“Why the hell would he be jealous of Nate when he thinks Aly and I are dating?”
“Wait, you and Aly are dating? Since when? How did I not know about this?” Nate threw me an accusatory look.
“We’re not, but Dawson heavily implied we were…twice.”
I glared at Aly, the judgmental tone in her voice unmistakable. “Look, I’m not proud of lying about it, but I only did it because...”
Their expectant gazes were pinned on me, but I wasn’t sure how to explain why I’d wanted Theo to believe I was taken so he didn’t think I’d just been pining after him for nearly four years while he’d clearly been off screwing anyone he wanted andignoring my existence. I didn’t want to come across jealous and petty.
Even though I was. Hard core. Like an asshole.
“It was because...we—I mean, he…that is…”
“I’d like to buy a vowel please, Vanna,” Micah muttered when I failed to string together a coherent sentence.
I growled in frustration. “Yeah, no. I’m not talking about this. Thought I could, but I can’t. Experiment over.”
“You sure do like to experiment a lot, huh?” Fin mumbled and I could hear the amusement in his voice. I glared at him as he scrambled to shovel a forkful of pancakes into his mouth, peering at me innocently.
“You can’t give us anything? I mean, you kind of left us on a cliffhanger there, D,” Nate remarked through a mouthful of food.
“Fine, whatever. Theo and I used to be a thing. We were together for a long time and then he left without a word our senior year and yeah, it majorly sucked. I hadn’t heard from him since, but he recently moved back and it’s fucking with me a bit because I didn’t think I’d ever see him again. Now he’s being all cagey and weird, so there’s no chance in hell of us ever getting back together. I just want to forget about everything and move on with my life. Can we please drop it now?”
My confession sucked the oxygen straight from the room. I concentrated on scarfing down my unfortunately cold breakfast instead of entertaining any other questions from them. I had no more mental or emotional bandwidth, so I was determined to move on from the subject of my pitiful love life.
“Dawson?…”
“Please don’t ask me anything else about it. It’s…a lot,” I pleaded gently.
“Why can’t any of us go one semester without drama in our love lives? Honestly, it’s becoming a concerning pattern,” Micah sighed loudly.
“Because life sucks ass sometimes,” Cal grunted in agreement.
“That is a truly terrible saying,” Fin retorted. “Half of the people at this table know the joy of sucking ass. It’s like in the top ten things to try in life. Hardly a negative.”
“Micah sure is a big fan,” Bash chuckled before his boyfriend thwacked him hard on the shoulder.
“Even I’m not opposed to it from time to time,” Aly weighed in.
Nate’s eyes seemed to dislodge from his skull. “Wait, chicks like that too? Like, it’s the same feeling for you…back there?”
“Uhh, yeah? Why wouldn’t it be? My ass is just like yours.”
“This is the weirdest fucking breakfast I’ve ever had,” Kenji muttered.
“You know, we can just stop talking about?—”
“Maybe life’s just really bad at sucking ass?” Nate cut me off. “That seems more accurate, though I wouldn’t personally know. I’m assuming there’s a wrong way to do it, right?”
“Well, wrong is a bad word for it. It does take a certain finesse to do it properly, and sometimes if they?—”
“For fuck’s sake, please don’t finish that thought, Fin. I’m eating,” Aly whined.
“Well, excuse me sassy pants, but you jumped into this first!”
“Anyway, don’t lose faith, D-man,” Nate smiled, ignoring Fin and Aly. “Things will work out with Theo the way they’re meant to, maybe even better than you’re expecting.”
“Thanks, man.” I couldn’t hate his endless optimism, even if I disagreed with him. I wasn’t sure there was anything for Theo and I to work out anymore, no matter how much I had wanted it to.
