It might be dark, but I notice the blush spreading across his face. “It’s been years since we last saw each other. It was nothing more than two people catching up, if you can even call it that. He did all the talking.”
“He talked because he was excited and happy to see you again.”
“Oliver wouldn’t be the captain of the team if he were shy.”
“Ryan, you’re deflecting.”
He sighs wearily. “What do you want me to say, Jackson? Seeing him again made my stomach twist into knots? That I spent three hours after the Polar Bear Plunge searching everyone’s social media for photos of him? That I’ve been thinking about those three years we were neighbors more in the past two days than I have in the past decade?”
“I mean, yeah. That’s exactly what I want you to say.”
He shoves me, barely, before burying his face in his hands. “I’m mortified.”
“Welcome to the club. You can be the VP.”
“At least you hang out with your crush.”
We sit in silence for a few minutes, passing the thermos back and forth. Despite the cold, there’s something peaceful about being up here, removed from the chaos of campus life. No Ice Queen, no unrequited crushes, no pressure to be anything other than two friends enjoying the wonders of the universe.
“There!” Ryan suddenly points to the eastern part of the horizon. “Do you see it?”
I lean in close and follow his outstretched finger toward the star-choked sky. At first, it all looks the same—a wild, glittering mess of pinpricks. But then, to the right of Orion’s Belt, something shifts. A brilliant point of light streaks across the black, slicing its way through the distant constellations.
I tell myself it must be a plane on the way to Boston, but then I register that there’s no blinking and no sound. Just a pure, clean arc moving with a calm, inhuman confidence. It’s nothing like the cartoonish shooting stars you see in commercials or sappy movie montages. This sucker is slow. Determined. Absolute.
I can’t stop staring as it burns a silent trail through the atmosphere. “Holy shit.”
Ryan scrambles for the binoculars and thrusts them at me, knocking over the thermos in the process and splashing a dot of hot chocolate onto the blanket. I press the cold metal to my face and line up the comet in the tiny, jittering field of view. Through the lenses, the comet explodes into color and motion. It’s beauty as I’ve never seen before. I stare until my vision blurs and my hands cramp.
Sneaking a glance at Ryan, I smile at how his eyes are shining in a way that has nothing to do with the wind and the cold.
I try to picture what it’d be like if Drew were here. Would he be into it, or would he make snarky comments about the lack of Wi-Fi? Would he and Ryan get along, or would it be a disaster?
The more I think about it, the less sure I am. All the certainty I felt about Drew, all the desperate hope and longing, is suddenly as fragile as a diamond. Maybe that’s the point—nothing is permanent. Not even the things you think will last forever.
When the comet finally leaves the night sky, I sigh and lean back. A faint afterimage remains in my mind, and I stare up at the empty spot where it had last been. Part of me is relieved that it’s gone. But another part of me wants to chase it, to follow it all the way out into the void.
Ryan remains quiet for a while before speaking. “We’ll be in our sixties the next time another comet passes through the same path.”
The thought hits me weirdly. In forty-seven years, where will I be? Will Drew and I still be friends? Will I have told him the truth? Will any of it even matter then? I guess only time will tell.
12
DREW
Hot water sluices over my sore muscles after another grueling practice. All I want is to enjoy some quiet and think about what’s for dinner. But no, Gerard has to shout from the top of his lungs, even though he’s only three shower heads away from me, “Drew’s got a boyfriend! Drew’s got a boyfriend!” He’s singing—if you can call that warbling a song—while soaping up his massive frame and shaking his ass for good measure.
“Shut the fuck up, Gunnarson.” I grab my shampoo bottle and consider chucking it at his head. “Jackson is not my boyfriend.”
“The Ice Queen thinks otherwise,” Oliver chimes in from the other side of the communal shower. His voice echoes off the tiles and slams itself into the migraine building in my head.
Why did I foolishly think this was going to blow over? Just because nobody said a damn thing about it to me since her post went live this morning doesn’t mean they weren’t thinking about it.
“The Ice Queen can suck my left nut,” I mutter, working shampoo through my hair with more aggression than necessary.
“Ooh, kinky!” Gerard laughs, waggling his eyebrows for emphasis. “But seriously, Drew. Youtend to stare at Jackson as if he hung the moon and then offered to let you lick it. And you dida lotof staring at the beach.”
“I was cold. My eyes were simply frozen in his direction.”
