Joe's POV
It's here. The dreaded Tuesday has arrived meaning that I have to spend another hour alone with David and I am not looking forward to it one bit. I've avoided him like the plague for the past day but now I'll have to talk to him. I don't even know if we're meeting in the library or if we are going to Mrs. Banci's office. This only means one thing, I'm going to have to go and seek him out and talk to him and I really don't want to.
"Can't you do it?" I beg Ally my hands clasped together in a pleading gesture.
"You want me to go up to David and ask him a question from you?" She asks me and I nod enthusiastically.
"Do I look like Hedwig to you?" She asks and I frown knowing she has a point but I don't want to accept her logic.
"Please" I plead with her and give her puppy dog eyes.
"No Joey, I'm not going to ask him something for you. If you need to talk to him you do it." I huff out and throw my hands in the air knowing that this is an argument I'm not going to win. She knows it and that's why she smirks at me and I pout.
I avoided eye contact with David the whole English class but once the bell rang David collected his books really fast so I had to rush out after him. I didn't really know how to approach him so my socially awkward ass tapped him on the shoulder. He spun around so quickly I stumbled back, at first he had a surprised expression but that quickly turned into a scowl.
"What do you want?" He snapped at me and I frown at him.
"I just wanted to know if still wanted to do tutoring today?" I tell him and I notice his eyes soften only slightly. He studies me for a while making me uncomfortable under his heavy gaze.
"Oh well yeah I kind of have to" He replied finally making my fists clench and unclench at my sides.
"Ok see you after school" I say before spinning on my heel and meeting back up with Ally as we walk off to our lockers.
———
I drag my feet on the floor as I slowly head towards the library and when I finally get there I notice David is already seated and is scrolling through his phone. When I sit down next to him he turns to me clearly looking annoyed.
"Where were you?" He asks in frustration and this time I don't hold back the urge to roll my eyes and I just do it. I'm sick of caring about what he thinks of me, its exhausting.
"I was at my locker" I say "And it could't hurt you to be a bit nicer towards me ya know"
"Let's agree to disagree on that one shall we" He says again earning another eye roll from me.
"Whatever, do you have something that you want to work on today?" I ask him and he nods and pulls out our homework.
"Yeah, can we just go through this?" He asks and I nod and pull my homework out as well so we can complete it together.
"Ok read the first question out loud" I tell him and he scrunches up his gorgeous face.
"No" he replies and I clench my pen harder.
"Look Mrs.Banci said that I have to help you with pronunciation so unless you don't want to improve then we can stop right now and both go home." I say closing my book.
"No, I'll read it" he replies holding out his hand to stop me from packing away my books. He begins to read the question and that manages to get a smile out of me. Once he's finished I give him a pat on the back and smile.
"Was that so hard?" I ask when he's done and he rolls his eyes but I think I saw a twitch of his lip.
The rest of the class goes by with David reading out the questions and then us answering them together. When the lesson is over David rushes out like he did last week and I run a hand down my face in frustration. Is it so horrible to spend time with me that he has to literally run away from me the second we are done. I pack away my books and got to wait outside for my mum.
———
"Hurry up Joey!" Ollie yells at me while I'm tying my shoes. Once I finish I look up at him and poke my tongue out at him. He giggles and pokes his right back at me, I ruffle his hair and stand up. I grab my soccer ball and my keys and we head for the front door.
"Hold my hand ok?" I tell him and he nods and grasps my hand with his smaller one. I'm keeping my promise to him and taking him to play soccer today. After that tutoring session yesterday I thought it would be a good way to clear my head. There's a field a few blocks from our house so we decided to walk.
"Make sure you look both ways before you cross ok" I tell him when we get to a road even though I'm holding his hand. When we arrive at the park Ollie runs into the middle and then turns back to me and shouts "Kick it to me Joey! Kick it!"
I laugh and kick the ball over to him he tries to stop it but misses and runs over to chase it. When he finally catches up to it he grins and tries to kick it back over to me but it only makes it half way to me and I see him scrunch up his face and give the ball a death glare. I start laughing at him.
"You're going to have to kick it harder than that Ollie" I shout towards him before I'm knocked off my feet and onto the ground there's a sharp pain in my head, I cry out when I hit the ground.
"Joey!" I hear my brother call before he's by my side his small face full of concern.
"Are you ok?" He frantically yells at me while I groan out loud.
"I'm fine" I reply rubbing my head and before I know it there's another person next to me.
"Oh shit Joe are you ok?" David asks and the most surprising part of this whole scenario is that he sounds concerned while he peers down at me lying on the ground.
"Fine" I wheeze and try to sit up but groan and clutch my head in pain.
"Here" he says extending his hand out to me, I clutch it and he effortlessly pulls me up. I stumble a little but he catches me and for a second we just stare at each other before Ollie breaks us out of our trance.
"Joey, who's this?" Ollie asks me looking skeptically at David, David crouches down so he's eye level with my brother and hold out his hand.
"Hi I'm David, what's your name?" David greets in the nicest voice I've ever heard him use. My brother slowly places his hand in David's.
"I'm Ollie" he says shaking David's hand slowly.
"Yeah I know him from uh school" I reply hesitantly and Ollie nods and then runs off to go and get the soccer ball that he abandoned earlier.
"Sorry about your head" He tells me scratching the back of his neck, and then bending down to pick up his football which was the cause of my head injury.
"It's ok" I say stopping the ball that Ollie kicked over to us with my foot and bouncing it a couple of times switching between feet, Ollie always loves it when I do that. I hear his little cheer from a distance.
"You're good" David comments and I chuckle surprised, I didn't think he was capable of giving compliments.
"Thanks" I say kicking the ball back to my brother and watch him go and chance it once again.
"But can you kick a real ball?" He asks handing his over to me with a smirk that I just wanted to punch off his face.
"What makes this a real ball?" I ask him taking the ball and pretending to examine it in my hands.
"Just kick it" He replies rolling his eyes at me.
"Ok if you insist" I reply kicking the ball really hard and really far. We both watch it go sailing overhead and then Ollie forgets about the soccer ball and goes to chance the footy. I turn around to David and smirk at his shocked face.
"So you're good at that too? Anything you're not good at?" He asks kicking at the ground with his hands in the pocket of his school jacket.
"There's a lot of things I'm not good at" I reply laughing at my brother when he tried to kick the footy but it missed his foot.
"Oh yeah name one" He says watching Ollie as well.
"I suck at drawing" I say which earns me an eye roll from David.
"What are you doing here anyways?" I ask him.
"Well I thought I'd get some practice in and it's right around the corner from the school…"
"Joey show me how to kick this ball" Ollie yells running up to us holding David's footy.
"I'll teach you how to kick that Ollie" David says taking the ball back from him and proceeding to show him how to kick it properly. After many tries Ollie manages to kick it a few meters away and David cheers and gives him a high five.
"Good job Ollie" I praise him ruffling his hair. David tells him to run out into the field and then kicks him the ball.
"You're good with kids" I comment bouncing the soccer ball on my feet once I retrieved it.
"Really?" He asks me sounding surprised and I smirk and turn towards him.
"Well you're better with kids than you are with teenagers" I comment.
"What the hell does that mean?" He asks clearly getting defensive.
"It means that you were not this friendly when you first met me" I say to which he scoffs and rolls his eyes.
"I distinctly remember you calling me a know it all before we had even spoken to each other." I recount to him and I notice his features soften slightly.
"Well I was kind of right" He says making me frown and turn to his smirking face.
"Hey, I am not! You don't even know me" I reply still frowning at his smug face.
"I don't need to, I know your type" He says smoothly.
"And what does that mean huh?" I ask.
"It means I know your type. Smart, popular, everything in your life is perfect" He says kicking the ground.
"You know that is just… so wrong on so many levels. You don't know anything about me and you shouldn't just assume my life is perfect because… what huh? I'm good at Italian? I speak it at home you asshole" I say getting angry, he has no right to tell me that my life is perfect. He doesn't even know me and my life is the opposite of perfect. He looks at me sideways and studies me for a long while and eventually shrugs.
"Whatever" He replies and I once again roll my eyes but then he nudges me with his shoulder making me look into his dark eyes. "I'm sorry about what I said to you when we first met and how I've been acting."
I peer into his eyes trying to find a hint that he's been lying to me but I don't find it so it's my turn to shrug my shoulders.
"It's ok" I finally reply he turns to me a holds out his hand.
"Friends?" He asks.
I stare at it for a second before placing my hand in his.
"Friends" I confirm and try to ignore the summersault that my heart did when my skin touched his. David and I played with Ollie for a few more hours switching between soccer and footy. It was hard to ignore the smile on David's face when he played with my brother or the way the light reflected on his sweaty skin. I can't let myself catch feelings for a straight boy, I won't. Not again.