Another passerby held his mouth up to the window and breathed onto the glass. It was juvenile, rude, and just plain stupid.
Ethan stifled a laugh.
As they were leaving Azucar, Preston touched Ethan’s elbow. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
Despite everything he’d witnessed in the past twelve hours, Ethan held onto a scrap of hope. He couldn’t stay angry at those green eyes.
Ethan hung back with Preston as their friends walked ahead.
“I wanted to apologize about last night,” Preston said. “I brought you to the party to help you meet our LGBT brethren at Browerton. And then I…” He glanced at Blake, gabbing away with Jessica. “Anyway, I’m sorry I disappeared on you. Did you have fun at least? I think I saw you talking to Devon. She’s cool, right?”
He realized Preston was referring to the girl Ethan had asked to dance. “Yeah.”
“She’s funny. She tells it like it is,” Preston said with a laughed. Apparently Devon had never called Preston boring. There was no harsh truth about him to uncover.
“Thanks for inviting me,” Ethan said.
“We’ll have to do it again some time.” Preston looked directly into Ethan’s eyes, and his hangover vanished. “You, me, and Blake can hit up some future parties.”
And suddenly, Ethan felt a pain inside that made a hangover seem like a paper cut.
Φ
By the time Tuesday came, Ethan didn’t care about being late to Constitutional Law. He took his time trudging past happier students. He enjoyed the crisp air breezing through the leaves and the general beauty of the Browerton campus.
Ethan entered class on slide two of Professor Sharpe’s lecture. He couldn’t get excited for it. Not when the professor viewed him as a latecomer. Maybe latecomer was a nice word for boring. For stiff. Ethan had thought college would be a fresh start for him, but perhaps he was destined to be blah no matter where he went.
He took his usual seat.
“You’re really late.” Greg was reading something about basketball on his phone. He shook a mock-concerned finger at Ethan.
Ethan didn’t have the energy to respond.
“No biting retort?”
“Not today.” Ethan focused on the professor and applied himself extra-hard to wake himself out of this funk. He figured that schoolwork was the one constant in his life he couldn’t afford to jeopardize. Yes, he was down in the dumps about his so-called boringness, but he wouldn’t let that tank his GPA and risk his future. Being a boring Supreme Court justice wouldn’t be a terrible way to spend a life.
Ethan scribbled away. He peered to the side, and Greg was copying his notes.
“I thought you didn’t care.”
“I don’t, but Sharpe is being feisty today, calling on students at random. I want to be prepared.”
“Well, take your own notes.”
“If it’s possible, you’re even less fun today,” Greg said while copying away.
He still looked like he’d rolled out of bed, but in his casual sexy way. His large, thick fingers drummed against his notebook. Ethan thought about the locker room, but then shoved the visual out of his mind.
“And what case argued for the right of legal defense in all criminal cases?” Professor Sharpe asked the class. The first student he tried didn’t know. The room stayed quiet. Ethan could hear the shame rippling through the auditorium at the kid’s screwup.
“Anyone?”
“Gideon vs. Wainwright, sir,” Greg said.
“Good. Yes…” Professor Sharpe said before launching back into his lecture.
Ethan’s eyes bulged. He hadn’t known Greg’s voice could be so booming. Ethan was not a yeller. Even when he was supposed to yell, it came out as a stern talking voice. He wished he could be one of those guys not afraid to raise his voice, even though most of the time it was super-obnoxious.
