Nicky only had one weekend left until he had to go back to the prison called Westview Academy. Two measly days, and he had spent the majority of his first one moping around his house and trying his best to take care of the other Haddad kids, who's cabin fever was causing them to grow restless.

        Usually, he'd be a little kinder when Nasir and Nadyah refused to take their nap and instead insisted on watching the same episode of Paw Patrol for the umpteenth time, but he was not in any mood to turn off his movie so they could watch a show about puppies that save the day or whatever.

        He was only in the mood to do one thing, which was listen to Bob Dylan with Jonah in the near-empty convenience store for three hours straight.

        He realized that on Sunday, day two of his sulking fun, before the little guys had woken up and it was just him and the twins watching Rugrats on the couch.

        "What's got you down, Dots?" Naveen asked, poking his cheek as Nahla continuously jabbed the other.

        He slapped both their hands away with a scowl. "Nothing. I just can't wait until you guys are back at school."

        Nahla gave him a sideways look, like she was trying to decipher him. She tilted her head to the side just a bit, and looked him up and down with her wide green eyes, and for some reason, Nicky thought of Jonah. He thought of Jonah's confusion-filled looks and the pink that only sometimes showed up on his tan cheeks and made his entire face glow.

        "He's thinking about someone," she told Naveen matter of factly, flipping her short brown coils of hair over her shoulder.

        "How'd you get that? He's showing literally no emotion."

        Nicky gave his sister a deadpan look, but she just shrugged. "I know my brother."

        "Really? What am I thinking right now?" Naveen challenged, leaning over Nicky's legs and staring wide eyed at his irritated twin.

"I don't know."

"Ha! So you can't read minds!"

"Of course I can't read minds, idiot. I've just figured out how to interpret Dots' silence. Wanna learn?"

Naveen nodded, so the twins leaned in and propped themselves up on Nicky's legs so they could stare at him. His eyes bounced back and forth between them, eyebrows drawn together in confusion, but it's not like he wasn't used to their antics at this point. "See his ears?"

"So they're kinda big for his face, Nahla. No need to be rude."

She rolled her eyes, but continued. "They're bright red. The only time his ears are that red is when we're watching TV and a hot guy comes on screen."

Naveen gasped. "You're right!"

"No she isn't," Nicky scoffed, praying she was indeed wrong about his apparent ear-blushing.

"Remember when we watched The Outsiders?" Nahla asked with a smirk.

Nicky pursed his lips, but Naveen's mouth was wide open. "They turned red again!" He exclaimed, fascinated by Nicky's embarrassment.

He touched his ears self consciously, realizing they were a bit warm to the touch, but he scowled anyway. "Can you give me some peace and quiet? It's only ten and I'm already sick of this family."

"Is he hot? Like Sodapop hot?" Nahla asked, looking far off into the distance like she was imagining young Rob Lowe standing right in their living room.

"I don't know," he said so hastily he even surprised himself.

"How do you not know? It's a simple question."

"Because! I just- I don't, okay?"

"His ears!" Naveen gasped, grabbing onto one of Nicky's ears and wiggling it.

Did Nicky think Jonah was attractive? Sure, he always knew Jonah was good-looking, no question about it. His perfect dark skin and even darker curls were definitely Nicky's type, and even though his giant, blinding smile wasn't, it didn't hurt. He tried to ignore his... appreciation for Jonah's good looks, mostly because he was so far in denial of how guys made him feel.

It wasn't like Nicky was ashamed of being gay— if his semi-strict Muslim family didn't care, why should he?— but he refused to be one of those people who focused their entire lives on love and relationships. There was just a lot more that was important to him than that. Plus, he was so used to the assholes at Westview, he fell into the routine of repressing any feelings whenever he felt even the slightest hint of a crush. It was just easier that way.

Jonah was attractive, he decided. He was insanely attractive, actually, but that didn't mean Nicky was in love with him or anything. He was just a kid who was able to objectively identify when someone looked good, and he also happened to be gay. No correlation.

"Is it that guy that comes over and blasts shitty music all the time? What's his name?" Naveen asked.

Nicky tried to forget his brother just called Bob Dylan's music shitty and he answered, "Jonah."

"Moshe?" The twins questioned, sounding like something straight out of The Shining.

Nicky nodded, raising a brow at his sister's dropped jaw. "You know him, too?"

"Everyone knows Jonah Moshe, Nicky. He's practically famous. Isn't he kinda weird, though?"

"Yes," Naveen answered at the same time Nicky said, "he's cool."

"Jonah Moshe is not cool," Naveen said.

"How would you know? Have you even talked to him before?"

Nahla rolled her eyes. "We don't have to talk to him to know, Dots. Everyone says it. It's sort of common knowledge."

"Yeah, well, maybe you should get to know a guy before spreading 'common knowledge' around," Nicky spat, pushing his kid siblings off him and getting up from the couch.

"Where are you going?" Naveen asked as Nicky pulled a sweatshirt on and grabbed his keys from the hook by the door.

"To see my friend Jonah, who is actually really fucking awesome," he told the twins before stepping out into the freezing cold and slamming the door shut behind him.

———————

By the time Nicky got to Happy's, it was already nearing the end of Priya and Jonah's shift. He was just stepping out of his car when Priya walked through the double doors, blabbing about something on the phone. She froze when she spotted Nicky and quickly hung up.

"Hey, kid. Where've you been?" She asked, her voice a little less peppy than normal. Nicky wanted to ask her how she was doing after the whole Drew thing, but something in him knew it was too fresh a wound, even for a talker like her.

"Home with my little brothers and sisters." Nicky replied, deciding it wasn't the best time to tell her to stop calling him a kid. "It's only been two days, though. Did you really miss me that much?"

"I wasn't the one who missed you."

Nicky peered inside the store at Jonah, who was sitting down behind the counter with the back of his head leaned back against the edge of it. "Is that because of me?" He asked, surprised that anyone could feel affected in any way by his absence. He was sure that if he disappeared from his house for two days, the only thing his parents would miss was the free babysitting.

Priya nodded. "I told you, Nicky. You have to be careful with him. You do realized you walked out the other day without any explanation, which is basically what this kid has seen his whole life, right? He thinks he lost you already."

"He didn't. I'm right here."

"Then go see him."

Nicky hesitated. "Is he gonna be mad?"

Priya smiled sadly and said, "I think he's more mad at himself," before whipping out her phone and typing at the speed of light as she walked to her car.

Nicky slowly walked inside and over to the counter. He leaned over the edge so he could see Jonah in the hideout and the curls that usually brushed his eyes fell away and all the blood rushed to his head. Jonah looked up at him and furrowed his eyebrows.

"Nicky?"

"No. It's Happy," Nicky deadpanned, his voice a little more raspy than normal because his chest was pressed up against the sharp corner of the counter and he couldn't really breathe, but also because he thought it might sound funny enough to make Jonah smile, which it did, and Nicky was satisfied. He hopped over the counter and sat down in front of Jonah.

Jonah scooted forward a little bit so their criss-crossed knees just barely touched. "What's up?"

"Not much. I've been bored."

"Me too."

As silence slowly enveloped the two boys, Nicky listened closer to the music and recognized some Taylor Swift song Nadyah had been playing on repeat from her tiny CD player she got for her birthday. "Where's Bob Dylan?" He asked.

Jonah rolled his eyes. "This is gonna sound really dumb."

"Probably, but go on."

He hesitated, staring at the floor, which sort of worried Nicky. Jonah was never one for eye contact, but his eyes were usually lit up bright, creasing with a smile. Now they just looked empty. "It didn't feel right listening to it without you. I wanted to wait awhile and see when you'd come back."

"Oh," Nicky mumbled, mostly because it didn't sound dumb. It actually was probably the nicest thing anyone's done for him in a long time. "Did you... did you think I was gonna come back?"

Jonah scrunched up his nose and shrugged. "That's not really what happens most of the time, so no."

Nicky didn't know what to say. He told Jonah there was no way he was the kind of guy to ditch him, but he still didn't believe him. He was frustrated for a second, but then he thought about what Priya said.

he's more mad at himself

There was probably a part of Jonah that didn't trust Nicky, but he also blamed it on himself. He thought Nicky left because he did something to make him leave, which was true in the moment, but Nicky was never gonna leave forever. Even when he was fuming in his bedroom, telling himself he was never ever going to set foot in that convenience store again, he knew he'd be back soon.

He looked down at Jonah's hands that rested on his lap and watched curiously as he flexed his fingers, then clenched his fists so hard his knuckles turned white, and he did it over and over until Nicky finally placed his hands on top of Jonah's and flattened them out. Jonah snapped his head to Nicky, who was staring at him with wide eyes because he really could not believe himself. Where was this impulsivity coming from?

"I'm not going anywhere Jo," he promised, his voice low.

"It's okay if you want to go. I get it."

Nicky felt himself smile a bit. "I don't want to. I wanna be with you."

It was a completely normal statement, and to anyone who heard it, especially to the ever-so-oblivious Jonah, it wasn't anything to think twice about. But Nicky knew he said it in a different way, even if he hadn't meant to mean it like that, because every word that came out of his mouth was always meticulously planned like it'd been run through a computer or two before coming out. He never blurted out, never acted on impulse, never spoke up without knowing exactly what he was going to say.

So why the hell did he just say he wanted to be with Jonah? It sounded scandalous to him, like he was confessing something to the love of his life. Jonah was not the love of his life, he knew that for sure, but he did mean what he said. He always meant what he said.

And he said he wanted to be with Jonah.

be with Jonah

Jesus Christ I wanna be with Jonah so bad

He let go of Jonah's hands and touched his ears, feeling heat radiate off them before he could even place a finger down. "Shit," he hissed.

Jonah looked at him, a dopey,half smile slapped on his face. "Are you okay?" He asked, sort of laughing.

No, he was most definitely not okay, because it was all coming together. The contagious smile; the laugh that made his stomach flip; the stupid, idiotic shit that came out of his mouth that almost made Nicky chuckle; that was what was getting to him. It was all the little bits and pieces of Jonah, each hitting Nicky in different ways, but all coming together to make one perfect guy who was sitting right in front of him.

He's had this feeling before, but it never lasted long, and it never hurt that bad. He had fleeting feelings when a really hot guy bumped his shoulder in the hallway or gave him one of those awkward, tight lipped smiles from the other side of the street, but he never knew those guys well enough to actually catch feelings and, on the off chance he did, they usually turned out to be complete assholes.

Jonah was not an asshole, and maybe that's why Nicky had a stupid fucking crush on him.

"Nicky?"

He looked panicked, and it was probably because Nicky looked like he was about to bolt. He didn't know what to do. He stared at Jonah, trying to mask the fear and shock with his normal resting bitch face.

"Sorry, just thought I forgot something at home," Nicky told him, hearing the waver in his own voice that hadn't been there before.

"Do you wanna go back and get it?"

"No," Nicky blurted out, because apparently his head wasn't working right today. Maybe Jonah's lack of filter was rubbing off on him. "I wanna stay here. With you."

He thought that sounded creepy. Was he being clingy? Was he being too obvious? No, Jonah wasn't good at reading Nicky like Nahla was. There's no way he had already figured it out... right?

Jonah smiled. "I want you to stay here with me too," he said. And Nicky really didn't know what that meant, because now he was overthinking everything. He never overanalyzed anything. He usually just went with his gut, but now his gut was all over the place, and his heart was there making decisions as well, which really wasn't supposed to happen.

So he just nodded and tried his best not to look as terrified as he felt. "Okay. Good."

———————

:)))))))))))))))))

What we thinkin boys? Is Nicky's crush gonna last? Or is he gonna repress it like every other emotion he's ever felt. Sweet kid.

Side note, if anyone's seen the outsiders, they know EXACTLY what 'sodapop hot' means.

It's almost Christmas! I mean... it's not... and I don't celebrate Christmas... but still. Are you guys feelin the festive mood? I know I am!!

Thanks for reading!! Love you guys!

~Teddy