Happy New Years… I Guess #2
Behind me, I hear Jeff's voice, "Holy shit, is that Leo?
Dude, you made it!" Rex is helping JP up, and Elliot is muttering about us checking the floor’s structural integrity for them.
But Jaren's looking at me, still smiling, and he jerks his head toward the kitchen.
"Come on. We’ve got the good stuff hidden in the back. "
I follow him through the crowd. People are everywhere.
Dancing, talking, making out against walls.
Someone's doing a keg stand in the corner.
The kitchen is marginally less crowded, with a few people mixing drinks.
A couple is making out on the counter until someone yells at them to move.
I'm pretty sure that's the frat's VP, Tyler, and his boyfriend, Ethan.
Jaren opens the fridge and pulls out two bottles. "Beer okay? Or there's—" he opens a cabinet, "—basically anything. Drew went overboard."
"Beer's good." He cracks both open and hands me one. Our fingers brush. He doesn't pull away immediately.
"So." He leans against the counter. "JP said you're in robotics?"
"Yeah. It's my second degree, actually. I did applied math first." Why did I say that? Nobody cares about my academic history. "I build things. Robots, mostly. Sometimes they explode. Not dangerously. Just… stop working in interesting ways."
"Interesting ways?"
"Like, the motor seizes, and the whole arm spins.
Or the pressure sensor miscalibrates, and it thinks everything is an obstacle, so it just vibrates in place.
" I take a drink. The beer is cold and only slightly bitter.
Good quality. "It sounds frustrating, but it's actually the best part.
When something breaks, you get to figure out why.
It's like detective work, but with circuits. "
"Huh." Jaren tilts his head. "My dad's a contractor, I grew up fixing things, but it was always about making them work again. Not figuring out the why."
"The why is everything!" I'm gesturing now, hands moving, beer sloshing in the bottle. "If you only fix the surface problem, the underlying issue is still there. It'll just break again."
"That makes sense." He's watching my hands. "You talk with your hands a lot."
"Oh." I shove my free hand in my pocket. "Sorry."
"Don't apologize. It's cute."
My face feels hot. "I… uh… thanks?"
He laughs, easy and warm. "Come on. Let's get out of the kitchen before someone else tries to make out on the counter."
The main room hits me all at once, noise and bodies and the smell of beer and someone's too-loud playlist. It's loud and chaotic and kind of perfect.
Jaren stays close but not suffocating, steering me through the crowd, introducing me to people whose names I immediately lose except for a few.
Ian, with the southern accent, who says "y'all" every third sentence.
Rex, who has a Grogu tattoo on his butt and will apparently show it to anyone who asks, I find this out within four minutes.
Oh, that’s a nice-looking butt.
And Jeff, who is absurdly tall and keeps photobombing pictures in the background with the most hilarious faces. We end up in the main room where someone's set up beer pong. Leo's playing against two frat guys and destroying them.
"No fucking way!" One of them, Taj, I think, stares at the table. "How did you? That's not fucking possible!"
"Trajectory." Leo sinks another shot, effortlessly. "And practice."
"He's a physicist," I tell Jaren. "He calculates everything."
"That's either really cool or really scary."
"Both." Rex slaps Leo on the back hard enough that he stumbles forward, grinning. The frat guys are groaning but laughing too. I look around, Leo hustling beer pong, JP actually relaxed across the room with Drew and Emily, and feel unexpectedly, stupidly glad we came.
"Your friends seem cool," Jaren says.
"They are. We're kind of a weird group, but it works."
"Weird's good." He's standing close enough that I can feel the warmth from his arm. "Normal's boring."
My phone buzzes.
Elliot
Gone Home. Happy New Year.
I smile and show Jaren. "He left early. He does that."
"Social battery?"
"Yeah. He's good about knowing his limits." I type back a string of robot emojis and hit send.
"That's smart." Jaren takes my empty bottle. "Want another?"
"Sure."
As Jaren disappears into the crowd, I watch Leo get dragged to the dartboard, Rex and Jeff flanking him like bodyguards.
Ian's explaining the rules, or trying to, Leo's already analyzing the board, head tilted, and I can see the exact moment he stops listening and starts calculating angles.
Rex says something, and Leo laughs, loud and unguarded, and there's a second where I want to be over there.
I let it pass.
Leo told me to do this. Get out, meet people, see what happens.
He was right. And he looks like he's having the time of his life, which is good.
That's good. I'm glad. As I turn back toward the kitchen, JP catches my eye from across the room and raises his eyebrows.
I nod and give him a thumbs up. He smiles and goes back to his conversation.
Jaren returns with two more beers and a slightly bemused expression. "Your roommate just bet everyone he could beat them at darts."
"He probably can."
"I like the confidence." He hands me a bottle and leans against the wall beside me. "So… applied math to robotics. That's a big shift."