CHAPTER FIVE: stutter

Corey could feel the other boy's presence beside him, and it was strangely unnerving. Dorian's breath, his chest rising and falling, his pen tapping against the table distractedly, his eyes scanning the classroom in boredom.

He wasn't a shadow or a fictitious entity. He was a person, his head full of thoughts, just like Corey's. Nothing was different about them, other than the fact that Dorian Price was Dorian Price. But that was a big difference.

"So, I'll give each pair their own title to ensure you don't all copy each other."
Miss Safar continued explaining. "By the end of the week, each group will be expected to have a presentation prepared, backed up with a PowerPoint and a sheet of all the relevant quotations from the play."

Dorian and Corey both stiffened, knowing they would have spend even more time than was necessary in each other's company. It's not that either particularly hated the other, but there was friction between their personalities. They didn't click, they didn't work. Corey Winters and Dorian Price. Even their names didn't sound right together.

"...Corey and Dorian, your topic is the 'incompatibility of military heroism and love'. Write that down."

Dorian jotted it down but Corey didn't need to. He'd remember.

"So, when can we work on this?" Dorian asked, smiling kindly.

"Tomorrow?" Corey suggested.

"Can't. I've got rugby tomorrow. What about tonight?"

"Sure." He shrugged.

"Can we go to yours?"

Corey tensed up and shook his head. He wouldn't even let Velvet come over, she just turned up unannounced whenever she felt like it. There was no way he was going to carve Dorian a private window into his life. "No, my Dad will be home." He blurted out without thinking. Fuck. Why had he said that?

"Is that a problem?" Dorian pressed in concern, his suspicions rising. Could the reason behind Corey's mysterious secrecy and inability to smile be his Father? His home life?

"N-No." Corey stuttered.

He stuttered, Dorian noted. Why had he stuttered?

"It's just that...could we not go to yours instead?"

Now it was Dorian's turn to hesitate. He didn't like having people over. No one but Ty was allowed into his personal life so intimately. His Father had left when he was three months old and his Mother wasn't a Mother. She was hardly a person. She didn't live, she barely even survived. She just existed. "I don't know." Dorian gulped.

"Please." Corey pressed gently. It was the first time Dorian had heard such tender, unfiltered emotion in his words. And it was the first time he'd ever reached out, actually asked for something from Dorian.

"Okay." He sighed, giving in. "Meet me by the front gate at four."

Corey was late. It was almost ten past four and Dorian was still waiting. The school had almost emptied, the car park looking more deserted than he'd ever seen it. He wondered if the boy had stood him up, decided that going to Dorian's house was a step too far. But just as he was about to give up and leave without him, Corey appeared from the front door of the building, approaching Dorian with his eyes cast to the floor.

He was in tattered faded jeans, rips tearing into the knees, and scuffed leather boots. His usual baggy grey jumper was falling off his small frame and a beanie was pulled almost down to his eyes, his blond curls poking out. Dorian, on the other hand, was wearing black jeans and an over-worn leather jacket, covered in pins and badges he'd been collecting for years now. "Where were you?" Dorian asked curiously, the smile remaining on his face, telling Corey he wasn't angry.

"Mr Kelly wanted to speak to me."

"About?"

"Poetry."

"I love how specific you are sometimes." Dorian teased.

"He wanted to enter me in a competition." Corey explained further as Dorian began leading him to the car park around the corner.

"Shit, that's great, well done."

"I'm not gonna do it."

"What? Why?" Dorian asked in exasperation.

"I don't even know why I'm telling you this." Corey brushed it off, refusing to answer his question. "How long is it to your place?"

"About a ten minute ride."

"You have a car?"

"Nope."

They reached Dorian's shiny black motorcycle and Corey froze in shock. It was only second hand, but Dorian loved it to be pieces. The shiny metal glinted in the autumn sunshine and the black plastic reflected dully. "I'm not getting on that." Corey protested.

Dorian chuckled, "I swear I'm not a crazy driver or anything. I'll go slow if you want."

Corey looked unconvinced, his eyes darting between the bike and Dorian's lips. "I don't know..."

"It's safe, I promise." Dorian argued, handing him the only helmet. "Put that on and let's go."

"What're you going to wear?" Corey frowned as Dorian mounted the bike.

"I'll be fine. C'mon."

Corey hesitantly strapped the helmet on and hopped onto the back of the bike. His chest was virtually pressed up against Dorian's broad, muscular back. Their proximity was too intense, it made his palms sweat and his head swim.

"You need to put your arms around me." Dorian laughed as the motorbike roared to life.

Corey reluctantly wrapped his slender arms around Dorian's built chest, almost recoiling when he felt his hard abs through his shirt. His cheeks reddened from embarrassment and he was relieved to be hidden from Dorian's eyesight. Without warning, the engine grew deafeningly louder and Dorian zoomed off, leaving Corey no choice but to hold on tighter.

Thankfully, it didn't take long to reach Dorian's house. It was small and modest. Just a compact, two-story home with a small patch of land in the front garden, and a wooden gate that's paint was chipping. As Dorian inserted his key into the lock, he prayed that his Mum wasn't having a bad day. That could get messy.

Corey wasn't sure what to expect, but it definitely wasn't this. Though the outside of the house appeared battered and shabby as though it had seen better days, he assumed the interior would be slightly smarter, more elegant, more ordered. He was wrong. The hallway alone was cluttered and busy, coats strewn across the floor and hanging haphazardly on hooks. The smell of whisky and cigarette smoke hung thick in the air, stale alcohol and unwashed clothes.

"Sorry for the mess." Dorian apologised embarrassedly.

"Dorian? Is that you?" Ms Price called from the other room. Corey noticed her raspy voice, presumably from consuming too many cigarettes in her lifetime.

"Hi, Mum." He called back, grabbing Corey's wrist to try and drag him upstairs before she emerged from the kitchen.

Corey snatched his hand away quickly, rubbing his wrist while trying to hide his pained expression. "D-Don't." He whispered, lacking a better explanation.

Dorian watched his reaction, his mind clouding over in confusion, trying to figure out the complex equation that was Corey Winters' life. "Sorry." He responded, gesturing for Corey to follow him upstairs.

Dorian's room was like a pocket of isolation in his chaotic household. It was clean and tidy, his bed made, his desk clear of any clutter. He had a couple of posters on the wall of forgotten bands and unknown singers, but no photos. No framed pictures of family or friends or a moment in time he never wished to forget. Nothing.

Dorian kicked off his trainers and fell back onto his bed with a sigh, "How'd you wanna do this? You find quotes, I make the PowerPoint?"

Corey took a seat at the desk, tucking his left foot beneath his right thigh. "What, so I do all the work and you pick the pretty font?"

"No, I didn't mean—"

"Let's just both have a quick look through and—"

"Does Velvet like Ty?" Dorian asked, the words slipping from his lips before he could stop them. He wanted to kick himself for being so stupid, so impulsive. But it was too late, Corey was already staring at him blankly, wondering what was going on in his head.

"Excuse me?"

"Ty wants to know." He sighed. "He's liked her for a long time and I know she's your friend and all, so—"

"I don't know." Corey said plainly. "He'll have to ask her himself."

"Right, I'm sorry, Ty just—"

"You're reading Oscar Wilde?" Corey asked, picking up the copy of 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' that was laying discarded on Dorian's desk.

Dorian flushed red and smiled sheepishly, "Yeah. I haven't got far, but I like it."

"Yeah?"

"It's good. I see what you mean. About beauty and art and your poems — about everything."

Corey ran his finger down the spine of the book, and another flicked through the gentle pages, softened with age.

"Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter." Dorian recited quietly, almost murmuring under his breath.

Corey's eyes glanced up from the blurb he was halfheartedly scanning. He looked absently out the window; at the treetops, grey roofs, a playground sat somewhere in the distance. It was all clothed in shadows as the sky darkened. In the glass, he could see Dorian's reflection, sitting behind him, perched on the edge of the bed. "From the novel?" He questioned quietly.

"Yeah." He breathed. "I wrote the quote down — it reminded me of you. Your poems aren't for anyone else, are they? Not really. They're for you, they are you. They're about emotion, even if you tell yourself they're about something as shallow as beauty. They're you, Corey."

"We should start working."

"Corey—"

"You write the PowerPoint. I'll find the quotes."

"Corey—"

"I need to be home in an hour or two, so let's start working."

Dorian took a deep breath and gave up. "Okay." He agreed.