“That’s it!”
“But that was years ago.” He would not let this conversation get awkward. Now was not the time to bring up his past. Sob stories had no place in flirting. Even a newbie knew that.
“Still makes you a Southerner at heart,” Gideon said.
“It’s not the South!”
“Same difference.” Another teasing smile. It was a visual Mac never wanted to leave his head.
“It only comes out when I’m having fun,” Mac said. Gideon’s New York accent seemed to be with him nonstop. Mac wasn’t complaining. It was a hot accent, all hard edges and brute force. “Say, what color is your cup?”
“Ahrange.”
“You meanawrenge.”
“Awrenge?” Gideon overemphasized, and it was adorable as hell. “Who saysawrenge? ‘Look at me. I’m eating anawrenge.’”
Mac shoved him away, which allowed a brief touch of his chest. Gideon might’ve flexed for him on contact, but that was inconclusive.
“It’s pronouncedahrange.” Gideon pressed a pointy finger against Mac’s chest, and Mac flexed briefly, just to let him know that he visited a weightroom regularly.
48 percent.
They continued talking about classes and dorms and the soul-sucking retail jobs they worked over the summer. The words didn’t matter. It was all a front for the looks and smiles and surreptitious touching. Flirting became kinda effortless. Instinctual. Mac wasn’t really trying anymore. He just enjoyed Gideon’s company, and the feeling seemed mutual. But the problem with talking was that it wasn’t moving the percentage needle.
Gideon illuminated Mac about what matzo balls were. “It’s like dough, almost like a wanton, but it’s made of matzo meal, which is like bread without yeast, so it’s unleavened and…it’s a ball of goodness. That’s all you need to know.”
“And you eat it all the time?”
“You’re just supposed to eat it at a Passover Seder, but my mom makes it for most holidays.”
Mac pretended to know what Gideon was talking about, which Gideon was not buying.
“Passover’s like the less fun cousin of Easter. You can’t eat bread, and we celebrate getting to wander the desert for forty years. Jesus’s last supper was a Seder.”
“Really?”
“I’m ninety-seven percent sure.” Gideon fixed his glasses on his ears, a nervous tic that only added to his cuteness. “How’d we get to talking about religion? What’s next on the list of taboo topics? Politics?”
A silence passed between them, this one Mac felt deep within him and made him grip his cup tighter. He didn’t know what to say next, but he was thinking of something fast.
“Should we try to be social?” Mac nudged his chin at the packed room. He had talked to some kids tonight, but once he saw Gideon across the room chatting away, his attention focused on getting to know the cute, tall guy. When Gideon wound up at the drinks table alone, Mac zoomed over to casually bump into him.
Gideon shrugged his apathy. He pulled out his phone. “I’m going to show you what a matzo ball looks like.”
48.4 percent.
Mac proceeded to yank out his phone. “And I’ll show you a map so you can see that West Virginia is firmly not in the South.”
“We’ve only been at Browerton for twenty-four hours, and already we’re expanding our horizons.”
Or at least they tried to. Mac’s phone was taking forever to load the image search. He refreshed, which set him back to zero. He gestured to his phone to pick up the pace, but no dice. He glanced up at Gideon, who was having similar problems.
“Everyone at the party is probably draining the Wi-Fi,” Gideon said.
And that’s when an idea caught fire in Mac’s mind. He realized that flirting only took him so far. He was circling his opponent in the boxing ring. At some point, he had to connect with a right hook. He put his hand in his pocket and clutched his four-leaf clover keychain for some good luck.
“My dorm is across the street.” Mac gulped back every last nerve. “We can just go on my computer.”
