Chapter 10

CHAPTER

TEN

F or Thanksgiving, I gave silent thanks that I was at college now, and I didn't have to live under the same roof as Colt anymore. Yeah, that was the breaking news in Casa North: Colt had moved back home because his landlord had kicked him out. Usually landlords were the villains of the story, but I got a feeling that whatever had gone down—and Colt wasn't saying—that wasn't the case here. Everything was fairly strained around the dining room table. Mom and Dad looked like they were finally getting fed up with my older brother's bullshit, Aunt Carol drank too much and tried to rap, and Uncle Frank had a new and exciting theory to share about lizard people and the government. Me and my cousin Beth ended up sneaking out to the park down the street to sit on the swings. She smoked a joint, and I settled for a contact high.

Anyway, I was real glad to come back to Lassiter. The only thing hanging over me was the result of my essay on Romeo and Juliet . Awa and Nash were also quietly shitting themselves. Apparently Professor Harrison actually wanted to celebrate the holiday with her family instead of grading papers, so we had to wait over a week to get our results.

I was stressed as hell by the end of class on Monday when Professor Harrison's TA gave our papers back .

"Holy shit!" I exclaimed when I got it, and the TA gave me a worried look, like he was afraid I was about to throw hands. I waved my paper at Nash and Awa.

B-.

And fuck that minus, I guess, but I was honestly so shocked to see a B on my paper that I didn't care that much. The only time I could usually get a guaranteed B anywhere on an English paper was if I used my full name when I was putting my details on there. Spoiler alert: middle name Bradley.

Nash was grinning hard about his C+, but Awa was the star of the show with her goddamn B+. There might have been some jumping and cheering involved.

The TA gave me a smile and backed away from the crazy people.

We celebrated by meeting up at lunch for burritos.

"I can't believe I got a C!" Nash exclaimed. "I was so sure I was gonna flunk it. Thank fuck for study group!"

"Thank fuck for Charlie ," Awa said. When we'd first met her, she never would have said fuck. I wasn't sure if it was because we were a bad influence or just that her use of English was evolving.

Shit, I hadn't even told Charlie my result yet. I pulled my phone out.

I passed! B-

My phone pinged almost immediately.

Awesome! I knew you could do it.

That's because I had a great tutor. He's cute too.

Charlie didn't answer, just sent back an eye roll emoji.

I could picture him blushing to the tips of his ears the way he always did when I called him cute, and I must have been grinning at the screen because Nash raised an eyebrow. "Who are you texting?"

"I was just letting Charlie know I passed." I put my phone down and took a bite of my burrito to hide the smile that wouldn't quit.

"Uh huh," Nash said, his mouth twitching while I pretended I couldn't feel my face going hot. "I was just gonna wait and tell him at study group, but you do you."

"I am," I said. "Doing me."

"Uh huh," he said again, like he was making some kind of point.

I shrugged and pretended not to notice.

The rest of the day I was on a high and so was Nash.

"What are you two grinning about?" Coach Larson growled at us when he loomed over the leg presses.

"Got a B- on my English paper, Coach," I said.

"Got a C+, Coach!" Nash said.

He grunted at us, but the corner of his mouth twitched. "You'd better keep that up. I don't wanna see any backsliding." Then he glared at us. "Now go hit those showers."

We still had ten minutes to go, but this was Coach Larson's reward, and we were happy to take it.

After we showered and changed and jammed our sweaty gym clothes into our backpacks, we walked back across campus to Fraternity Row. I had a protein shake for supper because I couldn't be fucked to make a sandwich, then I met up with Nash and we headed to the library for study group.

Being Romeo and Juliet less meant that I walked into group that evening like it was my first time there, and I was vaguely unsure of where to sit and what I should be doing.

"Hey," Ryan said. "Did you get your paper back?"

"B-," I said proudly.

"That's great, Tanner!" Chris exclaimed.

"That calls for congratulatory snacks," Lacey said, breezing into the room with a bunch of Tupperware containers. "Can I tempt you into just one snickerdoodle?"

"I don't know if I could stop at just one, which is the problem."

"I brought celery and carrot sticks," Amity said. She started to unpack her containers on the desk Charlie was sitting at, and he moved his books to give her room. "And dips! I've got salsa con queso, bacon ranch, and"—she pulled the last one out—"tzatziki!"

Charlie turned a bright shade of pink and caught my gaze while I tried not to choke on air.

I couldn't eat the tzatziki. I wasn't sure I could go anywhere near it without either grossing myself out or bursting into laughter or both. Which was a damn shame. That shit was delicious.

Note to self—don't fuck around with hummus. You'd miss it too much.

"I brought snacks too," Chris said. "You guys can eat pepperoni sticks, right?"

Nash almost left smoking tracks on the floor, he was over there so quick.

I was hot on his heels. "Thanks, man."

I loved that the group looked out for me and Nash. They didn't have to make accommodations for our shitty restrictive diets, but they did. For every cupcake and Twinkie that appeared, there was also a celery stick and a zucchini muffin. It was kind of lucky it was the thought that counted because the reality? Still kind of sucked. One week Amity made cauliflower pizza bites, and that had just been sad. Thankfully it was a one-time event.

I liked the study group. It had that same sense of camaraderie that the baseball squad had, except it wasn't as intensely focused on just one thing. Baseball squad felt like boot camp most days, but in the study group, if you were struggling, nobody yelled at you to "dig deep" or "feel the burn." It was way too chill for that.

We got round to pulling our books out, and I used the time to work on some history revision since I didn't have any assignments looming. Awa didn't study anything. She spent the entire time grinning at her paper, telling Charlie how grateful she was, and passing him cupcakes. I wouldn't lie, I wanted to be the one feeding Charlie cupcakes and gushing about how great he was, but since we were keeping whatever we were on the down-low, I settled for bumping shoulders with him when he sat next to me for a few minutes on his way around the group. He flashed me a smile and squeezed my thigh under the table as he got up. The heat of his touch lingered, and I spent the rest of study group running my hand over the spot.

Just before group ended, my phone buzzed.

Can you hang around?

I didn't bother texting him back. I just sought out his gaze—he was over by Ryan at that point, talking about something to do with engineering—and I nodded.

He smiled and ducked his head.

I took my time packing up my books.

"You coming, Tan?" Nash asked from the doorway.

Charlie shot him a look.

"Nah," I said. "I'm gonna, um, grab some books. From the library. This library that we're in."

"Uh huh," Nash said and left.

And then it was just me and Charlie. Oh, and the other people using the library to study. But it was me and Charlie alone in this room. Did the door lock? It would have been weird, and more than a little creepy, to check that, right?

Charlie sat on a desk. "So, um, Nash is fun."

"What? Yeah, he's pretty cool."

"You and him seem to hang out a lot."

I shrugged, standing awkwardly in front of him. "Well, yeah. We have a lot in common. And we're on the baseball squad together."

"So he's just a… friend?" He narrowed his eyes in an expression I couldn't quite interpret—right until I could.

When I was a kid, I'd gotten a Transformer for Christmas one year. It was the coolest toy I'd ever owned, and I'd paraded that Optimus Prime around the house like it was the Super Bowl trophy. Colt had been majorly pissed that I had something he didn't, and he'd given me dark looks for a week—which was how long it had taken for him to bully me into sharing it.

Charlie's expression reminded me a lot of that look.

"Hold up," I said. "Charlie, are you jealous? "

"No!"

Okay, so that was a lie.

"Me and Nash are just buddies."

He shot me a look. "Your buddy calls you Tan ?"

Yeah, he was definitely lying about the jealousy thing. Which was ridiculous. If anyone should have been getting jealous, it was me. I was the one punching above my weight here.

"I don't know where he got that from," I said. "Today was the first time. I can tell him to stop, if you want."

"No." Charlie scowled and dragged the toe of his shoe across the floor. "It's... I'm being dumb. It's not a big deal."

But it was, I could tell.

"Nobody ever called me that before you," I said. "I like that it's your name for me and not anyone else's."

Charlie lifted his eyes to meet mine. "It just feels like I don't get to claim anything if I'm not willing to... you know."

"Be seen with me?"

"Yeah," he said, his voice small.

"Yeah." I closed the space between us. "Nash wouldn't have done it if he knew. If he says it again, I'll tell him to stop."

I didn't like the doubt I saw in his gaze. It felt like it was bigger than Nash calling me a nickname. Charlie looked like a guy who wasn't sure of the ground beneath him, and I didn't like that.

I reached out and took his hands. "What's going on here, really?"

"I don't know," Charlie said. "I really like you, Tanner, and I want to believe that you really like me too."

"I do!" I squeezed his hands, hating the way his shoulders hunched. "Charlie, you're amazing. I—well, you're the first guy I ever did anything with, so I'm not sure what to say for stuff like this. But I really do like you. You're the best thing about my life right now. That sounds like everything else is shit, but it's not. That's the point. I have a bunch of great things happening for me at the moment, but you're the greatest. By a mile. Charlie, I?—"

He surged to his feet and kissed me.

I hadn't seen him in over a week because of the holiday and our schedules, and I'd missed him, but I hadn't known just how much until I was kissing him again. It was like a clunky bit of machinery finally falling back into place, and everything began to run smoothly again the moment our lips touched and my fingers were in his curls. His hands found my hips, and he pulled me tight against him, and I chased the taste of sugary soda in his mouth.

We moved apart at last, dazed and unsteady.

"I missed you, Charlie," I said.

His smile was shaky and sweet. "I missed you too, Tan."

It sounded totally different when he said it. Like I was his.

I wished there was a way that could be true, but he'd said no, hadn't he?

I heard Coach's voice in my head.

You gotta grow a set of balls if you wanna achieve your goals, kid.

He'd been talking about baseball, but maybe it applied to a lot of things.

I swallowed around the lump in my throat. "I know you have this whole thing about not dating a Kappa, but I don't wanna just fool around, Charlie. I like you too much for that."

Charlie bit his lip. "I don't wanna just fool around either." His voice held the barest of tremors, like he was nervous and doing his best to hide it. "I was thinking we could, um. Try dating?"

Wait, what?

I'd been prepared for him to reject me like he had every other time I'd suggested we date and now I was frozen, unsure what to say. It was like those few seconds after you unexpectedly knocked the ball out of the park, and you were so surprised that it took a second or two for your legs to start running the bases.

I stared at him. "Wait. Really?"

"Um." He blinked at me, his mouth curving up into an uncertain smile. "If you want?"

"I definitely want!"

"But..." He bit his bottom lip and widened his eyes. "But we can't tell anyone."

"Oh." That took some of the wind out of my sails. "So how is that different to now?"

"Well, we'd be boyfriends," he said softly. "And we could spend time together? Like go on dates and stuff? Just, not anywhere too close to campus. We'd have to be discreet."

See, when Coach Larson said that you had to have a set of balls if you wanted to achieve your goals, that was like the bit in every sports movie where the team on the losing streak heard an inspiring speech and got their shit together and won the whole goddamn series. This didn't feel like that kind of triumphant victory at all. This felt like the part of the movie where they were losing every game. Charlie still wanted us to be a secret ?

Maybe if I'd really had a set of balls, I would have said no.

But I didn't.

Because I wanted Charlie too much to even think about walking away. And because the fact he'd agreed to date me at all was still a win. Sort of.

"Okay," I said. "We can be discreet."

And then we kissed again.

It wasn't anything like I'd imagined holding up the Commissioner's Trophy would feel, but that was okay, right?

Because I had Charlie.

A bunch of guys were watching a movie when I got back to Kappa Beta Rho. My big, Marcus, flapped a hand at me as I walked past the living room door. "Hey! Come hang out."

Normally I would have shrugged him off and had an early night, but I'd passed my assignment so the pressure was off for now, and that actually sounded kind of fun.

I dumped my backpack and went and joined the guys. I thought about the way Charlie had talked about his big brother like they were friends. It had sounded like bullshit, but maybe it wasn't. Maybe I just hadn't been engaging like I should.

The movie was something with Keanu Reeves and explosions, and it mainly provided background noise while Marcus and Bart and Zach and Ethan bitched about their assignments. I was tuning most of it out, when Zach said, "I dunno. They all have sticks up their asses, right?"

"What?" I asked. "Who does?"

"The Alpha Taus," Zach said.

"Fuck's sake," Bart said, rolling his eyes. "Can't you just let it go?"

"He's right though," Ethan said.

"I'm sick of this bullshit." Bart stood. "I'm gonna get a beer."

"I could have pledged there, you know," Ethan said.

"We know," Marcus muttered under his breath.

I didn't. "What? Really?"

"I'm a legacy. But that place has changed from my granddaddy's day. They're all a bunch of whiny fa—I mean, snowflakes." Ethan winced. "No offense, bro."

Uh. Full fucking offense, actually. "That's not a word you should say."

"I didn't say it," he said.

"You started to."

"Yeah, but I stopped. I respect you, bro."

I opened my mouth to tell him exactly how unlike respect that sounded, but Marcus elbowed me. "Just shut the fuck up and apologize, Ethan."

Ethan looked shamefaced. "Sorry, bro."

I wasn't sure what I was supposed to say. "That's okay."

I figured we all knew it wasn't.

"But you can't deny Alpha Taus are assholes," Ethan said, because he couldn't read a room if it was an audiobook. "Like, they're always talking about how great they are because they're inclusive . What does that even mean? They let in anyone? As if that's anything to be proud of." He snorted. "They won't have that fancy house for long if they keep letting in guys on scholarships. " He said it like it was syphilis.

I jolted, realizing he meant Charlie. "I'm on a scholarship."

Ethan gave me a funny look. "That's sport. That's different. Besides, you're a legacy . Your brother was a fucking legend."

Really? This shit again?

I looked Ethan in the eye. "Listen, I don't know if you've ever met Colt, but take it from me. He's a dick."

Marcus snickered. "Truth. Sorry, Tanner."

Even Zach was over Ethan's bullshit. "Let's just watch the movie."

But even Keanu in a tattered shirt with gleaming abs and windswept hair wasn't enough to convince me to stay.

"Where are you going?" Bart asked, coming back into the room as I was leaving.

"Studying," I said and escaped upstairs .

Except since I shared with Ethan, it wasn't much of an escape, was it?

I sat at my desk and stared out the window, across the road toward Alpha Tau. I could see the front corner of their house from here, but the rest was hidden from view unless I stuck my head out the window.

Ethan had soured my mood, and I figured I had two options. I could either climb into bed and pretend to be sleeping when he came upstairs, or I could get the hell out of this house so that he was in bed by the time I got back. The second one was a gamble, since I had no idea what time he'd actually turn in, but fuck it, if I stayed in here any longer, I might accidentally pick up his shiny laptop and drop it on the floor. Repeatedly. And I couldn't afford that.

I sent Charlie a message.

Can I come over?

And then, because we were being discreet, I added:

I can meet you under that big tree?

It was pretty late by now, and it was dark out.

Are you okay?

I wasn't sure how to answer that.

I just really want to see you right now.

His reply came back straight away.

Okay, meet you under the big tree in five.

Some of the pressure that had been building inside me eased. I tucked my phone in my pocket and headed downstairs. I went out the back kitchen door so I didn't need to pass the living room and jogged down the street to Alpha Tau.

My gut clenched as I got closer. It seemed like every time I went near Charlie's fraternity it ended with someone yelling at me, but maybe tonight would be different.

It looked pretty quiet. There were a bunch of cars parked out the front and in the driveway, and I dodged between them. The front porch lights were on, but there was no sign of anyone sitting out there. I sneaked down the side of the house, keeping to the shadows as best I could until I reached the darkness under the big red maple tree.

I leaned my back against the trunk and slid to the ground, pulling my knees in close, and waited. I wasn't there long before a tall, lean shadowed figure came gliding out of the darkness and sat beside me.

"Hey." Charlie grinned at me and bumped his shoulder against mine. "I missed you."

I laughed softly. Just being next to Charlie and having him smile because I was here was enough to make the dark cloud that had been hanging over me melt away. "You only just saw me."

"You're like Lacey's snickerdoodles," he said. "I can't get enough." His tone softened. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I said, not wanting to tell him about Ethan's assholery. If this was a secret date, I wasn't going to waste it bitching about my roommate. "I just wanted to see you."

Charlie leaned over and pushed my knees down until I got the hint and stretched my legs out, and then he slid into my lap, cupped my face in his long, delicate fingers, and kissed me soft and sweet. I grinned against his lips and kissed him in return, setting a hand at the small of his back and holding him in place. We kissed like that for a while, and the contrast of Charlie's warm mouth against mine and the cool night air on my skin loosened the knot of tension I'd been holding. I let out a shaky sigh when we finally finished kissing—part pleasure, part relief—and pressed my mouth to the pale skin of Charlie's collarbone.

He squirmed in my lap. "If I'd known boyfriend status got me collarbone kisses, I would have signed up sooner."

I gave him another one, and he shivered. I wished we had some place we could go where I could lay him down and see him naked and kiss him all over. But if collarbone kisses in the dark were all we could manage for now, then they would have to do.

Then, there was a sudden rustling in the leaves on the ground behind me, and something cold pressed into the patch of skin on my lower back that had been exposed when my sweatshirt rode up. I let out a yelp, jostling Charlie off my lap.

"Squirrel!" someone yelled. "Come back!"

Oh shit.

I knew that voice. Marty fucking O'Brien.

I tried to shoo the dog away. Charlie scrambled to his feet, pulling me with him. "Run!"

I ran.

I ran right into Marty O'Brien.

"The fuck!" he exclaimed. "Fucking Kappas in the house!"

I mean, this was the yard, but I guessed his point still stood.

I hoped he hadn't seen Charlie lurking under the tree.

Marty tried to grab me, but I dodged him and bolted across the street, toward the safety of home.