Chapter 17
Jack
Nate
Hey, Mickyyyyy. What are you doing? You at your dorm? Busy?
Jack
Stop asking questions until I answer the first one!
Nate
So sassy!
Jack
I’m reading. In my dorm. Busy depends on your definition and why you’re asking.
I don’t want to go to a party.
You said that one we went to a few weeks ago covered me for the semester, remember?
Nate
Want to hang out? Marcos is at work, and Atlas said he’d rather die than spend a lot of time with me.
Jack
Oh my god.
Nate
He was joking! Probably.
Want to go to the library? I’ll pick you up.
Marcos told me about a used book store close to the public library, too. We could hit that up.
Jack
Are you serious right now?????
Nate
No, Mick. I just thought I’d offer, set up a time to pick you up, and then ghost you.
Jack
Smartass.
I’d love to. Thank you!!
For the record, I’d rather hang out with you than die.
Nate
Thank you. My goal in life is to always be a step above making someone yearn for the urn. Pick you up in an hour?
Forty minutes.
I bet I could be there in thirty. I’m halfway presentable right now, just have to change my shirt and take a shit.
Jack
Okay, Atlas might have been onto something.
See you whenever your bowels are empty.
He makes it to my place in twenty-five minutes. When I leave my dorm and see him idling at the curb, he raises his arms and pumps them a couple times in celebration. Grinning, I hurry my steps.
“Hey,” I greet him, climbing into the passenger seat of his truck.
“Micky Mouse,” he returns, flashing me a smile. I blush a bit when I notice he’s wearing the crop top I bought him. It seems to be the shirt most often on rotation in his wardrobe, which makes me happy and embarrassed in equal measure.
“Library first or bookstore?” he asks, rotating his palm against the steering wheel and pulling the truck away from the curb.
“Can you show your belly button in the library?” I ask, looking at the smooth skin of his tummy. Nate laughs.
“I love hanging out with you,” he comments happily. “Let’s do bookstore first.”
“Okay. Are you looking for something, or?”
“No”—he shrugs, glancing up at the rearview—“I just figured you’d want to go. You said the other day that the pickings had been slim on books at the thrift store.”
Self-conscious, I shift in my seat, fiddling with the strap across my chest. Did he really offer to go only because he knew that’s what I would want to do?
“We don’t have to,” I tell him quietly. “We could do whatever.”
“Nope,” he replies cheerfully. “We’re going to the bookstore, and the library. Those stuffy old librarians can suck it if they don’t like my belly button.”
“Oh my god,” I say on a laugh, shaking my head. “Librarians aren’t stuffy. And they’re not all old, either. Stop stereotyping librarians.”
“I’ll bet you that at least one of the librarians there is both stuffy and old.”
“I will not take that bet,” I tell him, making my voice as snooty as I can. He laughs, shooting me a grin before looking back at the road. “Seriously, though, you don’t have to go with me to the library. I know that’s not really your?—”
“Mick?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Nate says calmly. “How’re things going? I hate that we don’t get to talk as much anymore.”
“Fine. Same as usual. How about you? Is Marcos?—”
“Don’t try and change the subject, I was fishing for information about you and a sexy hockey coach.”
My face burns as I turn to look out the passenger window.
Nate knows I spent the last weekend—in its entirety—with Desmond and Parker; knows that I spent the night there, and didn’t head back to my dorm until late Sunday evening.
And I only did that because I have early classes on Monday, and needed to get everything ready.
Nate does not yet know the conversation Desmond and I had, mostly because I still suspect it might have been a fever dream.
“Well, I already told you pretty much everything,” I say slowly, picking at the bottom of my shirt.
There’s a hole in the hem that I thread my fingers through.
I also didn’t tell him about the pillow-sniffing thing, but I have no intention of doing so now, either.
Although, given how obsessed he is with Marcos, he’d probably understand .
“Pretty much?” he pushes, reaching across the cab of the truck to nudge my shoulder.
“Desmond asked me out on a date,” I admit quickly, cracking the window a little bit to feel a breeze on my face.
“Good for you, Desmond,” Nate says, whacking the steering wheel in celebration. “Did you just fucking die when he did? Sizzle into a puddle of goo onto the floor? Fall prey to the vapors?”
“Pretty much all of the above, yeah.” I laugh when Nate does, the cab ringing with it. “I overturned a plate of food onto the floor; tried to talk him out of it; nearly puked. You know, the normal way one might react when someone asks them to dinner.”
“You said yes, right? Once he gave you mouth-to-mouth and brought you back to life?”
“Of course I said yes. I’m a mess, but I’m not stupid.”
“Slap that on a fucking T-shirt, Mick,” he agrees happily, making me snort in laughter once more. “I knew something went down because you’ve been shady as hell all week, but I wouldn’t have guessed that. I figured you just did something embarrassing like fart in front of him.”
“You seem oddly fixated on your digestive system today,” I note, spearing a look toward his belly. He sees me looking and wiggles his hips a little bit. “And no, I didn’t fart. I’m not an animal.”
“You excited? You’ve been drooling after him forever.”
“Okay, says the man who stalked Marcos,” I add sarcastically. Nate waves a hand through the air, scoffing.
“He liked it. So when are you guys going out? What are you going to do? Maybe Marcos and I should go to dinner at the same place so I can keep an eye on you.”
“Jesus Christ, Nate.” I laugh. He pulls to a slow stop at a red light, looking over at me and grinning.
I’m not even certain he’s joking. Something tells me he probably would show up and make faces at me from across the restaurant.
Hell, he’d probably pull up a couple of chairs for him and Marcos to join us.
“I guess you probably can’t go this weekend, huh? Since we’ve got the game.”
I tug a little on the hole in my hem, twisting the fabric of the shirt around my finger.
Coach Mackenzie’s partner, Anthony Lawson, used to play for South Carolina’s NHL team and was replaced by Carter Morgan III, an SCU alum.
Coach had reached out a few weeks ago, letting me know that Anthony Lawson had an entire section of seats to the home game this weekend.
He wanted everyone on the team to be able to go and watch Carter play, seeing as quite a few of us had played with him while he was here at school.
I want to go so badly, but I also feel like I shouldn’t be allowed.
I’m no longer on the team, after all, and they’re providing the tickets to us for free .
I don’t want to freeload off of Coach Mackenzie or Anthony Lawson; I don’t want any of my former teammates to see me there and wonder why I was invited.
“I don’t know, I might not go,” I admit. “I feel sort of weird about it.”
“Micky! No, come on. Please come. I’m picking you up, remember? We already decided that,” Nate pleads, doing his best to send puppy eyes my way. The effect is lowered slightly by the fact that he’s also trying to watch the road.
“I’m not on the team anymore, Nate.”
“So? The whole point is to support Carter, and you’re Carter’s friend. You’re coming.”
“Friend is a little inaccurate,” I argue. “I didn’t even play for the team when he was at school. I only know him because Coach Mackenzie hired him over the summer to try and make me a better goalie.”
“You’re coming,” he repeats firmly. “You already agreed to go, so it would be rude not to.”
My pulse elevates at the thought of being disrespectful, my anxiety always hovering at the surface and ready to make an appearance.
I sigh, because that alone ensures Nate gets his way on this one.
Now, if I don’t go, I’ll be lying awake in my dorm all night, thoughts diving head-first into an anxiety-induced panic spiral.
“Okay, you’re right. I’ll go.”
“Excellent,” Nate says, cheering up immediately. “Get to see your boy Troy Nichols.”
I hadn’t even thought about that, which surprises me into silence for a second. Lately, my thoughts all seem to rotate through school, Nate, and Desmond—a revolving door that occasionally gets jammed by panic and anxiety. Adding Troy Nichols into the mix is the cherry on top of the sundae.
Sitting outside the dorms, I bounce my leg up and down nervously.
Checking my phone, I see there are still no new messages, the same way there weren’t any thirty seconds ago when I looked.
Nate’s on his way to pick me up for the game, and Desmond and I have been chatting.
His last text message, sent five minutes ago, mentioned that he wanted to speak to Coach Mackenzie next week.
Once I figured out he meant that he wanted to speak to Coach Mackenzie about us , I’d promptly broken out in a cold sweat and had to drink some water, afraid I was going to pass out.
I can’t imagine a single thing in this world I’d rather do less than have a conversation with Coach Mackenzie about dating Desmond.
He’s going to be pissed. And unlike every time in the past when I was worried he was mad at me, this time he really will be mad at me.
He could fire Desmond, which would pretty much mean that I ruined his life.