Hi again. Hopefully everyone's enjoying the story so far but I just want to address a little criticism that came my way about it. Apparently there's not enough sex in it and what little there has been so far was too "vanilla" and I should warn people so as not to disappoint. So here's the warning: There's bugger all sex in this, and certainly no penetrative sex so if that's what you're looking for then it ain't here. If you want a (hopefully fairly well written) story about young love then it's in here. If you want more then feel free to look elsewhere on the site and don't forget to donate at https://donate.nifty.org/ so the site can keep running for you to find them. Enjoy the next chapter.

 

Chapter 2

 

\\\ Ben ///

Nick stood at the entrance to the cafeteria looking really nervous as I approached with Jamie. Besides Jamie, none of us had spoken to him since his outburst the day before so he was probably feeling a bit apprehensive about joining us again. Jamie flashed me a smile as we drew closer and before Nick even noticed us Jamie had grabbed his arm and was dragging him towards the cafeteria.

"Come on you, lunch time." He said, marching Nick forward to get some food, which I must admit was pretty funny. As we approached our table Tom, Danny and Noah were already tucking into their lunches.

"Mamma Mia!! Ben's here!!" Tom announced with a cheeky grin, making me roll my eyes as usual. Jamie set his tray down and swatted Tom round the back of his head before sitting down. Nick watched the whole thing with a look of bewilderment on his face.

"Ben's last name is Anderson, like Benny Andersson from ABBA, so this prick has to make a joke about it as often as possible." Noah explained. It was true, and I hated it. All through my childhood I'd been called Benny but when I finally moved up to Emberville Academy I was determined to make sure everyone called me Ben. I still found it funny when Tom kept trying to find a way to throw in some obscure ABBA reference that we'd miss, but Jamie was usually on the ball and whacked him every time.

"What can I say? That's the name of the game." Tom joked and Jamie smacked him again.

"You're gonna give him a concussion doing that." Danny giggled.

"So are we going to have another visit to the drama department today or are we all good?" Tom asked with a smile. Nick didn't seem too sure if Tom was joking or being serious so he just looked away without answering. "Drama it is then."

"Knock it off Tom; I think he just got a bit overwhelmed on his first day, right Nick?" Jamie said as I noticed Nick stealing another glance over towards Lucas before realising Jamie was talking to him.

"Huh? Oh...uh yeah, sure." He replied before taking a very keen interest in his food.

"So is everything ok after yesterday?" Noah asked, bringing the focus back to the day before. I looked at Nick expectantly as the he looked down at the table to avoid making eye contact.

"I'm sorry about yesterday, you didn't ruin my life." He finally said quietly. I wasn't sure if he was being sincere or if he just said it to avoid more problems but I thought it better to play it cool.

"No problem, we'll just chalk it up to it being a weird first day glitch." I replied with a smile, trying to sound as friendly as I could. "So how're you finding things here?"

"Fine." Nick replied, still not looking at me. Well that answered my question about whether he was sincere or not. There was a palpable silence in the air as no one seemed to know what to say; thankfully Tom, as the least tactful out of all of us, didn't miss a beat.

"Oookay then...not that this conversation isn't stimulating or anything but let's change the subject." He said; trying to break the tension, and then turned to Noah. "So what was all that shit going on in PE yesterday?"

"You mean Lucas refusing to do the lesson?" Noah asked with a chuckle.

"Yeah, someone said the dancing queen refused to lift any weights in case he broke a sweat or something." Jamie casually swatted him round the head again and carried on eating. "Goddamnit will you stop that?!?!"

"Stop being a prick then." Jamie replied with a smirk causing Danny to crack up again. Nick looked over to where Lucas was sitting with his fag hags, as Tom called them, and watched as he was talking and doing little dance moves to emphasise some points. I watched Nick closely as he didn't seem to be able to look away, like he was intrigued by the way Lucas' body moved fluidly to a tune only he could hear. Nick seemed to keep looking away like there was some sort of inner turmoil going on, whatever his problem was with Lucas he hadn't got to grips with it yet.

"You know you could always go over and talk to him." I finally said quietly to Nick. "You kinda owe him an apology as well after that outburst yesterday." Nick suddenly went pale and started to sway a little, like he was going to throw up at the very idea of talking to Lucas. Suddenly he grabbed his bag and ran out of the cafeteria, only this time Jamie was hot on his heels.

"Is this going to be the same shit every day?" Tom asked. "I say we ditch him so we can go back to eating in peace from now on."

"Aww don't say that, I kinda like Nick." Danny said.

"Your opinion's irrelevant, you like everyone." Tom replied, pointing is fork at Danny.

"Not true, I like almost everybody, I only tolerate you." He quipped before sticking his tongue out cheekily.

"There's definitely more going on there than we know." Noah stated. "He seems to be all over the place at the minute. He was nervous as hell and throwing up yesterday..."

"Fuck sake, really? Some of us are trying to eat here." Tom said in mock indignation as he put more food in his mouth.

"We need to find out what's happened to him since you last saw him." Noah continued.

"Jamie went to his house last night and said it looked like a right dump, even said his mum looked like she'd had a black eye recently." I looked over to the teachers and saw Mrs Forster in deep conversation with a couple of her colleagues. "Jamie's mum talked to Nick's mum while he was out of the way but he doesn't know what they said. I really want to know what she found out." A few minutes later the bell rang to signal the end of lunch.

The rest of the afternoon went by as normal with none of us seeing Nick in our lessons. We met up as usual after school to walk home together and there was one question on everyone's lips.

"So what happened with Nick?" I asked Jamie.

"He ended up running into the toilets and throwing up. I tried asking if he was ok and he just kept repeating `I can't' over and over. I think he was having a panic attack or something; luckily another kid came in so I was able to send him to get a teacher. Mr Evans came in then and took him away so I dunno what happened next."

"What did your mum talk about with his mum last night?" Noah asked.

"I dunno, she wouldn't tell me." Jamie replied. "Safeguarding issues or some crap like that so she couldn't say, she just told me he'd been through a rough time and to keep an eye out for him."

"Great, so you've brought a fruit loop for us to hang out with, thanks a lot Noah." Tom said, looking slightly pissed off. Noah suddenly spun him round and grabbed his shirt so they were face to face and there was genuine anger in his eyes.

"Hey grow up!!" He growled and Tom seemed to shrink back a little as he'd never seen Noah like this before. "We've got a kid here with some serious shit going on and he probably needs all the support he can get, so drop this sarcastic bullshit and try to act like you actually give a fuck about another human being ok? Now I don't give a fuck whether you like him or not but I intend to keep him around and hopefully help him out, and I'm pretty sure these guys will as well if that's alright with you."

"Ok, I'm sorry. I dunno what I can do to help though." Tom whimpered as Noah pushed him away again.

"Just try being nicer to him and think about what you're saying. None of us know what's going on but it looks like he's having a really tough time adjusting to his new situation so let's do what we can for him." We all agreed with Noah as usual. He was the only one of us with a younger brother so he was used being more mature and protective. Even though he wasn't the eldest of us we still treated him as if he were our older brother and leader of our group. "So you guys want to come back to mine for a bit of training?"

"Nah, I've got a tonne of homework." Said Danny, looking disheartened at the thought of studying instead of goofing off with the rest of us.

"And I'm gonna see what I can find out about Nick." I replied. "See you guys tomorrow." Noah, Tom and Jamie turned the corner to go home leaving Danny and I to carry on along the same road to get back to our houses. We lived a few doors down from each other on a quiet, tree lined road in a pretty middle class housing estate. All the houses along there were three bedroomed, besides the occasional one which had been extended over the garage, and they all had driveways big enough for two cars, as well as long gardens behind them. I was a nice, quiet area, ideal for bringing up kids as there was virtually no traffic on the roads and there was a tonne of space for them to burn off energy. I always considered Danny to be my best friend and we instantly bonded ever since the day I looked out my bedroom window and saw him doing some insane flips on the trampoline in his back garden. I didn't mind him being a year younger than the rest of us because his free running skills were amazing, and when Danny was old enough to join Emberville Academy I immediately brought him over to meet the other guys and the rest was history.

"So do you think we'll be able to help Nick out?" Danny asked, balancing on the wall next to me as we walked home. "I hope so, I really like him."

"You barely know him though." I stated, slightly amused by Danny's hopefulness.

"I know, but I just feel like he could really be one of us if he just gets past whatever's happened to him you know?" Danny said, blushing at how silly he thought he sounded.

"Maybe, although with the way Tom's been lately he might not want to be one of us." I joked, causing Danny to crack up. He did a quick somersault down off the wall outside my house, earning himself a little applause from me as it was impressive, then we fist bumped before he carried on down the street to his own house.

I walked through my front door, dropping my bag as I carried on down the hallway towards the kitchen. As usual I headed straight for the fridge to grab a snack before sitting at the counter. I checked my phone to see if I could find Nick on any social media and after trawling through the usual sites, using Nick's newer and former surnames, I drew a complete blank, but just as I was about to give up I decided to look for Nick's mother. I finally found a site with her profile and started scrolling through the photos. There was only one showing her with Nick, but it was clearly taken when he was younger. It seemed strange that there weren't many pictures of him on there as most parents loved to post pictures of their kids growing up. Were there more posted that only her friends could see or was there another reason why she'd never taken any?

"Hey sport, how was school?" My dad asked as he came into the room.

"Fine...hey Dad, do you remember this kid?" I asked, showing him the picture of Nick on my phone.

"Vaguely, didn't he go to school with you?"

"Yeah, but then he disappeared before I started Emberville." I replied.

"I recognise his mum though; Summer Taylor, she went out with your uncle for a while in college."

"Really?" I was shocked. How had I not known that? Then again, why would I need to know it?

"Yeah, not for very long though, she cheated on him and he dumped her, after that we never really saw her much. He was heartbroken though." Dad looked at me curiously. "Why the sudden interest in them?"

"Did you know his dad?" I asked, ignoring his question.

"Unfortunately yeah." Dad replied, clearly not a fan of the guy. "We were in the same year at school. Why?" I could tell he was getting impatient for answers.

"Nick started at our school this week and he seems to hate me and Lucas for some reason. From what we know he lives in a really shitty house in the Pike View estate with just his mum; I think she's been beaten up recently." Dad looked horrified when he heard the last bit of news.

"Wait, beaten up? Are you sure?"

"I think so, Jamie just said she had some bruising on her face and seemed to have trouble walking when he saw her." I replied. "What do you think has made him hate us though? I barely knew him before he moved away and Lucas has never met him so there must be more to it."

"Hmmm...I think you might need to talk to your uncle Luke about this, he'd probably be able to tell you more about Nick's dad than I could but he's away til the weekend if you can wait that long." The thought did cross my mind about phoning him but it seemed like a better idea to talk it over face to face.

 

The next day in school, I arrived at the usual table where all the other guys had already started eating, with one exception.

"Where's Nick today?" I asked, noticing we were back to just the Fleek Flow crew.

"Dunno, he was in history this morning but I haven't seen him since." Noah said. "I was hoping he'd be with one of these guys but they haven't seen him either." I looked around the cafeteria to see if Nick had joined any of the other tables but there was no sign of him. I briefly caught Sammie's eye though and she gave me one of her cute little waves, making me blush and wave back quickly.

"When the fuck are you gonna get round to asking her out?" Tom demanded.

"I told you, I can't, there's too much history there." I replied, turning back to our table. I couldn't explain to them exactly what was going on between us as I wasn't really sure myself.

"There's fuck all history between you!! All you've done for the last few years is wave and blush at each other. You've never even had a conversation as far as I've seen so you can't have a history." Tom said, and then a sly grin crossed his face. "Maybe I should ask her out and show you how it's done." I suddenly burst out laughing at the thought, to the point where I could barely breathe.

"She'd eat you alive and you know it Tom." Noah said as I was finally able to speak. Tom looked distraught as I mocked his ability to get together with Sammie but I knew he didn't stand a chance.

"You have no idea what she could do to him." I added between chuckles. Just then Danny finished his food and stood up from the table.

"Where are you going?" Jamie enquired.

"To look for Nick, he's around here somewhere." Danny determinedly replied, and then disappeared out the cafeteria.

"Should one of us go with him?" Jamie asked.

"Nah, he's like a little bloodhound that one, if anyone's gonna find Nick it'll be him." Tom replied. "That kid'll either grow up to be a cop or Batman." We carried on talking about plans for the weekend, as we always liked to get together to work on some tricks. Suddenly our phones started to ping as a message came through our group chat.

"Nick's in one of the music rooms apparently." Noah said, as he was the first to read the message. His phone pinged again as a photo of Nick with a guitar; sitting in front of Mr Evans came through.

"Can't say I'm surprised." Jamie said, looking at the picture on his own phone. "He had one at home so I suppose it makes sense that he'd want a few more lessons considering he said he wasn't very good."

"I think it might be best to give him a little space as it's still his first week, we've kinda forced ourselves on him these last couple of days." Noah said.

"No argument here." I happily agreed.