32
RYAN
The first rule of Fight Club is you don’t talk about Fight Club. The first rule of having your first orgasm with your childhood best friend in a public park and your best friend’s boyfriend finding out about it is apparently the opposite, because Drew Larney has assembled what can only be described as the most dysfunctional intervention team I’ve ever seen.
“BESTIE!” Gerard barrels into my dorm room, somehow managing to hug me, Jackson, Drew, and approximately three pieces of furniture simultaneously. “I brought face masks! And nail polish! And this!” He brandishes a bottle of something pink and sparkling. “It’s non-alcoholic champagne because we’re responsible adults who make good choices!”
“Since when?” Nathan asks, sliding in behind him with a grocery bag that clinks ominously. “Also, I brought the real stuff. For those of us who want to feel something.”
Elliot enters last, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else on the planet. His glasses catch the light as he surveys the pillow arrangement on the floor, the chip bags scattered across Jackson’s bed, and the general disarray that has overtaken our once-organized space.
“This is my nightmare,” he announces flatly.
“That’s the spirit!” Gerard pulls him into a one-armed hug that lifts Elliot’s feet briefly off the ground. “Everyone, get comfortable! We have important matters to discuss!”
The next ten minutes are a blur of activity. Pillows are claimed, snacks are distributed, and someone—I suspect Gerard—has commandeered the small television in the corner and turned it to some channel playing vintage commercials. A woman with impossibly white teeth is extolling the virtues of a toothpaste brand I’ve never heard of.
The room has transformed into something that looks suspiciously like a scene from a movie I’ve never actually watched but have absorbed through cultural osmosis.
“So,” Gerard says, settling cross-legged on the floor, which shouldn’t be possible for someone his size. He’s already applying a green face mask, the paste turning him into a very enthusiastic swamp creature. “Ryan. My bestie. My confidant. My partner in archival crime.”
“Again, we’ve known each other for one semester.”
“Irrelevant. Tell us everything about Oliver.”
My face heats immediately. “There’s nothing to tell.”
The silence that follows is deafening. Jackson snorts. Drew laughs out loud. Elliot’s eyebrow rises so high it threatens to disappear into his hairline. And Nathan munches on chips.
“Nothing to tell,” Drew repeats, his voice dripping with disbelief. “Right. And Oliver came home with a stain on his shorts because he spilled lemonade.”
“Maybe he did spill lemonade.”
“In the shape of a dick?”
“Drew!” But I’m laughing despite myself, burying my face in my hands.
Drew leans back against Jackson’s bed, a smirk playing at his lips. “Don’t be so ashamed, Ry-guy. I think we’ve all been there.”
“It was clearly a very good time.” Gerard has finished applying his face mask and is now working on Elliot, who sits rigidly butlets it happen anyway. “Which is why we’re here! To discuss! To advise! To live vicariously through your sexual awakening!”
“I’m not having a sexual awakening.”
“Ryan.” Nathan’s voice is gentle, something I’ve never heard from the guy…who I barely even know, might I add.Why is he even here?“You had your first kiss on a Ferris wheel. You went on a romantic picnic. And based on the context clues, you did…something…that resulted in Oliver needing new shorts.”
“We—” I swallow hard, the memory flooding back. Oliver’s weight on top of me. His hips moving against mine. The sounds he made when he?—
“There it is,” Drew says triumphantly. “That’s the face of someone who definitely did more than hold hands.”
“We didn’t have sex,” I clarify quickly. “We…there was friction. And movement. And…”
“Dry humping,” Gerard supplies helpfully. “The technical term is dry humping. Which, for the record, is a perfectly valid form of sexual expression and nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“I’m not embarrassed.”
“Your face is the color of a tomato.”
“That’s just my natural complexion.”
