“Thanks,” he recovered, shoving the books aside and standing up.
“Heads up.”
I tossed him the bundle, and he caught it with a grin, turning it around in his hands. Then he ripped the plastic and tore it back, exposing the wool and leather. “Nice.”
Extracting the jacket, he turned it around so that I could see the back, where RIKKER was spelled out.
“Well, put it on already,” I said. “You know you want to.”
He smiled again, because I was right. “What is it about these things, anyway? It’s just a jacket. But…”
But it waseverything. “I dunno,” I said. “Maybe it’s that you have to bust your ass six days a week for seven months a year to own one?”
He slid one arm into the jacket. “That must be it.” He pulled it on, straightening the shoulders. He spun around once. “I’m in.”
If it were any other guy in the world, I would have said “lookin’ good,” or something like that. And he did, of course. But I didn’t trust myself. “You’re in,” I agreed.
Rikker took two steps across his tiny room to reach the little closet in the corner. From there he yanked another jacket, this one red with blue sleeves. “Funny. I thought I was in when they gave me this,” he said, showing me the Saint B's logo. “I don’t even know why I kept this thing. Probably out of spite.”
“What happened there, anyway?”Ack. Even as I asked, I knew it was the wrong thing to do. I should have just gotten the hell out of there. But the question had been burning a hole in my brain, and it kind of slipped out.
Rikker’s smile turned wry. “Now there’s a cautionary tale.” He shoved the Saint B's jacket back into the closet.
“You don’t have to tell me.”
With a shrug, he sat down on the edge of his bed. And when he raised those big brown eyes to mine, I couldn’t have looked away to save my life. “There was a photo of me, and I sure as hell didn’t know it had been taken.”
“A photo,” I repeated, like an idiot.
He wiggled his eyebrows. “You know, aphoto. Anyway, during the spring term, my fuck buddy decided he wanted more than I was willing to give him. He got mad at me, and he emailed the picture to the coach. I got chucked off the team the next day.”
It was a real struggle to keep my face impassive, given all that I’d just heard. The first thought that hit me was howuglythat betrayal was. My second thought was:but I hurt him worse.
And lastly:Rikker had a fuck buddy. I tucked that away to think about later.
“God,” I said finally. “How did you not know about the picture?”
He shook his head, that lopsided smile on his face. “Well, when he took it, I had his balls in my mouth. Couldn’t exactly see what he was doing with his hands.”
I laughed, but it came out sounding like a choking fit, as I struggled to fight off that image — of Rikker kneeling down in front of…Jesus Christ, I might get hard just thinking about it. “What a jackass,” I said, wondering how to change the subject.
“You think? I heard Big-D telling somebody in the locker room the other day, ‘hey, never stick it in crazy!’ I wanted to say that it was true for men too. But I didn’t want to get my ass kicked.”
Another bark-like laugh escaped me, and I could feel myself blushing. My face was probably as red as his Saint B's jacket by now. We both chuckled for a minute, but then it died back to silence.
And now I was having trouble meeting his eyes. So mine roamed the room. “Hey, is that you on a snowboard?” There was a picture tacked up over his desk. It was the only thing on the wall, actually. It showed two figures suspended in the air, mid-jump. And even though they were covered in a whole lot of cold weather gear, the one nearest to the camera had Rikker’s lazy smile.
“Yeah! It only took us about thirty tries to get that picture.” He smiled at the photo, as if remembering the day. “You ever tried snowboarding? It’s pretty great.”
I shook my head. “Michigan is still flat, just in case you forgot. That’s why we skate, remember? Looks like fun. But I’m not sure I’d like that feeling of having my feet tied together.”
“That takes some getting used to.”
I found myself leaning back against the doorframe, continuing the conversation instead of cutting it short. That’s not what I came up here to do. But I’d missed this. How many hours had Rikker and I spent just shooting the shit during the three years of our friendship? A thousand? Probably more. After he’d left, there was nobody I’d ever been so close to.
Christ, that was depressing.
“…A snowboard is just another blade, with edges, right?” Rikker was saying. “So it shocked the hell out of me that I couldn’t even stand up on the thing. And my high school boyfriend was like, just do this.” Rikker made a hand motion of someone zig-zagging down a mountain.
