Epilogue Straight to Gavin in 60 Seconds #2
My hands find his face, holding him close, and somewhere between one breath and the next, careful becomes desperate. I don't know how, but suddenly I'm straddling James as we try to crawl inside each other, like proximity could heal old wounds.
"Love you," he murmurs against my mouth, and I swallow the words, tuck them safe behind my ribs where my father can't touch them.
"Sap," I whisper back, but I'm kissing him again, can't seem to stop, his hands in my hair now, messing up the styling I spent too long on—
We're so caught up in our own bubble of confession and comfort that it takes a second to realize…
"Where's Gavin?"
The spot beside us is empty. How does someone that large disappear without…
CRASH!
The sound is loud enough to wake the dead. Or at least stop a frat party, which is basically the same thing. We're on our feet before my brain fully grasps what's happening. James doesn't let go of my hand as we run toward the front of the house.
"What the fuck—"
The front lawn looks like a scene from an action movie. A car, one of those obnoxious lifted trucks the Epsilon Beta Mu asshats drive, is embedded in our decorative wall, headlights pointing at the sky like drunken searchlights.
The driver's door hangs open, and someone's crawling out, stumbling and clearly wasted.
"Is that Chad?" James squints at the figure.
Of course it is, because this night wasn't surreal enough already.
Campus security arrives in record time, probably because someone crashing into Greek Row is their worst nightmare. Then the real cops show up because Chad, in his infinite drunken wisdom, decides to shove the security guard.
"I didn'— I didn' do anything wrong! 's all... 's bullshit!" Chad slurs, right before Officer Cooke introduces his face to our lawn.
"Sir, please stop resisting." "My dad will sue—"
It's kind of perfect, watching Chad eat grass while the guard sits on him like he's a particularly unruly beanbag chair. Someone's definitely filming this for TikTok. The Epsilon Beta Mu brothers hover nearby, torn between loyalty to their president and self-preservation.
"Ten bucks says he cries," James murmurs in my ear.
"Twenty says he asks for his lawyer first."
We don't get to find out because that's when Chad starts vomiting, and everyone scrambles back with a collective "Ewwww."
By the time they've hauled Chad away and the tow truck has extracted his I'm-not-compensating-for-anything truck from our wall, the party has shifted into a weird post-crash energy.
There's music playing, but it's quieter. People are still drinking, but mostly just processing what they witnessed.
"Where the hell did Gavin go?" James scans the room, frowning. "One minute he's having an existential crisis on our couch, the next—poof."
"Maybe he needed to process." The words sound right even though I'm still worried. "Finding out you might be gay at twenty-three can't be easy."
"You think that's what this is?"
"James. He’s been out nights ‘tutoring’ for weeks and he literally asked us how we knew we were gay. That's not exactly subtle."
"Yeah, but this is Gavin. The straightest straight boy to ever straight."
"Who just asked two gay men about their coming out stories." I pause. "While staring at us like we held the secrets to the universe."
James chews his lip, that thing he does when he's thinking. "Should we look for him?"
"He's probably just thinking about—"
BANG!
The front door slams against the wall hard enough to leave a mark, and Gavin bursts through like wolves are chasing him.
Except he's not alone.
There's a guy draped over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, arms dangling, glasses askew. Even upside down, I can see he's smaller than Gavin, but then again, who isn't? With dark hair and what looks like a Doctor Who shirt.
"Oh no, you don't!" Gavin's actually yelling at the guy on his shoulder as he thunders toward the stairs. "I've seen this happen twice, and it's NOT happening to me!"
He takes the stairs three at a time, which can't be safe while carrying another human, and disappears down the hallway. A door slams somewhere above us.
The entire room stands frozen. The music keeps playing; someone's phone is still connected to the speakers.
"Did... did Gavin just kidnap someone?"
I turn to James, who's staring at the stairs with his mouth slightly open. His expression probably matches mine, somewhere between bewildered and morbidly fascinated.
"What the fuck," James says slowly, "just happened?"
Thank you for reading A Very Merry Bah Humbug.