Ezra stared at him. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because if someone even so much as looks at you the wrong way, they’ll have to deal with me.”
Ezra blinked his eyes behind his Sally Jessy glasses in such a way that it made Jake feel as if warmth was being poured into his chest from a faucet. “Y-you really mean that?”
“Of course I do. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
The corners of Ezra’s lips turned up in a little smile. “Yeah. We are.” He began walking up the steps. “Here goes nothing, I guess.”
When they got inside, Jake mixed into the crowd with Ezra behind him. Students were all over the place, in every corner and in every room, drinking from red and blue plastic cups. Someone had drawn a smiley face on another keg with some ketchup. It sat by a cluster of bean bag chairs, which were currently occupied by a few people passing around a bong.
Jake was going to turn to say something to Ezra when a couple of guys he knew came over to say hey and give high-fives. Jake made sure to pull Ezra over and introduce him as one of his friends from the choir.
Greetings were exchanged, and when the other guys walked off, Jake looked at Ezra. “See? I told you. Nobody’s gonna make fun of you.”
Ezra was getting ready to respond when Jake felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to a pair of pink, glossy lips coming toward his face and then planting a wet, beer-laced kiss on his mouth. When the girl pulled away, she purred. “Hey, sexy. Long time no see.”
For a second, Jake was confused, then he remembered he’d hooked up with this girl last semester a couple of times. He was having trouble remembering her name.
“Uh, hi.” He wiped the gloss off his lips. “Listen, um—”
“Jessica!” Another girl came over and grabbed her arm. That’s right. Jessica. Jake remembered now. “Come on. We’re gonna do flip cup.”
Jessica took hold of Jake’s hand, pulling him close to her. “Wanna play with us?”
Jake figured by the gleam in her eye there was a double meaning in there somewhere. “Uh, no.” He took back his hand. “Maybe later.”
She planted another sticky kiss on him, and disappeared into the crowd. Jake turned back to Ezra, wiping off his mouth again.
But Ezra was gone.
Jake’s heart started to pound. He didn’t know where Ezra could have gone. Would he have just left all together? Jake craned his neck looking over heads as he pushed past people, bodies unsteadily moving to the beat of the music. He’d promised Ezra he’d look out for him. He couldn’t do that if he didn’t know where Ezra was.
Jake ran into a few other people he knew as he went from room to room. The more he looked, the more he started to worry. As he walked down a hallway, he spotted a familiar pair of glasses and a mop of black hair, peeking around a closet door.
Jake sighed in a huge relief. He watched Ezra’s head retreat inside as a couple of people walked by and the door closed.
Jake went over and knocked on it. “Can I come in?”
The door opened a crack. Jake went inside and closed it.
It was dark and smelled a little bit like rubber. He could just make out Ezra’s silhouette illuminated by the sliver of light coming through the door.
“What are you doing in here?” Jake asked.
“I dunno.” Ezra sighed.
Jake reached over his head to feel around for a light chain or something. When he found one, he pulled it and the bright, white light made Ezra squint and made Jake see that they were in a coat closet.
“I’m sorry I got distracted,” Jake said. “Did somebody say something to you?”
Ezra shook his head. He leaned against the door frame, looking at his shoes again.
“Then what happened?”
“Nothing.” The toe of his shoe nudged at a rubber boot on the floor. “Just got to thinking.”
“About?”
