Before the eclipse, I was Ryan Abrams: reserved, isolated, clinging to the familiar safety of emotional distance. I would’ve never come to a party at the Hockey House.
After the eclipse, I’m still all of those things, but I’m also the person who held Oliver Jacoby’s hand for three hours and didn’t let go. Who’s here now, present and accounted for.
Amongst friends.
I take a sip of lemonade and let the tart sweetness coat my tongue while a memory surfaces.
Oliver walked me back to my dorm at four in the morning. The campus was deserted, and our footsteps had fallen into sync without either of us trying. At my door, we’d stood facing each other, and the air between us had gone electric with possibility. His eyes had dropped to my mouth for half a second—I didn’t imagine it, IknowI didn’t imagine it—before he’d pulled me into a hug instead. His arms wrapped around me completely, his chin resting on top of my head, and I’d felt his heartbeat against my cheek, quick and insistent, betraying the calm of his exterior.
“Goodnight, Ryan,” he’d murmured into my hair. “Thank you for sharing the moon with me.”
I’d gone inside and sat on my bed for forty-five minutes, staring at the ceiling, feeling the ghost of his arms around me and wondering if this was how it felt when fate nudged you off your charted course and into unplanned waters.
Oliver lobs a beer in Nathan’s direction. His gaze shifts, landing on me, and the corner of his mouth curves upward when he realizes I’ve been watching him.
“Ryan!” he calls out. “Need a refill?”
My cup is still three-quarters full, but I walk over anyway, shaking my head.
“Alright. Then how about you come keep me company?” He gestures to the empty chair beside the drinks table. “Everyone keeps coming by for refills, but nobody stays to chat. I’m lonely over here.”
I settle into the chair and cross my legs at the ankles. The late sun is warm on my face, and from this vantage point, I can see even more of the backyard. Gerard has hauled out the infamous Slip ’N Slide from last semester, and people are gathering around it, no doubt anticipating as much nudity as is tasteful for a day like today.
“This is nice,” I say meaningfully. The warmth of belonging, of being included without condition, is still novel enough to surprise me.
“Yeah?” Oliver settles back in his chair, arms crossed behind his head, and the motion stretches his T-shirt across his chest in a way that I absolutely notice and stare at. “I’m glad you came. I wasn’t sure you would.”
“Jackson drove me. I didn’t have much choice.”
“You always have a choice, Ryan.” His voice is light, but his eyes are serious. “The fact that you chose to be here means something.”
Before I can figure out how to respond to that without my voice cracking, Kyle materializes at the drink table with an emptycup and a demand for more water. Oliver obliges, reaching for the big blue cooler wedged under the table to scoop ice.
His torso disappears behind the table as he digs into the cooler, and his basketball shorts shift downward by a critical inch. And there, in the gap between fabric and skin, unmistakable in its pristine whiteness, is a Fruit of the Loom waistband.
It sits snugly against the small of Oliver’s back, framing the top of what is unambiguously, irrefutably, a pair of white briefs.
Oh my gosh.Oliver Jacoby—hockey captain, team dad, six-foot-two embodiment of athletic confidence—is wearing tighty-whities. My brain performs a hard reboot as every cognitive function I possess grinds to a halt.
“Are you wearing tighty-whities?” The words loudly leave my mouth before any self-preserving synapse can intervene.
Kyle turns his head toward me in a complete imitation of a security camera detecting motion. Oliver jerks upright, scattering ice cubes across the tablecloth. His face floods crimson. His green eyes are the size of dinner plates, and his mouth opens and closes twice without producing sound, which is something I’ve never seen Oliver Jacoby’s mouth do in the entire time I’ve known him.
Kyle’s gaze settles on the damning white elastic peeking above Oliver’s shorts. “I was never here,” he announces before fleeing the scene.
Halfway to the picnic table, he turns back and stares at Oliver with an expression that can only be described as perturbed disbelief.
Oliver turns to face me, his face the color of barbecue sauce. “Okay, soooo, yes. I am—those are—I’m wearing.” He runs a hand through his damp hair, leaving it sticking up at angles that would be comical if I weren’t too stunned. “I bought them at Macy’s. I was there to buy Drew some jeans, and they were right there. I thought, you know, maybe I should—not because of any specific reason, just general curiosity about— check out some alternative undergarment options.”
Oh God. He’s dying.
“And it turns out they’re actually really comfortable? The support is—there’s this pouch thing that—” His hand hovers in midair, making a cupping motion before he realizes what he’s pantomiming and yanks it back like he’s touched a hot stove. “The point is, I tried them, and I liked them enough to buy more from Amazon.”
Our eyes lock in a standoff. The grill hisses nearby. From across the yard, Gerard’s patriotic battle cry echoes over the wet slap of the Slip ’N Slide. The Fourth of July party continues uninterrupted around us, as if Oliver’s underwear revelation isn’t the seismic event it feels like.
“I think that’s fantastic,” I say, breaking the silence.
His eyes widen considerably. “You—what?”
