Chapter 6
Never in a million years had Evan thought he’d be singing ‘sue me’ on the top of his lungs in the car of James’ friends with James right beside him, smiling brightly and admiring him, but here he was. James was looking at Evan like he never wanted to look at anything else.
Evan felt truly admired like this, but he had a sour feeling in the pit of his stomach. He knew he was doing something very wrong, but then again he didn’t want to quit. James liked Evan for Evan, not for the version of Evan he played in front of so many other people. Sure, James didn’t know everything about him, but Evan was more himself with James than he was at school.
He’d left his phone at home today. It only made him feel sick, because chronically online Regulus wasn’t online anymore, and he was scared something had happened. He was still mad, yes, but he didn’t want anything to happen. I mean, he kinda cared about them. Don’t tell them he said that though.
‘Ev? Are you okay? We’ve been standing still for five minutes now,’ Alice said, frowning and looking at him. He blinked and shook his head. ‘Oh, yeah I’m fine. Just lost in thought. Thanks for dropping us off Alice, it’s really sweet of you to do that,’ Evan said while opening the car door and stepping out. Alice smiled at him and gave James a wink before saying ‘anytime,’ and driving off, music already blaring out of the car.
‘She’s so sweet,’ Evan muttered to James, who hummed in agreement and wrapped his arms around Evan. ‘Let’s go get your scooter back, yeah? So you can drive yourself everywhere again,’ James proposed, to which Evan nodded.
They walked into the police station and were greeted by the sight of two older men going rogue at a boy, not much older than Evan. The younger boy had messy, light blonde and green eyes, light freckles and red cheeks. The one brother looked a lot like him, but the other one looked very different. He had brown curls, dark blueish eyes and no freckles. He looked like he was the oldest, so Evan stepped up to him.
‘Je suppose que c'est lui qui a volé mon scooter?’ Evan said, his eyes lingering on the youngest boy for a bit longer, to make him feel guilty. I’m guessing he’s the one who stole my scooter? The oldest boy looked at him unimpressed. Evan frowned. He wasn’t in the wrong here, his belongings were stolen. ‘Écoutez ici, hipster. Vous récupérez votre scooter, indemne et en un seul morceau, si vous ne portez pas plainte. Si vous le faites, vous ne le remettrez pas en marche,’ the boy said in a hushed tone, as to not let anyone else hear him. Listen here, hipster. You’re getting your scooter back, unharmed and in one piece, if you don’t press charges. If you do, you won’t get it back working.
Evan’s eyebrows shot up in shock. ‘Tu as du culot de venir ici et de penser que tu peux me dire quoi faire,’ Evan answered, James snorting behind him, but stopping when Evan threw him a look. You have some nerve to come here and think you can tell me what to do. The boy on the left cleared his throat. ‘Calmez-vous, tant que tout le monde va bien, tout va bien, n'est-ce pas ? Al n'est même pas allé aussi loin.’ Evan looked at the youngest boy, who’s eyes were trained on the floor. Calm down, as long as everyone's safe and well, it's fine right? Al didn't even drive it that far. ‘Cela ne donne toujours pas à Al le droit de voler mes affaires,’ Evan said, pressuring the name of the boy. Still doesn't give Al the right to steal my stuff.
‘I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to,’ Alex murmured, the oldest boy looking at him in irritation. ‘How can you still not speak French? You’ve been learning since you were three! God, you’re real stupid sometimes,’ he whispered, earning a glare from James. ‘You can, of course, be nice to, I'm guessing, your brother?’ he said, his eyes turning harsh. ‘Ah, of course you’re English. You’re stupid tourists huh?’ he said, his eyebrow raised.
‘No actually, I’m not. I was born here. I go to school in Britain, but I will never call myself a tourist in my mother country. Now give me my keys and just get this over with,’ Evan said, holding out his hand.
‘Okay, listen. He’s really sorry for everything, and this won’t happen again okay? But please don’t press charges, our parents will get so mad…’ the boy on the left said, handing Evan the keys. The other boy looked up now, his green eyes watery. Evan recognised him from somewhere, he was sure of it. Evan’s eyes softened and he looked at the three boys. ‘It’s okay. Just… don’t do shit like this if you want to have no problems with your parents.’ Evan nodded at the three boys and walked off, James following suit.
‘Ev, what’s going on? You were all mad a second ago and then you just… Understood?’ James asked him, a frown on his face. ‘Yeah, well.. I know people like him. Most times, they don’t have friends or anything. I didn’t want to make his life any worse,’ Evan explained, a matching frown of James on his face. James agreed and walked over to Evan’s scooter, which was neatly parked on the outside of the building.
‘Thanks for going with me. It was really not necessary, but it was… sweet,’ Evan said, smiling softly and looking up at James who smiled back with that bright smile of his. ‘Of course. You’re my boyfriend not for nothing, right?’ he said, earning a shocked look from Evan. ‘B-boyfriend?’ he asked, eyes as big as plates. ‘Yeah..? Oh… I uh… We never called each other that, did we? Are you okay with it? I get it if you’re not, but we do need to discuss it, because like-’ James never finished his sentence though. He tried, but mumbling into Evan’s mouth turned out to be futile.
When they broke away, Evan smiled at him brightly. ‘I’d love to be called your boyfriend, James,’ he whispered, his face still close to James’, standing on his tiptoes to be able to look into James’ eyes with how close he was standing.
‘Oh.. okay. My boyfriend. You are, my boyfriend,’ James said, smiling and leaning down to kiss Evan again.
If only Evan didn’t feel guilty about it.
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Evan unlocked his door and kicked his shoes off with more force than needed, walking into the kitchen and connecting his phone with the music box. ‘Comfort crowd’ from Conan Gray started halfway through, but Evan was too lazy to restart it.
He was silently humming along while putting his groceries away, looking at his phone occasionally to check for any messages. Still nothing, of course. He’d started worrying about an hour ago, when he noticed the hourglass beside Barty’s name. Him and Barty hadn’t had an hourglass ever. Their snap streak was about 2000 days too, so he’d started desperately bombarding Barty with messages too.
When Evan finally finished cleaning his groceries up, he walked into the living room and sat down on the couch to watch some boring, French, tv before grabbing dinner with James. James had handled a reservation for the two of them at some infamous restaurant which was too chic for James, but he insisted on taking Evan, his boyfriend, to the best of the best. James had started to get obsessed with calling Evan his boyfriend. It was really sweet, but the dark pit in Evan’s stomach didn’t quite like it.
He clicked the tv on and sat down, but he didn’t sit down on the couch. Instead he sat down on the legs of someone who was laying on top of his couch. Evan yelled and sprang up, looking shocked at his two best friends tangled on the couch. Regulus rubbed his eyes and looked at Barty, who was still sleeping, with a deadly glare. ‘Wake up,’ Regulus grumbled, hitting Barty’s head. Barty shot up and looked around wildly, only to find Evan staring at the two of them.
‘What are you two doing here?’ he asked in disbelief. He wasn’t ready to face them yet, he hadn’t been prepared for anything. And how did they get in? Regulus sat up and pushed Barty off of the couch. Barty started complaining, but Regulus hit his head again which made him shut up. ‘Well obviously you need some help,’ Regulus said. Evan started laughing.
‘Really? Do I need help? Why? Because I’m dating James?’ Evan asked, still laughing. Regulus’ jaw clenched. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Okay, then let me do you one better Regulus. I’m James’ boyfriend. Go be mad about that,’ Evan challenged. Regulus’ gaze became stone cold and he looked murderous. Barty scrambled to stand up. ‘Hi Evan, how are you doing Evan? Oh yes I’m doing good thanks for asking Barty,’ he muttered. ‘What happened to that?’ he asked, looking at both Regulus and Evan.
His eyes were met with a glare from both sides. ‘He’s with my ex!’ Regulus said, just as Evan said, ‘you two broke into my house!’
‘Not your house, your papa’s house,’ Barty corrected as he sighed. ‘Look, let’s just be happy we’re together again now, eat dinner and talk about this later,’ he said. This idea however, was met with a shake of Evan’s head. ‘Can’t, I have dinner plans with James,’ Evan said, his eyes falling on Regulus who raised his eyebrow at him, very obviously still angry. Evan had a feeling Regulus was going to explode at any second. ‘No you don’t. You’re not going, friends are first,’ Regulus said as Evan scoffed.
‘Oh so you are my friends? Gee, I almost forgot because I haven’t heard anything from you two last week!’ Evan said as Barty scoffed. ‘Oh please! You started this!’ Regulus protested. ‘If you hadn’t ignored us, maybe we wouldn’t have ignored you!’
‘Yeah. You’re trying to put the entire blame on us, but we’re not the ones being so shitty. You don’t talk to me about why you’re mad, you go off on a vacation alone, because you want to get away from us for four weeks, and then when we show up, you get mad at us even though we’re here to talk? You really need a reality check Evan,’ Barty said, loud enough for Alice and the girls to have heard them, Evan was sure. ‘I’m not here to talk, I’m here to make things clear. What you’re doing is terrible, and you’re a real fucking asshole if you think this is suitable behaviour,’ Regulus hissed.
That was the drop for Evan. ‘Mon dieu, sors sa maison! I am going on a date with James and I am not going to talk with the two of you only because you showed up here. This is my family’s house, you can’t show up here and just start… I lost the English word but you know what I mean! Don’t do that like you’re my parents, because you’re not! So fuck off! You know where the door is. And don’t let me come home to both of you still being here, because I will call the police on you,” Evan snapped as he walked into his bedroom, quickly followed by Barty. My god, get out of my house!
‘Hey, hey, Ev, wait. Where are you going?’ Barty asked him, trying to grab his arm to no avail. ‘To the bathroom, I’m making sure I don’t look as bad as I do when I leave in twenty minutes for my date,’ Evan muttered as he started brushing through his hair with his fingers. Barty fell quiet for a second and looked at Evan, a little hurt, but definitely more calm than Regulus and Evan.
‘You’re really dating him?’ Barty asked softly. He grabbed Evan’s toothpaste from his hands and held it in the air, high enough for Evan to not be able to grab it. ‘Yes, I am. Now give me back my toothpaste,’ Evan said, trying to grab it.
‘Why?’ Barty questioned, watching Evan in the reflection of the mirror. ‘Why? Because I don’t want my mouth to smell as bad as it does?’ Evan said, his eyes flashing with irritation. ‘No, I meant, why are you dating him?’ Barty corrected himself. Evan looked back at him through the mirror, finally grabbing his toothpaste. He noticed that he became more calm, talking about James to Barty, but he didn’t know if that was because of the thought of James, or the presence of Barty. ‘Well, Maybe because he’s nice to me? And he’s sweet and funny and he makes me laugh but he can also be serious. He’s gentle, never pushes me to do anything I don’t want to do and-” Evan was interrupted by Regulus walking in and loudly fake throwing up. Almost as quickly as Regulus walked in, Evan was high on anger again.
Evan rolled his eyes. ‘What? Can’t handle your best friend actually being happy?’ Evan sneered, irritated. ‘Not with my ex, no. You know I still love him right? Or are you so stupid to forget every time I came crying to you because I missed him?’ Regulus asked.
‘He cries to you? He never cries to me,’ Barty muttered, but Evan and Regulus both ignored him. ‘I didn’t forget Regulus. But I could ask you the same, can’t I? Why did you kiss him? You know how long I’ve liked him and how terribly I react whenever he brings some kind of… Salope back into the room. Still you kissed him,’ Evan said as Barty gaped at him. ‘It didn’t mean anything Evan! How many times do I have to repeat that?!’ Regulus yelled back angrily. Evan stared at him angrily, tears brewing in his eyes. He took a deep breath and put down the toothpaste.
‘It did to me,’ Evan said coldly after which he walked out of the bathroom and started putting his shoes back on. ‘If I see you tonight before I’m back home, I’m killing you. You are not ruining my date tonight, we’ll talk about this later,’ Evan snapped while grabbing his jacket.
‘So you’re letting us stay?’ Barty asked hopefully. Evan sighed deeply and looked at Barty. ‘Only because I know you have nowhere else to go,’ Evan said before he closed the door in their faces.
He called James the moment the door fell into its hinges.
‘Hey Evy, how’re you doing?’ James’ voice sounded through the phone. Evan could hear in his voice that he was smiling. ‘Could be better. Hey, I’m going to be a bit early at the restaurant, is that a problem?’ he asked. ‘No, no, of course not. I’m already there actually, I was a bit early myself,’ James answered.
‘That’s great actually, I’ll be there in a little bit,’ Evan said, starting his scooter. He was happy to get away for a second and not be alone with his thoughts. ‘I’ll wait for you,’ James said before Evan softly muttered ‘Bye,’ and hung up.
When he made his way to the restaurant, he saw James sitting on the porch outside. With a small smile, he walked up to James and together they made their way inside. They were talking about James’ day and his eventful afternoon with Sirius.
‘No, but I swear that the cashier was staring at Sirius. It was so funny you know, he was all shocked because he most definitely had a crush on Siri, but he kind of looked like he was lowkey homophobic,’ James told him, earning a chuckle from Evan followed by a shake of his head. ‘Sirius sounds like he makes people fall for him wherever he goes.’ And as Evan said that, he knew it was the truth. He himself had once been the victim of a Sirius crush, though it was quickly replaced by a long list of other crushes. What could he say? He fell for people at rapid speed.
‘He is, but the funniest is that he doesn’t notice it, because he’s so hung up on Remus,’ James said, shaking his own head and taking a sip of his iced tea. ‘Wait, did I tell you about Remus?’ he asked, earning a head shake from Evan.
Evan knew about Remus of course, he knew more about Remus than about Sirius and James, because Remus was a frequent study buddy of Regulus, which meant he was regularly in their dorm.
‘Okay, so, Remus is like, really tall, even taller than me. And he’s really smart too, maybe even smarter than uh, no nevermind, he’s just really smart,’ James started, smiling at the end, though Evan could see it was strained. ‘He goes to school with me and Sirius and Pete, and sleeps in the same dorm too. Remus has had a crush on Sirius since he was like, twelve, but Sirius doesn’t realise it at all.’ James smiled at Evan, who was listening silently and nodding along. ‘Sirius only figured out he was gay like two years ago, and he made use of his newfound sexuality. And his bed. He made a lot of use out of his bed,’ James muttered, earning a wince from Evan. ‘Did not need to know that, but thanks,’ he reacted. James chuckled and shook his head. ‘Sorry Evy.’
They were silent for a little bit, enjoying each other's company and their appetisers. James slowly shuffled closer to Evan on the couch. Evan tried to ignore it, because James did that more often subconsciously than consciously, but now it seemed to have a purpose. Evan looked at him amused, and raised an eyebrow. ‘What are you doing, James?’ he asked, a grin blooming on his face. ‘Nothing…’ James murmured, looking at the door of the restaurant. ‘I don’t believe you. What’s wrong? Someone at the door who you don’t want to see?’ he asked, looking at the people who just entered the restaurant and squinting at them.
‘James I don’t recognise them,’ Evan said, confused. He looked back at James who looked at him like a deer in headlights, in his hands Evan’s last piece of bread. Evan gave him a betrayed look. ‘Oi! How dare you steal my garlic bread?’ he protested. James’ cheeks turned pink and he slowly took a bite of it, still staring at Evan. Evan gave him a threatening look and raised his eyebrow, asking for an explanation from James. ‘It just sat there, and it looked so yummy, and I wanted a bite,’ James said hurriedly, handing the last piece back to Evan, who frowned at him. ‘And you decided to just… Take it?’ he asked, his frown slowly dissolving into smile lines. James nodded quickly, staring at his own empty plate. Evan’s face broke out in a smile and he leaned over to kiss James’ cheek. ‘Of course you can have the last piece of my garlic bread. Here, have it. But, ask the next time, okay?’ Evan said, which made James’ eyes light up. ‘Really?’ he asked, looking an awful lot like a little boy who just got told he got to meet Santa Clause. Evan nodded and smiled at him.
He was so cute. Evan didn’t know what he did to deserve this man.