As the bell rang, Connor, Tyler and the new boy began to walk of the classroom, Tyler already babbling away as usual. Connor tuned in and out of the conversation as they walked through the corridors to their next lesson. After daydreaming to himself for a while, he tuned into the conversation at a slightly odd time...

"So, Troye, are you single?!" Tyler asked the new boy suggestively, which caused Connor to laugh. Tyler really didn't beat around the bush when it came to getting to know people and he really didn't hold back. 

"Umm, yeah" the Australian boy laughed in response, and Connor couldn't help but notice his cheeks turning pink.

"I apologise on Tyler's behalf. He's very..umm.. direct I guess you could say," Connor laughed to the new boy, who laughed back.

"Hey, you love me for it!" Tyler smiled sassily as they walked into their science classroom.

The boys found their seats and settled in, laughing and talking back and forth whilst their teacher got the lesson started. 

"So class, for this month's Biology project we're going to be doing something very different, and perhaps a little more relaxing than usual. We're going to be doing birdwatching, as part of your course of observing the environment around us. If you've been listening for the last few lessons, you'll know that the birds around us are a great indicator of what kind of environment we live in *I'm literally making this up I don't know a thing about birds* and so my colleagues and I thought this would be a good project to do. First off, I need you to get into partners with someone you know you'll work---" the teacher was cut off as everyone began to get into pairs. Connor instinctively looked over to Tyler but he had already moved off to his next "hook up", Marcus Butler. Connor then looked at his other friends - Zoe, Joe, Caspar and then all the guys from the swim team, Kian, JC, Ricky, Trevor and Sam - and to his dismay, everyone had a partner.                                                                                                                      Connor looked around the classroom, almost panicking now, searching for someone to pair up with, when suddenly his eyes fell upon the new boy, who was just sitting by himself. Since Tyler wasn't going to look after him, Connor guessed the duty fell upon him...or atleast that's what he was telling himself, as he moved towards the new boy.

"Hey, Troye...do you have a partner?" Connor asked, immediately regretting it as he realised how dumb it sounded. Of course the new boy who had just moved from the other side of the world wouldn't have a partner. That was just, as Tyler would describe it, "totally dumb".                                     "Well, no...." the Australian replied.                                                                                                                     "So can we be partners?" the American asked, again cringing inside at his awkwardness.                     "Yeah, I'd like that Connor. I'd like that very much" the Australian replied and with that, they began to talk - and not really much about birds, or planning when they were going to do it. Instead, they talked about a whole lot of things, and surprisingly for Connor, meaningful, deep things like their passions. Connor didn't really consider himself a "deep" person. He never really had deep chats and yet here he was, with a boy he'd only met an hour ago, talking about things his lifelong friends didn't know about him. Connor found himself lost in conversation, until their teacher, Mr Green, began to talk again.

"This is a completely independent project, and so you will have to do all the work outside of school. You have exactly one month to complete it, and I expect atleast 3 hours of work to go into this - hopefully more," he said.

"So, when do you want to do it?" the new boy asked. Connor began to think of the days he was free. None, really, since he always had swim practice.

"Well, I'm not really free after school, but on Tuesday I only have swim practice until 3:00, so you could watch us for 20 minutes, only if you want of course, and then we could go to mine and do it?!" he suggested.

"Yeah, sure, that'd be fine." Troye replied.

"Are you sure?!" Connor fretted, "because I don't want you to be bored or hate me or anything..." he began to ramble, until he felt cold fingers cover his mouth and raised his eyes to see a giggling Australian behind it.

"Connor, stop. It's fine. Infact, staring at topless guys for 20 minutes? More than fine!" Troye laughed. He had already explained his sexuality to Connor, who accepted it right away.

"Hmmm, maybe I could set you up with one of the guys on the team!" Connor replied laughing.

"Yeah, maybe..." Troye replied, and with that the bell rang, and they began to move to their next lessons.

A/N: sooooooo that's the second chapter! Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I've been super busy and tbh I was having doubts about this fic. However, I got some positive comments and I can't tell you how much that motivated me and made me smile! From now on I'm going to update a lot more often, I promise! Thank you x