After he forced Tristan to run for the hills, Miles decided that it was only fair to give him a wide berth. Besides, it wasn't hard to take a seat up front in History class. But there was no way that he could avoid him as his lab partner.
Standing under the threshold of the Chemistry classroom, Miles saw that Tristan had already arrived, and was casually flipping through a magazine. Just a few weeks ago, he would have been happily by his side, as they made snarky comments about the various fashion faux-pas. But those days were gone. He could still turn around and skip all together. Nonetheless, judging from the plethora of lab equipment scattered over the tables, it was clear that if he missed this lecture, then he would be pretty much be guaranteed a failing grade in the practical portion of the program during the final exam.
Miles took a breath and walked towards the stool, and he greeted Tristan with a brief hello. The boy responded with a short hum, not even bothering to look up. After a couple of minutes of silence, Tristan quickly shut his magazine closed to stow it away. The action inadvertently caused a work sheet to slip off from the desk and drop on the floor.
"Oops," said Tristan as he hopped off from his stool. In one fluid motion, he crouched down, picked up the paper, spun on his tips of his toes and pushed out his behind before stretching back up with his hands on his lap. Miles' jaw dropped at the sight and he quickly looked away before Tristan caught him ogling his butt. However, instead of clearing his mind, the fantasy of them at a nightclub popped in his head, where he was gripping Tristan's hips from behind and passionately kissing his neck while the other boy was roughly grinding himself against him. The thought was cruelly snatched away from him when the teacher cleared her throat to call for the attention of her students.
"Did you hear the news? Oxygen and magnesium are dating. OMg!"
As usual, she was met with silence. Miles barely heard the scoff that came from the other side of his table. He glanced over and quickly regretted his decision because now his attention was fixed on how sexy Tristan looked while he was biting down on his edge of his lip to keep himself from laughing. To make matters worse, Miles was still watching when Tristan was taking his sweet time to rub his tongue over the bite mark. The very same tongue that he used to battle with for dominace during some of their more intense makeout sessions.
"Okay lab partners, you will work together to use the following instruments on your desks to help you separate compounds. Strap on those goggles! The first step is operating the Bunsen burner. I'll give you a few minutes of practice before we move on."
Miles picked up the flint striker and held it close to the burner after twisting open its gas valve. After a few flicks he was still unable to catch a flame. Tristan smirked.
"You're doing it wrong."
Wordlessly Miles offered the striker. But instead of taking it, Tristan slowly leaned over and placed his warm hands softly around Miles'. He then slightly changed the position of Miles' fingers, who all but whimpered from the proximity.
"Try it now," Tristan mumbled softly.
With a flick enough sparks jumped out, bringing the fire to life.
"Very good, class! Now extinguish those flames and I will explain the following steps for this lab. Grab the test tube."
Tristan delicately picked up the skinny container with his index and thumb and placed it in front of him. But instead of letting go, he casually started to stroke the length of the test tube in smooth, languid motions, while still keeping his attention on the teacher up front. Miles' eyes on the other hand were glued to the movements of Tristan's fingers and his mouth became dry. He let out a hard gulp as he forced himself to rip away from the hypnotic gesture.
"For this experiment, you will only be needing 100 grams of the substance that is already in the beaker. Measure carefully!"
They reached out for the beaker at the same time. Their fingers brushed for an instant, but it was enough to make Miles feel that his whole body was hit with electric shocks. Tristan on the other hand acted if Miles' jolt upon the skin-to-skin contact never happened as he carefully poured in the substance with a steady hand until he obtained the desired quantity.
"Now, I want both lab partners to level themselves until they could see the meniscus together."
Tristan was not budging the test tube sitting in front of him, so Miles had no choice but to move over to the other side of the table. They crouched low enough to properly see the curved line. When Tristan moved just a tad to cause the tips of their ears to graze, Miles was sure that the other boy could feel the heat radiating from the blush on his face.
Miles' head was spinning. He had no choice but to raise his hand to ask for the hall pass. He needed air and couldn't get out of there fast enough. Was Tristan torturing him on purpose or was it all in his head? In the bathroom he splashed cold water on his face and took a good look at his reflection.
A boy who couldn't be further away from being over his ex looked back.