Chapter 32 #2
“He grabbed Oliver’s booty!” Gerard announces to the room, pointing at me for emphasis.
“Our Ryan fondled our captain! This is a momentous occasion!” Gerard clasps his hands together, face mask flaking onto his shoulders.
“And as the team’s resident glute expert, let me assure you: You’re in for a treat.
Hockey butts are very jiggly, especially when you’re—”
“OKAY.” Elliot’s voice cuts Gerard off. He’s sitting stiffly on the floor, his own face mask cracking around the edges as he fixes me with an expression that somehow conveys both exasperation and genuine concern. “Enough about butts.”
“But I wasn’t finished!”
“You’re finished.” Elliot adjusts his glasses, which have somehow acquired a smear of green paste. “Ryan, can I offer some actual advice? The kind that doesn’t involve rear ends?”
“Please.”
“Ask him out.”
The simplicity of it stops me cold. “What?”
“Ask. Oliver. Out.” Elliot enunciates each word as though he’s speaking to someone particularly dense.
“But we’ve already—I mean, we’ve done things…”
“You’ve done things,” Elliot agrees. “You’ve kissed.
You’ve had what Gerard insists on calling a ‘friction situation.’ You’ve held hands, watched stars, and had romantic picnics.
But you haven’t actually defined what you are to each other.
Right now,” Elliot continues, his voice surprisingly gentle, “you’re friends who are boys who like each other and make each other come.
Which is fine, if that’s what you want. But based on everything you’ve said tonight, that’s not what you want.
You want a boyfriend. So ask him to be your boyfriend. ”
“It can’t be that simple.”
“It really can be.” Elliot shrugs, the movement sending more green flakes cascading down his shirt. “The only thing standing between you and an actual relationship is the fact that neither of you has said the words out loud.”
I stare at him, my mind spinning. He’s right. All the kissing, touching, and romantic gestures mean nothing if we never actually acknowledge what we’re building toward.
“I need—” I push myself to my feet, nearly tripping over Jackson’s leg in the process. “I need a minute. I’ll be right back.”
I bolt for the bathroom connected to our dorm, slamming the door behind me and immediately turning on the cold water. The faucet sputters, then releases a stream that I cup in my hands and splash directly onto my face.
The shock of it helps. Marginally.
I grip the edges of the sink and stare at my reflection in the mirror. I look like someone who’s been emotionally eviscerated by his friends, which is 100 percent accurate.
“Okay,” I tell my reflection. “You can do this, Ryan. You can go back out there and finish this sleepover, and then tomorrow—or maybe the next day—you can ask Oliver to be your boyfriend. Elliot said it was simple. He’s usually right about things.”
My reflection does not look convinced.
“It’s just a question,” I continue, gripping the sink harder. “One question. ‘Oliver, will you be my boyfriend?’ See? Easy. Simple. Not terrifying at all. You survived a county fair with hockey players. You can survive asking one boy one question.”
I splash more water on my face, take three deep breaths, and square my shoulders. The face staring back at me looks more composed.
“You’ve got this,” I tell myself. “You absolutely, definitely, completely have this.”
I don’t have this. But I’m going to pretend I do.
I dry my face on the hand towel, take one more steadying breath, and open the bathroom door. And freeze.
Elliot is standing in the middle of the dorm room, holding a pair of my tighty-whities. He’s singing, his voice surprisingly melodic despite the flat delivery.
“What the—”
Gerard joins in, grabbing another pair of my underwear from somewhere—how did they get into my drawer?
—and draping them over his head like a bonnet as he sings about Doris Day and Rock Hudson.
Drew is cackling so hard he can barely breathe, but he manages to stumble to his feet and add his voice to the impromptu performance, telling Elvis to keep his pelvis far away from him.
Jackson—my best friend, my roommate, the person I trusted the most—completes the quartet, his arm around Drew’s shoulders as they belt it all out together. I find Nathan in the corner, filming it all with his phone.
The song eventually ends with a flourish. Gerard strikes a pose. Drew takes a bow. Jackson is doubled over laughing. And I stand in the bathroom doorway, mouth hanging open, in shock that my friends desecrated both my underwear drawer and my dignity in one fell swoop.
“Are you making fun of me?” I finally manage.
Elliot lowers my underwear, his expression shifting to mild offense. “Some people are so touchy.”
“You went through my drawer!”
“Gerard went through your drawer. I simply utilized what was presented to me.”
“For a musical number!”
“It seemed appropriate given the moment.” Elliot tosses the underwear onto my bed with surprising delicacy. “Consider it a palate cleanser. You looked like you were about to have a crisis in the bathroom.”
“I was having a crisis in the bathroom! And now I’m having a different crisis out here!”
Gerard removes my briefs from his head, at least having the decency to look slightly sheepish. “We were trying to lighten the mood, bestie. You seemed stressed.”
“Besides, Sandra Dee is a classic,” Drew says, as if that explains anything.
“Grease is cinema,” Jackson adds.
I start laughing. It’s not a dignified laugh. It’s the kind of laugh that bubbles up from somewhere deep and refuses to stop, the kind that makes your stomach hurt and your eyes water. I sink down against the doorframe, clutching my sides, and the laughter keeps coming.
“He’s broken,” Drew observes.
“That’s the spirit!” Gerard beams. “Laughter is healing!”
“I think he might be crying,” Jackson says, peering at me with concern.
“I’m not crying.” I wipe my eyes, still giggling helplessly. “I’m just—you’re all insane. Completely, utterly insane.”
The evening continues in that vein—crazy, overwhelming, and somehow exactly what I needed. But I make a mental note to get a lock for my underwear drawer, all the same.