by Andy Gallo
Jack had seen the decency, the generosity. Until he’d chosen Brittany. Now Jack and his friends suffered for it.
Not for much longer.
Jack looked him square in the eye. “It’s a bet.”
Chapter Four
By parking at the far end of the lot, Jack figured it would be easier for Ed to spot him. Dark blue Jeep Wranglers might be hard to miss during the day, but at night they were almost invisible.
He rubbed his hands against the cold—and the nerves. It didn’t help that his stomach was already knotted from his moment with Harper, his hurtful words and that bet. He took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders. He’d win all right.
He had to.
He shoved his frustration with Harper to the back of his mind and took Ed’s phone out of his pocket.
A set of headlights moved toward him. His heart raced when the red pickup pulled into the spot to the right of him. His breath caught on fluttery nerves. Dressed the same as when they met earlier, Ed hopped out of his car.
Jack looked down at his ass jeans and groaned. Could he have been more obvious?
Following Ed’s lead, he climbed out of his Jeep.
Ed greeted him with a slow smile, eyes sweeping over him. He seemed to pause for an eternity on every change Jack had made.
Yeah, totally busted.
Finally Ed cleared his throat and spoke. “Hey, Jack.”
“Hey.” He reached out a hand, and Ed took it. His cool fingers wrapped tightly around his palm, shooting tingles up his arm. Jack’s breath hitched. “I’m really sorry for the screwup.”
“Seriously,” Ed said. Was that an extra squeeze of his hand? Or was Jack imagining it? “Don’t worry. My mom and I laughed about it.”
“Here, by the way.” Jack passed over Ed’s phone and took his back. He slipped it into his pocket as he leaned back against his spare. What should he say next?
Ed’s eyes darted to a spot just right of where Jack stood. Following the line of sight, Jack took in the HRC sticker on the back of his Jeep.
He tensed, waiting for the ball to drop.
Again, Ed cleared his throat. This time he followed it up with a hand through his hair. Shit, he was getting ready to hightail out of there.
Ed shifted his weight but stayed in place.
Jack stifled a nervous laugh and went for broke. “You want to get something to eat?”
Ed’s chest puffed out with a breath, and he let it out slowly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m not….”
Not gay! Jack missed the end of the sentence.
Fuck.
“I mean, I am a bit, but not totally starving, though.”
Heat seared Jack’s cheeks. He wanted nothing more than to blurt out an excuse and get back to the frat. Fast.
“I know a good place,” Ed suggested with another glance at the HRC sticker. “We could take my truck.”
Make up an excuse! End this now. “So long as you promise to bring me back.”
Ed raised an eyebrow. His lips parted as if to quip back, but he firmly shut his mouth and gestured to his truck.
“Um… hang on a second.” He turned on his phone. “Marcus asked me to text if we ended up doing more than exchange phones.”
Ed made a funny sound and cleared his throat. “Marcus sounds like… like he really cares.”
Jack paused. Ed was sending some massively mixed signals. Or Jack really was that bad at reading guys. Could Ed just be the real friendly local type? Just looking for another dude to hang with? “Marcus is a bit over the top at times, but great.”
He sent off a quick message to Marcus telling him not to wait up. He wasn’t sure, but when he looked up, Ed’s eyes were narrowed on Jack’s phone.
Huh.
The diner Ed knew was farther than Jack would’ve thought.
Ed tapped his thumbs on the wheel. “What year are you at Harrison?”
Ed peeked at him out the corner of his eye, and Jack shifted in his seat as his skin prickled. Friends. He just wants to be friends. He rubbed his clammy palms over his jeans.
“Junior. I’m almost twenty-one.” Jack’s phone vibrated.
“Is that Marcus?”
Jack tilted his head at the slight strain in Ed’s voice. “You heard that?”
Ed smirked, cheeks lifting, voice teasing. “I might have got used to that buzzing today.”
Jack pulled out his phone, turned it over, and laughed. “Yep, Marcus. Apparently I can have fun, but not too much fun. It’s a school night. Dork.”
Ed focused on the car ahead of him at the light. “Is Marcus… does he, like, often mother you?”
Mother you. Breathlessness seized his chest, tight and painful. Suddenly he was eleven again, on the football field. He’d just run a bootleg left for a thirty-yard touchdown. He’d looked up and his parents sat in the bleachers, waving their arms, his mother cheering him on.
They had always been there.
Even the first time he’d run away from home, they’d been a half a street behind him the whole time. Following. Making sure he was all right—
“Jack?” Ed’s voice brought him back to the present. The truck had come to a stop. “You disappeared there for a second. You all good?”
Jack blinked. Struggled to calm his breathing and focused on Ed’s soft, moving lips, then looked up into concerned eyes.
Pull it together. “Um, yeah. I’m good.”
He glanced out the window toward a diner. A flat roof and curved edges rimmed with green fluorescent light beckoned them over.
Jack’s seat belt clicked. The belt sliding over his chest brought him back to the moment. He looked over, and Ed smiled at him.
“Yeah, let’s go in then,” Ed said.
A burst from the chorus of “Rawhide” greeted them as they entered the diner.
“Rawhide?” Jack breathed in the comforting scent of grease and coffee.
“You know this song?”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “Who doesn’t?”
“Nice, wasn’t sure you’d like it here.” Ed made his way to the host. “Can we have the booth over there?”
Jack followed Ed’s outstretched hand to a spot in the back right corner of the diner. Interesting choice.
The overweight middle-aged man nodded lazily, grabbed two menus, and led them to the table.
“Someone will be right with you.”
“This okay?” Ed asked when they were alone.
“Very, very okay.”
A thirtysomething faux-blonde waitress, dressed all in black, dropped off two plastic glasses of water, took their drink order, and melted out of Jack’s consciousness.
Jack leaned back into the cool plastic-cushioned booth. Even under harsh lighting, Ed looked good. Tossed sandy hair gleamed, and his eyes twinkled green and brown, a little freckle hopping as he caught Jack staring and smiled.
Jack’s pulse spiked, and he stirred on his seat. Surely Ed wasn’t clueless enough to miss Jack checking him out?
Ed leaned his corded forearms on the edge of the table as he perused the menu. “What are you getting?”
“Um… just fries to go with the Coke.” He glanced at the poster above their table on the wall. Classic Harley. All the posters in the diner were of model bikes. “That’s so cool.”
“You mentioned your interest in motorcycles earlier, so….”
Jack’s cheeks tingled. He gulped down a quarter of his soda the moment the waitress handed it to him.
“Do you like to ride?”
Jack nearly choked on his drink. “Huh?”
Ed jerked a finger to the poster. “Bikes? You might be a mechanical klutz, but are you a klutz that can ride?”
“If I had a vehicle—I’d be showing you that answer.”
Ed hesitated and tipped back his drink, Adam’s apple working with every swallow. He set the glass down and finally looked over. “I might to have access to a bike if you are ever up for it.”
Jack flashed Ed a lazy grin. “Definitel
y up for it. You want us to go out again?”
Ed glanced across the diner toward the exit. “I don’t really click with many of the guys from my night classes.”
Fuck it, was this the friends thing again? Or was Ed having a hard time spitting out that he was interested?
“Clicking is a good start,” Jack said.
Ed shifted. Nodded. The blush creeping up his neck held Jack’s attention. He liked what he imagined it said.
Ed clasped his hands together. “When you’re not at Harrison, where’s home?”
He was only asking where Jack hailed from, but this was probably the point to tell him his parents were dead.
Jack touched the chain around his neck, fighting another wave of panic. Just say it. “Home is in Haverford, Pennsylvania. But my parents—” The words stuck in his throat and came out husky. “—aren’t around anymore. They died.”
“Ah, shit.” Ed unlaced his hands and stretched one halfway across the table as if to cover one of Jack’s. He stopped at the saltshaker and clutched its base instead. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Jack exhaled slowly, a “thanks” mixed in, but barely audible. After four years, he thought he had a better grip on his feelings. But the pain had never totally gone away; every now and then it resurfaced, wrapped in a memory of his parents laughing or crossing their arms and grounding him.
He forced himself to focus on the now. The very good—if confusing—now, with a very cute guy who was softly smiling at him. “It’s a bit of a difficult subject sometimes. But don’t feel you can’t ask. You won’t hurt my feelings.”
The little laugh he gave was as much to calm himself as to lighten the mood.
Ed relaxed, and a whiff of a smile crossed his lips. “Okay… so… um, you mentioned Marcus was like a brother. Did his family adopt you?”
“All but officially. Long story.” One he didn’t want to go into right then.
Their waitress returned for their food order.
“How’s the Seafood Newberg?” Ed asked without looking up from the menu. Jack stifled a snort.
“Best you’ll ever have. We’re famous for it.” The waitress rolled her eyes, not cracking a smile. “You want that over rice or noodles?”
“How about a bacon cheeseburger, medium.”
Shaking her head, she wrote something down on her pad. “The chef will be so disappointed. Lettuce, tomato, and onions?”
“No onions, thanks.” He shot Jack a glance before looking back at the woman.
“Got it,” she said. “How about you, hon?”
“Just fries.”
“You want cheese on those?”
“No thank you, ma’am.”
“You’re too young to be watching your weight, hon.” She grabbed his almost empty glass before she left. “I’ll be right back with a refill.”
“Sorry.” Ed shook his head, grinning at Jack. “I forgot to warn you, they serve everything here with a side of attitude.”
The grin looked good on him. “Clearly you’ve been here before.”
“Yeah, I take my dad every couple of months.”
“You take him or he takes you?”
“I take him.” Ed studied that saltshaker again. “Dad got laid off when the tool and die shop closed five years ago. Hasn’t been able to find a decent job since. When I was a kid, every other Saturday he and I would go out for breakfast. He took my sister the other weekend.
“Money’s kinda tight for my parents. I try to help, but Dad won’t take much rent from me. Mom won’t take my money either. So when Saturdays got cancelled in the cutbacks, I restarted them when I got a job. One weekend it’s just me and him, the next I give my sister money to take him.”
Jack wanted to slide onto the seat next to Ed, angle his chin until he looked him in the eye, and tell him how kind that was. He wanted to feel the slight bristles of Ed’s stubble grazing over his palm as he cupped his jaw. Wanted to lean forward and press their warm, Coke-flavored mouths together….
Fries suddenly landed in front of him, breaking the daydream.
Ed was looking at him, eyebrow raised. “Where did you go?”
“Ahh… just thinking how really cool it is of you to bring your dad here.” How that makes me want to kiss you. Jack changed topics. “So… you really have a motorcycle?”
Ed licked his lips. “I have access to one. Why? Rebellious much?”
Ed pulled up next to Jack’s Jeep, sitting very alone in the near empty lot. “Sorry I had to cut the night short. I have to be up for work at five forty-five. Some of us can’t sleep in.”
“Hey, eight fifteen is early.” Jack tried to be serious, but Ed already knew Mondays and Tuesdays were his only early days. “It’s cool. Don’t want you falling asleep at work.”
“Yeah, I’ve had days like that before, when I pull all-nighters before a test.”
Jack’s smile drained away. “Thanks for not being mad about the whole phone mishap thing.”
“I should thank you for taking the wrong one. Hopefully it won’t take you swiping something of mine to hang out again?” Back was Ed’s mischievous grin. Jack tried to subtly adjust his pants. In about three seconds he was gonna be totally hard and it would be obvious.
What wasn’t obvious was Ed’s intentions. They behaved like they were on a date, getting to know each other, sharing slightly longer than normal looks, Ed offering to pay for the whole meal since Jack had only ordered fries.
But… how could he be sure Ed wasn’t just a nice, lonely guy wanting a friend in this small town? How could he be sure he wasn’t reading into everything because he wanted it so much? “How about I text you now that I have your number.”
“Yeah.”
God, why was it so awkward? Fuck it, just ask. “Are you free tomorrow… er… this weekend?”
Such a dork. How hard was it to ask if he was free Friday night?
“This week is pretty busy for me. I have class on Monday and Wednesday, study group on Tuesday, and something with my family on Friday, but I’m free on Thursday.” Ed smiled, and if Jack wasn’t mistaken, flushed a bit as well. “This weekend too.”
“Cool. Interested in doing something Thursday night?”
Ed turned in his seat, facing Jack. “What about Marcus? Is he going to insist on coming along?”
Jack leaned over the console slightly, narrowing the space between them by an inch. “Let him find another… friend to hang with.”
It was Ed’s turn to cut the distance. Instead, he swallowed and pulled back.
Jack deflated with disappointment and made quick work of getting out of the car.
“See you Thursday?” Ed called out to him, and Jack whipped around, plastering on a smile.
“Consider it a date.”
Chapter Five
Back at his fraternity, Harper sat on the top step between his posse with a red plastic cup in his hand. A cup Jack knew didn’t hold soda. Harper shoulder-bumped his buddies, liquid splashing over the top of his cup.
Their bet slammed back to Jack.
“Look who the cat dragged in,” Harper said with a smirk.
Jack flipped him the middle finger. The sooner Harper fucked off and out of his life, the better. He charged past them without looking back. Douches were all the same. Dad once told him stories of a dude who’d given him shit for being into his mom—Joanna, the geeky girl with glasses who snorted when she laughed. Dad had roped the guy’s bed to the roof with him in it. Said if he ever so much as said her name again, he’d kick his ass.
The guy never breathed a word again. Dad was the house hero after that. And Mom….
Jack’s stomach knotted, and he paused in the hall, glancing down the wall decorated with photos from Pi Kappa Phi’s graduates. He inched toward the one from ’89, Dad in the back row with Marcus’s dad, grinning like the best friends they were….
He touched the ring at his chest, pressing it hard against his sternum.
Fuck. He couldn’t lose this bet. This house
was the last real tie he had left….
And Marcus!
If Jack left, Marcus would almost surely pack up his bags and follow. This place meant as much to him. Marcus didn’t want to leave.
His brother didn’t think it would come down to that. He believed Jack would get a date to the formal. Believed Jack had this, no sweat. Why wouldn’t he think that when Jack had been so eager, slipping into his ass jeans earlier? How animated he’d been about meeting up with Ed to swap phones.
Then Jack had texted him not to wait up!
Marcus probably thought they had this bet in the bag.
With his sleeve, he polished the glass like he always did when he was trying to pull himself together. Ten deep breaths and he slunk to his room.
Light peeked under his door. Marcus was still up, then. Typical. No doubt he waited to grill him. Smile plastered to his face, Jack turned the knob and walked in.
Textbook open, Marcus sat with his back to the wall in a pair of boxers and a T-shirt. “Tell me we’ve got this bet in the bag?”
Marcus sounded hopeful and nervous.
“That’s the first thing out of your grill?”
“I really hope that’s a yes.”
Jack faced his closet and unbuttoned his shirt. He wouldn’t have Marcus feeling unnecessarily worried about the bet. Maybe Ed wouldn’t be his date—but he’d find someone. “Yes.”
Marcus pumped his fists. “Thank fuck! You woo the hell outta this man. No breaking up before the formal, got it?”
Jack laughed. “There sure won’t be any breaking up. What are you still doing up, anyway?”
“Studying for my phil test. We have a game on Thursday, so I’m trying to get ahead. Plus I have to prepare a couple of speeches for the election forum debate coming up. You’ll go over them for me, right?”
“Like you even have to ask.”
“Now tell me what happened with this Ed guy. All the details.”
Jack snorted. “Really? When did you become interested in two guys getting it on?”