"Are you really nervous?" Monty and Bryce get into the car.
"What? Um…"
"This guy really makes you nervous. I've never seen you like this."
"Shut up. I'm fine."
"You tried on five different shirts before school this morning."
"I… I… they all looked weird."
"Yeah…" They both laugh.
"We're here. You can go now."
"Calm down."
"Just go and start your movie theater training."
"I will. If you calm down and try to act normal."
"I'm so normal."
"Yeah. Okay." Monty steps out of the car. "Whatever you need to tell yourself."
"Bye." Bryce starts driving away.
"Don't forget to pick me up at six!" Monty yells as Bryce drives away.
Bryce walks up to Hunter's house. It looks so normal to him. Very much like Clay's. Before Bryce can knock on the door, it opens and Hunter is standing there smiling.
"Saw you coming."
"You were looking out the window for me?"
"Oops. Caught me." He grabs Bryce's hand and pulls his through his house. "That's the living room. Kitchen. Backyard." He pulls him up the stairs. "That's my parents room. That's the twins room. And here's mine." They walk into a room filled with a little bit of everything.
"Wow."
"What?" Hunter jumps onto his bed.
"You've got a lot of..."
"Stuff? Yeah. I'm a bit of a hoarder." He kicks his desk chair over to me. "Take a seat. Stay a little while."
"Yeah. We should probably get working on the lab." Bryce opens up his bag and takes out his textbooks.
"Sure. In a little." He reaches under his bed and pulls out a vape.
"What are you doing?"
"Do you want some?"
"Um… I don't really do that stuff anymore."
"No problem." He slides the vape back under the bed. "What are you into?"
"I actually don't do any kind of drugs or even alcohol actually. At least not anymore."
"Oh… I sense a story."
"Yeah…"
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. Eventually you'll trust me."
"You seem very confident in that."
"I'm just confident in general."
"You remind me of…"
"Of what?"
"Me."
"Best compliment I've ever received."
"Only if you didn't know who I was."
"Interesting…" He stands up.
"What?"
"Why do you hate yourself so much?" He just walks over to his dresser and starts going through stuff.
"I don't."
"Then why can't you just accept a compliment?"
"I don't know."
"When I was 10 I had a massive crush on this boy in my class. He was like Chris Evans meets Danny Phantom."
"Danny Phantom is quite cute."
"Oh yeah." Hunter takes off his shirt and throws it in the hamper. "Well I was basically in love, even though we never once spoke." He sits on his bed. "And back then I was really into reading fanfiction. Lots of it. Lots of smut. I even wrote some. So basically my entire idea of romance and what to do when you like someone came from the back corners of Wattpad."
"I can't say I've ever read fanfiction before."
"Oh, wow do I have things to teach you." He goes to the corner of the bed and closer to Bryce. "Because of the unrealistic expectations given to me by the internet I walk up to said Chris Evans and Danny Phantom look alike in the bathroom one day and kiss him. I was expecting him to kiss back. I was expecting the beginning of a life changing romance. Instead, he pushes me to the ground and starts yelling gay slurs at me. He calls me these names that I'd never even heard of before."
"I'm sorry."
"Oh. Don't. I got up and kick the kid in the balls. I sent him to the ground crying."
"Oh. Okay. So… what was the moral of this long story?"
"Don't give a fuck about other people because your amazing."
"Really?"
"Well, honestly I was trying to think of a story for you and that was the only one I could think of."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. It was fun though."
"And what was this boy's name?"
"Broderick."
"What?"
"Yeah…"
"You liked a Broderick?"
"Well… it's not the best name, but it's not that bad."
"It's bad."
"Fine. It's bad." Hunter stands up in front of Bryce, looking down at him. "You know one thing I didn't learn from that day in the bathroom with Broderick?"
"What?"
"That things aren't like what you read." He grabs Bryce by the face and leans down, giving Bryce a big kiss.
"I should really start reading more." Bryce says as they stop kissing.