Chapter Text
Hailey flinched when the teacher announced she'd be paired up with Drew. Luke gave the club president a thumbs up from the other table, and Jake wished the pair good luck, giving them his usual finger gun goodbye.
"Lucky assholes," she thought to herself while the two happily started their experiment. But to her surprise, Drew didn't make any comments; he did his work way too silently, which actually weirded Hailey out.
He had been awfully quiet for half an hour now, not a single remark, no complaints when Hailey did something wrong deliberately to get a reaction out of him and see if he’s actually Drew.
After a few failed attempts, she finally addressed the situation. “Seriously, what is wrong with you?” She asked, going through her notes, “The real Drew would have gotten us in detention for arguing right now.”
“I'd rather deal with you than with the lovebirds over there,” he frowned, pointing at Henry and Liam, who were sitting together and looking way closer than usual. Not as friends, but…
“They're so into each other!” Drew was getting too comfortable telling Hailey about this, though he didn’t seem to realize. “But they’re so damn slow they won’t realize that, and now I have to deal with Liam being DOWN BAD over Henry while lucky Jake over there only hears Henry being genuinely confused about his feelings.”
Hailey gave Drew a deadpan look. “Why is he telling me about all of this!?” Drew was effortlessly doing the experiment that was given by the teacher, so at least she knew he was working.
But this might be the first and last time he’s ‘nice’ to her, so obviously, she’s going to be as normal as she can about this. “I get what you mean,” Hailey said, recalling Zander and Luke’s mutual pining. “Good luck with that. It took Zander and Luke years; they’ve been into each other since childhood.” She let out a chuckle at the last part, watching Drew look at her with a more desperate look on his face regarding the situation.
He sighed and looked back at the experiment in front of him. “Thanks, whatever,” he said coldly. “He must have realized who I am, huh?” Hailey thought to herself, but she didn’t say anything; instead, she looked at the two boys, Henry and Liam, once more, unaware of their friend’s stress about them.
When class was over, she picked up her things and walked up to Luke, who was waiting for her in front of the door with a very perplexed Jake.
“Did you just have a genuine conversation with Drew?” He asked, confused as he looked at Hailey and then at Drew, who was now walking up to him with the same tired look on his face.
“Not a single word. Let’s leave before I kill Henry and Liam,” Drew dragged Jake by his arm out of class, the blond did his best to wave goodbye at his bandmates. Luckily he was stronger than Drew, so he managed to stop them in place.
“I can’t believe you and Hailey finally had a conversation without arguing!” Jake said cheerfully, seeing his two best friends getting along.
“IT’S THOSE IDIOTS' FAULT, I TALKED TO HER ABOUT THEM,” he groaned, dragging his hands through his face.
Jake tilted his head, confused. “I don’t get it,” he said genuinely. “I think it’s cute seeing Henry trying to realize his true feelings about Liam.” He pulls on Drew’s arm so they start walking to PE.
“Because you’re dealing with Henry!” Drew clarifies. “He acts like an average gay boy trying to win against his feelings, like those cringe gay movies; it's so cheesy.”
The singer looks at him and asks, “And what’s wrong with—”
“—he's just Liam!” Drew spluttered, interrupting Jake.
Jake rose an eyebrow and looked at his friend as if he was blabbering nonsense. “What do you mean?” Jake asked.
“You’ll see, Jake… You’ll see…” Drew said, walking into the locker rooms, Jake following behind.
And yeah, Drew was right. Liam was down bad for Henry.
Henry, as always, managed to get away from doing P.E Meanwhile, Jake, Liam, and Drew were playing football. And today Liam was especially ‘friendly’ with Henry. The three were taking a break from playing and headed Henry’s way to sit on the grass with him for a while.
“Thank Rosy it’s over!” Liam groaned in relief, sitting next to Henry. At first, Jake didn’t understand why Drew had told him, “You'll see,” but then Liam laid down on the grass, head on Henry’s lap, getting too comfortable with his so called friend.
Drew gave Jake a shove on the side, looking at him with a smug ‘I told you’ face. The blond was now understanding what he meant. On one hand, Henry was blushing furiously, trying to get his other two friends to help him out, just as he had expected.
On the other hand, Liam looked as if he had already done this multiple times; he laid comfortably on the green haired boy’s lap and buried his face in his abdomen, avoiding any sort of eye contact.
“You can’t say this is a friendly casual thing, because no way I’d do that with Drew,” said Jake, looking at Henry whose face was now contrasting his hair.
“I’d punch you so hard that Liam would look prettier compared to you,” Drew threatened, huffing out a laugh when Jake backed away with his hands in the air.
“Liam’s pretty tho—” Henry blurred out before going quiet again, noticing what he had just said.
“Yeah, no—” Drew interrupted, “I’m out of here.” He said, standing up and walking back to the field
Jake shrugged his shoulders. “See you, lovebirds!” He said, going to check on what Hailey and Zander were doing on a nearby bench; maybe Hailey can tell him what she and Drew talked about.
Henry looked at Liam, who was still laying on his lap, not even budging. “Dude, not gonna say anything?” He asked, and Liam shook his head and looked at him.
“Too comfortable over here, not moving, not yapping.”
Henry sighed and stood up abruptly, making Liam’s head hit the ground. “Then I might go play football with Drew if you’re not doing anything.”
And knowing how awfully unathletic Henry was, Liam already know how that was going to end.