I fold them neatly. Then I reopen my underwear drawer and survey the landscape: boxer briefs in various colors, stacked on the left; jockstraps for game days, on the right; a couple of compression shorts wedged in the back.
The white briefs go underneath everything, hidden beneath layers of perfectly acceptable, socially uncomplicated underwear. If anyone ever goes through my dresser—which, living in the Hockey House, is not outside the realm of possibility—they’ll have their work cut out for them, finding the contraband.
I close the drawer and step back, wiping my palms on my shorts. One day, I’ll try them on and see what the fuss is about. But today is not that day. Today, I am a man who purchased tighty-whities and put them away like a rational adult, and that’s where this story ends.
I go downstairs and eat a sandwich. I spend twenty minutes watching a documentary about deep-sea creatures that someone left paused on the living room TV. I bring Drew his jeans, and he grunts a “Thank you” without looking up from whatever he’s reading on his phone. I head back to my room and sit on my bed. I check my emails and respond to a text from Mom about whether I’m eating enough vegetables.
My eyes drift to the dresser.
No.
I refuse to acknowledge the dresser’s presence, even as it looms in my peripheral vision, a wooden monument to my indecision.
I open Instagram, scrolling mindlessly through my friends’ posts. A picture of Mason wearing new sunglasses. Alex’s latte art, taken by Kyle, of course. A video of Jackson failing spectacularly at a backflip.
The dresser continues to exist.
“This is stupid,” I announce to my empty room before crossing the floor in three steps, yanking open the drawer, and digging past the boxer briefs and jockstraps like a man searching for buried treasure.
My shorts slide down my legs. The boxer briefs follow, landing in a heap at my ankles. Cool air kisses my bare skin as I balance on one foot, then the other, stepping into the leg holes of the white briefs. The cotton glides up my calves, over my knees, and as I pull them into place with a gentle snap of elastic against my hipbones, my breath catches in my throat.
“Oh,” I breathe, eyebrows shooting into my hairline.
The first thing I register after years of boxer briefs hugging my thighs is the sudden freedom. The waistband sits higher than I’m used to, right at my natural waist, and the elastic is snug without digging in. The pouch cups my junk with a gentle firmness that feels less like containment and more like…support. The kind that saysI’ve got you, go about your dayinstead of the boxer brief equivalent of a loose suggestion.
The mirror on the back of my door doesn’t lie. I look fucking damn good.
I turn sideways. The mirror reveals a perfect half-moon curve where the white cotton hugs every inch without a single wrinkle or fold. No bunched fabric between the cheeks, no extra material sagging at the thighs.
“Huh.”
I’m at my desk in four strides. The laptop screen flickers to life, illuminating my face in the dim room. My fingers tap-dance across the keyboard: men’s white briefs. The Amazon search results load—there they are. Hanes. Fruit of the Loom. Calvin Klein. I click the first option, scroll past the reviews (4.5 stars, 3,782 ratings), and hover over the dropdown menu. Small? Medium? Large? XL? XXL? My finger trembles slightly before selecting my size. The “Add to Cart” button turns orange beneath my cursor.
This is no longer an experiment. This is a conversion, and I feel absolutely zero regret.
Delivery estimate: two days. I’ll need to intercept the package before anyone else sees it, because the last thing I need is Drew examining my mail and discovering my underwear evolution.
I sit down in my desk chair and stare at the order confirmation on my screen.
Nobody will ever know…except maybe Ryan.
24
RYAN
From my post on the back porch, I sip lemonade from a red Solo cup and take in the Fourth of July chaos spreading across the lawn.
The streamers sag in the humid air, bleeding red, white, and blue onto the lawn below. They stretch from the peeling paint of the back porch all the way to the old oak, where someone has hammered in thumbtacks that will make the groundskeeper curse next week.
A flag flaps against my shoulder as I move—they’re everywhere, sticking out of cup holders, taped to table edges, pinned under cooler lids. One even waves from the chimney, the pole secured with what must be an entire roll of silver duct tape.
In the yard, Gerard stands back, tilting his head at the lawn chairs he’s spent twenty minutes arranging. “It’s a star,” he announces, though what I see is more of a child’s crude idea of a star.
Drew stands with his legs planted wide at the barbecue, smoke rising around him. Grease pops and sizzles as he flips a burger, revealing the perfect crosshatch of grill marks underneath. The air fills with the sharp tang of barbecue sauce hitting hot metal, mingling with the sweet char of caramelizing meat. Hisfitted T-shirt clings to his back, darkened with sweat between his shoulder blades, and a constellation of tiny orange dots speckles his chest. The tongs spin between his fingers—once, twice—before he reaches for the next piece of meat.
Jackson is supposed to be assisting. Instead, he’s sidled up behind Drew, his fingers hooked in the waistband of his own shorts, inching them down with exaggerated slowness while waggling his eyebrows at everyone who passes by.
I find Oliver stationed at the drinks table. It’s nothing more than a folding table draped in a star-spangled tablecloth, crowded with coolers and bottles and stacks of Solo cups. He’s been playing bartender with the same easy warmth he brings to everything. His basketball shorts hang low on his hips, his gray T-shirt stretches across his shoulders, and his dark hair is slightly damp from the heat, curling at the temples in a way that my fingers itch to fix.
