It was oddly balanced.
“So, how’s school?” Alex asked once Wyatt had ordered three meals for himself in turn and I’d ordered a measly one burger and fries.
Wyatt shrugged, swallowing half his milkshake in one gulp before he finally offered a verbal response. “It’s fine.”
“That’s a lie,” Alex said lightly, just stating a fact rather than being confrontational about it.
Wyatt paused, then snorted as he looked over at my husband. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
Alex chuckled, nodding slightly as if he’d known all along that Wyatt was going to confess to having fibbed. “What grade are you in?”
“I’m a junior.”
“Public school?”
“Yeah.” Wyatt’s eyes narrowed. “We literally just left the school I go to.”
Alex nodded again, just as slowly, as if he hadn’t wanted to assume Wyatt went to the school where the meet had taken place but had suspected. “I went private. My whole life.”
Wyatt sniffed. “Figures.”
I braced myself for tension, but Alex just leaned back and shot him a grin. “What’s public school like? I don’t know much about it, honestly. Lockers. Metal detectors. Fire drills that aren’t really about fire.”
“You didn’t have metal detectors?” Wyatt asked with a hint of disbelief in his tone. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.” Alex shook his head. “We did have lockers, though. Just not the regular type.”
My brother frowned. “What other type is there?”
“The type that come with mini-fridges and a cleaning service.” Alex winked at him, his tone self-deprecating instead of judgmental. “It’s stupid, right? I mean, who needs a mini-fridge in their locker?”
Wyatt considered the question before he grimaced. “I wouldn’t mind one.”
Alex laughed. “Fair enough, but still, it’s a little ridiculous.”
The first meals came out and both guys tucked in like they’d never seen food before. I picked at my fries as the resulting silence fell, but to my surprise, Wyatt was the one who restarted the conversation when his burger was done.
“They suck,” he said without any explanation or preamble.
Aggravation threatened to tighten my insides. He usually loved this place. Now, suddenly, the burgers sucked?
Alex, however, seemed to understand instantly that wasn’t what he’d meant. “The metal detectors or the fire drills?”
“All of it. Just school in general,” Wyatt said. “Except wrestling. Wrestling’s good.”
Alex shot Wyatt a genuinely proud grin, his eyes even lighting up with the force of it. “You’re really good at it. Honestly, watching you was a treat.”
Wyatt shrugged again, but it was a lot less defensive this time. “I’m okay.”
“Oh hush,” I said, finally chiming in because my brother needed to stop underestimating himself. “You won tonight. You’re better than okay.”
Alex raised his milkshake. “It was a great finish, man. Respect.”
Wyatt clinked his glass against Alex’s without smiling, but he didn’t shy away from it either. Their second burgers came and disappeared faster than the first, but by the third, Wyatt was talking, opening up to Alex in a way I hadn’t seen him discuss his life with anyone in a pretty long time.
He wasn’t necessarily animated or effusive, but he was answering fully, telling Alex about teachers who didn’t care, chaos with a recent substitute, and about how wrestling was the only thing that made school feel bearable some days.
A decent amount of the information he was sharing was news even to me, but I tried not to let it show. Honestly, I just appreciated that he was sharing it at all—and that he was doing it so earnestly. Alex just listened too, not interrupting or giving advice, but nodding and asking questions that weren’t stupid or invasive.
