The Squad Effect

Chapter 4 | Torture

Carter Reynolds

Through the power of a tiny bit of eavesdropping, I had found out that I share all of Matt's afternoon classes. This would be an amazing way to torment him all year. The classes we shared were gym and science, but I only had one thing on my mind. I get to see him change.

Unfortunately, it seemed that I had hit a rough patch in my plan to torture him. He had taken to ignoring me when I spoke to him instead of responding and leaving himself open for more conversation. If he didn't respond, I didn't have anything to build off of.

As I walked to gym class, I tried to create a plan to get around his wall of silence. I was almost immediately snapped out of my thoughts, when I noticed Matt also heading to gym class further up the hallway. I sped over, trying to catch up with him. I was just about to slap his ass when he grabbed my wrist and pulled me to walk beside him.

"Don't touch me. Don't you ever touch me!" He ordered before letting go of my wrist which was starting to hurt.

"No promises." I chuckled.

"Why couldn't I have gotten a normal person as my roommate?" He muttered to himself.

"Hey! Has it ever occurred to you that I'm the normal one? You greasers are angry all the time, yet you say other people aren't normal. You need to lighten up." I smirked while slapping his ass like I had been planning. He grabbed my arm and pushed me up against a few lockers. I had never seen more hatred in anyone's eyes.

"I swear to god, if you weren't my roommate I would kill you." He whispered. I figured that he would just dismiss everything that I said from this point on, so I just smirked at the proximity of our faces. "God damn, what am I doing. This is what you wanted, you f*****g perv." Matt scoffed while continuing to head to gym class. I rolled my eyes before following him.

Once I entered the locker room I searched for Matt, so I could choose a locker that's close to his. I finally spy him throwing his gym bag into a locker in the far corner. I headed over to where he was standing and put my stuff into a locker that was two lockers away from his, so we'd have room to change. As I lifted off my shirt, I turned to him.

"Hey babe. What a coincidence that we ended up almost right next to each other." I teased. When Matt didn't even turn his head in my direction I turned back to my locker. I pulled off my white joggers before reaching into my gym bag for my shorts. I let my eyes wander over to Matt who seemed to quickly be looking away from me. Was he checking me out? I slid my gym shorts on before turning to look at Matt again. I catch him looking right at me, expressionless. He looked away quickly before taking his shirt and jacket off and putting them into his locker. I turned back to my locker again as I changed my shoes. Matt audibly exhaled before pulling down his own black joggers. In my peripheral vision I could see him speeding to put on his gym shorts. Once he was somewhat decent, I turned to him once more.

"What?" He asked, sounding extremely annoyed as he pulled his blue t-shirt over his head. I took a slow step closer to him. He finally managed to get the shirt over his head so that he was able to see me. He began to breath gently out of his mouth as I got closer, not able to take his eyes off mine.

"Nothing. Just looking." I replied. We stared at each other for a few seconds in silence.

"Look, just stop pushing me. You won't like the outcome." He glared at me before shoving my shoulder as he walked by to leave the locker room.

I pulled on my shirt and promptly left the locker room after him. The boys who had already gotten changed were all stretching on one side of the gym. I went over to join them.

I had just finished carrying out all of the basic stretches when Matthew caught my eye. He was reaching straight down to touch his toes, trying to complete the list of basic stretches. I found myself being impressed by the fact that he was able to lay his hands flat on the ground and bring his elbows quite close to the floor as well, all with his legs straight. As much as I continued to convince myself to stare at his arms, in the end it was inevitable that I stared at his butt for way longer than I should have.

~

School had seemed to go by rather quickly after gym class. I was now back in my room, preparing to go and see my friends. I picked up my keys off of the coffee table just as Matt exited our bedroom. He picked his keys up off of the coffee table as well.

"Where are you headed?" I asked casually. He looked reluctant to answer at first but finally sighed before speaking.

"Nash's room. I've gotta see if he's okay after that stupid s**t with Cameron."

"Why are you even friends with him? He's homophobic, doesn't that bother you?" I asked genuinely.

"No. I'm not gay, so it doesn't bother me." Matt shrugged while shaking his head.

"That's not a good reason to not feel bothered. Are you homophobic too?"

"No. Can we stop with the investigation now? You jocks are all the same." He scoffed before walking briskly out of the room. I followed closely behind him, before grabbing his shoulder and turning him around.

"That's not fair. How are we all the same?" I asked.

"You're cheery all the time, except for when something doesn't go your way. Then you get whiny or angry like babies, just because you didn't get what you wanted. Grow up and accept my answers for what they are."

"What's the harm in being happy?" I questioned while letting a small smile appear on my face.

"Because, not everything his happy. Most things aren't, actually." Matt mumbled to himself moodily. He clenched his fist before approaching Nash's door to knock on it.

"Well, everyone deserves to be happy. If the world isn't making you happy, make yourself happy for a change. Do something that you love and don't wait for anyone's permission." I gave him my only piece of solid advice. Matt looked back at me for a second, for once there was not a drop of disgust in his features. He turned back quickly before knocking on Nash's door. I knocked on Cameron's door, feeling very proud of myself.

Cameron immediately opened the door. I greeted him before turning around to lean across the hallway. I smacked Matt's ass before hurrying inside of Cameron's room.

"Nice!" Cameron smirked while high-fiving me. We heard a faint aggravated sigh come from Matt in the hallway.

"That was the s****l tension between us. It's clearly starting to get to him. I don't know why he continues to put forth this 'straight boy' act, everyone already knows that he likes dudes." I shrugged while plopping myself down on the couch.

"Is this part of your master plan?" Taylor asks me.

"Yes. According to my calculations it's time to go into phase two of my plan." I replied cockily.

"And what might that be?" Taylor asks.

"You'll see. You'll all see." I pointed at everyone in the room.

"I can't wait. Anyway, I've got some news about that greaser, Shawn." Taylor leaned forward in the couch. "I think he wants to be friends or something because I overheard him in the library, talking about a party that they're going to be throwing on Friday. He said that there was going to be beer and tolerable music. He also said that he hopes that I show up."

"Even if he does want to be friends, Nash would never let him, and it's honestly too much of a hassle to sneak around just to be friends with someone. Do you even want to go to a greaser party?" Aaron cuts in.

"No, but the part about beer swayed me a little bit. How'd they secure beer?" Taylor questioned.

"I think we should throw our own party on Friday." I suggested.

"That's a good idea. We can make sure their party flops by throwing a bigger and better party." Cameron builds on my idea.

"I'm sure Cameron could persuade the coach to let us throw it in the gym or something." Jack added.

"And, we can steal their beer." Aaron chimed in once again.

"But, how are we going to do that. We don't have keys and none of them even like us enough to open the door if we knock. Wait, that's not true. Shawn wants to be friends with Taylor, so he'll go and distract him while we take the beer."

"This is gonna be a lot of fun." Taylor chuckled evilly before taking out his phone, presumably to begin sending out party invites to all of the other cliques. Operation Party Flop was in full swing.