CHAPTER twenty-seven
In Con Law, Greg rubbed Ethan’s leg and stroked his forearm. When he smiled at him, a thoughtful stare laid just beneath his smirk. The spark of their relationship crackled between them.
Until somebody turned around.
The annoying girl in front craned her neck, probably curious why things were so quiet. The second her hair swished, Greg flinched back and tucked his hands in his lap. Things had changed, yet they’d also stayed the same. To Ethan, their relationship still reminded him a lot of their arrangement. Which wasn’t horrible, but it didn’t make him jump anymore.
A few nights later, Lorna invited Ethan to have dinner with her at her sorority house.
“Are you sure?” Ethan asked. “It’s okay that I’m not a member?”
“Well, there’s a reason you’re not a member of my sorority,” Lorna deadpanned. “I’m allowed to bring friends to meals. Tonight is fish tacos.”
Ethan’s grin stretched across his face. Not because of the fish taco part. Lorna calling him a friend. He supposed they’d been friends this whole time, with or without alcohol.
Lorna’s sorority was nestled in the corner of the sorority quad, which had a wall around it. A vast difference from the frat quad, which was an open space. Naturally, when the quads were built in the 1800s, the school built the wall to better protect chaste, innocent sorority girls from the ravenous, boner-centric fraternity boys.
She led Ethan through a living room still decorated as if it was in the 1950s. Ornate, old furniture. Flowery wallpaper. A girl reading on a fainting couch by the fireplace. It was funny to Ethan to think of Lorna fitting in here. Downstairs, the dining area was a step up from the regular dining hall. Silver serving trays held fresh food, and the real silverware was just as classic and well-maintained as the décor.
“Thanks again for inviting me,” Ethan said.
“Of course!”
“Has Jessica said anything to you about me?”
“That would require her to talk to me. So no.”
Ethan went up to grab some food. He quickly realized that he had the biggest appetite in this room. His plate was twice as full as those of his tablemates. Some of the girls giggled at his dinner pile.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be. This always happens whenever a guy eats with us,” Lorna said. She picked at her taco and poured salsa over it.
Ethan had a great time at dinner. Besides the delicious food, he really enjoyed spending time with Lorna and her sisters sober. They remembered him from the tailgate and praised his flip cup skills. The table discussed potential Halloween costumes for that weekend. He had never met people over the age of eight who put so much thought into a costume. He talked so much that he couldn’t finish his food. It ached a little to know he had wasted so much time being quiet and not making waves with Jessica and his friends. He wondered how many of these great conversations he’d missed out on in the past.
Soon enough, Halloween discussion turned to parties. One of Lorna’s sisters, who had cleavage that pulled you in like a tractor beam, turned to Ethan and bit her lip.
“So, Ethan, I have to ask. Do you have Halloween plans?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Because there’s this off-campus party, and my friend Henry is going to be there. I think you two would really hit it off.”
Ethan stumbled for an answer. “Um, cool.”
He locked eyes with Lorna, who seemed to understand immediately. “June, stop trying to play pimp.”
“Matchmaker!”
“When you do it, you’re a pimp. Big hat and all.” Lorna held out her hand to June. “I love you dearly, but you have the worst track record when it comes to setting people up.”
“Fine. I won’t set them up. Ethan, you should still come to the party.”
Ethan nodded, but it didn’t sit right with him. Technically—very technically—he had a boyfriend. Maybe. Or not. He and Greg had never made anything official, but they’d said they were falling for each other and they’d had sex. Not dirty, drunk, party, fucking sex. Soul-connecting, making-love sex, which had to count for something. They were something resembling a potential couple. Only they couldn’t be together in public without a friend buffer. He didn’t know how to explain it to June, to Lorna, to himself.
What are we?
He had what he wanted—Greg. He should be happy and stop caring how others perceived him. Still, as he looked down at his one fish taco left, it hit him that he and Greg had never eaten a meal together. How could they be considered a couple? Relationship drama and complications were like Rubik’s Cubes to him.
Later, Ethan and Lorna were the only ones left at the table, sharing an ice cream sundae. Ethan swirled his spoon in the melted soup at the bottom.
“What’s wrong?” Lorna asked.
“Should I stay Greg’s secret?”
“Do you want my opinion, or do you want me to tell you what you want to hear?” Lorna savored a spoonful of vanilla.
“He said he needs time. And I get it. You know, coming out isn’t something that happens overnight. So if I have to wait, then I’ll wait, okay?”
Lorna shot him a look that cut through all of Ethan’s rationalizing.
“That all makes sense,” she said. “If he had any intention of coming out.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? He doesn’t want to stay in closet. It’s difficult.”
“Is it for him?” She threw her spoon onto the table. He had never seen her angry. The red in her face seemed to make the red in her hair glow even brighter. “He has everything he wants just the way he wants it. His bros, his double major, his secret boyfriend. Why would he want to rock the status quo?”
The comment cut Ethan to the quick. Lorna didn’t pull punches, which was great until you found yourself in her crosshairs.
“Look, I understand coming out is a hard process. I can’t imagine what it’s like, and I don’t believe anyone should be pushed.” Her eyes softened, and she reached out for his hand. “But is he making an effort? Is he trying to work through this? If not for himself, then for you. He can’t expect you to keep quiet forever.”
Ethan scraped the last bits of chocolate sauce out of the bowl. He liked the excitement of the secrecy, but perhaps that was just a temporary high. It was temporary, not forever. His daydreams about being Greg’s boyfriend never involved him hiding.
He shot Lorna a crooked half-smile. Ethan was in a relationship with a hot, smart, funny guy who seemed to get him. He knew that was rare to find, especially in college. It should have been enough, but something nagged at him. Something tugged at the one loose string in this perfectly knit union.
He tossed his spoon into the dish, clanging against the glass. “Thanks for dinner.”
Φ
Ethan knew Lorna would be at her sorority house for most of the night. It gave him the perfect opportunity to check in on her roommate. He shook out his hand and psyched himself up before knocking on Jessica’s door.
“Lorna isn’t here.” Jessica wore her favorite Browerton sweater and flannel pajamas, as well as Ethan’s least favorite facial expression: the face pinch. Jessica immediately had her walls up.
Ethan couldn’t let that stop him.
“I’m sorry about getting drunk in your room with Lorna.” He searched for the right words, without letting on that he knew about her dad. “I know you don’t like drinking, and I should have respected that in here.”
He could almost hear her wall cracking slightly, the bricks scraping apart.
“I appreciate that.”
“If it makes you feel better, I got real sick the next morning.”
“Preston told me. He said he’s never heard such violent throwing up before, and he spent a summer as a camp medic.” Jessica took her hand off the door, which Ethan took as a cue to enter. Neither of them chose to sit. Ethan’s nerves kept him upright, and he assumed the same for her.
“Did you really think that we would actively exclude you when we went out?” Jessica asked, almost hurt. “You’re my friend.”
Ethan’s throat tightened, and tears blurred his vision. The good kind of tears. He didn’t realize how much those words could mean.
“You didn’t know me in high school,” Ethan said in a scratchy voice. “I got excluded a lot.”
He realized that he was sensitive about being left out in the same way that she was sensitive about getting drunk. To the outside world, they were weird quirks, but to friends, they made perfect sense. The past was always in their present.
He refused to wait for cues or for walls to come down. He hugged her—lightly at first until she squeezed him back.
“How did you know we were at the movies?” she asked him.
Ethan stammered for a second and hoped she didn’t catch it. “I saw you guys go into the theater.”
“But how did you know we saw Liberation?” She was going to make a fantastic journalist.
They were friends, and friends deserved the truth.
“I was in that showing, in the back row. Hooking up with a guy.”
Her eyes nearly flew out of their sockets. The girl who loved to argue was rendered speechless. She made sure to close the door before asking in a hushed tone, “What do you mean by hooking up, exactly?”
How much truth did Jessica deserve? Ethan worried about her response. His arrangement with Greg was a lot of truth bombs to absorb and completely went against everything she knew about him. But if she’s really my friend, then she’s not going anywhere. Ethan sucked in a deep breath and gobbled up his remaining courage.
“He gave me slob—a blowjob.”
That she had to sit down for. Ethan stared at the floor and stretches of carpet peeked out from Jessica’s mess.
“I’ve been hooking up with this fraternislut—this guy—around campus. An empty office, the library, Slevin concert hall.”
“I’ve seen shows there!” she said in a sharp how-dare-you tone. Her words sent a burn through his chest. In that moment, though, Ethan didn’t regret telling her. If this was how their friendship would end, at least he didn’t blend into the background and let himself fade away.
Nobody said anything. The dorm was too quiet. The silence gnawed at Ethan’s ears.
And then a laugh busted out of Jessica’s mouth. Even she seemed surprised at it. “Wow.”
“I know. I can’t believe it either.”
“Well, um…” Her eyebrows wiggled around her forehead as she searched for an answer. She settled into a state of calm and looked Ethan in the eye. “Good for you.”
“Really?”
“You’ve been acting different, but you also seem happier. You’ve had this glow about you.”
“Fresher?” He remembered Lorna’s word choice, and it felt more than applicable.
“Yeah, that’s a good word for it. At first, I thought it was the booze or drugs. I’m glad it’s something else. You really seem to like him.”
Ethan had never seen her act so genuine, so caring. He couldn’t believe she saw all of that. He was happier with Greg, and not just because of the sex or the secrecy. Just being around him lifted Ethan up.
“I really do,” he said. “So we’re good?”
“Yes. I’m still a little creeped out that you were getting some a few rows behind us, and you can save all the gory details for Lorna.” There was that laugh again. “But yes.”
A tsunami of relief washed over him. Things were good between them, better than they’d ever been before. As much as Ethan enjoyed having his dirty little secret, honesty felt much more satisfying.
“Maybe I can meet this guy soon,” she said.
Determination gelled within him. “Maybe you will.”