Chapter 13
Felix woke up alone and viciously hungover.
It took him several seconds of groaning to realize it wasn’t just the hangover beating in his head. Someone was knocking on the door.
He dragged himself out of bed and shoved on a pair of boxers. “Coming,” he called as the banging continued. “Jesus, hold your horses.”
He opened the door and stopped. It was Jacob, which was unexpected. That wasn’t his usual efficient knock.
“Why are you knocking weird?” Felix asked, holding up a hand to protect himself from the glare of the hallway lights.
“What? I’m knocking normal,” Jacob replied, too fast. “Fun time last night?”
Felix sorted blearily through his memories until the night before hit him with a sickening shock.
He’d gone back to his dorm with Hec, the first guy he’d been with other than Jacob since they started The List. Then Jacob had shown up telling him to be ‘safe,’ because of course he’d show up to ruin Felix’s good time and lecture him about sexual health.
Not that it had ended up being such a fun time.
Hec had actually called it quits a few minutes after Jacob left, saying that he wasn’t going to fuck someone whose head wasn’t in the game.
Which was surprisingly considerate of him, even if Felix had been annoyed at the time.
“Always,” Felix said with a tight smile. “Are you here to check if I used a condom?”
Jacob paused. “No.”
Felix sighed. “Jesus. Fine! I won’t sleep with anyone until we’re done with the list. Happy?”
Jacob didn’t huff. He didn’t even lecture him. He just stood there, his hair messier than Felix had seen it in public. Usually Jacob took the time to comb it in the morning. Appearances were important, as his parents always told him.
He wasn’t wearing a watch, Felix realized. Or a pocket protector. He wasn’t carrying a backpack even though today was a big day of classes. Felix knew his schedule by heart.
“Is this…” Jacob started. “Is this actually satisfying for you? Sleeping around all the time, never getting serious?”
“Sure,” Felix said, as brightly as he could manage when he was this hungover. “Are you going to tell me how I shouldn’t be happy about it? Because I’ve heard it before.”
“No, I just can’t see how…” Jacob hesitated, running his hands through his uncharacteristically messy hair. “I could never do it with someone I didn’t know. There’s nobody except you.”
Felix blinked. That was oddly sweet. It made some of the bitterness from last night dissolve, which was good. Felix hated being bitter. He wanted to be fun, all the time. Hard to be fun when he was trying not to cry.
He leaned against the doorway. “Is this you coming onto me? Still got some things on that list that need doing.”
“No,” Jacob said, so loudly it startled them both. He lowered his voice. “Not… not right now.”
“Okaaaay,” Felix said, his stomach sinking. Was something wrong? Had he said something weird last night? He scratched his bare stomach, wishing he’d thought to put on a shirt. “So when do you want to watch a movie?”
“Later,” Jacob said, rushed. “You haven’t been using your hand cream.”
“Huh?”
Jacob pulled a tube of hand cream from his pocket and took Felix’s hands to rub a dollop of cream into them. He’d done it a million times before, but there was something strange in Jacob’s expression.
“Dude,” Felix said as Jacob massaged his dry knuckles. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine! Why does everybody keep asking that?”
“Who’s been asking you that?” Felix asked, bewildered.
Jacob ignored him. He tucked his hand cream back into his pocket, then brought out a plastic baggie of vitamins he’d obviously taken from several different containers.
Felix wasn’t a vitamin guy, but he’d spent enough time around Jacob to recognize a vitamin C and a zinc tablet and, for some reason, fish oil.
“Here,” Jacob said. “They’re good for hangovers.”
“Even the fish oil?” Felix held up the baggie, poking curiously at the golden tablet. “Man, you know I’m twenty, right? I can take care of myself.”
“I know,” Jacob snapped. Then, just when Felix thought they were going back to normal, Jacob wilted. “I know,” he repeated, softer. “I just…” He trailed off.
This was the part where Felix cracked a joke, changed the subject, anything to lighten the mood.
But he was tired and hungover and, okay, still a little bitter from last night.
And from the lifetime he’d spent hopelessly in love with his best friend who only saw him as more than a friend when he got upgraded to a Friend He Could Temporarily Fuck.
So Felix stayed silent for once. He just waited.
Jacob was trying to say something. He kept breathing strangely, like the words were coming up his throat but turned into air at the last second.
Felix’s phone rang on his nightstand.
“You should get that,” Jacob said. “Probably one of your guys.”
“I just said I wouldn’t—”
But Jacob was already walking off. Felix glared at him, then at the vitamins in his hand. He threw the baggie on his bed and picked up his phone to see a name blinking at him: JACK HOT TA.
Half an hour later, Felix was at Jack’s house making Tex-Mex nachos.
“Thanks for coming at short notice,” Jack said as he handed him a packet of spices to put in the pan. “Thought I had a couple of hours this afternoon, but I got called in.”
“To which job?” Felix asked, emptying the spices into the ground beef.
“The garage.”
Felix threw the spice package away—clean as you go, as David instructed during his cleaning lessons—and paused. “Since when do you work at a garage? Dude, how many jobs do you have?”
Jack didn’t respond. He was loading last night’s dishes into their small dishwasher, swearing under his breath when the utensils didn’t fit as instructed. Jack was very much not a ‘clean as you go’ type of guy.
Felix stirred the ground beef, waiting to see if Jack would bring up last night. So far, he hadn’t even given him a significant look, which was a relief. Felix had hazy memories of hitting on Jack, and he was thankful Jack said no. That would be awkward as hell.
Jack shoved the dishwasher door closed and straightened. “How’s the beef?”
“Fine,” Felix said.
“Is it reduced enough yet?”
“Uhhh.” Felix peered into the bubbling pan. “That sounds like a you question, my guy.”
Jack leaned on the counter, glancing into the pan for barely a second before shrugging. “Few more minutes. You put in all the spices?”
“Whole packet.”
Jack sniffed the steam rising from the pan. “Doesn’t smell like it.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, dude. Smells good to me.
” Felix leaned over the pan, breathing in the salty scent.
His parents’ version of ‘nachos’ was a handful of Doritos and spray cheese.
Not this meaty, beany, tomatoey goodness they were making.
Apparently, he could also use this recipe for tortillas, which was exciting.
Jack was teaching him recipes he could change easily or use in something else.
In a few days they would make curry, which had about a million versions.
Felix was surprised to find he was genuinely excited.
Cooking was kind of fun when he got the hang of it.
If only he could get rid of the weird, twisty dread in his gut.
Something was up with Jacob. Did he want to back out of the list?
Did he tell his parents about it and now he was freaking out?
God, Felix hoped not. He might hate Jacob getting new friends, but he didn’t want Jacob to fold himself into whatever his parents wanted.
For all Jacob insisted he’d stayed the same since high school, there were little changes.
He didn’t answer every one of his parents’ phone calls. His day wasn’t totally ruined if his pen leaked through his pocket protector. He was more open. If he wasn’t, he never would have considered the list in the first place.
“Surprised you said yes,” Jack said as he pulled more spices from their cluttered shelf. “Checked that timetable you sent me. Said you had a class.”
“I can watch the lecture online,” Felix said dismissively. “This is more important.”
Jack snorted, tossing Felix the spices. “Don’t use much, just a little.”
Felix sprinkled the small containers until Jack motioned for him to stop.
“So,” Jack said as he stacked the spices back on the shelf, forcing them to fit next to an old bottle of soy sauce and a packet of brand-name brown sugar. “You’re really serious about this shit. You said something about a cleaning guy?”
“Yep,” Felix said, stirring the sauce vigorously so he didn’t have to think about why he was doing all of this. “Gotta make sure my future roommates don’t kill me.” The pan spat oil onto the stove. Felix wiped it away with a dish cloth he was keeping next to the stove for this very reason.
“Huh,” Jack said, raising his brows. “That’s considerate of you.”
“You don’t have to sound so surprised.”
Jack laughed. He scrubbed a hand down his face, looking as exhausted as usual. “So who are you moving in with?”
Felix thought about Jacob turning him down again and again. About Shane inviting him to move in with him and his boyfriend so he could be a third wheel to their stupidly happy relationship.
“I don’t know yet,” Felix admitted, stirring so hard he had to stop and wipe up splashed tomato juice. “There was this guy. But that’s… that’s probably not happening.”
Jack grunted, slinging a dish towel over his shoulder much like he’d done back at The Last Call. “This guy. Boyfriend?”
“No,” Felix said, too sharply.
“Okay,” Jack muttered. He scratched at a dried stain on the countertop. “Did that have anything to do with the guy you were glaring at last night? The one who isn’t allowed to have other friends?”
“He’s allowed to have other friends,” Felix said, wincing.
He couldn’t believe he’d said that. That was strictly an inside thought.
He stirred the pan harder, the dented metal rattling with the force.
“It’s nothing. Seriously. He’s told me a million times he’s never moving in with me. I should really get over it. I should.”
“Okay,” Jack repeated, looking like he regretted bringing it up.
But Felix was on a roll. He looked up from the pan, which he was stirring so hard drops shot out and coated the stove he’d just wiped.
“But we’d been planning this since we were kids,” Felix insisted as the metal pan rattled below him, wobbling dangerously close to the far right of the element.
“You know? Our whole lives. Get out of town, go to college, move in together! This was the plan!”
“Um…” Jack said, eyes on the pan.
“And he’s just throwing it all away,” Felix hissed.
“Because what? Because I’m messy? My nickname is literally Mess, he gave me that nickname!
He said we’d drive each other crazy, I thought he liked that about our friendship!
And he waited until the semester we were supposed to go looking for apartments!
I don’t even know if I’m going to tell him about any of this shit at this point.
I mean, what’s the point? If he doesn’t want to live with me—”
“Felix!”
But it was too late. The pan skidded off the element, careening toward the floor.
Felix reached out. He meant to grab the handle. But he was so desperate to save his stupid nachos, flailing blindly for whatever he could reach.
One of his hands closed around the burning bottom of the pan. Even through the blinding pain and mess of meat that followed, Felix couldn’t help but think:
Guess you don’t know as much as you thought.