Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
My phone vibrates in my bag and when I pull it out, I see it’s our group text.
Meet in the hall for lunch? texts Lukas.
Can you bring our parents too? Sebastian asks.
“The guys are ready for lunch,” I say, turning toward their parents. “They’ll meet us out in the hall.”
Felix’s mom smiles calmly as if everything is going to plan, following me into the aisle to wait for the others. The other moms hustle along, shooing their husbands ahead of them. For their part, the husbands seem perfectly content to be shooed.
It doesn’t escape my notice though, that the moms are suddenly looking at me a little more intently for some reason.
I sigh, turning away so no one sees. Lunch is going to be awkward, but I’ve been through worse—like my own family dinners, for example.
At least I don’t anticipate any arguments breaking out today.
“Ready?” I ask to make sure we’re all together. It’d be embarrassing to lose one of their parents on such a short walk. Not that we couldn’t find them, but I’d look pretty inept if my one job was to get the parents to their sons and I couldn’t even handle that.
I thought heading out into the hallway would be a relief, but I was wrong. Everyone else is having the same idea we are right now. Luckily, the guys are already here, hovering near the wall to our left as soon as we come out.
The moms all race forward to hug their sons. The dads hang back a little to let the moms do their thing, but when they have the chance they move forward to do that hug-and-clap-on-the-back thing that men do. I suddenly wonder what happened to Felix’s dad. Why isn’t he here?
Am I a bad friend? I have probably asked them hundreds of questions about speedcubing, but how many have I asked about them as people? Or about their families?
Once the parents have said their hellos and congratulated Felix on his win, all four of the guys move toward me, but I take a step back, willing them to understand that they have to act like any normal, non-sex-having friends would.
They agreed to no PDA. And their parents are watching us, waiting to see how this will play out, probably hoping they’ll get some answers about who, exactly, I am to their sons.
Not even being able to answer that question myself, I know I shouldn’t care what their mothers think of me.
But I do. I want them to like me.
There’s an uncomfortable moment where the guys and I just all stand there looking at each other, me silently begging them not to be weird and them trying to figure out what to do with their bodies now that the hugs they were obviously primed for aren’t going to happen.
Sebastian’s mom, Andrea, saves us from ourselves, stepping forward and clapping her hands together once. “Where should we go to lunch?”
“We can go to the hotel restaurant,” suggests Lukas.
“I second that,” says Sebastian. “Then we’ll be close by and can easily get back for our next events.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to leave the hotel for lunch?” Summer asks. “Go try something new, see a little bit of the city?”
“This is where the competition is,” says Lukas, confused and looking to his teammates for clarity. “We don’t want to be late or miss something.”
“Okay,” his mom, Jen, throws up her hands in defeat. I can tell they’ve been through this before. “Let’s go to the hotel restaurant.”
“You’ll see,” says Lukas. “It’ll be much better this way. Less stress.”
“We’ve already given in,” Summer tells him, but there’s not a hint of anything but resigned amusement in her voice. “Let’s not beat a dead horse.”
We make our way through the crowd. It appears everyone here has the same plan as us, which Lukas declares is proof that it’s a very efficient plan.
I don’t point out, as we wait for a table, that going to the same place as everyone else is probably less efficient when it comes to the time it will take for us to get a table and eat. They already have enough to think about today without me adding to it.
As soon as we order, Lukas’s dad—I think Summer said his name is Neal—places his elbows on the table, looking at the boys over his clasped hands with a stern expression.
Sitting between Elliot and Sebastian, I sit up straighter in my chair.
This is it. The official parent interrogation is beginning.
My hands feel clammy. I’m going to have to explain that although their sons are great, I’m not dating them, just fooling around with them.
Which is going to be very uncomfortable to say out loud to all their families.
“How do you boys feel the competition is going?” Neal asks. “I know you still have a lot of plays to make, and it’s early yet, but how are you feeling?”
“They aren’t plays, they’re events, and then that’s broken down even more into solves,” explains Lukas patiently, even though I am certain he’s explained this before, probably many times. “But I feel pretty good. The new hand warmers I brought are helping keep my turns smooth.”
“The real challenges will come after lunch,” Sebastian tells the table. “Statistically, the biggest things we have to worry about this afternoon will be not flipping the equator and making sure we finalize the last permutation before dropping our cubes.”
“Well, I hope you haven’t been neglecting your studies to practice,” Elliot’s mom, Mary, admonishes. “Make sure you have your priorities straight.”
Elliot nods. “We always block out all of Saturday to study, Mom.”
“What about you, Rebecca?” Felix’s mom turns to focus on me suddenly. “I imagine your program also means you have a lot of work to do outside of class time.”
I feel like a deer staring down an oncoming truck. Why did she have to put me on the spot? I’d just started to feel comfortable. Like we were going to keep the focus on their sons and the national competition, the whole reason we’re here.
I should have known my luck wouldn’t hold. It never does.
“My studies are very important to me.” Why is my stupid, traitorous brain choosing this moment to replay last weekend, when Sebastian splayed me out on the dining table among our books and papers and made me come my brains out?
I can feel my face turning scarlet, and can only hope everyone just assumes I’m nervous to have all the attention on me.
“I even brought some work with me just in case I had extra time while we’re here. ”
And now I’m imagining dumping it all on the bed upstairs so the guys can lay me out on top of it again for a repeat performance. I think they would agree that practice makes perfect. And my guys love to practice.
“You should have brought it down with you this morning,” Elliot tells me.
“I didn’t know if there would be much downtime at a competition of this level,” I explain, aware that every eye at this table is on me. “Besides, it would feel wrong to be doing homework during the competition when I’m here to support you.”
“A lot of families do other things during or between events,” Sebastian points out. “There’s no reason you couldn’t do homework. We wouldn’t mind.”
I blink at his use of the word families. It sounds like he’s including me in that group, but I’m sure he’s not. It’s just that most of the audience is the families of the competitors. It’s easier to say that than to say, “the people in the audience.” Right?
“When the boys were younger,” says Andrea, leaning in so I can see her, “they used to spread out on the hotel hallway floors to do their homework.”
“Not me,” contradicts Elliot, scrunching his nose. “There’s no telling how filthy the floors are with so many people walking around in their shoes.”
“No, you never would.” His mom laughs. “Not even if we brought a blanket from home.”
“You used to stand to read and if you had to write anything down, you’d use the wall,” says his dad with a chuckle.
“Fewer people touch the wall than touch the floor,” Elliot insists.
“What else do kids do to amuse themselves at these events?” I ask, happy for the chance to deflect the conversation from myself lest I do something mortifying like mention how we amused ourselves in the room last night.
Besides, I kind of like the idea of hearing stories about the guys when they were younger. And I’ll likely never meet their parents again, so it’s not like I’ll have another chance to ask.
“Other kids ran in the hallways, but not our boys,” says Lukas’s mom.
The way she looks at them all, clearly proud, it’s as if they’re all her sons.
I get the feeling all of the parents kind of view the guys that way, and I wonder what it must be like to have not only your actual parents be so obviously proud of you, but to have bonus parents who feel the same.
The servers arrive with our meals, and the parents launch into stories about the boys quizzing each other on the history and rules of speedcubing, having mini competitions in the hallway with ridiculous rules like having to hop on one foot while solving, and—the most annoying thing, according to Andrea—correcting adults.
When we are all finished eating and the check has been paid, Elliot’s father leans back in his chair. “So when is your next event?” he asks, checking his watch.
Elliot looks down at his own wrist. “We have two hours.”
“That should be plenty of time to check out the museum down the street,” Summer says. “Who would like to join me?”
“We would,” Mary tells her excitedly. “When are we going to be in New York again and get a chance?”
“We’re in too,” says Jen. “It’ll be nice to get outside, get some fresh air, and have a little walk.”
“What about you boys? It’s the natural history museum, not an art museum.” Summer seems to think that would be a determining factor, but the guys all shake their heads.
Sebastian grimaces. “That would be cutting it kind of close.”
“Agreed,” says Lukas. “I’d rather be here just in case something happens.”