One and One Is Two

The very good reason for Logan not being at all in love with James was that James was stupid. And Logan's type? Was not stupid. Logan liked intelligence. And out of all the incredibly awesome things James was, intelligent was not one of them.

a/n: Almost a week late, but I have finally finished this birthday fic for the awesome and very patient ShisouEimin! She asked for a fic based on Sam Cooke's song Wonderful World and I really hope this fits what she wanted. So everyone please enjoy and review!

Happy Birthday, Manda!

…

James knew every detail of Logan's thinking face, and maybe it was a little creepy the way he liked to watch Logan take notes in class, but he couldn't help it, nor did he really care. Not to mention that watching Logan take notes was a lot more interesting than taking notes himself. Especially on algebra. God, did James hate algebra… but Logan loved it. And that made the class worth going to. Because Logan sat cattycorner to him so that James had a really good view of Logan during class, but Logan never really caught James staring. Not that James would mind. He was sort of shameless.

James could make anyone fall in love with him. Every girl in school fell for James. Some of the guys. Carlos loved him, that was a given. Even Kendall would look at James with this kind of admiration at times.

But Logan? Logan didn't treat James like he was anything more special than anyone else. He didn't swoon over James' good looks or melt when he sang or get heavy-breathed when he took off his shirt. James could make anyone fall in love with him. Anyone except Logan.

And there was a very good reason for that, too.

"James? James."

James scrambled to attention, his gaze snapping from Logan to their teacher, who stood at the white board with a marker and an expectant look. James frowned, then glanced around to see every set of eyes on him. Including Logan's.

"What?" he asked, confusion evident.

The teacher took a deep breath, clearly trying to keep her patience. "What's the value of x?"she asked slowly, and apparently for the second time.

James scowled at the equation on the board. He didn't know this stuff. Why would she call on him? She knew that he was far from the brightest person in their class. He didn't understand why the numbers and letters were together, or how x was supposed to have a value. Why didn't the people who wrote the equation just go ahead and put in the number that belonged there instead of making a letter stand for it? Why did it have to be a mystery? What was so fun to them about making innocent high schoolers figure it out when they already knew the answer? And James knew they knew the answer because they stuck in the back of the book.

"Uh…" James swallowed, tapping his fingers on his desk as he tried to think. He hadn't been following at all; he'd been too busy staring at Logan.

Logan who cleared his throat now, catching James' attention again. He was mouthing something and James squinted to try and understand what it was.

"James!" the teacher snapped again, and she seemed a lot less patient this time.

James floundered for a few more seconds as Logan just mouthed the same thing over and over, getting a little more frantic each time. "Uh… uhm, uh… fishsticks!" James finally exclaimed, throwing his hands up hopelessly.

He was met with a lot of blank stares. And the worst one was from Logan, who just gaped in wonder at the guy he called his best friend.

The only reason Logan and James were even in the same class was because Logan had been helping James on his homework (in other words, James had been copying Logan's homework) since the third grade and Logan forced him to study before tests so he could at least manage a C. Kendall and Carlos refused to let themselves be placed in the honors class where they'd have to do so much work. James only let them wrongly advance him because he wanted to stay with Logan.

The very good reason for Logan not being at all in love with James was that James was stupid. And Logan's type? Was not stupid. Logan liked intelligence. And out of all the incredibly awesome things James was, intelligent was not one of them. He had little interest in math and science, which were Logan's two favorite things in the world. James also hated reading, and while English wasn't Logan's favorite subject, he still put so much stock in it, and reading Shakespeare and Jane Austen and even Dr. Seuss made James' head hurt. Too many words he was pretty sure were made up. Even history, which was supposed to be easy, because, according to Logan, it was just memorization and forming opinion—even that was difficult and boring to James.

When it came down to it, James hated everything about learning and Logan loved it.

"Fishsticks? Seriously James? I said fifty. It's a number. Fishsticks is not a number." From the moment the bell rang and they started gathering their things together, Logan started going off on James. "Why on earth would you think I was saying fishsticks?" he growled, and it sounded so much less like a question and more like an accusation.

James groaned, slinging his bookbag over his shoulder as he headed out of the room with Logan. "I don't know! I thought maybe it was one of those tricky questions where Mike buys six-hundred boxes of fishsticks because he's preparing for the extinction of stick-fish or something…" He sighed. James hardly ever felt quite as useless as he did around Logan.

Once out of the classroom, Logan stopped in the hall to turn and face James, giving him the most incredulous look that stopped James in his tracks. He didn't really like Logan looking at him like that. Like he was incredibly stupid. James knew he was stupid, but he didn't like Logan looking at him like he was…

Logan was always the one who looked at James like he had faith in him, like he really, truly believed James could pass this test or read this book or answer this equation. He hardly ever looked at James like he was trying to squint through a fog of stupidity just to see.

Which was exactly what he was doing now…

James fidgeted a little. "Logan…" he tried, but he couldn't think of how to defend himself. Logan was really just staring through James like he was trying to understand something so convoluted and idiotic that it made no sense. Which, to Logan, that probably described James 90% of the time.

Logan shook his head and held up a hand to silence James, though. "Don't. It's whatever. We'll just… work on homework after practice. Okay?" He sounded stern, definitely frustrated, and it made James feel bad, but he just shrugged.

"Yeah, okay," he conceded, trying to seem like he didn't really care that he'd totally bombed. Logan offered a clearly forced smile and patted James' shoulder as he passed around him and down the hall, probably to his advanced placement anatomical biochemistry physiology astrology class. James couldn't wrap his head around that science stuff to save his life. He could fake the math; there were lots of calculators and pictures to help him and it was so easy to copy numbers off of Logan's papers, but science? Was a dead horse neither he nor Logan were willing to beat.

The truth was, James did care about his intelligence. He tried so hard to fake some things just to impress Logan, but Logan usually saw through it. It didn't make James any more special to him.

So James could only think of one way for Logan to see him as special. And that was to stop faking it.

"Dude, I don't think you can do it…" Carlos said as he laced up his skates.

James groaned and sat down next to Carlos to do the same. "Thanks for the vote of confidence," he sighed, trying to be surreptitious about the way he watched Logan across the locker room. It wasn't anything kinky—that would be gross and inappropriate, because this was the locker room, a place of sanctity where, gay or straight, you did not watch your teammates dress and undress—but it was adorable how Logan was being obsessive about the measure of his laces while he laughed with Kendall, probably about something smart. Probably about something James wouldn't understand.

Carlos patted James heavily on the back, bringing him back into the conversation and to his own skates that needed lacing. He leaned over to start on them as he listened to Carlos speak. "Hey, it's nothing personal, James! It's just… you aren't super bright… and have you ever even actually tried doing your homework? You've always just mooched off of Logan. So you have no experience or practice or anything… You can't just instantly make yourself smart. That takes years and years of studying like Logan's done." When he finished explaining, he stood on his blades, shuffling around to face James as he strapped on his helmet.

"Good pep talk," James droned, still bent over working on his skates. "Kendall could learn a thing or two from you, Carlos…"

Carlos sighed, grabbing his stick from where it was propped against a locker. "I'm just saying. It's a lot to catch up on in a really short time like you're talking."

James tied off his laces and stood as well, a determined look plastered on his face. "Well, then," he said, carefully setting his own helmet over his hair. "Guess I'm just gonna have to streamline some smarts." Carlos still looked mostly unconvinced, but he gave James an amused smile anyway, then patted his helmet twice and headed out of the locker room after Kendall.

James followed suit, falling in next to Logan on his way out. He threw a padded arm around Logan's shoulders, holding tight to him as the other boy stumbled forward at the weight. Logan gave James a tight-lipped look somewhere between a friendly smile and depreciative frown, but he didn't shrug James off.

"Hey," James grinned, glad neither of them had lowered their face guards yet so he could still clearly see Logan's nice eyes. "I really wanna crack down on those, uhm… polynumerals after practice, okay?" He wiggled his eyebrows a little, something that would be suggestive and a little seductive to anyone.

Anyone besides Logan, who just smiled back and nodded, saying, "Sounds good. And it's polynomials, James, but good try." He actually sounded a little proud of James, but the way his voice was laced with childish praise like he'd give to a kindergartener made James' smile stiffen.

"Hey, ladies!" Kendall shouted as James and Logan neared the ice, skidding to a halt in front of them and waving his stick. "Get your mouth guards in so you'll stop chit-chatting and start skating! Move it!" And he skated off. The "Team Captain" title always went straight to Kendall's head as soon as he got his pads on and it made James roll his eyes and want to stick him right under his chest plate every time he got righteous like that.

It didn't help that the command had Logan easily stepping out from James' hold on his shoulders and doing as he'd been told. James watched him skate out, his feet flicking out a little further behind him as he went. His less-than-graceful style was the remnant of a clumsy little boy who hadn't known what an ice rink looked like before coming to Minnesota, but had been just enough of a genius to recognize the greatest sport in the world when he came into contact with it.

He had also only figured out how to play said sport because he'd known then the same thing James was trying to convince himself of now; you can achieve anything you really set your mind to.

…

Maybe setting his mind to it wasn't as surefire a solution as James had thought it would be, though. Because he was pretty sure his mind was set, but he still wasn't getting anything.

He had dug out Logan's notebook from his backpack and had it sitting in his lap where he sat in the backseat of the Mitchells' car. Not only did Logan's chicken-scratch doctory handwriting make it hard for James to read his notes, but none of them made sense. He tried bringing out his textbook to read the chapter, but he had no idea what chapter they were even on, and even if he did, he would be just as lost, because he didn't understand any of the language in this book. How did they expect anyone to be able to read this stuff? James was pretty sure it was all in Latin or something…

"Woah, James, are you feeling alright?"

"What?" James looked up to see that Logan had stopped catching his mom up on the details of his day to turn around in the front seat and stare at James with wide eyes. His gaze moved from James down to the notes and book with a nod and James raised his eyebrows, moving his mouth wordlessly as he tried to come up with something smart to say.

Mrs. Mitchell's eyes lifted to also look at James in the rearview mirror. "James, honey, is everything okay?"

"Mom, he's reading!" Logan exclaimed, making a play for the book in James' hands. "He's reading a math book!" He looked semi-horrified, expression locked in a state of shock as James snatched the book back and away, out of Logan's reach.

"Knock it off, Logan!" he hissed, glaring at him as Logan's expression changed to mocking amusement and he chuckled. James didn't know what made the situation so funny to Logan, but he was pretty sure it was the fact that James was stupid and thought he could actually understand math. That had to be what Logan thought of him.

Mrs. Mitchell laughed lightly a little and it didn't make James feel any better. But she did say, "Logan, sweetie, be nice…" At least she could tell when her son was being a bully, too.

"No, Mom, you don't get it—James is looking at math. Willingly. Without me telling him to!" Logan laughed between his words, still turned to watch James, who just glared back.

"I'm studying!" he finally proclaimed, throwing the book back down on his legs forcefully.

Logan raised his eyebrows, maybe impressed, maybe disbelieving. "You? You're studying? You do know what that word means, right?"

"Logan, leave James alone," Mrs. Mitchell ordered, grabbing her son's shoulder and forcing him to sit correctly in his seat.

James was grateful and muttered thanks to Mrs. Mitchell before trying to focus back on the math in front of him. But it was hard to focus when nothing made any sense to him whatsoever. He saw a lot of numbers and a lot of letters and some things that looked like numbers and letters did the nasty and had babies all over the page and was that a triangle in the middle of Logan's notes? What place did a shape have in the middle of an equation? There was no way James was going to be able to do this stuff on his own…

The car stopped outside the Mitchells' house. Although James was old enough to be at his house without his parents now and fix himself supper after practice, he still came over to Logan's house every day. As much as James loved his mother's Russian housekeeper, Logan was and always had been better English-speaking company. And Mrs. Mitchell made way better food than the microwave. Not to mention there hadn't been a time since James started school that he hadn't needed some sort of help with homework. He just wasn't bright.

Logan made a face at James as he grabbed his bookbag from the backseat. "You weren't seriously studying. What were you doing with my notebook?" he asked almost suspiciously as he took the spiral of paper from James, shoving it back in his bag.

"I told you! I was studying. Why don't you believe me?" James climbed out of the backseat and followed Logan into the house.

The Mitchells had a nice house, clean and homey, not sterile and lonely like James'. Another reason James liked coming home with Logan after practice.

Not to mention there was, you know, Logan.

Logan made a scoffing noise as he toed his shoes off at the door and James did the same, aware of the drill he'd been following since grade school. "Because you hate studying! I've always had to force you to do it, usually by threatening you."

Offended (really, with no reason to be; Logan was right on all accounts, as usual) James started up the stairs to Logan's room without waiting for him.

"Maybe I decided math is interesting," James said haughtily over his shoulder at Logan, a few steps below him.

"No that's definitely a lie," Logan laughed humorlessly as James opened the bedroom door and Logan followed him in.

James hopped onto Logan's bed habitually, bouncing a little, and the usually-excited movement was accompanied by a pouting scowl. "It is not!" he argued, even though it was. He dropped his bookbag on the ground and crossed his arms and Logan met him with a similar pose near the door. "I mean… numbers are… kind of cool… right?" Logan raised his eyebrows, entirely unconvinced. "Look, remember how you told me math could be useful?" James tried, many a study session coming to mind with the question. "Like, how when I'm a rich and famous pop star, I'm going to need to know about math and money and how much I'm making and what percentage my producer and agent and manager take and what goes into my trust fund or whatever and all that useless—I mean—useful stuff!"

Logan didn't look convinced, but he came and joined James on the bed anyway. "Alright, so do you need me to explain anything to you?" he asked, and although he said "anything," his tone said "everything."

James watched as Logan took out his books and notebook, spreading them on the bed in a routine they were both familiar with. It would be easier to have Logan explain everything to him, to actually pay attention while Logan tried to teach him the chapter, but James knew if he allowed Logan to help him, it would defeat the purpose. He had to become smart for Logan to get his attention, and if he let Logan tutor him, everything would be ruined.

So his logic wasn't perfect, but all James could really tell was that he needed to do this on his own.

"Uhm… no, I think I got it," he said, taking out his own materials. He couldn't help but notice that he had absolutely zero pages of notes, however, as compared to Logan's dozens.

Logan looked up from the math book, which he'd already opened up to show examples to James. "What?" he said, raising an eyebrow disbelievingly. "Are you sure?"

James wasn't sure, and he had a sinking, uncertain feeling in his stomach about diving into a pool of gross math all alone and without even Logan's hand nearby to grab onto, but he nodded anyway. "Yeah. It's not that hard." He breathed a laugh, trying to exude his normal confidence, though he felt as though it didn't read as well this time.

Logan stared at James for a few moments, his expression fairly unreadable. He was surprised? Confused, maybe. Probably a little shocked… but James wondered if maybe he was hurt a little, too. It would make sense… James had always needed Logan's help, but now he was denying it.

But that was silly, James had to be imagining that, because it didn't make sense. Not to mention Logan was shrugging now, looking back at his homework. "Whatever you say, James…"

James nodded to himself, trying to convince his own brain that it could handle this.

…

James' brain could not handle this. It didn't have nearly enough power to process everything in this stupid chapter, let alone all the ones he'd slept through before it, and he still didn't get why there were stupid triangles everywhere!

The whole time he was at Logan's had been spent silently sweating over his math book as panic slowly built inside his chest. Every time Logan had offered James his assistance, he'd declined, each "No," more fervent than the last. James had never been more relieved in his life for his mother to arrive to pick him up.

Now James was pacing his bedroom, cell phone held to his ear and math book and papers spread across his bed. Since he couldn't accept Logan's help, he'd decided the best option he had at this point was the second-smartest person he knew. "Kendall! Dude, I need your help. Okay, do you know anything about numbers and letters being together? No, I mean in math. I know you're not in my math class, but—…Logan? I can't ask Logan. Because… well, just because, okay! I can't. Well, it's none of your business why I can't. Just help me out, okay? I don't get this stuff and aren't you supposed to be at least a little smart? Dude, if you're not going to be any help, put Katie on the phone! She's smart. …what? I did not—dude, why are you getting so upset? You are so. What? I didn't—I don't—I'm not trying to—well, you're a jerk! You are, like, totally my least favorite best friend, you know that? You know what—I'll just figure it out on my own!"

James tossed his phone on the pile of papers on his bed, back assignments he'd copied off of Logan. He was pretty sure if he studied the papers along next to his textbook, he could catch up by next class period.

Only thing was… that was haaard.

Not to mention, James just had no desire to actually do the work. He just wanted immediate results without any work towards it, but that was just how James had been raised to believe the world worked. Unfortunately, he was quickly learning otherwise and it was doing nothing but making him sad.

James dropped down on his bed in the midst of all the paperwork and folders and books. He wanted nothing less than to read through all these papers right now. But there was only one way Logan was ever going to pay any attention to him, let alone fall in love with him, and that was only if James was intelligent. He managed to find the assignments from the beginning of the school year, thankfully and dutifully dated by Logan for some reason or another, and flipped to the first unit in the book.

This was about to be a long few nights.

…

At a time when Logan was usually locked into his various study assignments, he wasn't even looking at his books and papers. No, he was very much focused on something—or rather someone else.

Because James was doing his homework. James was curled up in the corner of Logan's bed hunched over a math textbook and scribbling out answers to problems on the assignment. He hadn't looked up once since they'd gotten to Logan's house and retreated up to the room and it was seriously beginning to freak Logan out, especially the way James hadn't even noticed Logan staring at him.

He gently set aside his biochemistry homework and crawled slowly across the bed to the end James had claimed as his own, territory marked by pages of notes and back assignments spread across the sheets in something Logan assumed was some kind of weird makes-sense-to-James organization. He leaned forward, trying to inspect James' work, but James came to sudden life, grabbing the notebook up and holding it to his chest. "What are you doing?" he snapped, frowning at Logan suspiciously.

"What? Nothing!" Logan defended, sitting back on his haunches and held his hands up innocently. "I just wanted to check your answers, that's all…"

"No!" James practically yelled, looking maybe a little scared. "I mean… what I mean is, it's okay, I've got it already. They're… they're right."

Logan squinted a little at him. "How do you know…?" He'd always checked James' work for him. Well, what would be more precise would be to say that Logan always did James' work for him, but if James was going to do his own homework, Logan wasn't about to stop him. He just wanted to make sure he did it right.

"I just… I just do! I did them, I know they're right, okay?" And James' head was ducked again, away from Logan and buried back in his work dutifully. Though Logan considered maybe James wasn't trying to get back to work as much as he was just trying to cut the conversation short.

Logan settled back into his own workspace again, but he couldn't take his eyes off of James. He just didn't look right. It was like watching some scary possession movie, seeing his best friend all studious and focused. The incredibleness of it almost made Logan uncomfortable, like watching those contortionists and sword-swallowers at the circus.

"James, I was kidding the other day, but are you sure you're feeling alright?" Logan asked, very nearly invading James' space again in order to feel his forehead for fever. "I mean… you've been looking a little tired lately, too…"

Now James did actually look up and offered what Logan was sure James thought was a reassuring smile. To Logan, however, it just looked a little crazed. He was apparently very caught up in his homework. "Yeah! Yes, I'm fine, seriously. Just… do your Logan stuff, I'm busy with this…" And again. Back to the work.

Logan squirmed a little. James really was acting strange with all this hard work he'd apparently been putting in to his studies. But who on earth was Logan to complain about James actually working? It was what Logan had been trying to get him to do for ages. He no longer had to do James' work for him. James was taking care of himself. Logan should have been celebrating it, not fighting it.

Right?

…

James could never really settle on a reason for Logan being the one person he wanted to be in love with him, why Logan was the person whose opinion James cared more about than anyone else. It wasn't just that Logan didn't fold at his feet and swoon at every crooned Smoky Robinson song that came out of his mouth—Kendall didn't either. And it wasn't that he was adorable and funny and had an infectious smile—Carlos was all that, too.

But Logan was more than those things. And he was more than his brains. He was the only thing so far out of James' reach that he had to go to these ridiculous lengths to get to him, and yet James still did it. And the only reason James could think of was that he wanted Logan to look at him and smile, not with pity, but with pride. And how was James supposed to come up with a reason for wanting something like that? Shouldn't love have been the baseline of it all?

Except what James had learned over the past few days was that everything got broken down and broken down and broken down and broken down until it was a single digit integer. Variables and polynomials and matrices and operations and equations and quadratics and degrees and coefficients and contrapositives and factorials and slopes and monomials and midpoints and imaginary numbers and roots and cubes and deltas (that was the triangle, but James still didn't think shapes had any place with numbers.) All of it broke everything down to just a single answer or else it was labeled "impossible."

And that left James sigh-laden and stressed and tired. Because even after all this studying, this horrible cramming that often made him feel like throwing up, he still only knew two things, and they were the same things he'd known all along: he hated math and he loved Logan.

But that hardly meant he was ready to give up.

James and Logan had been back in their math class throughout the entire week, but James hadn't felt confident enough to try showing off for Logan until the week after. He'd compiled messily compacted notes which he referred to often in class, listening silently the whole time and constantly adding to his scribbles. Once he looked up and noticed Logan staring—outright turned around staring at him from his seat a row ahead. James tried to act like he hadn't noticed.

Although he still didn't feel like he knew this math stuff at all, James felt like today was the day. Logan staring at him like that had been nice, but he needed to actually impress Logan today, show him he was smart, even if he actually wasn't. But James had been waiting long enough for Logan to notice him. He'd been killing himself over math assignments and studying and so much work he just thought his brain would melt out his ears. He didn't want to wait any longer.

"And can someone come up and work the problem on the board?" the teacher asked, and Logan, as always, raised his hand, but James' shot up as well, stretched eagerly towards the ceiling, his body language all but begging the teacher to call on him. "Log—oh… uhm, okay. James?" she pointed invitingly to him, though she seemed tentative to do so.

James hesitated, his body immediately disagreeing with his brain's decision, but Logan had fully spun around in his seat now to look expectantly—maybe hopefully?—at him and now he had no choice. He stood and strode up to the board, each step feeling like a death sentence. The walk felt long, a lot longer than the eight feet or so that separated his desk from the front of the room. He examined the equation on the board as he stepped up to it, accepting the dry-erase marker that was offered to him without looking at it. It was a… quadratic. With negatives. He remembered. If anything, James had stared at enough vocabulary to at least identify the things.

This was an awful feeling. Nervousness. James didn't get nervous. Nervousness was for amateurs! And if James was anything, he was not an amateur. He was James freaking Diamond. And nerves were usually the last thing on his mind.

But standing here trapped with math in front of him and Logan behind him, he could actually feel his hands shake a little, sweat forming where he gripped the marker tight. He looked slowly back over his shoulder at Logan sitting right behind him. The other boy's eyes were on the equation, clearly, solving it in his head, but then he noticed James turned looking at him, and he blinked, raising his eyebrows.

And then he smiled. And it wasn't this pitiful "I know you're not going to get it right, but it's cute that you're trying," smile. It was more like… "I'm really impressed that you're doing this and I think you can get it right, but even if you don't, I'm still going to be here." And while that translation may have been entirely misinterpreted and James was reading into something totally false, it still made him feel warm and, more than that, confident.

He turned back to the board and began marking on the equation. Subtracting and adding to either sides, crossing through numbers, eliminating integers—James was pretty sure he was doing okay, not once feeling unsure, not with Logan behind him looking all faithful and encouraging like that. As he came close to narrowing down a final answer, he wondered if this was what being a genius felt like. This was probably how Logan felt every day. This was what it was like to be smart.

James scrawled out an answer on the board, and felt it was necessary to draw a very happy face next to it. He turned to the teacher, lifting his chin with a smug smirk as he offered her the marker.

She accepted it, but her expression was sympathetic more than proud. She patted James' shoulder and said, "Good try." It was that childlike praise that made James feel so low and stupid. James' smile faded and he looked at the board, then back at the teacher.

"No—no, that's right, I know it's right!" he protested, jamming a finger at the board sternly.

His teacher just shook her head sadly in response and held the marker out to Logan. James turned to watch his best friend get up to fix his mistakes. Of course, Logan had to erase all of James' work and start from the beginning, doing things entirely different than James had. Of course James had screwed everything up…

Now he knew that that feeling hadn't been genius, it had been blissful ignorance. He felt awful. And he knew there was no way Logan would think he was smart now.

James retreated to his desk before Logan finished the equation. He didn't want to see how far off he'd been, nor did he want to see Logan's look of pity, so he just ducked his head into his notes and acted like he was reading them.

Why he'd ever thought he could trick Logan into thinking he was smart was beyond him… just like everything else.

…

"Dude, you were out of it," Logan said as he and James waited on the curb outside the ice rink after practice.

James sighed, setting his duffle down and sitting on top of it. Logan joined him the same way. "I know… Kendall will send me a rude text in about five minutes, don't worry."

He leaned forward on his knees and stared down at his hands, picking at his nails idly as he waited for some kind of reply from Logan. But when almost a minute of silence went by, James frowned and looked up, almost jumping when he realized Logan had been staring at him, inspecting him, really. "Dude, what?"

Logan shook his head, gaze gliding over the top of James' head. "Just looking for the antennae or computer chip or something…"

James' hands went to his hair immediately, feeling around in fear of what might be there. "Ant-what? Is something in my hair?" He panicked, combing his fingers through his hair fast and worriedly.

But Logan started laughing at him, sort of mockingly, and waved his hand at James' own, trying to make him stop. "No! No, you didn't get it… I mean… you've been acting weird."

James' hands stilled and he looked at Logan, mouth open slightly until all he could think of to say was, "Oh."

"Like… you've been paying attention in class and taking notes and you got up today…" Logan continued, holding out a finger for each piece of evidence as he ticked them off in his head. "Not to mention you've been totally distracted during practice and that's not like you. So I thought maybe you'd been replaced with an alien-robot-James." He offered a light-hearted smile that made James smile in return, dropping his gaze back to his hands again.

He didn't want to tell Logan the truth. Because how dumb would he sound? Trying to trick a genius into loving him… he was pretty sure that was going to sound really stupid out loud.

So James just shook his head. "Nah, I'm not a robot… I just… wanted to… uh, study more."

"You did not," Logan accused immediately, almost before James had even gotten to the end of his excuse. James looked back up, feeling like a deer in the headlights. How would Logan know that wasn't the real reason? He didn't figure James out, did he?

Logan sighed and shook his head, though he was still smiling a little. "You have never and will never want to study. I know you, James. And I think I know what this has been about." He looked at James again, raising his eyebrows, and he looked a little serious and it sent a wave of nervousness through James. That stupid nervousness! He hated it and he hated that he got it when Logan looked at him like that, like he could see through everything, the good looks, the sweet voice, the façade of smarts, the fog of stupidity, all of it.

"You—you do?" he said, worried at what Logan might do. Would he be mad that James had tried to trick him into falling in love with him?

Logan nodded. "You think I think you're stupid, don't you, James?" he asked, and James blinked, because while that was along the lines of what he'd expected, he was sure there was more.

He didn't respond, because what was he supposed to say? Either 'yes' or 'no' would probably be wrong. He just closed his mouth tight and continued staring at Logan.

After a couple moments of eyelock that made James' chest feel a little warmer and his heart beat a little faster, Logan continued, "I don't. Think you're stupid."

Before he could stop himself, James blurted out, "But I am," surprising himself, and apparently Logan, too. He swallowed, trying to get the words back, because he didn't even know why he said them, but it didn't work and he just frowned at himself and looked back to his hands.

"James… you aren't stupid," Logan said, and James thought maybe Logan was going to put his hand on his shoulder, but he didn't feel anything.

"I know that," he tried, becoming very interested in his thumbnail.

"But you just said you were!" Logan laughed humorlessly, which was actually a more common type of laugh for Logan than the humorous ones. Why had James said that? He didn't even know… Of course he was stupid, but he wasn't supposed to admit it.

James sighed. "You do think I'm stupid, though," he said, and continued quickly when he saw Logan open his mouth to protest. "I said the value of x was fishsticks last week and you got mad! And you… looked at me."

Logan's eyebrows moved just slightly in that way they did when he was a little surprised at something and he didn't speak for a second. "James… yeah, I was mad. Because it was a super easy question and you totally would have gotten it if you'd have been paying attention at all—yes, you would have." James sort of loved that Logan insisted before he even got a chance to argue, so he kept his mouth shut and let Logan go on. "You're not stupid. I don't care that you aren't good at math. Like…" He paused in thought, staring out at the street for a few moments before turning back to look James in the eye. "James, you know more about cosmetics and hair-care than any of the girls at our school. And you've got one of the best ears for music ever, you can pull a pitch out of mid-air and even harmonize it without even thinking. Not to mention, I think most of your plays are ten times more effective than some of Kendall's."

That last one made James look up with a slight smirk. "Really?"

Logan laughed, and this time it was actually amused. He also really did touch James this time, putting his hand on James' shoulder and leaning close to him in one of those friendly gestures James enjoyed so much. "Yes, really! James, you don't have to prove to anyone that you're smart, least of all me. I already know you are." He shrugged. "Besides… if I'm gonna be honest, I missed you…" he said, and James felt like all his insides had gone completely weightless. "Like, needing my help," Logan added, but James didn't care in the least, he just let himself keep feeling light and smiling back wide and giddy.

James couldn't really pinpoint the moment he started wanting Logan to fall in love with him, but he figured it was probably at some time when Logan smiled at him like that. It was that smile that James died for, all pride and encouragement. It was all James had wanted, for Logan to smile at him like that, and he was so close—so close—James could just so easily close the distance and kiss that smile and he would feel so good.

A car horn interrupted the moment and James and Logan both looked across the street to see Mrs. Mitchell pulling up. Logan flashed his smile back to James quickly, patting his shoulder as he stood.

But James felt his own smile fall a little. "Wait, that's it?"

Logan stopped in picking up his bag, frowning down at James confusedly. "…what's it? My… mom's here, we have to… go to my house…" He gestured between James and the car, clearly not understanding the meaning of James' question.

James shook his head, refusing to stand up just yet, even though Mrs. Mitchell was waiting in the car. "No, I mean, that's it? The whole reason I was acting like that? You think it was just to show you I'm smart?" he asked.

Logan just stared at him for many moments longer, trying to comprehend. He shut his eyes and shook his head, apparently in an attempt to clear it, and asked, "Well, wasn't it? What else is there, James?"

At which point James realized he was sort of giving himself away. If Logan thought that was where it ended, at just trying to prove himself rather than going so far as to impress Logan and win over his love, then it didn't matter that his plan failed, did it? Not when Logan just said exactly how smart he truly believed James was. Because in that case, it didn't actually fail.

So he swallowed whatever confession he was about to spill and bounced up to his feet, grinning as he picked up his bag. "Nothing! There's nothing else. You got it spot on," he said, giving such a brightly innocent and winning grin that no one would ever suspect it was a lie, Logan included, if the way he was smiling and shaking his head was anything to go off of.

"Okay, James…" Logan chuckled lightly, then nodded his head towards his mom's car. "Now can we go? We've got about six pages of math homework to do."

James' smile fell away to a disbelieving gape as he followed Logan towards the car. "What? I thought you just said that it doesn't matter to you if I'm not good at math!"

Logan outright laughed at that, raising his eyebrows at James. "That doesn't mean you don't have to do your homework, James!"

James made a face as they loaded their duffle bags into the trunk, grumbling discontentment the entire time. "I hate homework…" he mumbled, pouting dramatically as he went for the door handle to get in the backseat.

But Logan stopped his hand and leaned close to James, saying under his breath with a small smile, "You can go back to copying my assignments, if you want." Then he got in the front seat, leaving James standing there for a second, blinking. Logan leaning back out of the car door shook James out of his head. "Well? Are you getting in, or what, dude?"

James hurried into the backseat, allowing his bookbag to join Logan's on the floor. Maybe it wasn't so bad not being as smart as Logan. After all, no one else got to spend nearly as much time with Logan studying or even just goofing off, which was far more likely to happen during homework time. Logan didn't give that to anyone else. That time was all James'.

Besides. James relaxed against the backseat as he smiled smugly to himself. The way Logan had been talking just moments earlier, the prospect of him falling in love with James Diamond sooner or later was not a stupid one at all.