Jo Jo spotted Specs walking ahead of him in the hallway. He sped up and tried to brush against him lightly, but, excited to see his boyfriend again, though they had only been apart for one class period, jostled him a bit too hard. Specs slammed into the wall. He winced and rubbed his side gingerly.
"Sorry!" Jo Jo exclaimed. He drew back a bit. "Are you alright?"
Specs instinctively ran a hand through his curly hair, as he did when he was thinking. "Yeah. I'm okay, I think."
"Phew. So can I still come over tonight to work on our history project?" Jo Jo grinned gleefully. He supposed that maybe the pair of them were pretty dorky for considering working together on a group project a date, but he didn't really care.
"Yup!" Specs responded. "You can walk home with me if you want. I can make you dinner. My parents are gonna be out till late tonight. Actually, I'd prefer if you came home with me because I really don't like being home alone."
"Absolutely!" Jo Jo nodded enthusiastically.
Specs reached for Jo Jo's hand. They rounded the corner of the hall.
Jo Jo started suddenly. "Oh, shoot. We walked past my classroom," he muttered. He waved to Specs, then scampered down the hall, back in the direction he had come. Specs hustled down the hall and stepped into his science classroom mere seconds before the bell rang.
Specs was attempting to pack all of his binders and textbooks into a red backpack that appeared much too small to fit all of the work he was trying to cram inside of it. He tugged the zipper hard, letting out a strange cry, and managed to zip the backpack shut.
He heard a familiar voice laughing, and looked up. Jo Jo was standing beside his locker, backpack slung over one shoulder, laughing loudly and without restraint. "Make that noise again!" Jo Jo prodded. Specs pursed his lips and blushed, but attempted to repeat the squawk he had made earlier. Jo Jo snorted and tried to imitate the noise. Specs giggled, then blushed harder.
Jo Jo took several deep breaths in an effort to regain composure. "You ready to go?" he inquired.
"Yeah," Specs breathed. He slammed his locker shut and snatched his backpack from the dirt-covered tile floor.
Jo Jo grabbed Specs's hand and practically dragged him down the hall and out their high school. Once they were outside, Jo Jo began to lead Specs to the left.
"Where are you going?" Specs asked, running his hand through his hair.
"To your house…." Jo Jo trailed off.
"Um. It's that way." Specs turned and pointed to the right.
Jo Jo sighed. His memory was not something of which he was particularly proud. "Oh, yeah. Duh."
"Idiot," Specs taunted and pressed his lips briefly to Jo Jo's. A moment later, he pulled away and stuck out his elbow and offered it to Jo Jo so they could link arms. Jo Jo slipped his arm in between Specs's elbow and waist and smiled, satisfied. They strode towards Specs's home in content silence.
Jo Jo slammed his math textbook closed. "Done!" he exclaimed. He stood up from the old blue couch in the middle of Specs's living room. He cracked up at the sight of the distorted indentation he had made while doing his homework there for the past hour and a half. Jo Jo glanced over at Specs, who was working diligently in the corner and had nearly completed his physics assignment. He waited, semi-patiently, picking at his fingernails, while Specs finished the last couple of problems. Soon enough, Specs shut his textbook and binder too.
"Thank God I'm done with that physics homework. It took forever." Specs groaned.
Jo Jo shrugged and strode across the room. "I'm hungry," he announced. "What's for dinner?
"I was thinking maybe spaghetti and meatballs." Specs stated plainly.
"Ooh. Fancy. Alright, chef boy. Get crackin'!"
Specs stared at him and made a face. "That was probably the lamest thing you've ever said. And that's saying a lot." Still, Specs could not help smiling.
Jo Jo's eyes gleamed with a hint of mischief. He wrapped his arms around Specs and pulled him into his warm embrace. Specs snuggled into Jo Jo and they sat there saying nothing for a few minutes. Then Jo Jo's stomach rumbled, reminding him of how hungry he was.
"So, dinner?" he prompted.
Specs wriggled out of Jo Jo's arms and pushed himself to his feet. He strode into his kitchen. "I'll have food ready in about half an hour, but my parents just got a big box of animal crackers so you can have some of those before dinner." He opened a cabinet below him and gestured to a large, clear plastic tub of animal crackers inside. Jo Jo's eyes widened. He deftly plucked the jar from its spot beneath the sink, marched back into the living room, and occupied himself with the stash of crackers.
Twenty minutes later, Jo Jo had depleted the jar of approximately one fifth of its original contents. His hunger satisfied, he now needed something else to focus on. He entered Specs's kitchen and lingered behind his boyfriend. Specs was arranging the meal on their plates.
"Can I put on the cheese?" Jo Jo requested.
"Go ahead!" Specs encouraged. Jo Jo seized a fistful of the bowl of shredded cheese Specs had prepared and unleashed it onto the two plates of noodles, meatballs, and sauce. His face lit up.
Each boy selected a plate of pasta and rushed to the kitchen table. Jo Jo sat down beside Specs. He took a bite of the spaghetti. "This is awesome!" he proclaimed. Specs beamed humbly, continuing to munch on his meal. Jo Jo shoveled another huge portion of pasta into his mouth.
Jo Jo had an idea. He quickly finished the rest of the food on his plate. He slipped the end of a particularly long strand of spaghetti on Specs's plate into his lips met in a very saucy kiss. Specs, who had, in all his modesty, closed his eyes in order to fully appreciate the taste of his spaghetti and meatballs, was bewildered momentarily. He opened his eyes and found himself face to face with Jo Jo.
"You dork! You couldn't wait till after dinner?" Specs teased.
"We have work to do after dinner," Jo Jo groaned.
"And we'd better get on that. It's already..." Specs peeked at the carved chestnut cuckoo clock hanging on the wall behind him. "7:32. And it's not like this project is gonna be easy."
Jo Jo and Specs were situated on opposite ends of Specs's couch, each staring intently at the historical articles on their computer screens. Specs finished scanning over the composition he was reading and typed some quick, though thorough, notes in shorthand into a document he had been filling for the past hour and fifteen minutes.
He stared at Jo Jo, whose eyes were beginning to droop and focus was beginning to wane. "How's it going?" Specs asked softly.
Jo Jo, head heavy turned towards Specs. "I mean, the research is going well and all, but I'm just really tired. I'm pretty much done learning about this one military strategy, but I still have at least one more to analyze and...I'm just...really exhausted. It's a lot of work and at this rate," he yawned, "I'm not gonna be able to stay awake very much longer. It's getting harder and harder for me to focus" He yawned again.
Specs shot Jo Jo a sympathetic look. He scooted himself across the couch and cuddle his boyfriend. He raised an eyebrow. "Any better?"
Jo Jo smiled sweetly. "Yeah! I'm already able to focus a lot better!"
Specs snorted. "Yeah, on me, not on your assignment!"
"So it's a start," Jo Jo mumbled, then returned to his work.
Specs speedily read through and annotated the last article he had opened. Feeling drained, but proud of the solid work he had done that evening, he shut his computer. Jo Jo had fallen asleep beside him, at what point Specs did not know for he had been so engaged in his work.
Specs supposed it would be better to let Jo Jo sleep over at his house than to wake him up and send him home so late. He called Jo Jo's home and left a message to let his parents know that he had come over to work on a collaborative project and would be staying the night.
Specs gazed at Jo Jo. He looked so cute and lovable when he was asleep. He spread a great green blanket around Jo Jo and crawled under it himself. He kissed his forehead and whispered "goodnight."
At 6:30 the next morning, an alarm beeped quietly. Jo Jo woke immediately, though Specs did not stir. The beeping grew gradually louder, but Specs still did not wake. Jo Jo shook him from side to side and was amazed to find that he was still sound asleep. A naughty smile creeped onto his face. He presented his boyfriend with a moist, slobbery kiss on the lips. Specs immediately jolted awake.
"What on earth?" Specs cried, groggy from having been rudely awoken.
Jo Jo tittered and hid his face. "In my defense, I had to find out some way to wake you up or else you would be late for school!" Specs rolled his eyes.
As Specs was still sitting sleepily on the couch and making no move to get ready, Jo Jo tore the blanket from him. Specs gaped at him. "What was that for?"
Jo Jo indicated the digital clock on the night table beside the couch. Specs stared at the blinking red numbers, reading 6:46, and leapt off the couch, eyes wide. He hastily shoved all of his binders and books into his backpack, its seams already straining, changed in an instant into a light blue flannel button-down shirt, and consumed two granola bars. "I'm ready," he gasped. "What about you, though? You're not even dressed."
"I didn't bring clothes with me because I wasn't expecting to stay over. It's not a big deal. I can wear the same clothes as yesterday. And I woke up like half an hour before the alarm and had some more animal crackers, so I'm not even hungry."
Specs nodded. "So. Let's go then." Jo Jo joined him and they walked out his front door.
"Ugh," Jo Jo whined, "another day at school."
Specs grimaced. He put his arm on Jo Jo's shoulder and leaned in to kiss him gently. To his delight, Jo Jo kissed back enthusiastically. They had been standing there kissing on the doorstep to Specs's home for about a minute before Specs pulled away. "I really don't want to be late to school," he explained. He laced his fingers through Jo Jo's and trudged down the path towards school.