful, and boy were those shoulders wide. His chest was ridged with muscle, forming an eight pack, and his light and minimal amount of pubic hair could be seen just a bit where his towel dipped. Below was a nice package. I couldn't really tell, but it looked pretty nice to me. I felt my mouth water unconsciously and swallowed.

He made me think of hot sweaty sex and naked bodies. Of hard and taut flesh, sucking and licking and dirty words. Sweet nothings, bare asses, and perspiration. He brought out that side of me.

He turned then, and granted me a spectacular view of his firm backside. “Let's go, Kyle.” I gulped and followed him into the room, staring at his ass the entire way. His room was roomy, actually huge, and was nicely decorated. He had a state of the art computer and other various electronics that I didn't feel like identifying. He went into his walk-in closet and returned fully dressed. I was seated in a plushy chair and he fell into his bad, lying on his stomach facing me. We had pencils and papers in hand.

“You go first,” He said,

“Okay...Describe for me your childhood.”

“Well, I'm an only child. Growing up I was pampered and spoiled you could say. My parents were nice and pretty much gave me what I wanted so I was a terrible person for a while. They thought it was for the best and didn't really want to be bothered by me. My dad is a business man and my mom is doctor so they weren't around much. It wasn't until I started school that I realized how foolish I could be. Especially when no one wanted to be my friend, “ he sort of laughed at himself for this but I could tell it was a touchy subject. “Then I developed some people skills and actually made some friends. Which was pretty cool. I played a lot of sports as a kid; most of them organized sports like soccer, baseball, and basket-ball. I've continued to play basket-ball for fun even today but I really got into football. Although basket-ball is my one true love, I don't cut it for playing on an actual team.”

I wrote the gist of what he said furiously, before asking him, “Tell me, other than playing sports what do you enjoy doing?”

He grinned then, and that maddening dimple creased his cheek. I felt like kissing his lips. He was so cute...I stopped myself...what the fuck was wrong with me! “Well, besides athletics, I actually enjoy reading. Not like romance or anything, but I really enjoy historical fiction like...wartime novels.” This was news to me. I think my eyebrows rose slightly at this news. “Also, I like fantasy.”

“Do you enjoy listening to music?”

“Yeah, I like some artists. I'm not like those people who constantly need to have an I-pod in their ears or anything. Music is cool but it's not my life like some people. I don't need it to make me feel better or whatever. Usually if I'm stressed I like to take a run in the woods.”

I really liked this Ryan that was talking to me right now. I liked him and I also liked the things he spoke about. The Ryan that I normally saw was a jerk. This was a nice guy. I didn't know who he really was, but just then I really wanted to get to know. I asked him some more questions and then it was my turn to be interviewed. Ryan asked me the same questions I asked him. I have to say though, Ryan was way more detailed in his answers of the questions then I was.

Afterwards he said, “You know, you aren't such a freak after all.”

I almost snorted, “Thanks and you're not as big of a moron as I thought you were.”

“No seriously, I thought you were like major geek, all into school and stuff.”

“Well, I care about my grades but I'm not a major nerd. In fact I just do my work so that I don't get hassled by my parents. I'm not one of those kids who actually do their work because they truly want to.” I told him, smiling the entire time.

“Yeah, and you skip class more than I do. Yet you get great grades.” He said, and then added, “And I'm not a moron honestly. I may be really athletic but I really enjoy reading and learning about stuff. That's on my own time. At school, learning is the last thing I want to do. Agreed?”

I grinned, “Indeed.”

He looked at me closely, “you know what, Kyle Moore? If I'm not careful, I may start thinking you're not such a bad guy after all.”

“Fuck you.”

“That's more like it, bitch.” We both laughed.

“Still thinking you might start actually liking me?”

“No chance there.”

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