brooks & hale - Chapter 13: Chapter 13

"I HAVE YOUR MIDTERM results here with me," Mrs Mulligan said, waving the wad of papers in her hand covered in red markings. "We'll spend the entire lesson going over the questions, and feel free to work in groups to see where you went wrong."
A groan passed over the class as she began handing out the exam papers. Brooks was among them, chewing his lip anxiously as he awaited his grade. It didn't mean much really, just a half year progress check, but his parents didn't care how unimportant it was. Anything less than top marks would mean it wasn't good enough. There was even more pressure than usual, because Adam was headboy now and Brooks had to live up to that.
Hale was far less concerned about the imminent results. In fact, he didn't seem concerned at all; his arms were folded across the desk and pillowed his head as he slept soundly. Brooks took advantage of his lack of consciousness to study his face, in the least creepy way possible. It was a very nice face, with long dark lashes brushing against his high cheekbones. Brooks resisted the urge to brush the black hair that fallen into his eyes aside.
A week had passed since the kiss. True to his word, Hale hadn't breathed Brooks being gay to anyone, or even brought it up between them. And Brooks kept his end of the bargain by not telling anyone about what happened, not even Calla or Hassan. Not that he would have told them anyway. They were his best friends but he kind of had to come out to them first, before telling them he'd kissed another guy.
Neither of them had mentioned Saturday night, striking up a strange but nice friendship no one expected, but that didn't mean Brooks hadn't thought about it. He'd thought about it a lot, actually. It was harder to get over now that they were friends and Hale actually talked to him. Before, he'd never thought about Hale beyond the occasional appreciative look because, hey, he was attractive.
But know he had the memory of a kiss to feature in his daydreams. Even now, looking at his peaceful face in slumber, Brooks really wanted to kiss him again.
Mrs Mulligan interrupted his staring-at-Hale session with a loud sigh, and Brooks guiltily looked away from him, as if she could somehow hear his inappropriate thoughts. "Why am I not surprised?" she said, frowning at Hale. "He's the reason I'm thirty and turning grey. Wake him up and remind this is a classroom, not his bedroom."
"No offence, but I don't think he cares."
Mrs Mulligan grimaced. "Just wake him up, Brooks."
Brooks shrugged and gave Hale's shoulder a light shake. His eyelashes fluttered as he stirred with a yawn, cracking an eye open to peer blearily at Brooks. "Yes?" he said sleepily. Brooks' stomach flipped at his low and husky voice. "Is there a reason you interrupted my beauty sleep?"
Mrs Mulligan slapped his paper down by his head and he nearly jumped out of his seat in surprise at the loud sound. "This should wake you up," she said wryly.
Hale stretched his arms behind his head with another yawn and ran a hand through his mussed up hair, taking his sweet time while Mrs Mulligan waited impatiently. "Oh, this?" he drawled, picking up the paper with a large red E scrawled on the front. "Oops. This isn't too bad considering I didn't revise."
"Maybe you should take some tips from Brooks," Mrs Mulligan said, handing over his paper. There was a 96% scribbled on the front. "Good work, Mr Montgomery."
"Shit, ninety-six percent?" Hale exclaimed. "Is that even possible? I thought the teachers rigged it so you couldn't get in the nineties."
"Of course it's possible, Mr Ryves," Mrs Mulligan said, looking at Hale with a hopelessly defeated expression. "You are aware that if you can't bring your grades up to at least a C by the end of year exams you won't be able to continue with chemistry next year, aren't you, Hale? With the way your education is going, you'll be left doing only two a-levels next year."
"You're shitting me," Hale said in disbelief. "You can't do that. No way. Can they do that?" he demanded, looking to Brooks for an answer.
"You're asking the wrong person," Brooks said, raising his hands in defence. "I don't have a clue." He wasn't lying because he really didn't have a clue, but he guessed that the teachers could do whatever the hell they wanted. He just didn't have the heart to tell Hale that.
"Yes, Hale, we can definitely do that." Mrs Mulligan tapped his paper with a raised eyebrow. "You might want to think about that before skiving off and trying to act cool. And watch your language or you'll be in detention for a week."
Hale scowled down at his paper as Mrs Mulligan walked off to talk other students. Brooks was relieved he'd done well enough to get his parents off his case, but it was pretty hard to feel good about it when he'd just watched Mrs Mulligan deliver Hale his ultimatum.
"Well, I'm officially screwed," Hale declared. "Absolutely fucked over. Do you know what I can do with two a-levels, Brooks?"
"Uh..." It sounded like a trick question but Hale was looking at him imploringly for an answer. "Open up a bakery? I hear cream puffs are all the rage nowadays."
"Nothing," Hale said, ignoring Brooks' helpful advice. "No university would take someone with two a-levels. I mean, fuck that, but my mum always hoped I'd be the first one to go to uni in her family."
He tried to play it off with a shrug and unconcerned expression, but Brooks could tell it bothered him more than he let on. It was a pretty hefty weight to carry your parents wishes on your shoulders and Brooks suspected that, beneath his devil-may-care attitude, Hale did want to do well. Something was just holding him back, whether it was just laziness and lack of motivation or something more.
"It's not the end of the world, Hale," Brooks said reasonably. "You still have time until the exams, to prove Mrs Mulligan wrong."
"Yeah, well, that's where the problem is." Hale flicked idly through his paper and shoved it to the end of the desk, unimpressed with whatever he saw. "No amount of time can help someone like me."
"What do you mean, someone like you?"
Hale frowned. "Doesn't matter."
It was the same dismissal he'd received last time, but Brooks wasn't giving up that easily. "I can tutor you," he blurted out, his face turning warm when Hale looked at him in surprise. "Uh, only if you want, that is. To help on the bits you don't understand and all that."
"Seriously?" Hale's face broke out into the widest grin. "You'd do that?"
Brooks stared a little stupidly at him, before finally remembering to say, "Yeah, sure." He would have moved to Japan and learnt how to make sushi if Hale had asked him to do so with that smile. Brooks wished he could look at it for the rest of his life, or at least steal it to admire later.
"That's great," Hale said, still grinning. "Seriously, thanks. How much do you want? I've never done this tutoring thing before, so I don't know how much it costs."
"No, no, you don't have to pay me," Brooks said hastily. "I'm happy to do it as a favour." And so I have an excuse to spend more time with you, he added silently. "On one condition."
"Yeah?"
"We do it at your place," Brooks said. There was no way in hell he was letting Hale anywhere near his house, where his bigoted parents would most certainly scare him off. Hale didn't seem like someone who scared easily, but if he saw what Brooks' family was like, he might want nothing to do with him. Brooks wasn't willing to risk that.
"Yeah, okay," Hale agreed, puzzled. "Any reason in particular?"
"The tutor has his reasons."
"Oh, really," Hale smirked, leaning forward with a suggestive look. "You're given responsibility and you suddenly have reasons I'm not allowed to know about?"
"Yep." Brooks poked Hale in the forehead with the end of his pencil and pushed his face away. "Now do your work. The sooner we get started on improving your understanding, the better. A good place to start is to fix your mistakes from this paper."
Hale ignored his order and propped his chin on his palm. "So, when are starting, boss?"
"How about tonight?" Brooks suggested.
"Hmm," Hale said thoughtfully. "I have lacrosse practise, but only until five. How about after that?"
"Works for me."
"Cool," Hale said with a smile. Then his eyebrows furrowed, as if he'd had a bad thought. "Wait...am I actually happy about studying? When have I ever smiled over chemistry? This is your fault, Brooks," he said accusingly. "Look what you've done. You've broken me."
"Maybe you're a changed man," Brooks grinned, finding Hale's traumatic enlightening more than a little amusing. "Maybe you're a nerd now."
"What," Hale gasped with mock alarm. "No! How dare you? I'm one step away from being a bad boy, remember?"
"Welcome to the dark side," Brooks said dramatically, snorting a laugh at Hale's affronted expression. Before Hale could distract either of them any further, Brooks shoved Hale's paper into his face and used his newfound status as tutor to make Hale actually do some work. Maybe this wouldn't be so hard.
Maybe they could hang out as friends, with nothing more between them.
*
A vicious wind cut across the pitch and blew over the people watching from the side, nearly blowing away all the papers Brooks was holding. He snatched at them just in time before they fluttered across the grass and ignored the giggles of Elsie and Kara sat behind him, who had spent the past hour or so gossiping on and on about every single guy in this school.
It was impossible for Brooks to get any work done with them chattering incessantly in his ear. While waiting for Hale's lacrosse practise to finish, he'd learnt that Jimmy Sanders got his eyebrows threaded weekly and Daniel Jackson had a cute butt and Alec Walsh had slept with more girls than Mr Lewisham had hairs on his head, which wasn't all surprising since the man was balding. There was much more, including some information on who knocked who up and who had which STD, but he'd tried to block most of it out.
Brooks sighed and tapped the sheet of paper with his pen. As part of debate club, it was his turn to think up a motion for the debate this week, but he was drawing a blank. He wanted to blame it on Elsie and Kara, and their inability to ever stay quiet, but it had more to do with Hale. He kept glancing at the lacrosse players every few seconds, his gaze immediately following Hale as he sprinted up and down the pitch, wielding the stick in his hand with masterful ease.
He had to admit, Hale was really good. Brooks was probably the last person you wanted to talk to about sports of any kind, seeing as just running to catch the met left him in a wheezing mess on the floor, but even he knew getting the ball into the net had to be a good thing. Hale had already managed to do that five times, more than anyone else, and Brooks felt a warm rush of pride each time.
Every time he made the goal, Hale did a stupid cheer and looked towards Brooks with a goofy smile. Brooks returned it with one of his own each time. It was worth sitting on the frosty grass in the freezing cold, not getting any work done and slowly dying of frostbite, if it meant he got to see that smile.
Then Lewisham would ruin the moment by blowing his whistle at Hale, yelling at him to get his head in the game.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder. "Excuse me," a polite voice said, "it's Brooks, right?"
Brooks turned around to see Elsie and Kara smiling at him, which was enough to make him slightly wary. They were popular and sociable, pretty girls who hung out with Hale's crowd, and didn't waste time talking to him. "Yeah," he said uncertainly.
"Hello!" Kara beamed. "How are you?"
"I'm good, thanks." Brooks was definitely wary now. "How about you?"
"Great," Kara said cheerfully. She exchanged a look with Elsie, who was smiling serenely as she let her friend do all the talking. "So, you and Hale, huh? You two suddenly seem like good friends."
Brooks' eyes widened. "W-why would you say that?" They were onto him. Had he been too obvious with the staring? He thought he'd been subtle about it, but girls seemed so observant about these kinds of things.
"Weeeell, he totally ditched hanging out with us to hang out with you," Kara pointed out, twirling a strand of red hair between her fingers with a conspiratorial smile. "And you somehow willingly got him to agree to studying, when he doesn't even do it in school! What's your secret?"
"Nothing!" Damn, he'd said that too quickly for it to be believable. Abort mission, abort mission, he thought in panic. "I mean, uh, it was just an offer. Doesn't really mean anything. We're not even friends, you know? I barely know him."
Although Brooks had to admit, he knew Hale's mouth pretty well after that exploration.
"I think Hale sees you as a friend," Elsie said with a thoughtful smile.
"Really?" Brooks was conflicted about how to feel about that. That might have been a friendzone, if he'd ever had a chance with Hale in the first place. As it was, he'd take whatever he could get, even if it just meant a little of his company. "I mean...yeah, cool. That's cool."
"I'm curious, how did you even become friends?" Kara leant forward with an eager expression, still smiling like a maniac. Brooks was certain she hadn't stopped smiling once during this conversation and it might have been unnerving if he didn't know she just wanted something new to gossip about. "Since when was this a thing?"
Brooks didn't know how to answer under the interrogation, but luckily, he didn't have to. "Hey!" Hale jogged up to them, lacrosse stick slung across his shoulders. He was sweaty and dirty from practise, but the flushed face look was one he managed to pull off. "What're you guys chatting about? Discussing how painstakingly beautiful I am?" he teased.
"You wish!" Kara laughed. "We were actually talking about how lame you are for choosing chemistry over us."
"Aww, no need to get jealous," Hale grinned, ruffling Kara's red hair. "I know you're just upset you don't get to enjoy my delightful company. Try not to cry too much over my absence. Salty pancakes aren't as nice, K."
Kara batted his hand away with a chuckle. "I hope Brooks does something about that disastrous ego of yours," she said, shoving him lightly in the chest. "You're so big headed I'm surprised planets don't orbit you."
Hale waggled his eyebrows. "You know it's all part of the charm."
Brooks looked between the two of them and tried to decide, as objectively as possible, whether they were standing too closely together for a platonic friendship. They were obviously close, joking in the way only people who knew each other well did, and Kara was very pretty with her large blue eyes and wavy red hair. They'd make a cute couple, with their confident smiles and natural inclination to being sociable, whereas Brooks avoided small talk at all costs.
"I just need to shower and change out," Hale told Brooks, nudging him in the arm. "I won't be long, just wait here, 'kay?"
"Don't have anywhere to go," Brooks pointed out.
He disappeared into the changing rooms with the other guys, leaving Brooks alone with the two girls. Brooks watched him go and fought down that irrational urge to stare Kara down, to figure out what she had that he didn't. Okay, besides boobs and a vagina, but Brooks couldn't change anything about that.
"Hale's a good person," Elsie promised him, misreading whatever she saw on his face. "I know he acts cocky and confident most of the time, but he's actually pretty sensitive beneath the macho exterior. Not that he'd ever admit it."
"And if he gets a little too carried away, feel free to bring him down a couple of pegs," Kara said brightly. "Should be easy for someone as smart as you."
Brooks shrugged self-consciously. "I don't know about that..."
But Kara and Elsie had already moved onto the new topic of who had a "hotter bod", Chace Crawford or Channing Tatum, one that Brooks thought would be better to stay out of. He wanted to ask Kara if she was dating Hale, but he couldn't muster up the courage to actually do it without making her wonder why he even cared. He shouldn't care.
Did he care? Of course he cared. God, he was pathetic.
Neither Hale nor Brooks could drive, or owned a car, so they had to catch the bus back to Hale's house. Brooks was surprised to see that they didn't live that far away from each other, their neighbourhoods right next to each other, although they were completely different places. Brooks lived in a place where each house occupied huge acres of land, with immaculately trimmed lawns that no one dared tread on and at least fifty feet between each property.
Hale's lived on a street lined with cozy, little houses packed in next to each other, with only white picket fences separating the flowered gardens. Little kids kicked balls about on the pavement and chased each other on bikes, with neighbours watering their plants on the front lawn and chatting to each other. Everything was smaller, but it was clearly a tight knit community where everyone knew each other.
"This is your house?" Brooks asked, as Hale led him up the path to a blue white-trimmed house.
"Yep." Hale spread his arm out in an expansive gesture. "Bienvenido a la casa de ryves."
Brooks could only roughly translate that thanks to his Spanish GCSE, which gave him a very basic understanding of the language. "It's nice," he smiled, eyeing the melting blob of snow sporting a soggy red hat and scarf sitting in the middle of the grass. "Uh...why does that snowball get it's own clothing?"
"Oh, that's Fitzgerald," Hale said, as if naming lumps of snow was totally normal. "They're actually TJ's scarf and hat. Izzy gets upset if we don't wrap him up properly."
"Oh, of course," Brooks said. "We wouldn't your snowball to get cold."
"Hey, watch it with the sarcasm," Hale said with mock hurt, patting the ball of snow on it's head (did it even have a head? Just one of the many questions that kept Brooks up at night) as he walked up to the door. "He has feelings too. Fitzgerald used to be a snowman but now he's dying from the lack of cold."
"Fitzgerald the snowman," Brooks said, shaking his head with a bemused smile. "That makes more sense, I guess?"
Hale unlocked the front door and led Brooks inside, closing the door behind him. "Oh, you're not allergic to dogs, right?" Hale said casually. "Or scared of them?"
Brooks looked at him nervously. "Why?"
There was a loud bark and a wild beast came hurtling down the stairs, heading straight for Brooks. He backed up into the front door and gave an embarrassingly high-pitched yelp of surprise, just as the dog attacked him. Okay, not really an attack, more of an excited leap as he began licking Brooks' face with enthusiastic vigour. Brooks still felt unprepared and very freaked out by the slobber shower he was currently experiencing.
"Hale!" Brooks attempted and failed to push the jumping ball of fur away from him. "Get it off me before it eats my face! Hale - "
Hale was too busy laughing hysterically to even think about helping him. "This is the best thing I've seen all day," he chortled between fits of laughter, clutching his stomach as if Brooks getting ravaged by a savage animal was hilarious. "Oh man, did you hear that sound you made? You just squealed. I don't even think my sisters can go that high."
"I didn't squeal!" Brooks yelled indignantly, too alarmed to put any real heat behind his words. "Can you stop laughing and just - ah, no, please don't eat my scarf, my mother will kill me," he said desperately, tugging back when it began trying to pull it off his neck with it's huge teeth. "Okay, okay, I'll give you the scarf if you promise not to rip my arm off. Sound like a deal?"
Yeah, he sounded pretty crazy talking to a dog, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
Hale grabbed the dog by the collar and pulled it back, finally managing to control his loud chuckles. "Down, Maxy," Hale said affectionately, and just like that, the beast sat down at his feet with complete obedience. It put on a pretty convincing act of tameness, regarding Brooks with big brown eyes and a lolling pink tongue. "Good boy, Maxy. Good."
"Good," Brooks said incredulously, glaring at Hale. He wanted to be annoyed at the dog too, but he couldn't bring himself to glower at such a cute face now that the teeth were hidden. "Good? He tried to eat me!"
"Aw, c'mon, don't give me that look." Hale's dark eyes were still glittering with mirth as he petted Macy's head. "He was never going to eat your face or rip your arm off, you drama queen. He was just playing with you and excited to meet a new person."
Brooks wanted to point out that the excitement had left his hair wet with dog drool, when he realised they weren't alone. Two kids who looked about eleven or twelve were standing at the end of the hallway and staring at Brooks with wide eyed expressions that suggested they'd seen the whole fiasco. A toddler clung to the girl's legs and peered around at Brooks.
Then the boy suddenly broke out into a grin and said, "Will looks different."