8. Goo Goo Muck
CHAPTER EIGHT
goo goo muck
LOGAN
EMERALD BAY UNIVERSITY
PRESENT DAY
Abi’s been weird since the seminar.
I mean, it was a weird seminar, but still.
She’s been eating lunch alone in her office a lot lately, and I’ve caught her zoning out mid-conversation. I know sometimes she can have these prolonged periods of introversion, self-imposed in order to work extra hard on something, but this feels… different somehow.
I need to know exactly what’s bothering her, hence the bribery; croissants and coffee have always been her buttery, flaky weakness. Superman’s got kryptonite, Abigail King has croissants.
“Abi?” I gently knock on the door while balancing the drink tray with one hand. “You in there?”
I’ve been trying not to call her Shortcake at work since that seminar. Talk about embarrassing.
“One second!”
She flashes me a big smile as she stands in the door to her office, dressed in a sleeveless turtleneck with a long red and black plaid skirt and combat boots, her dark hair all twisted up into a tiny messy bun. She looks happy enough I can clearly see the exhaustion in her eyes.
“Handsome and brings pastries? What did I do to get the royal treatment?”
“You existed? Duh.”
Her office is smaller than most of ours given her temporary position, but it’s so cozy, packed tight with piles of books all over the floor, because the shelves were already overflowing by her second month. Abi hasn’t been with the department for long, but her classes are popular, partially due to how generous she is with her opportunities. If there’s a chance to publish presented to her, she usually gives it to a graduate student or offers to co-author rather than snatching it up herself. If anyone had doubts about the public opinion surrounding her, the scatter-shot thank-you notes and cards tacked up all over her walls would clarify things the moment you walked in.
“You’ve been very mysterious this past week,” I smile, placing her coffee and croissant on her desk before making my way to my traditional seat in the corner.
She nods, her own smile a little uncertain, but sincere.
“Got a lot on my plate the last few days.”
I raise a brow, trying to grab her attention with a playful little tilt of my head.
“Yeah? Like What?”
“Just grading and handling emails,” she laughs. “You know, the usual chaos.”
She fiddles with her necklace, a little rose gold skull pendant that I got her for Christmas last year. She always plays with it when she seems anxious, or zones out thinking about something. She’s stressed so often these days I’m always noticing that little tick; probably why it feels like she never takes it off.
“You rarely disappear like you have this week.” I sip my coffee and lean forward. “You can’t hide from me.”
She blushes and looks back down at her laptop, taking a deep breath and scrunching up her face for a few seconds before she seems to make a decision, slowly spinning it in my direction.
It only takes me a moment to figure out what I’m looking at.
“Ten year high school reunion invite, and it’s on Facebook? Jesus Abi, who’s still on Facebook?” I look up at her, shaking my head. “And wait, you’re 26. That math doesn’t math!”
“Graduated early, remember? Perks of being a ‘gifted learner,’” She winks at me, sipping her coffee. “But forget that, look who invited me.”
I lean forward, clicking on the profile. The woman has long auburn hair and a sugary sweet smile. Is it someone I’m supposed to know? Maybe an old friend she mentioned?
“Oh, Carly Howard? She looks nice.”
The second I see Abi’s face, I know I’ve guessed wrong.
“She was the Queen Bee at my high school, made my life a living hell, but that doesn’t matter right now! Click through her profile. See any familiar faces?”
I scroll through the wedding photos: dozens and dozens of variations of Carly in her sparkling white gown posed beside a guy with short dark hair and chiseled features. It’s not until I see the tagged name that it all clicks: Brendan Howard.
The absolute piece of shit who fucked up my best friend’s life.
And technically the guy I owe for ever having met her at all.
“Ah,” I mutter. “Good-guy Brendan.”
“Ding ding ding!” She leans back in her seat. “I’m surprised you remember, actually. I don’t think I’ve talked about him much and for a second there I thought you were just going to look at me like I was crazy.”
“Nah, my memory’s basically photographic,” I puff my chest out, hoping to diffuse a little bit of the anxious energy. “Nothing gets past this steel-trap of a mind.”
“Really?” Abi teases. “What did you have for lunch yesterday?”
I roll my eyes as she takes her computer back.
“So is Brendan the reason you’ve been holed up in your cave?”
“Partially, yeah,” she replies. “My best friend?—”
“I’m your best friend.”
“My best friend back home ,” she lazily tosses a pen at me, grinning. “Wants me to go to this stupid reunion so I can flaunt my big tenured professor job and my new boyfriend.”
“Ah, see, I can help with this! You don’t have either of those. Like, at all.” I sit up a little straighter, widening my eyes dramatically. “Unless I missed something?”
It’s possible but, given how much time we spend together, highly unlikely Abi’s gotten a secret promotion without my knowing. Even less likely than a secret boyfriend.
“Okay, it’s not that far-fetched, Logan!” She laughs. “But besides that… I don’t know, sometimes you just want to exaggerate a little.”
I give her another shot of my wordless little head-tilt.
“Hey! Don’t give me that suspicious look! You know me, I’m not a liar. It’s just, I was in a different headspace at the time. Real relaxed, get it?”
I squint my eyes a little.
“Ugh, okay, how about we just say I may have done some… gardening one night, and that helped me calm down a bit too much.”
“Abi, what the hell are you talking about? The closest thing you have to a garden is?—”
“God, how old even are you?” She giggles, popping a piece of croissant into her mouth. “Can you tell me about the war of 1812? You were there, right?”
“Shut up! I’m hip and cool! I bet you don’t even know what rizz is, do you? Well I do, and I didn’t even have to google it!”
Abi’s laughter turns into a small coughing fit, her eyes watering as she waves her hand in front of her face.
“Okay, no more rizz!” She takes a deep breath and another sip of coffee to calm herself down before lowering her voice a little. “Look, I may have smoked a joint in the middle of a particularly drawn out phone call, and made some very specific statements about where I am in life that I can’t back out of.”
I snort.
“Why not?”
“I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but information in a small town in Canada travels fast.”
“Ah, yes. Small town gossip.”
“Exactly. In Blackburn, it’s talking shit, tailgate parties, and shopping cart races.”
“Shopping cart races?” I raise an inquisitive brow. “Is that a Canadian custom I’ve never heard about? It sounds prestigious.”
“Sometimes I forget where you grew up,” she sighs forlornly.
Imogen and I went to a private high school— my mother’s idea. We both hated it. Dorky uniforms, tortuous school bus rides, and a hell of a lot of rich kids. But in our neighborhood, it was the thing to do. Regardless, private schoolers from Upstate New-York aren’t the most likely to be hooked into the Eastern Canadian shopping cart racing scene.
“A tragedy, I know, but don’t leave me hanging.”
Abi closes her laptop, pushing it aside.
“It’s really not complicated. We’d just have two people in a couple carts at the top of the hill, push them down, and see who won.” She pauses, giving her head a little shake. “Obviously you never did shopping cart races, but you had to have done some dumb stuff like that when you were a kid, right?”
“There wasn’t time. It was school, after school clubs, band practice— oh, and somehow trying to find the time to download porn onto the family computer, and then hide it really, really well. And then panic delete it at 3AM.”
“Jokes aside, sometimes I forget you really are from the ancient times,” she grins, her cheeks dusted the most gorgeous shade of pink. “Were your parents paying for the internet per-hour, or…”
“Jesus, Abi, I’m not even that much older than you! But if you must know, I was curating a private collection, well within our monthly bandwidth limit.”
She chuckles, and I can see that weight on her shoulders lift ever so slightly.
“So? Are you planning to go back for your reunion?”
“I don’t know,” she sighs. “I haven’t been back home for a while because I’ve been so busy, but… I lied, Logan. I mean, my ex has a brand new wife and baby. They own a vineyard! Hell, even ignoring them, two of the densest people I graduated with have started their own tech company, and I’m just a loser who might not have a job next year.”
I’ve been desperately trying to push away the fear that she might be forced to leave Emerald Bay, all because some suits think her position has no value. Abi’s a brilliant scholar with so much to offer, but even more, she’s great with the students. So many professors just ignore the teaching part of their jobs as much as possible, wanting to research and publish over anything else.
I just wish they could see how much better she’s made this place.
“I know I shouldn’t compare my life to Brendan’s, or anyone’s really,” she murmurs. “But he gets to just start over with the white picket fence, the rich in-laws, and the perfect kid? And all I end up with is existential dread? That’s bullshit.”
She slumps, defeated in her chair, and lets out her longest sigh yet.
You always feel it in academia. That you’re never smart enough, never ahead of the curve, and there’s always someone who’s a better writer, better lecturer, or who wins more awards. It’s a highly competitive industry, but in the end, the race is mostly with yourself.
Even if you think it’s not.
“You want to show up there and show him you did well for yourself,” I nod, clicking my tongue. “Without him.”
“Exactly!” She smacks her desk and her coffee jumps a little. “You get it!”
My own 20 year reunion is lurking around the corner, and the very thought of it makes me shudder. I wasn’t popular in high school, and got bullied a lot. I even had a John Waters mustache for two weeks in senior year until my mom made me shave it.
I’ve put it to bed, though. None of those people matter anymore, so why try to keep up with them, right? But Abi’s ten years younger than me; it’s still a lot more raw for her.
I watch as she stares down at her closed laptop with a mixture of nostalgia and frustration, probably holding back a desire to flip it open and post some colorful comment on that Facebook page.
“I just won’t go. I mean, what if someone looked into my position here and found out I’m not actually a professor? And besides,” she chuckles to herself, “where am I going to get a fake boyfriend? Not like you can just buy one online.”
“Actually, you can, and they’re called male escorts. He’d probably show up shirtless, though. Make a real Magic Mike situation out of the whole thing.”
She smiles, rocking back in her chair.
“Magic Mike was strippers, not escorts, Mr. Cinephile, but I’m so proud of you for making a pop culture reference from only a tiny bit over a decade ago.”
I crank an imaginary Jack-in-the-Box, whistling the music before the reveal: A big fat middle finger just for her.
“That’s three old person jokes, Shortcake. You’re on thin ice.”
“Oh, come on. That was a good one, so it’s a freebie!”
Maybe, but I’ll never admit it.
“Hey, you know what? If you don’t want Magic Mike, you can have Logan Michael Flynn. ” I stretch out my arms, wrapping each of my words in the gravitas of a professional boxing announcer at a big prize fight. “He’s scrawnier than most, and he dances like a Midwestern dad at a barbecue, but he won’t cost you… $500 a night!”
She tenses a little, a quick flash of fear in her eyes before she covers it with a giggle. Gotta crank up the charm to keep her from worrying about this whole thing.
“If we’re going that far, why don’t we just pretend to be married?” She asks with a teasing grin. “Take it all the way?”
“Have you seen me at charades? Have you heard me at boring dinner conversations? I’d make one a hell of a fake husband.”
I give her my big puppy dog eyes. It always works, so I never use them for evil. Mostly just when I really want her to give me the remote, or order pizza even after we promised we’d stop using Doordash.
“Logan…”
“Hey, it was your suggestion! Haven’t you ever heard of ‘commit to the bit?’”
I stick out my lip in a pout, and Abi reflexively covers her eyes with her hands.
“You can’t weaponize those puppy dog eyes like that! You know the rules!”
“Too late, consider them weaponized,” I reply, batting my eyelashes. “See? You need the nuclear codes for these babies, and we’re at defcon one.”
She glowers at me, and I swear I can see a bit of blush creeping into her cheeks, at least before she tears off a piece of her croissant and tosses it at my head.
“Cut it out, you dickhead!”
I mean, why shouldn’t we do it? Abi’s not interested in me anyway. It would be like we’re undercover secret agents. We could come up with a backstory, tell a few elaborate lies, get some free wine, and make classic good guy Brendan Howard look like the absolute piece of shit loser that he is. But, if she’s this stressed about it…
“Fine, I’ll stop. I promise.” I check my watch: ten minutes before I have to get my ass to class. “Look, I gotta go. My advice on this whole reunion thing? Don’t sweat it too much. If you want to go, go. If you don’t, then don’t.”
“Thanks, Logan. And thanks for offering, that’s sweet of you.”
“Hey, anything for my bestie,” I reply. “Do the kids still say bestie?”
Abi snickers and raises her coffee.
“Thanks for breakfast, bestie.”
“Hey, you wanna do lunch too? We can meet at that new deli that opened on campus.”
“Sure,” she replies. “That’d be nice.”
“It’s a date, Shortcake.”
I wink at her as I slip out the door.
“Our first official fake date!”