"What am I supposed to do?" James asked Tyler, dropping his head into his hands and groaning loudly. They had gotten to school as early as they had the day before, but James had learned his lesson about going inside before the halls began to clear. Leaving the car was something he wasn't planning on doing for the next ten or so minutes. "They are going to be at my house. The triplets, Kalen, they're going to be at my house, eating food with my family".

"Yeah, that's what happens when you invite people over for dinner," Ty supplied, seeming less than invested in the conversation. It wasn't helpful.

"Tyler. What do I do?"

"You have dinner with them, James. It's not really that hard. I've done it before".

"But you don't think one of them is cute," James pointed out, frowning at the word cute because it seemed like such an understatement for how he really felt about Kalen. "This is terrible".

"You're so simple minded," Tyler accused, turning his head to look at him, eyes half lidded. "James, don't be an idiot".

For a long moment, James just looked at his best friend, blue eyes wide. Then, because it was true, he said, "you know, you're really bothering me this morning". Ty cracked a grin.

"Thank you, but seriously, you're not seeing this as an opportunity, which it is". His eyebrows raised in question. "You can use this dinner to try to impress Mr. and Mrs. Bradford. If they like you, then the triplets really don't have anything over you. They wouldn't be able to threaten you for doing something minor like checking out their younger brother right in front of them".

"I was not checking him out," James protested, and Tyler shrugged, raising his shoulders as if that dismissed his previous statement.

"I'm just predicting the future".

"Tyler-"

"Sorry," his friend groaned. "I'm just in a really terrible mood. I couldn't sleep last night". So that's what was off. There had clearly been something off that morning. For the first time while picking James up from school— given it was only Wednesday of the first week, but still— Tyler had waited in the car for him instead of coming inside and pestering him until he was ready to go. Even his mother had pointed this out, concerned.

Tyler often had trouble sleeping. It was something James had noticed after moving back, that his friend was constantly exhausted due to his insomnia. All of Tyler's time spent napping made far more sense to him.

But he had never seen Tyler quite like this before, and there was one thing James suspected could be the cause of his friends poor mood. "Did you read Ace's letter last night?" He inquired softly. Green eyes opened to look at him, surprised.

James had taken months to great his letter, but it had been given to him by his brother on his deathbed. Tyler had far more time between Ace's death and receiving the letter, so James thought maybe his friend took less time to prepare himself for it.

"What?" Tyler's voice was low. "No. I haven't read it yet. I'm not... it's going to take some time for me to be at that point. I thought I'd never truly learn how your brother felt about certain things, and I accepted that, but now there's this letter that had the potential to say anything and I just don't know anymore". There was clear distress in Ty's voice, which had James's eyebrows drawing together in confusion. As far as he was aware, there was no reason for Ty to be worried. Ace hasn't mentioned writing anything shocking to him.

"What do you mean?"

"It's-" Tyler's eyes closed again and he released a heavy sigh. "Nothing. It's nothing. Just stupid stuff I'm stressing about. Maybe that is why I didn't sleep well last night, I don't know". Before James could pry, which was something he didn't do often, but consistently did when matters involving his brother arose, Tyler continued speaking, changing the conversation with an ease that only a best friend could catch. "You're Kalen's lab partner, right?"

James bit his lip, wondering if he should force the conversation back on the original path, or if he should answer the stupid question that Tyler clearly already knew the answer to. Since it was Tyler, and James knew his friend would eventually confide in him about Ace's letter, he took the bait. "Yes".

"So you're going to have to talk to him before the dinner anyways?"

"Probably," James confirmed. It depended on whether or not they were told to work with partners, though he was just assuming since the syllabus Mrs. Rodgers had emailed him mentioned that class work would mostly be completed in pairs. "Why? Should I bring it up?"

"If you really don't want them there you could try to talk Kalen out of coming. I bet if he didn't want to go, his brothers wouldn't go either. Just try to make it sound unappleaning somehow. Tell them your family is paleo or some shit".

The suggestion made James frown, since 1) if he was being honest, he really didn't know what a paleo diet consisted of, and 2) there was something Tyler very clearly was not thinking through. "Okay, but what if I lie and say something like that, but then they end up coming anyways. Won't that just be making the situation worse because they'll know I was trying to get them to not go when they see I'm lying?"

"That is just a risk you have to be willing to take," as he said this, Tyler attempted to rub the sleep out of his eyes.

"Maybe you should go home and sleep," James suggested, reaching out a hand to press it to Ty's forehead, though Tyler was quick to chuckle and push him away.

"I'm fine man. Really," Ty assured. "I can't skip school every time I don't get a good night's sleep or I'd never be there".

"Have you gone to a doctor about this?" James shot a look at the clock on the dashboard. They had to go in soon.

"Yeah". The look on Tyler's face was one of distress. "They gave me sleeping pills but it's not that simple. They're supposedly really addictive and stuff and not a lot of people our age take the ones that work for me so there isn't any information on how they effect brain development and stuff so the doctor said I shouldn't take them all the time. I only have them when I need to look good the next day". At James's eyebrows rose, Tyler explained. "Like before Bradford parties, or before I have a presentation, stuff like that".

"These parties are a really big deal, huh?" James inquired, leaning forward to make sure his backpack was zipped securly. They were really pushing when they had to leave, but he didn't want to rush Tyler, especially not when he looked as if he could pass out at any second.

"If you don't have a suit we should go shopping," Ty advised, popping open a single green eye to look at the time. A low groan left him. "Shit. We have to go".

"Yeah," he confirmed, pulling his backpack onto his lap. "I'm gonna head out. Text me if you decide to go home and I'll let my mom know I'll need a ride". In acknowledgment, Tyler grunted, and James left his car, pulling his backpack up onto his shoulder. For just a second he looked over his shoulder in concern, but he reminded himself that Tyler was nearly an adult and knew what was best for himself.

***

Mrs. Rodgers assigned them new seats for chemistry, based off of their lab partners, so James found himself directly to the left of Kalen. For the first twenty minutes neither of them acknowledged this, which was slightly relieving to James, since he had been worried Kalen would want to discuss that display in the hall the day before, but they were forced to speak when Mrs. Rodgers handed out a worksheet for them to complete together.

It was when Kalen was filling their names out at the top– they had decided the day before that Kalen's handwriting was far superior to James's so he would be doing the writing– that James decided to break the tension with a question.

"So you're coming over tonight then?" The words weren't even out of his mouth before he began grimacing. That didn't come out right, though thankfully the people around them weren't paying attention. Sadly, Kalen was and the pencil froze on the paper.

"Excuse me?"

"Oh! I mean... your family is coming over for dinner tonight," James explained quickly. For a split second, Kalen looked surprised, eyes widening a fraction. Then recognition showed on his face.

"Oh. The Anders. That makes sense".

"Yeah..." James trailed off, thinking about Ty's words earlier in the car. He wasn't exactly sure how to talk Kalen out of coming, so he tried to warm up to it with a question. "You and your brothers are going to be there, correct? My dad said four of the sons would be present".

"Yeah," Kalen confirmed, not sounding pleased. "My father thinks it's important to present us to other people's families. We go every time we're invited to dinner, and we get invited to dinner all the time". Golden eyes widened then and flicked over to James's face. "Not that I'm not looking forward to dinner tonight". That made James laugh, because the whole point of his question in the first place had been to gage just how easy it would be to talk Kalen out of coming since he wasn't exactly thrilled about the plans either.

"It's alright. I'm not at all offended," James assured with an easy smile that made Kalen relax.

"Good". Kalen finished writing their names before reading the first question on the sheet out loud. They discussed it for a moment before agreeing on an answer, and Kalen began to write it. "So... did you move schools because my father hired yours then?"

Surprised, James blinked his eyes up from where they had been lingering on Kalen's neat handwriting, instead focusing on the side of the boy's face. "Oh, uh, yeah. We moved here from Florida about a week and a half ago".

"Oh". Kalen turned his head just enough to the side to peer at him out of the corner of his eye. "That's far".

"It is," James agreed with a head nod. He could explain the entire story, but he doubted they had enough time, and besides, he was pretty drained from putting his brothers bedroom together on Monday, and crying came easily for a few days after that. Crying in organic chemistry class in front of the most beautiful boy in the whole school was not something James wanted to do, especially not within the first week. It was easy to redirect Kalen's attention. "I'll look at number two while you write number one".

"Oh". Kalen frowned, making James feel momentarily guilty, but the expression was gone a moment later, and his attention went back to their worksheet. "Okay".

From that point on, they only spoke every couple of minutes to discuss what they should write for the next problem before falling silent once more. Kalen's focus on the work gave James a chance to really look at him— which was dope thing he probably shouldn't have been doing— and he found himself distracted by Kalen's hands. There wasn't anything off that made James gaze linger. It was the opposite actually. His hands were perfect, with smooth unblemished skin and long fingers. What was so surprising to James was that not a single part of this boy that was visible to him at the moment had a flaw. He was consistently pretty.

It was when he was staring at his hands that James took note of the fact that Kalen has gone ahead and answered one of the questions without him with an incorrect answer. For a split second he wondered if he should ignore it and let it pass, but chemistry was his subject, and he wouldn't let his perfect grade be dampened without a little bit of argument.

"That's wrong".

"Excuse me?" Kalen asked, lighting his head. Black hair fell in his eyes but he didn't bother to push it back. "What's wrong?"

"That compound you just wrote down... it's incorrect".

Kalen look back over his work before raising his head again. His eyes were narrowed. "No it's not". James wasn't really surprised by Kalen's blatiant disagreement. The boy did come from an incredibly wealthy family, and he was the youngest, who received attention from all of his older brothers. Kalen probably wasn't often told when he did something wrong.

"I'm just saying this so you can't say I didn't warn you, but if we turn it in like that, we're going to get it marked wrong".

For a minute, he only received spluttering in answer. He waited patiently for Kalen to come up with words. "If this is wrong, then how do you think it should be written?" He was speaking as if he was challenging James, which was entertaining, since Kalen clearly was very confident in the answer he had come up with himself. Without a word, James reached over and took the pencil from the other boy, ignoring the way Kalen's cheeks tinted when their fingers brushed. Carefully, since he didn't want his handwriting to look too horrible right along side the other's beautiful font, James wrote the correct answer.

He raised his head to look at Kalen's reaction to him, but the boy was just staring at his face, cheeks pink and mouth slightly parted. James looked back at him, eyebrows slightly raised, wondering exactly what the look he saw in the other boys eyes meant. "So?" He inquired after a long moment, gesturing to the worksheet. Golden eyes widened, and then Kalen looked down at the sheet, cheeks flushing a darker shade as he read over James's answer.

Kalen cleared his throat. "That doesn't make any sense".

"Why don't we just leave them both there and see which one she marks as correct," James suggested, a smile tugging at his lips for the other boys obvious embarrassment. Kalen just raised his gaze to him again and narrowed his eyes. The flush was still present, but he seemed to be ignoring it in favor of considering James's suggestion. He had a calculating expression, as if he was watching and waiting for James to laugh and admit that he was just kidding.

When he didn't, Kalen huffed softly and turned his face down to the paper. "I'm trying to decide if I like the fact that you're not completely afraid of me," he admitted, surprising James. He didn't know what he could possibly say in response to that, so he didn't. He credited his silence for him being able to hear Kalen mumble, "kind of refreshing," under his breath.