Page 2

“I asked if you know Bren. He’s from the school you went to last year, right?”

“What? Oh. Y-yeah, I do.” A.J. said, jumping up from his desk to stand at attention.

He caught Bren’s eye again and found him trying not to laugh.

Mrs. Tremblay, looking more concerned than a second ago, went on. “Alright, so can I leave it to you to make sure he makes it to his next class?”

“Yeah!” A.J. squeaked, already taking a step towards Bren.

Laughter rippled through the room, but A.J. couldn’t see why. Of course he was going to take Bren out of here.

“A.J.?” came Mrs. Tremblay’s voice again.

A squeak was all that A.J. could manage this time.“I meant after first period.”

A heat washed over A.J. that had nothing to do with Bren standing twenty feet away, and he sat back down.

Mrs. Tremblay clucked her tongue as she scanned the room before nodding at an empty desk on the opposite wall. Mr. Smith moved up from the dregs of A.J.’s curated teacher ranking system as Mrs. Tremblay took the tumble of the century.

A.J. dug his nails into his thigh as Bren took his seat. From the stab of pain that answered, this wasn’t a dream. Bren was really here, sitting three rows away on the second floor of A.E. Peacock Collegiate.

A thousand kilometers away, Mrs. Tremblay started back in on the syllabus, but A.J. couldn’t tear his eyes off Bren.

He’d let his hair grow out over the summer, the gingery waves kissing the nape of his neck. The patch of scruff on his chin looked thicker than he’d remembered, too, and unless it was a trick of the light, his arms had gotten thicker. None of it was making it any easier for him to stay in his seat.

He must have looked as desperate as he felt because after catching his eye, Bren looked like he was having trouble containing his laughter. He jerked his head towards the door and wiggled his eyebrows, lips pursing in the shadow of a kiss.

It took every ounce of self-control A.J. had to keep the animal sound from rising in his throat

With so much force of will that it made A.J. sure he deserved some kind of medal, he tore his eyes off of the world’s hottest expat to stare at the clock at the front of the room, and he started scribbling. There were twenty-eight minutes left in class. Twenty-eight times sixty, or one thousand six hundred and eighty seconds until second period. But it had taken him at least forty of those seconds to figure that out, so it was even sooner than that. If he carried a one somewhere, he was sure he could shave off a bit more time, or maybe more division was the answer.

And just like that, his favourite teacher taught his favourite subject.

2

Arlo was on his feet and halfway to him before the bell finished ringing. Bren had enough time to catch a glimpse of Nat before he was pulled by the wrist out of the room. She looked like she was in danger of dying from suppressed joy.

“Hey there, Robolad. Where’re we goin—?”

Arlo cut him off with a grunt and dragged him down the hall, weaving between clusters of their classmates but never letting go. They turned right through a set of bright orange double doors and onto a landing with stairs that led to the first and third floors.

“This your favourite stairwell or someth—?”

Arlo seemed determined to never let him finish a sentence ever again and threw himself at him. There was a rumbling at the core of Arlo’s chest before the sound started. A wild combination of laughing, gasping and sobbing all rolled into one.

His hand found a spot at the base of Arlo’s spine on reflex and the lad pressed into him so hard he had to lift him off the ground to keep them from toppling over.

“How? How—are—y—here?”

Arlo didn’t stop kissing him long enough to get the words all the way out, and Bren wasn’t about to complain. His arms weren’t quite up for the job of holding the lad much longer, though. He’d only started working out with Brick back in July and the gains he’d made were mostly for show.

He was surprised that Arlo didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed that a couple people had slowed their pace and muttered as they passed. A short, beefy guy with tight brown curls and a pair of arms that would have put Brick to shame, called, “Woo! Get some, Walker!” as he passed, but Arlo only had eyes for him.

“How are you here?” He asked again, and he moved to kiss him before he could answer.

Bren was ready for it this time, clapping his hand over Arlo’s mouth, trying not to tremble at the warmth that spread across his palm.

“You gonna let me answer now, you maniac?”