Jimmy sat down next to Scott in ELA class.

Katherine was standing up and talking with him.

She waved happily at Jimmy, though they've never really spoken.

Jimmy waved awkwardly back and got up to grab his notebook.

Everyone's notebooks stayed at school, and there was a little shelf in the back keeping all of them.

After a couple minutes of digging through the books, Jimmy grabbed his green notebook and walked back to his seat.

Katherine whispered something to Scott, and he playfully kicked her while she giggled.

Huh. Jimmy thought, watching as Katherine sat down next to Teagan, a girl who had brown hair with highlights. They must playfully kick each other... relationships are weird.

Jimmy sat down and noticed that Scott was doodling in his notebook.

Jimmy watched him draw a deer (which was very good) and he rested his face on his hand.

Scott paused and glanced over at Jimmy.

They made eye contact, and Jimmy's heart leapt and his face turned bright red from embarrassment.

"S-sorry." He stuttered, "I like watching people draw, and you're really good at it."

"Oh, thanks!" Scott smiled.

"Alright class!" Mr. Brinson clapped his hand, "Today we're reviewing interruptions in sentences. We're doing a little project in partners."

Everyone started to look at their friends and Mr. Brinson laughed.

"Don't go looking at your friends, since this project is done with the person sitting next to you."

Some people groaned but others shrugged.

Jimmy and Scott smiled at each other as Mr. Brinson passed out a paper.

"You guys have to write 5 sentences that have an interruption in it, and draw pictures that correspond with it."

"You're drawing." Jimmy said immediately and Scott chuckled.

"Sure." Scott said, writing his name on the paper before passing it to Jimmy.

-

"Alright, done." Scott said.

They looked around and saw that most kids were still working.

Jimmy started to tap his fingers on the table awkwardly while Scott muttered something.

"What?" Jimmy asked, only catching a word of what Scott said.

Scott turned a bit red, "Sorry, I was just...do you want to play pattycake?"

"Er- what's that?"

"It's a hand game." Scott said, lifting his hands a motioning Jimmy to do the same.

"Here, it's like this." Scott said, clapping his hands before slapping his right hand against Jimmy's left.

"I'm...lost."

Scott laughed, "Clap your hands and slap your right one against my left."

Jimmy followed Scott's directions as he did the same.

"You look so nervous!" Scott laughed.

"Shut up!" Jimmy said, "I've never done this before!"

"You never did hand games in elementary school?"

Jimmy shook his head, "Me and Grian mostly just sat and talked. We would do tether ball and foursquare. I think most of the girls did hand games, but I never participated in them."

Scott shrugged, "I mostly hang out with girls so I guess I picked up on the hand games."

"I assume you do hand games a lot with your girlfriend?"

Scott messed up the clapping and looked shocked.

"What?" He asked.

"Katherine." Jimmy said as if it were obvious, "You guys are dating."

"Who'd you hear that from?"

"No one. I'm not in the gossip circle, I just assumed that from watching you two."

Scott nodded slowly.

"Sorry." Jimmy mumbled.

Scott shook his head, "It's fine. I can understand how you thought that, especially since no one really knows I'm gay."

"You're-you're what?"

"Gay." Scott said, before looking worried, "But please don't tell anyone. If the teachers find out, they'll probably tell my dad and then I'll be killed!"

Jimmy blinked and said, "O-okay."

Just then, Mr. Brinson walked over.

"Did you two finish or are you just playing hand games?"

"Finished." Jimmy said, showing Mr. Brinson their paper.

"Who did the drawings?"

"Scott. And I wrote the sentences." Jimmy explained.

Mr. Brinson nodded and walked away.

-

"Are you excited, Grian?" Pix asked Grian at lunch.

"For what?"

"The meeting today. Scholar bowl."

"Oh, yeah." Grian said, "Who's in it?"

"Uh...me, Yara, Collin, Mumbo, and Tammy. Collin is in 8th grade along with Tammy while Yara is in 7th. You should get along with them. They'll all really nice."

Grian nodded, "I think I've seen Mumbo around... what's his last name?"

"Jumbo."

Jimmy laughed.

Pix smiled jokingly, "Yeah, I laughed at his name as well. Not a great first impression but surprisingly, he laughs at it as well."

Grian nodded. He looked a bit more comfortable knowing how small the group was.

"What do we do in ELA?" Pix then asked Jimmy.

"Er- a sentence project."

"Project?"

"It's easy. You work with the person sitting next to you to write sentences and draw pictures."

Pix cursed under his breath.

"What?"

"I sit next to Oli. He never seems to do the work. Just stares off into space. I heard he's really good at singing, so it makes sense why he's so loud and annoying."

Jimmy shrugged, "You might find out he's nice. I mean, I had to work with Scott."

"The one dating Katherine?"

Jimmy hesitated.

I...shouldn't tell them he's gay...

"Er- yeah." Jimmy said after a minute, "Yeah, the one dating Katherine. He's sweet though."

"Ooo!" Grian said in a mocking voice.

"What? Am I not allowed to say that a boy I met is nice?"

"But you didn't say nice." Pix pointed out, "You said sweet."

Jimmy froze, but then shook his head, "Nice, I meant. He's nice."

He then got up to use the restroom and as he passed by Scott's table, he heard him say,

"I taught him how to play pattycake. He's really sweet."

Jimmy glanced back at Scott's table before shaking his head, his heart thumping and face red.

============================
I hope you enjoyed this chapter! It's funny since the way I got inspiration for it was from watching my friend nervously play patty-cake with another guy. Apparently that was his first time ever doing hand games.

And yes there is an Olix and Gumbo shop for this story. I don't know yet if they'll get together but there will be obvious hints that they like each other.