That was when Brent arrived and wrapped an arm around Aiden’s shoulder. “He told me sandwich guy was here and this was our chance to get you out of the funk you’ve been in for weeks, and Iran.”
Aiden stared at Brent, then at Matt. “Wait. You…. Okay, I havenotbeen all that obvious about being in a less than great mood, and even if I was, how would you know it was because of—his name’sCade, not sandwich guy—how would you know it was because of him?”
Matt raised an eyebrow. “Brothers, brother! We know you.”
“And you’re not exactly secretive,” Brent added. Then he squeezed Aiden’s shoulder and spun him around to face the street. “Now, go. Get happy, if at all possible. If you can’t, come back and get drunk. It’s the next best thing.”
Aiden kind of wanted to stay and argue. Which was ridiculous, when Cade was waiting for him at the bottom of the steps.
But Cade had disappointed him before. He’d made Aiden think they were getting somewhere and then pulled back. That could happen again. The longer Aiden held off, the longer he could maintain hope that things would go differently this time.
“Go,” Matt ordered. And he pushed Aiden forward and down the steps.
Aiden let it happen. He could only stay in suspended animation for so long, and his inner optimism was starting to bubble back to the surface. Cade had never sought him out before. He’d never come by the frat or shown any real interest in Aiden as anything but an annoyance. So this was new. New and awesome, Aiden decided, and he skipped down the last couple steps.
“Not busy anymore. We take turns, and my turn’s over.”
“Oh. Good timing, I guess.”
“I guess. You want to come in?” Aiden looked at the house, then at Cade. “Or we could walk or something.”
“Walking would be great, if that’s okay.”
So they walked. And it was nice enough, except Aiden’s curiosity wasn’t really letting him enjoy things. He was about to crack and ask what the hell was going on when Cade said, “I think I’m going to get a B on my Organic Chemistry midterm.”
Aiden’s first response was to offer congratulations, but he quickly realized that wasn’t the reaction Cade would be looking for. “Oh. You were expecting an A?”
“That’s what I’ve gotten on everything else. And I studied hard. I thought I understood it all. Ididunderstand it all. But when I walked outof the exam and started talking to people, I realized I’d misunderstood one of the questions on the exam. I gave a pretty good answer to the question I thought they were asking, but I guess I didn’t read it closely enough.”
“Is this bad? Like, how bad is it? You won’t lose your scholarships or anything, will you? And you can still ace the final, right? So maybe it’s not too bad?”
Cade stopped walking and turned to face Aiden. And shockingly, he smiled. “It’s not that bad at all,” he said, and he sounded amazed. “It’s actually kind of a relief.”
“A relief?”
“I probably won’t be number one in the class this semester. I mean, Estelle might screw up somewhere, but if she doesn’t, she’ll beat me. And there are a couple other people who might too.” He shook his head and held his hands out, palms up. “And, look! The sky’s not falling! The scholarship police aren’t coming to retrieve their money and drag me back to Chicago. I still went to the library tonight and I still learned a lot, and the next time I take an exam I’ll be more careful to read the questions right, and I’ll be okay.”
“Wow,” Aiden said. He tried to keep his appreciation pure, but there was absolutely a part of his brain that was trying to figure out what this epiphany might mean forhim. “That’s great. I can totally see how that would be a relief. Congratulations.”
“Thank you,” Cade said sincerely, and they started walking again.
Aiden held off as long as he could. “So, you came to see me because you wanted to tell me about that?”
“Yeah,” Cade said, but he drew the word out a little. Enough to suggest that there was a little more to it. Finally he said, “And to apologize. Well, no, not really. I mean, youdidbulldoze over what I told you.”
“I totally did,” Aiden said quickly. “I had good intentions, but I was doing what would have mademehappy if I was you instead of thinking about what would make the real you happy.”
“Well, yeah. But it was still pretty much the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me, and you can seewhypeople might not do nice things for me if I react that way to surprises. I should have figured out a better way to… I don’t know. I wasn’t happy about how that turned out. That’s all.”
“I wasn’t happy either,” Aiden said cautiously.
Cade nodded. They were heading away from campus now, going who knew where, and they walked quietly for almost a block before Cade said, “It wasn’t a relief right away. After the exam. It took a couple days, really. At the start, I was despondent. For sure. And then I thought about you.”
“About me?”
“Yeah. I thought about walking away from you, after you’d tried so hard to… well, I don’t know exactlywhatyou were trying to do, but you were definitely trying it hard. And I shot you down. I gave up on that, because I was so worried about cramming every possible bit of information into my brain so I could pass a bunch of tests that don’t evenmeananything. I mean, there are lots of good engineers who weren’t the absolute top of their class at school, and lots of people who were at the top of their class who… who are like me.Juststudents. But we can’t work well with people or think creatively or do anything but cram information into our brains. Like poorly programmed robots.”
“Okay, hang on. I liked the first part of this, but I don’t think you’re a robot, poorly programmed or otherwise. You take stuff seriously. I think that’sgood, Cade. I really respect it.”
