The chocolate chips congeal in my mouth as my appetite vanishes, replaced by a knot of dread that makes each swallow an effort.
“I know you’re not faking it.” Elliot takes a bite of pancake and chews thoughtfully. “The way you watch him? The way you light up when someone mentions his name? That’s real. So, when you’re roller skating to whatever ridiculous song you picked?—”
“‘Xanadu,’” I supply weakly.
“Jesus Christ. When you’re skating to ‘Xanadu,’ stop trying to perform as a perfect boyfriend and just be with him. The rest will handle itself.”
I stare at my plate, processing this. “When did you become the team therapist?”
“When I started dating the human golden retriever over there.” He nods toward Gerard, who’s now demonstrating the proper way to tuck a penis into boxers using a banana. “Someone has to be the voice of reason in this house.”
“That’s not possible!” Nathan shrieks as Gerard does something truly horrifying with the banana.
“It is for me!” Gerard protests. “Elliot, tell him.”
Will leans back in his chair, grinning at me. “Drew, did Jackson agree to skate with you?”
“He did. It’s going to be the show of a lifetime,” I say with more confidence than I currently have in me.
“I still think it’s fake,” one of the freshmen pipes up.
“Your mom’s fake,” I shoot back because I’m twelve years old.
“Solid comeback,” Elliot mutters beside me.
The conversation devolves into everyone arguing about what’s fake and what’s real, including Gerard’s claim that hispenis needs a full hour of boner flexing each morning to maintain its power.
“Drew!” Francisco’s voice cuts through the chaos. “Tell us about the time you tried to do a backflip on skates!”
“And you gave yourself a concussion!” Nathan adds shamelessly.
“It was amildconcussion,” I say.
“You thought Kyle was your mom for three hours,” Oliver points out.
“To be fair, Kyle was being weirdly nurturing.”
“I gave you ice,” Kyle says flatly. “That’s not nurturing.”
“You held it on my head for twenty minutes!”
“Because you kept trying to throw it away!”
The table erupts in laughter, and I let myself get pulled into the familiar rhythm of a team breakfast. Some of them might doubt my relationship with Jackson, but they’re still my family.
“More pancakes?” Elliot asks, already standing.
“Always,” I say, holding out my plate.
He takes it, then pauses. “You’re going to be fine, Drew. Better than fine.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah, I do. Because you have something most people don’t.”
“Sexiness and a killer ass?”
He rolls his eyes. “You have Jackson.”
