*This chapter contains multimedia relevant to the plot*

Carter laid in bed on Sunday.

He slept like a rock through the entire morning and the earliest hours of the afternoon. When he finally made his way downstairs, the house appeared to be empty.

The TV on the living room was on, muted. Carter rubbed his face groggily, shuffling his way to the kitchen, where a post-it was stuck to the fridge. 'We left you the lunch leftovers', it said in his mother's tidy handwriting.

Carter opened the fridge to find a blue-lidded Tupperware stacked on top of piles of yogurt and filled with a sort of pasta mixed in a thick red tomato-based sauce. Carter winced as his insides twisted and churned. Normally, the idea of Tony's cooking left his mouth watering. But he was still recovering from Jenna's and Chaz's homemade mixes. His head was fine, save for the slight heaviness, but his stomach wasn't doing so well.

He closed the fridge, leaving the leftovers inside and taking the milk instead to make himself a bowl of cereal – the only food he could stomach with a hangover. While he sat at the kitchen table, alone, eating his off-hours breakfast, the door to the back yard opened. 

Jack stepped inside, leaving the door open for Bella to follow. They wore similar grins, with similar flushes on their tanned cheeks. Bella's oversized University of Florida t-shirt was stained with damp blotches beneath the arms. The hairs escaping her ponytail that didn't stuck out in the air were glued to her face in wet clumps. Carter's eyes quickly moved on to assess Jack's figure. His short dark hair was slightly mussed up, his damp white t-shirt clung to his torso and back allowing Carter to see through the thin fabric. Somebody had been working out while he slept in.

"You're up," Jack stated airily, with an easy smile.

Carter nodded wordlessly, though the statement hardly required an answer.

"Where's my mom?" He asked, as Jack reached into the cupboard for a glass.

"She's out with our old man. Shopping with Charlie," Jack replied, pouring milk into the glass. Next to him, Bella pulled out a stool from under the table and took out her phone.

"And your brothers?"

"Frankie left in the morning for Reggie's. Luca stayed at a friend's. Mike's bed was empty and made when I woke up," Jack told him, before gulping down the whole glass. He set it down on the table eyeing Carter with a knowing glint in his eye.

"You look rough. Was the dance that good?"

Carter's body reacted before his mind even had time to go there. He felt the heat on his cheeks and his own throat resisted the most recent mouthful of cereal on the way down. 

"No, it was–" he cleared his throat "–the usual."

It had most definitely not been the usual.

The weird drinks, dancing with his friends, tipsy jealousy-driven quarrels – all that was normal. But there had been one thing which fell out of the norm. One kiss Carter hadn't even thought about, until suddenly it was all he could think about.

Jack and Bella left him to go to the living room, turning the TV volume on. Carter grabbed the rest of his cereal and moved along to his room, where he stayed until dinner time. 

He tried busying himself with some Calc problems, after he was done eating, but his mind just kept going where he didn't want it to go. It was like a migraine. The more he told himself to stop thinking about it, the more it kept coming back stronger. At some point, Carter gave up the fight. He let images of empty football fields, honey-colored eyes and pink ready lips flash through his head. The scene played in his head mechanically, like the images of somebody else's life. 

Until he let himself remember the feeling of Johnny's lips on his. Once again, as soon as the thought was in, it would never leave.

Carter had never wondered what kissing a boy would be like, physically. In reality, it was just like kissing a girl. Except... different.

He laid down on his bed and threw a pillow over his face, pressing it down. Maybe if he pressed long enough, hard enough, the thoughts would go away.

They didn't.

When he woke up on Monday, the memory of the kiss was like the whisper of a thought; floating in the back of hist head, light but ever present. Carter did his best to ignore it. It worked only moderately. Until Calc class, when he saw Johnny again.

He and Mel walked into the classroom together, after lunch. Johnny was sitting at his usual table, in front of the green-haired kid who never talked to anyone. Carter willed himself to look away as he walked to his seat, but his eyes slid across the room of their own accord as he sat down. Johnny's eyes lifted from his notebook, almost at the same time. They shared eye contact for half a second, before Carter anxiously averted his gaze, feeling the blush creep onto his cheeks.

He closed his eyes, forcing a deep breath in and out. He forced himself not to look Johnny's way for the rest of the class, afraid he would blush like a middle school girl again.

Until the next day, when he walked into Mr Thomas's classroom again, with Mel by his side. Johnny's gaze found him almost as soon as he stepped inside. Carter cursed himself as his head went back to those same eyes, under different lights, on empty bleachers-so close Carter could watch the artificial light reflect on unusually dark irises. 

He felt the heat on his face and looked down. Carter couldn't help himself that day, though. He tried a quick glance at Johnny when the class ended, only to watch him hastily shove his things into his bag and rush out of the room.

When Carter and Mel went to the library for their usual Calculus study session, later on, Johnny wasn't there. It was only the two of them and the old librarian until closing time. 

Carter watched Mrs Lewis stretch onto her tiptoes to store a couple of books on a higher shelf, just as they were about to leave. Mel waited by the door while Carter stopped to offer Mrs Lewis his help. The elderly woman thanked him with a grateful smile.

On Wednesday, Carter brushed past his morning classes in a nervous disarray. Lauren Santiago, Bella's friend who sat one seat to his right and one row to the front in Spanish class, came to a point where she looked over her shoulder to cock one eyebrow at him. That was when Carter realized he was violently shaking his leg under the table, hard enough to shake the floor around him. He smiled apologetically and she returned the gesture, turning back around.

At lunch, Carter vacuumed his food in record time. Mel widened her eyes in surprise when she saw him shoot up onto his feet. 

"Are we late?" She asked, reaching for her phone to check the time.

"No, I just have something I want to do before class," Carter told her.

Joey snickered, sitting between Jenna and Seth. "Or maybe someone," he teased.

Carter ignored him and grabbed his tray to leave. He nearly knocked into a guffawing Bobby Gonzalez as he did. Scott Myers, their center, slid an arm around Bobby's shoulders, pushing his friend into his body, before Bobby could crash into Carter.

"Whoa—Easy, Parrish," Scott laughed. "Where you sprinting off to?"

Carter didn't answer him either. He heard Bobby protesting, "What the fuck is his problem?" to the rest of the table, as he shoved his tray in the disposal area and rushed out of the cafeteria. 

When he reached Mr Thomas's class, Carter quietly peaked his head halfway in. Mr Thomas was sitting at his desk, eating a sandwich wrapped in tin foil. Only one other person was there with him – Johnny's green-haired partner. Without going inside, Carter dropped his bags on the floor leaning his back against the wall and prepared to wait.

A pair of girls came in first, shamelessly staring at him after stopping their conversation when they saw him. Carter ignored them. Three more kids came in, then other four, and then Roy.

"Hey there, partner," he greeted with an edge of surprise. He looked around the growingly busy corridor. "Waiting for someone?"

"Something like that," Carter answered with a quick smile.

Roy didn't press him further, going inside. When there were only five minutes left to the beginning of class, Carter started picking up his bags, ready to admit defeat. He saw Melanie approaching and hung back to wait for her. 

That's when he passed him. 

Carter reacted in a mechanical reflex, placing himself in Johnny's way before he could go in. Johnny kept his head down as he tried to sidestep him. Carter blocked him.

"You're in my way," Johnny mumbled, eyes cast down and hair falling lightly over his face.

"Can we talk?" Carter asked quietly, lowering his head trying to catch Johnny's eye.

Johnny didn't look up, keeping his gaze trained on their feet. "Class is about to start."

"After, then?"

"Mr Parrish? We are ready to begin, as soon as you are," Mr Thomas spoke dryly.

Carter looked over his shoulder at the unimpressed look on his teacher's face. Johnny took the opportunity to slip away and Carter had no choice but to walk over to his seat with his tail between his legs. During the class, Carter kept his eyes on Johnny, hoping he would lift his head and meet Carter's gaze. He didn't.

When Johnny turned around to face his partner, Carter got a glimpse of his face before Johnny hung his head again. Carter's eyebrows furrowed as he wondered if what he saw had been right. The way the green-haired kid pushed back a bit before he leaned in to whisper something to Johnny confirmed it had. It was a bruise. Dark red and lightly swollen – recent.

Someone whistled thinly to Carter's side and his head snapped to see Roy looking at him.

"We're supposed to work together now," he reminded.

Carter slid over to join him, but his mind was absent the whole time. He kept his eyes on Johnny. He could tell, by the end, that Johnny could feel his scrutiny. He didn't care. When Mr Thomas dismissed them, Carter sprung to his feet, neglecting his things. Johnny tried to be faster than him, speeding in the opposite direction of Carter's football practice, but Carter caught him. Johnny tensed when Carter wrapped a steady hand around his elbow, yelping when he tugged to make Johnny face him.

"What the fuck?"

Carter winced. Partially at the harshness in Johnny's voice, partially at his own roughness. He pulled his hand away.

"Can we talk?" He asked softly, trying to convey a gentler tone.

Johnny looked at something over Carter's shoulder, before he grabbed the strap of his backpack over his shoulder. His eyes didn't meet Carter's. "No," he whispered.

Carter watched him leave, doing nothing to stop him this time. A warm hand touched his shoulder mildly. Cater turned, startled. Mel immediately removed her hand.

"You left these behind," she said, dropping his school bag and his duffel bag at his feet.

Carter picked up his stuff, mutely. Mel didn't force any conversation on him on the way to the locker rooms.

During practice, Carter couldn't quite focus on the words Coach Mason was speaking. His mind kept wandering to the first day he had met Johnny. Their little trip to the nurse's office, how she'd been so quick to call his dad when she saw him, the way Coach Mason had taken the situation. Carter wondered if he knew of his son's new injury. It looked pretty recent, but it could have still happened any time between the end of their previous Calculus class and their latest one.

"Good practice, Parrish," Coach Mason praised at the end, in a perfectly natural tone. Carter thanked him through gulps of water.

Seth accompanied Carter through his end practice stretches, waiting on the bench while everyone else left the field. At some point, he looked down at the time of his phone. Seth was the only player whose phone Coach allowed during practice.

"Aren't you studying with Mel today?" He asked. "It's getting late."

Carter grabbed his bottle and his towel, without a word, and started walking to the locker rooms. Seth followed him.

Carter waited for the shower area to clear, sitting by his locker with his head trained ahead. The post-practice softness, which he usually welcomed, the heat from the showers and the loudness of his teammates' banter kept him from being able to form coherent thoughts. When he finally left the locker room with Seth, Mel wasn't there. Instead, there were a few texts on his incoming box.

"I'm assuming you need a ride," Seth said with a little smile.

Carter slid his phone back into his pocket, reminding himself to apologize to Mel for standing her up later.

"Yes, please."