“So, what’re you having to drink, sweet cheeks?” Liza, with her blue-tinted hair, kind face, and soft wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, asks. She snaps her gum, waiting patiently.
Sebastian doesn’t know why he bothers running his eyes over the plastic menu. He’s been to the diner enough over the last three summers. Nothing about it has changed, not the stench of grease-dripping burgers or the collection of framed vintage photos featuring Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany’s lining the pastel blue walls. The neon vinyl stools complete the nod to ’50s nostalgia.
Sebastian sits alone. He smiles at Liza. “Can I have a—?”
“Root beer, right?”
“Valerie Jones,” Sebastian says, his mouth curving slyly. Val is another girl who’s big on nicknames and never forgetting a face. It’s ironic, because Sebastian can’t forget her doe-brown eyes, sculpted rosy cheeks, and snarky smile.
She teases Sebastian with a raised eyebrow before hugging him. He reciprocates with one arm, breathing in her coconut suntan lotion.
“It’s still root beer, right?” Val asks.
Sebastian nods a confirmation for her, then Liza.
Liza rolls her eyes. He’s ordered the same thing forever, including the free slice of pie Liza slides him after every meal. “I’ll let you two catch up,” she says, snapping her gum. “Just call me when you’re ready to order the usual.” She saunters off with the limp of a grandma who’s been on her feet too long.
Val peeks around him, tilting her head. “Alone?”
Sebastian doesn’t mind being by himself. It’s easier to keep track of the team, who bookend the booths inside the diner. They’re lean but big, taking up as much space as possible. And they’re loud, rowdy guys, knocking back milkshakes and clearing their plates as if they’re starved. The slop here beats anything the dining hall produces.
Sebastian’s head has been stuck on Emir. That doesn’t make for good conversation with this wild bunch. It’s not that he can’t talk about his attraction to dudes, it’s just that—well, the team hasn’t made their minds up about Emir yet.
Neither has Sebastian.
“Just chilling,” he says with his best laid-back shrug.
“Still the babysitter?”
“I prefer the term ‘Big Brother.’”
“Bastian,” Val says, skeptically, “you’re half the size of some of those beasts.” Her nose wrinkles at him in an intensely loveable way.
“Enjoy,” Liza says, sliding him his drink. An extra scoop of ice cream sends root beer burbling over the rim and a cherry sits on top. “Hey! You make a mess, you’re licking it up!” She scurries to a table stuffed with defensive players.
Val’s chin is on her knuckles. She fills their silence with eyebrow wiggles and grins. They’ve always been good at replacing useless words with goofy facial expressions.
“Are you alone?” he asks.
Val jerks a thumb toward a corner booth where three gorgeous girls share a plate of fries drenched in ketchup. Their fine cheekbones and shiny hair scream “Private School Life.” “Friends from school,” Val explains.
Sebastian makes a horrified face.
Val rolls her eyes. “They’re visiting for the weekend. Brunch with my parents tomorrow ’cause my life is so glamorous.” She twirls a finger around her head. Val doesn’t take anything too seriously, except for Mason Riley. Well, she did take him seriously, but a lifetime happens between summers.
“They look like fun,” teases Sebastian.
“Oh, yeah,” Val says, playing along. “About as much as future sorority-row, trophy-wives-in-training can be.”
Sebastian lets Val steal a sip of his drink. She crinkles her nose, gags, and passes it back. “Awful.” Then, seriously, she asks, “Are you still with Sam?”
Somewhere between the breakup and realizing he didn’t love Sam, Sebastian developed a certain face at the mention of her. Mason told him the expression makes him look like a zombie, which is fair, since he was pretty dead during the last half of their relationship.
“Ouch,” Val says, holding back a laugh. “That bad?”
“Kinda.”
Behind Sebastian, Mason is holed up at a table with Willie, Hunter, and Charlie. Judging by all the hand gestures and Macbeth-like reenactments, it’s obvious Mason is talking about the family trip to California three years ago.
Val gives him an equally undead look when Sebastian turns back to her, so he avoids broaching the subject. She sighs. “It’s like us.” She lowers her chin.
“Yeah?”
“It’s for the best. It’s my last year of high school.” Val’s lips twist into a smirk. “Carpe diem and all that shit they teach us.”
Sebastian chuckles and swigs from his soda.
“I’m going to design school in Paris.”
Sebastian’s eyes widen. Val’s voice sounds certain as she explains her plans; her next four years are mapped out. He’s blown away, mainly because Sebastian has no idea what he’s going to do with his next four months besides play soccer. He’s jealous of people who are certain of their future before it happens. How can anyone know what they’ll do with their whole lives, when he can’t figure out where or even if he’s going to college? But here’s Val, not having a single panic attack about life after high school.
“It’s great,” Val continues, as though he hasn’t been lost in space. She tucks a lock of hazelnut-colored hair behind her ear. “I’m in control of what my life looks like after graduation. I can decide whenever.”
It all sounds so easy. Once she’s away from high school and not worried about silly romances, she’ll have it all together. Sebastian doesn’t believe it’s that simple, but he likes the dream she’s selling.
Also, Mason is a total douche-canoe for letting her go. Sebastian doesn’t tell her, because it’s clear she’s already had that epiphany.
“So that’s it?”
“Life goes on after high school, Bastian.” Her hand covers his on the counter. “We all move on.”
Sebastian wants to tell her life is impossible to figure out. How does he silence all the huge, monstrous fears biting at his mind?
“Well, well,” Mason interrupts, sliding between them before Sebastian can get a word out. His back and elbows rest against the counter as he eyes Val wolfishly. “Looking good, Jones.”
“Good to know,” she says.
Mason’s face goes blank, then confused.
“Well,” Val says, hopping off her stool. She leans over Mason to kiss Sebastian’s cheek. “Always good to see you, Bastian.” She saunters back to her table.
Mason’s jaw tightens; his fingers curl and uncurl at his sides.
“Mace, do you—”
“Let’s get out of here, bro,” Mason says with a snarl, breathing heavily. He glares at the empty stool as if Val will magically reappear, and then jerks his head toward the door. “I heard Zach found some townie to buy beer.”
Mason and Willie are opposites when it comes to discussing the F-word: feelings. That’s not Mason’s thing. When Sam broke up with Sebastian, Mason punched him in the shoulder and passed him a Heineken. “Drink it away” is Mason’s motto, his coping mechanism. Sebastian blames Mason’s dad ditching him and his five younger sisters. Mason’s claim to fame is being a soccer god in Bloomington and a badass. Alcohol camouflages the scars from his youth, but strength isn’t measured by a guy’s ability to drain a six-pack and not cry.
Mason looks ready to rip a hole in someone’s chest when he snaps, “Let’s go, man.”
Sebastian sighs. Mason gathers the other players while Sebastian checks with Liza to make sure all the tabs are taken care of.
He doesn’t even get his free slice of pie.
* * *
Three hours and four Michelobs later, Sebastian wonders if the entire night was a spectacularly awful idea.
He’s still very sober, so he doesn’t understand why walking a straight line should be so difficult, unless it’s because he has a nearly two-hundred-pound slug named Zach hanging on him. They’ve been struggling to make it to Zach’s cabin for ten minutes. Bearing most of Zach’s weight, Sebastian anticipates their eventual collapse into the dirt.
“Bro, the ground is…” Zach pauses to hiccup, then laugh, and says, “moving.”
Decision made: This night is the worst.
Most of the team made it back before curfew, though some were toppling over like building blocks. The sober ones, cranky freshmen, try to help where they can. “No brother left behind” is the golden rule among the Lions, a rule Sebastian’s dying to break because Zach’s exhaling rank, basement-ass beer breath in his face.
“Do you see it? We’re, like, hovering.”
“We’re not,” Sebastian tries, but Zach’s already on another tangent.
Sebastian’s friends are no help. Mason’s taking a leak on a bush. Hunter is sprawled in the back seat of Mason’s car with his head in Willie’s lap as Willie destroys a John Mayer song with his off-key singing. No, Willie, your body is not a wonderland. Sebastian’s on his own, doing a mental headcount as he lugs Zach over dirt and pebbles.
“I can fly!”
“Shut up.” Sebastian has one arm around the small of Zach’s back. Zach is freakishly tall, something Sebastian isn’t jealous of. But it makes this whole tandem-walking thing weird. “You’re gonna wake the coaches,” he warns, as if that might work.
“Then they’ll see I can fly!” Zach’s eyes are shadowed by his disheveled hair, but the moon shines off their hazel color.
“Perfect.”
At this rate, weight training in the fall won’t be necessary.
“I love you, man,” Zach slurs, head lolling to one side. “Like, you’re my bro and my captain and—”
“Okay, got it.” Sebastian carefully prevents Zach from teetering over. If he can get Zach to focus a little, they’ll make it to the door before he turns twenty-one.
Sebastian lets Zach talk, because Zach can concentrate on his limbs when he’s yapping about whatever’s on his mind. Zach badgers him about always being sober, something Sebastian does for his benefit. And, for the record, beer tastes like sour mouthwash and bile. No one is convincing Sebastian otherwise, not even the guys.
“I’m not wasted,” declares Zach.
“Not at all,” Sebastian lies. Zach stumbles, and Sebastian’s legendary reflexes kick in. He stops Zach from face-planting into a bush.
Zach mumbles gratitude before launching into a story about that time Sebastian did get loose with the guys. At Carl’s last party. Sebastian was just so done with Sam’s shit, he had a healthy hit off Mason’s joint, coughing violently before mellowing out with vodka. He was a champ for not passing out, or flirting with a wall, as Jack did.
“Dude!” Zach gasps as if he’s been kicked in the face. “I totally did something stupid, didn’t I?”
“Well.” Sebastian considers listing all the things Zach did. He can’t hold in “You nearly puked all over Val’s friend.”
Zach turns pale. “Was she pretty?”
“They were all pretty.”
And they were, not that Sebastian flirted with any of them. One girl, with eyes like a Disney woodland creature and an uneven smile, was cute. He usually would’ve at least made an attempt to flirt, with his corny jokes, but tonight he couldn’t get past how her eyes were green instead of gray thunderclouds. Massive downer.
“So,” Zach says, tipping forward, “I didn’t get her number?”
“Nope.”
Zach and that girl would’ve had a lovely story to tell their grandchildren about how they met: “Yep, I nearly blew chunks in her hair and then asked her to the movies!” More romantic comedies should start that way.
“She wasn’t interested anyway.” Zach vainly attempts to stand erect. “She had goals, and a high school loser like me wasn’t good enough.”
“Hey,” Sebastian says. “You’re not a loser, Zach.” Obnoxious when he’s drunk? Sure. But not a loser.
Zach grins lopsidedly, as if he almost believes Sebastian. Guys like him—Zach lives in a rundown home with a chain-smoking father who would rather yell at the TV than come to any of Zach’s games—don’t always win the cheerleader types. Zach isn’t what Sebastian would call fragile, but anyone’s entire universe can be shattered when it involves approval from family or someone you’re attracted to.
“Maybe she heard you were a virgin,” Sebastian says with a labored chuckle. Humor is always good medicine for unhealthy thoughts.
Zach, shitfaced and wobbly, scoffs. “I am not. I get plenty of tail.”
“That’s not what the girls in Bloomington say.”
“Liar!” Zach smacks a hand over his eyes, sputtering. “You’re a dick, Hughes.”
Sebastian pauses so Zach can regain his breath. He leans over as if he might finally hurl. Sebastian hopes not. These are his favorite low top Chuck Taylors; the fabric is worn and faded.
“Cool?”
It takes a second before Zach nods, pulling a grin out of thin air. “You should’ve scored with someone tonight. Get over the whole Sam thing, you know?”
That’s all Sebastian is, right? Soccer, graduation, and Sam. These days, Sebastian wants his life to be made up of soccer, soccer, and more soccer. But he’s over it, the Sam part. Some exes are just a sentence in the story of life, not the defining chapter with all the drama and awesome climax.
“Maybe next time?” Sebastian offers.
“Yes! Next time, I’m so gonna get you laid,” Zach says. “That’s life goals, bro.”
Great. This is all Mason’s fault, like so many things in Sebastian’s life, and he’ll make Mason suffer for not helping him drag Zach around.
Zach yawns. Sebastian grimaces because, really? Zach has the nerve to be tired when it’s Sebastian who has Mount freakin’ Olympus hanging off his shoulders?
“Are we there yet?”
“Dude, are you shitting me, like—”
“Hey.”
Sebastian barely recognizes the groggy, soft voice before another arm loops around Zach’s back. He inclines forward, a difficult task considering how bulky Zach is. Emir’s sleep-mussed hair and weary gray eyes heighten his moody expression.
“What are you—?”
Emir grunts at Sebastian. “You looked like you were about to die.”
I am. Sebastian smiles.
Emir yawns, then makes a disgusted face. “He stinks.”
Sebastian, no longer carrying the weight of Godzilla on his own, laughs until the knot of frustration unravels in his belly. He doesn’t care if Zach balks because, for once, he’s not trying to save one of his teammates’ asses on his own. When he strains to gaze around Zach, Emir’s amused expression greets him.
“So,” Emir says as they lurch closer to Zach’s cabin, “do you do this often?”
Sebastian says, “No, but… I’m the only one who watches over them,” to his feet. He’s not embarrassed but sometimes saying the truth out loud makes it sound worse than it is.
“Huh.”
“And I could’ve done it by myself,” Sebastian says hastily, but that’s not being defensive. He just doesn’t want anyone calling him a victim.
“You think so?”
“Maybe?” Sebastian’s not sure. “I was almost there.”
Emir pffts, and it forces Sebastian to accept that, nope, he wasn’t all that close.
Behind Zach’s back, their hands brush occasionally, fingers almost linking as they try to realign him. Goosebumps spread from Sebastian’s neck to his chest. The touch of Emir’s soft hand has him dizzy, a problem he’s never had with other guys. It’s scary, because that puts Emir in the small category of Guys Sebastian’s Been Attracted To.
“Did we wake you?” The stranglehold his throat has around his words mortifies him.
He can’t tell if Emir is nodding or shaking his head until Emir says, “Still can’t sleep proper around here.”
Sebastian hums. The whole night, including this moment, is a train wreck.
And to add to it, Zach says, “Well, if it isn’t the great Emir Shah,” as if he’s just noticed Emir is under the wing of his arm. “So, what’s your story?”
“My what?” Emir cranes back.
By tugging Zach in his direction, Sebastian desperately tries to make sure they all don’t eat dirt.
“Your story, man,” Zach says, exasperated. “No one knows you.”
“I like it that way.”
Sebastian’s brow furrows. It’s not the answer he expected. Then again, nothing about Emir has been predictable.
“Oh, come on, man,” Zach says. “Everyone needs a story.” He stops, causing Sebastian to groan, before he considers Emir. “What are you? Brainiac? Band geek? Art geek? Goth? You’re definitely not part of the jock crowd.”
“I’m not a stereotype.” Emir glares as if he might just drop Zach, but he doesn’t, and Sebastian is relieved.
“Okay, but you’re very,” Zach says, then takes a deep breath, “quiet. It’s scary. How are you going to make friends with us?”
“I’m not here to make friends.”
Things are seconds from going nuclear. Sebastian tries to walk a little faster, but it’s difficult since neither Zach nor Emir is cooperating. He’s tired and confused by Emir’s constant hot-and-cold vibe. All he wants is his bed and for everyone to shut up.
“Are you playing the weird-kid angle?” asks Zach, hacking a laugh at Emir’s scowl.
“I’m not playing anything—”
“When we were kids,” Zach barrels on, “you didn’t say a word unless Bastian was around.”
“Zach,” warns Sebastian, because he doesn’t need this right now.
“No, no,” Zach says. “What’s wrong with the rest of us? I don’t get it. I don’t get you, Shah.”
Sebastian almost drops Zach trying to read Emir’s face. He’s red all over and breathing hard; his eyes are glassy. His jaw works as though a mouthful of profanity is going to fly out, but he doesn’t say anything. He glares straight ahead. It’s a girl-from-The-Exorcist vibe.
Zach swings his arms off both of them. He stumbles, then regains his balance. Puffing boozy breath, he smirks over his shoulder at Emir. “Here’s a tip, Shah: We’re a family on this team—”
“Zach, man, please,” Sebastian begs.
But Zach continues, “If you want in, you better learn there are more guys than your superhero Bastian.”
Zach sways side to side, then stumbles up the porch. He thuds his shoulder into the door a few times before it pops open. Then, it smacks shut.
Sebastian turns, whispering, “Emir,” but it’s useless.
Highlighting his shaking shoulders and red face, moonlight haloes Emir. Tears haven’t drowned his eyelashes, but they’re threatening. “I need to get to bed,” he says in a broken voice.
“Wait, just let me—”
“Here’s a fun fact: Everyone in high school is a dick,” Emir snaps. He waves a hand around. “Your friends aren’t excluded.” He wipes a finger across his left cheek, giving Sebastian just enough time to pull something poignant out of his ass.
The words never come. At least, not until Emir stomps off, head hanging and fists shaking.
“Thank you.”