Chapter 7
JACKSON
Iknew exactly what I was doing when I suggested lunch with Drew at The Brew, and it had nothing to do with their scrumptious sandwiches.
The place buzzes with the sound of laptop keys and desperate sighs.
On every table, phone screens rest unlocked beside half-empty mugs.
In the corner booth, a girl with purple-streaked hair climbs into her boyfriend’s lap, his hand disappearing beneath the table as they exchange saliva.
Oliver darts between the espresso machine and register, sweat beading on his temples, calling out order numbers that barely rise above the din.
I’ve snagged a booth by the window, and I’m sipping my coffee when the door swings open, and there’s Drew. He’s in jeans that appear painted on, a sweatshirt that says, “This is my masturbation clean-up sweater,” and Ugg boots that, on any other guy from the hockey team, would be absurd.
“My hero arrives!” I say with a grin to hide how much he affects me. “I already ordered for us. Hope you’re cool with the turkey club.”
“Always.” He slides into the seat across from me and spreads his arms across the back of the booth.
I catalog every detail of his face. The way his eyes glimmer when he smiles.
The tiny scar above his left eyebrow from when he ate shit during practice freshman year.
The fullness of his bottom lip that I’m not thinking about biting.
“So, I’m pretty sure my dick is still trying to crawl back inside my body after yesterday,” Drew says, drumming his fingers on the table.
“That water was fucking brutal. I guess nothing says charity like a bunch of idiots voluntarily freezing their balls off. Though I have to admit, watching Gerard have a full meltdown about his penis was pretty entertaining.”
“The man loves his dick almost as much as he loves Elliot.”
He nods, and I change the subject before I can think about whether Drew loves his dick as much as Gerard Gunnarson. “So, what have you been up to on this fine, blustery morning?” I gesture at the window, where the nearby trees shake their limbs in every direction.
“Had to stop by academic advising. My schedule was all fucked up.”
“Oh, yeah?” I lean forward, resting my chin on my hand. “Let me guess—they had you signed up for advanced crochet?”
“Worse. Double Advanced Calculus.” He rolls his eyes, but there’s something else there. A flicker of…satisfaction? “Had to meet with this adviser, Trevor Banks. Total tight-ass.”
“Trevor Banks,” I repeat, trying to keep my voice neutral. “Isn’t he like, fifty?”
“Twenty-nine.” Drew’s grin turns wicked. “And he’s not a tight-ass in the ways that count.”
“You…know him?”
“You could say that. We had a moment a couple of summers back. Dude has a mouth that could suck-start a Harley.”
I choke on nothing as the mental image of Trevor Banks on his knees between Drew’s thick legs burns itself into my brain. “That’s graphic.”
“You asked.” He shrugs, watching me with those hazel eyes that see too much. “Anyway, fixed my schedule and got a trip down memory lane. Win-win.”
Oliver appears with food, saving me from having to respond. The turkey clubs are perfect. Toasted bread and crispy bacon, but my appetite has vanished. I pick at the fries while Drew demolishes his sandwich, unbothered with discussing his sexual exploits over lunch.
This is what kills me about him. The easy confidence, the way he moves through the world, acting as if everyone wants him—because they do. Girls, guys, probably a few nonbinary folks too. Drew Larney is an equal-opportunity heartbreaker, and he wears it as a badge of honor.
“You’re being weird,” he says through a mouthful of turkey. “Weirder than usual, I mean.”
“I’ve been thinking about the playoffs.” The lie comes easily because it’s half true. The sting of not making it this year still burns. “We were so fucking close.”
His expression softens immediately. “Hey, you guys had an incredible season. What was your record? 10-2?”
“11-1.” I chomp down on a fry with unnecessary force. “If Carradine hadn’t gotten injured—”
“You can’t think that way.” Drew reaches across the table to steal one of my fries, and his fingers brush against mine. “The team played their asses off this season. And you…you were magnificent.”
The word ‘magnificent’ in Drew’s mouth, directed at me, squeezes my heart. It makes me wonder what types of compliments he’d shower me with if we were together, dating.
“We should’ve made it,” I mutter. “This was supposed to be our year.”
“There’s always next year.” He kicks me gently under the table. “Besides, now you get to focus on more important things. Like me.”
He says it jokingly, but fuck if I don’t wish it were true. That I could focus on him the way I want to—not as a friend, but as something more. Something real.
“Your ego doesn’t need any more feeding,” I shoot back, grateful for the familiar rhythm of our banter.
“Speaking of feeding…” He eyes my untouched sandwich. “You gonna eat that?”
I push the plate toward him. Instead, I focus on Drew as he tears into the turkey club with both hands, elbows flaring, eyes narrowed like he’s chasing down a hat trick.
The guy’s got this single-mindedness, whether he’s on the ice or inhaling lunch, that borders on heroic.
There’s mayo streaked across his upper lip, and he wipes it away with the back of his hand—a move so unselfconscious it makes me want to scream.
If I tried that in public, I’d end up with half the table’s attention and some scrawny freshman live-Tweeting my tragic lack of napkin skills.
With Drew, it’s endearing, almost calculated, as though the mess is part of the performance.
He finishes half the sandwich in five bites, then launches into a story about the time he got caught sneaking into the opposing team’s locker room before a game, trying to swap out their stick tape for the kind that disintegrates on contact with ice.
It’s the kind of dumb prank that would get most people suspended, but Drew got away with it—he always does.
He tosses a fry in his mouth and winks at the girl two tables down, who blushes hard.
Meanwhile, all I can do is pick at my food and try not to stare at his mouth.
Or his hands. Or the vein that pops out on his forearm every time he lifts his cup to take a gulp.
I’m the fluffer to his main event, the invisible audience to his one-man show.
I could fill a notebook—hell, a Google Drive—with everything I notice about Drew Larney: the way his hair falls over one eye when he’s tired, the constellation of freckles on the back of his neck, the way he chews on his pinky nail when he’s nervous (which isn’t often, but I catch it sometimes, when he thinks no one is looking).
It’s pathological, the way I collect these details.
But even now, sitting here as his default lunch date, I know I’ll never be anything more.
“So, what’s the deal with this Trevor guy?” The question escapes before I can stop it. “Is he an ongoing thing?”
Drew pauses mid-bite, and something flickers across his face too fast to read.
“Nah. Ancient history. Just funny running into him, you know? In his little office with his little desk, trying to be all professional when the last time I saw him he was—” He cuts himself off, grinning.
“You don’t need any more of those details. ”
I do, though. I need every single one to torture myself with later and add Trevor Banks to the long list of people who’ve had Drew in ways I never will.
“Besides,” Drew continues, polishing off my sandwich, “I’m not doing the relationship thing right now. Too much drama.”
“Right.” I force myself to nod because this is a normal conversation with a friend, not something that is slowly killing me. “Keep it casual.”
“Exactly. No strings, no expectations, no feelings.” He says it like a mantra, as though it’s something he’s reminded himself of enough times for it to become the truth. “Just fun.”
Fun. What a bitter, silly word. Fun is what Drew has with other people. Fun is Trevor Banks and all the others I’ve watched him collect and discard like baseball cards.
What we have isn’t fun. It’s friendship, which means I get to sit here and listen to him talk about other people’s mouths while mine stays firmly shut.
“You know what would cheer you up?” Drew hunches over the table, his expression lighting up with that familiar spark that always means trouble. “We should get the guys together this weekend and do something stupid.”
“Stupider than the Polar Bear Plunge?”
“Different stupid. Like…naked snow angels.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Naked ice skating?”
“Drew, no.”
“Ooh!” He snaps his fingers. “Strip poker tournament. Winner gets to make the losers do naked snow angels.”
“Why do all of your ideas involve nudity?” I laugh.
“Because nudity equals comedy gold.” He grins, and it’s the most angelic thing I’ve laid witness to. “Plus, have you seen our friends? Gerard’s—”
“If you say anything about Gerard’s ass, I’m leaving.”
He throws a fry at me. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Monroe. I was going to mention his penis.”
The irony of Drew Larney telling me to get my mind out of the gutter is not lost on me. But this is what he does—deflects with humor and turns everything into a joke. It’s armor, I think; though I’m not sure what he’s protecting himself from.
“Fine,” I concede. “Regular poker. With clothes. And beer.”
“Deal.” He extends his hand across the table, and I take it, trying not to notice how perfectly our hands fit together.
His thumb brushes across my knuckles before he lets go.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I blink twice, swallow hard, and force air through my suddenly dry throat.
“I should get going. Ryan wants to watch a documentary about the Zapruder film.”
“Zapruder film?” Drew makes a face. “Is that some sort of exotic porno?”
I stare dumbfounded. “Did you pay attention in history class?”