THE JOCK JUST WANTS THE NERD [2]

75

||JACKSON||

I made sure that I had all unfinished assignments submitted and cleared out my schedule. Making sure to have the garden tended, my checklist fulfilled for the most part. When I came back to the dorms, Damian was just chilling by his bed scrolling through his phone. Reaching out to my luggage bag to organize my clothes, my roommate checked on me, "you gonna be gone for the whole day?"

"Yeah, just wanted to make sure to clean my belongings up before leaving," I replied, folding up my attire neatly. When I think got everything prepared, double-checking to see if there was anything else that needed to be done. "It's alright man, I'll make sure your stuff's well kept," Damian smirks.

Rolling my eyes, I slung a backpack over my shoulder, "yeah right, last time someone went on an adventure, only to find my notebook and looked at my gay shit."

"Heh, I promise I won't go through more of your things... hopefully," he sneakily adds that little bit at the end.

I shook my head, grabbed my keys, and held the door open. But before I could leave, I turned back to him, "also, if you plan to have sex in this room, make sure you do a good job at cleaning up. I knew this place stunk like it before and it wasn't hard to find a damn condom wrapper beneath your bed," I snarkily grinned with the comment while sluggishly shutting the door enough to hear him react. "Must be a big dick if it was labeled as large," I ironically winked at him teasingly.

"W-wait what? Dude? Hey Jackson. Jack!"

-

The mumbling of the engine sounded inside my car. Today is supposed to be fun, but I tried my hardest to bury deep the anxiety that was churning in my stomach. Trying methods to calm me down, I shook off the feeling and just focused on driving home.

To see such a familiar neighborhood was indeed somewhat comforting. Rural houses of numerous colors and textures, brick, paneling, all sorts of homey designs. I've been accustomed to tall towering buildings and campus facilities, that it creates this cathartic emotion.

When I arrive at my house, parked in front of the lawn and gave it a stare. Getting out and locking my vehicle, almost perfectly timed as if anticipated, my mom opens the door and looks at me with a smile, "Jackson!" She voices as arms spread wide open for a hug. I grin, clutch into her.

"Hi mom," I whispered sweetly.

Over her shoulder, I saw dad walking over with the same happy expression, "there's my boy!" He howls, reaching out to join the enveloping.

"I've missed ya!" He chortles.

"Yeah, I do too. Been a while now," Placing hands on hips as I gazed around the entrance. They've cleaned up a few things, dusted to make our home spotless. The walls still hung family portraits. For a while, all I could hear were my parents' chatter while I searched around for my brother, "where's Alfred?" I asked.

"He's up at your room, well, more like his office now," mom pouts.

I nodded and excused myself to check out the second floor. Upon stepping up the stairs, no doubt I could listen to the loudspeakers and curses emitting through one of the doors. When I reached mine, I gave it a knock in hopes to get a response under all the ruckus, "yeah? Come in," I hear him. Turning the knob, I pressed forward and saw him sat down at a nice-looking chair, reclined backwards as his fingers fiddled with a controller attached to an elevated widescreen tv. Alfred blinks at me in surprise as he pauses his, "oh, sup dude," a playful flash of teeth on his face.

"Well damn," I said, quite impressed. It was well decorated with trendy light strips fixated on the corners. There was an entire system connecting all the appliances together to work nicely. I'm astonished that he kept my anime posters and even framed them too, both funny and embarrassing. What the fuck, since when did he get a cool neon sign with the shape of a huge letter "A"? All of this in the span of half a year?