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#1

Jay checked his phone. No texts. Bummer.

((Jay Harland reappears!))

“Dad, I’m home!” he called out as he walked through the door, getting no response. He kicked his shoes off against the wall, having tracked dirt in enough times to know better than to piss off his dad over nothing. He had a pretty short fuse these days, after all, and the lectures had gotten boring as hell.

He sifted through the letters that had arrived that day. Bill, bill, overdue bill, we’re-warning-you bill, the usual stuff. He tossed it down the pile, where his dad would see them and continue stressing when he showed back up. Watching that had gotten boring too.

“Dad, you here?” he called out again, still getting nothing. Inside the kitchen, he found the sticky note that explained why.

Hey Jay,
Going to be working late tonight
Grab what you need from the freezer
Do your homework, will call later
Love, Dad

NO GUESTS

He rolled his eyes. More of his dad’s smothering that happened to coincide with being nowhere to be seen. It was almost impressive.

He screwed up the note into a little ball and tossed it into the garbage, nailing the shot. He smirked, but it wasn’t unexpected. He’d made that shot almost every day for the past few months, the previous few notes still poking out near the top of the trash.

Heading into the living room, he pulled out his phone and started texting.

Man, everyone sucked.

He’d texted five different people and gotten nothing. They were all either busy, out, or just plain not interested. Giving up, he tossed his phone onto the couch and flicked on the TV, still on the sports network where he’d left it. It wasn’t like anyone else was ever around to change the channel anyway.

He had his feet up on the table, an opened can of beer resting next to them. Of course, his dad didn’t like him drinking, but as long as Jay only took one of them here or there, he generally stayed under the radar. Besides, if he didn’t like him drinking he should’ve kept his beer hidden or something; you couldn’t blame Jay for taking advantage of the opportunity. So he liked a drink after school now and then (and maybe it made him feel just a little bit more adult), so what?

He picked up his phone again, just to check if anyone had changed their mind. No such luck.

He stared up at the ceiling, puffing out his lip. Tennis was so freaking boring; why couldn’t they just show soccer back to back? Watching it may not have been as interesting as actually playing it, but it still beat everything else.

He shut his eyes, zoning out, getting away from the situation he was sat in. Instead, he was at college, getting a free ride and spending most of his time focusing on his favourite thing in the world, instead of worrying about a bunch of stupid things that were just pissing him off. In just a few months, he’d be there, and life would be pretty great.

And the cheerleaders, they’d be there too. He’d bang the shit out of them, and all that. Yeah. All the imagery he was enjoying thinking about right then, picturing the horizontal bebop. Good stuff.

He scrunched up his face, taking another drink from his beer, and turned his attention back to the TV.

TV had gotten boring, and now he was on his laptop. He'd thought about doing some homework, but lost interest before anything happened. Instead, he was looking at porn. He wasn’t doing anything with it, it was just kind of there.

He was on his phone again, paying attention to that rather than the two girls on screen. He was still texting, still getting no interest in actually hanging out, but at least he was having a conversation. Or rather, several at once. Some were about the classes that he was supposed to be working on right then, others were about what social events were coming up, and others still were about which girl at school had the finest tits. It was pretty boring, but it was better than nothing.

He heard the front door open downstairs, then glanced up at the clock to see it was 11:19. He knew that that meant it was his dad, so he didn't panic when the person didn’t call up. It was a bit amazing that his dad hadn’t caught on yet that he didn’t go to bed until around 1 in the morning on most nights, so he didn't have to worry about waking him up or anything, but then most of the time his dad just passed out straight into bed anyway, and was gone by the time Jay woke up at 8:30 and had to bolt to school.

He thought for a moment: had he thrown out the beer can? Hm, he wasn’t sure. He checked his phone again, replied to another text.

There was the sound of footsteps on the landing. He lifted his head for a moment, seeing if they’d stop and open the door, but they continued on without pause.

Figured.

((Jay Harland continued in Study Buddies))