Chapter 24
RYAN
From my post on the back porch, I sip lemonade from a red Solo cup and take in the Fourth of July chaos spreading across the lawn.
The streamers sag in the humid air, bleeding red, white, and blue onto the lawn below. They stretch from the peeling paint of the back porch all the way to the old oak, where someone has hammered in thumbtacks that will make the groundskeeper curse next week.
A flag flaps against my shoulder as I move—they’re everywhere, sticking out of cup holders, taped to table edges, pinned under cooler lids. One even waves from the chimney, the pole secured with what must be an entire roll of silver duct tape.
In the yard, Gerard stands back, tilting his head at the lawn chairs he’s spent twenty minutes arranging. “It’s a star,” he announces, though what I see is more of a child’s crude idea of a star.
Drew stands with his legs planted wide at the barbecue, smoke rising around him.
Grease pops and sizzles as he flips a burger, revealing the perfect crosshatch of grill marks underneath.
The air fills with the sharp tang of barbecue sauce hitting hot metal, mingling with the sweet char of caramelizing meat.
His fitted T-shirt clings to his back, darkened with sweat between his shoulder blades, and a constellation of tiny orange dots speckles his chest. The tongs spin between his fingers—once, twice—before he reaches for the next piece of meat.
Jackson is supposed to be assisting. Instead, he’s sidled up behind Drew, his fingers hooked in the waistband of his own shorts, inching them down with exaggerated slowness while waggling his eyebrows at everyone who passes by.
I find Oliver stationed at the drinks table.
It’s nothing more than a folding table draped in a star-spangled tablecloth, crowded with coolers and bottles and stacks of Solo cups.
He’s been playing bartender with the same easy warmth he brings to everything.
His basketball shorts hang low on his hips, his gray T-shirt stretches across his shoulders, and his dark hair is slightly damp from the heat, curling at the temples in a way that my fingers itch to fix.
Before the eclipse, I was Ryan Abrams: reserved, isolated, clinging to the familiar safety of emotional distance. I would’ve never come to a party at the Hockey House.
After the eclipse, I’m still all of those things, but I’m also the person who held Oliver Jacoby’s hand for three hours and didn’t let go. Who’s here now, present and accounted for.
Amongst friends.
I take a sip of lemonade and let the tart sweetness coat my tongue while a memory surfaces.
Oliver walked me back to my dorm at four in the morning.
The campus was deserted, and our footsteps had fallen into sync without either of us trying.
At my door, we’d stood facing each other, and the air between us had gone electric with possibility.
His eyes had dropped to my mouth for half a second—I didn’t imagine it, I know I didn’t imagine it—before he’d pulled me into a hug instead.
His arms wrapped around me completely, his chin resting on top of my head, and I’d felt his heartbeat against my cheek, quick and insistent, betraying the calm of his exterior.
“Goodnight, Ryan,” he’d murmured into my hair. “Thank you for sharing the moon with me.”
I’d gone inside and sat on my bed for forty-five minutes, staring at the ceiling, feeling the ghost of his arms around me and wondering if this was how it felt when fate nudged you off your charted course and into unplanned waters.
Oliver lobs a beer in Nathan’s direction. His gaze shifts, landing on me, and the corner of his mouth curves upward when he realizes I’ve been watching him.
“Ryan!” he calls out. “Need a refill?”
My cup is still three-quarters full, but I walk over anyway, shaking my head.
“Alright. Then how about you come keep me company?” He gestures to the empty chair beside the drinks table. “Everyone keeps coming by for refills, but nobody stays to chat. I’m lonely over here.”
I settle into the chair and cross my legs at the ankles.
The late sun is warm on my face, and from this vantage point, I can see even more of the backyard.
Gerard has hauled out the infamous Slip ’N Slide from last semester, and people are gathering around it, no doubt anticipating as much nudity as is tasteful for a day like today.
“This is nice,” I say meaningfully. The warmth of belonging, of being included without condition, is still novel enough to surprise me.
“Yeah?” Oliver settles back in his chair, arms crossed behind his head, and the motion stretches his T-shirt across his chest in a way that I absolutely notice and stare at. “I’m glad you came. I wasn’t sure you would.”
“Jackson drove me. I didn’t have much choice.”
“You always have a choice, Ryan.” His voice is light, but his eyes are serious. “The fact that you chose to be here means something.”
Before I can figure out how to respond to that without my voice cracking, Kyle materializes at the drink table with an empty cup and a demand for more water. Oliver obliges, reaching for the big blue cooler wedged under the table to scoop ice.
His torso disappears behind the table as he digs into the cooler, and his basketball shorts shift downward by a critical inch. And there, in the gap between fabric and skin, unmistakable in its pristine whiteness, is a Fruit of the Loom waistband.
It sits snugly against the small of Oliver’s back, framing the top of what is unambiguously, irrefutably, a pair of white briefs.
Oh my gosh. Oliver Jacoby—hockey captain, team dad, six-foot-two embodiment of athletic confidence—is wearing tighty-whities. My brain performs a hard reboot as every cognitive function I possess grinds to a halt.
“Are you wearing tighty-whities?” The words loudly leave my mouth before any self-preserving synapse can intervene.
Kyle turns his head toward me in a complete imitation of a security camera detecting motion.
Oliver jerks upright, scattering ice cubes across the tablecloth.
His face floods crimson. His green eyes are the size of dinner plates, and his mouth opens and closes twice without producing sound, which is something I’ve never seen Oliver Jacoby’s mouth do in the entire time I’ve known him.
Kyle’s gaze settles on the damning white elastic peeking above Oliver’s shorts. “I was never here,” he announces before fleeing the scene.
Halfway to the picnic table, he turns back and stares at Oliver with an expression that can only be described as perturbed disbelief.
Oliver turns to face me, his face the color of barbecue sauce.
“Okay, soooo, yes. I am—those are—I’m wearing.
” He runs a hand through his damp hair, leaving it sticking up at angles that would be comical if I weren’t too stunned.
“I bought them at Macy’s. I was there to buy Drew some jeans, and they were right there.
I thought, you know, maybe I should—not because of any specific reason, just general curiosity about— check out some alternative undergarment options. ”
Oh God. He’s dying.
“And it turns out they’re actually really comfortable?
The support is—there’s this pouch thing that—” His hand hovers in midair, making a cupping motion before he realizes what he’s pantomiming and yanks it back like he’s touched a hot stove.
“The point is, I tried them, and I liked them enough to buy more from .”
Our eyes lock in a standoff. The grill hisses nearby. From across the yard, Gerard’s patriotic battle cry echoes over the wet slap of the Slip ’N Slide. The Fourth of July party continues uninterrupted around us, as if Oliver’s underwear revelation isn’t the seismic event it feels like.
“I think that’s fantastic,” I say, breaking the silence.
His eyes widen considerably. “You—what?”
“Fantastic. They’re comfortable, practical, and they’ve been unfairly maligned by an entire generation of men.” I take a sip of my lemonade, relishing the way his expression transitions from mortification to cautious hope. “Welcome to the right side of history.”
Oliver’s mouth twitches. The red in his face begins to recede, replaced by something closer to his normal skin tone. “You’re not going to make fun of me?”
“Why would I make fun of you? I’ve been wearing them my entire life.”
“I know. I—” He catches himself, and a fresh wave of pink crests his cheekbones. “I mean, I remember.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning. Oliver Jacoby, flustered and fidgeting, wearing tighty-whities at a Fourth of July party. My heart swells inside me, a balloon filling with helium, lifting against the cage of my ribs and threatening to carry me away. “Can I tell you a secret?”
Oliver nods. “Please.”
“Jackson wears them too.”
The lingering embarrassment on Oliver’s face transforms into pure, unadulterated shock. “Jackson Monroe wears tighty-whities?!”
“Around the dorm, yes. Ever since the Polar Bear Plunge. I lent him a pair of mine to keep his penis warm.” I pause, allowing the image to settle. “He complained nonstop until he saw himself in the mirror.”
Oliver’s jaw drops. “Wow.”
“He bought his own pack the next day. Now he sleeps in them, studies in them. I’ve come back to the dorm more times than I can count to find him sprawled on his bed in nothing but a pair of white Fruit of the Looms, scrolling on his phone.”
Oliver braces both hands on the drinks table and leans forward, processing. “So…I’m not crazy?”
“You’re not crazy.”
“They really are better.”
“They really are better.”
“The support—”
“Superior.”
“And the way they—”
“Don’t ride up? Yes.”
“And how your legs feel—”
“Free. I know.”
We’re grinning at each other now. The waning sun catches his green eyes, and they’re bright with relief and amusement and something underneath both of those things that makes my pulse quicken.
“You cannot tell anyone, though,” I tell him. “If Jackson finds out I told you, he’ll smother me with a pillow in my sleep.”
“Your secret’s safe with me.” Oliver presses a hand to his chest, still grinning. “Tighty-whitie solidarity.”
“Is that what we’re calling it?”
“It’s a brotherhood now, Ryan. You, me, and Jackson. The Briefs Brigade.”
“Please never say that again.”
“The Fellowship of the Fruit of the Loom.”
I press my fingers to my temples. “I’m going to regret telling you this.”
“Too late. This is the best gossip I’ve heard all summer.” Oliver angles his body toward me in that way he does—creating a pocket of intimacy in the middle of chaos. His knee bumps mine and stays there. “Seriously, though. Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not making it weird. I’ve been wearing them for a couple of days now, terrified someone would notice, and the first person who does is the one person who actually gets it.” His voice softens, losing its teasing edge. “You have no idea how relieved I am right now.”
Something about his earnest gratitude makes it suddenly hard to swallow. “Oliver, you don’t need my approval to wear whatever underwear you want.”
“I know. But having it feels pretty damn good.”
Across the yard, Drew hollers that the food is ready, and bodies converge on the grill like moths to a flame. Gerard abandons the Slip ’N Slide mid-run, skidding across the wet grass barefoot, and nearly takes out a couple of frat guys in his rush toward the burgers.
Oliver and I stay right where we are. Content to enjoy each other’s company, and savor the knowledge that we’re now the co-CEOs of the Briefs Brigade.