After “Thank you, Mr. Magnusson, for your immeasurable wit and wisdom. I hope I learn what half of it means someday,” Charlie paused, like he’d lost his train of thought.
“Finally,” Luke tried to prompt him from afar, “a huge thank-you to my fellow graduates, for letting me spend the last four years with the likes of you…”
Charlie glanced up and scanned the audience before continuing. “Thank you, to that person”—he smiled—“who has been with me since before I can even remember. Your endless support and eye rolls mean more to me than I can say, and I consider myself so lucky to know you.”
When he moved on to the address’s final remarks, I felt eyes…lotsof eyes, but I knew they weren’t focused on me. “Did you hear that?” I asked Luke.
“Yes.” He nodded, unable to suppress a smile as he folded his arms over his chest. “And it was not in the original version.”
The grove was a CFS afterward (Luke-speak for “Clusterfuck Situation”). I kept ahold of Luke as I basically elbowed my way through the madness, scouting out the flock. People were laughing and taking pictures, and some called my name, but I only slowed down when I heard Nick’s voice.
“Morgan!”
He was by the grove’s ivy-covered brick wall, waving some celebratory cigars and holding the gold Prescott Cup, the award for best senior athlete, like it was the Stanley Cup. And the next thing Iknew, I’d dropped Luke’s hand and was flying into Nick’s arms. He laughed and spun me around. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered after, tugging on my ponytail.
I grinned and reached to straighten his tie. “You’re beautiful too.”
Jack and Reese found us a few minutes later, and so did the others. The cigars were a Bexley tradition dating back to when the school was all-guys, but I lit up along with the rest of them. “Oh, Sage.” Reese sighed and shook her head.
“What?” I said, feeling Nick start playing with my hair again. “I’ve earned this cigar fair and square!” I took another puff and looked at Luke. “Where’s Charming?”
Because Charlie had yet to make his appearance.
“Probably big-shotting,” Luke said, at the same time we heard, “Relax guys, the traffic’s been heavy.”
Charlie brushed past me and went to slip an arm around Luke’s shoulders. Totally grinning, Luke leaned into him and reached up to entwine their fingers. I laughed and told Nina to snap a picture.The stance, the girls and I called it, since Luke and Charlie stood like this all the time.
“Here’s proof!” Reese had said the other day, when we were sifting through prom photos. There was one of the boys in their tuxes, out on the balcony: a perfect shot. Twinkly lights were strung around the riverboat’s railing and an American flag waved in the background. Neither of them was looking at the camera; Charlie had an arm hooked around Luke’s neck and was busy whispering in his boyfriend’s ear, while Luke was smiling at the ground. (“What was he saying?” I’d asked later, but Luke just shrugged and said, “That’s classified.”)
“You went off-script,” Luke said once Nina had moved on to paparazzi-ing Reese and Jack, who were recently named Bexley’s cutest couple. Every time I saw Charlie sign anAnnualthis week, the first thing he did was flip to the superlative spread and scribble out theBon his and Luke’s, so that it now read BEST ROMANCE.
Charlie laughed. “I thought it was pretty subtle.”
Luke shook his head. “Not that subtle.”
And I did a double take when Charlie kissed him. They never kissed in public; it was a lot of walking really close together at first, which morphed into hand-holding, and now, the stance.
“Okay, Chluke, break it up,” Paddy said as Nick whistled, coming up to us with his own cigar in hand.Chlukewas his nickname for the boys. Luke claimed he hated it, but Charlie’s face rivaled the sun whenever Paddy said it, eyes crinkling so hard.
“Clarke.” Charlie saluted him, hand then finding Luke’s again.
Paddy saluted him back. He’d already unknotted his tie, and his black eye was long gone now. Back in February, Charlie hadn’t made an announcement or anything; he just gave Luke his hockey jacket to wear and let people put it together themselves. There was no true shitstorm. No one really said anything, and I wasn’t surprised…because no one went up against Charlie Carmichael. But Paddy had intercepted us in the library that first day, prepping for midterms. Chluke and I were holding down a study room, while Nick was outside paying for our Chinese takeout. “Well, I guess this makes sense.” Paddy smirked and gestured to Charlie fiddling with Luke’s fingers. “Considering you’ve run out of girls, Carmichael…”
Then Charlie had stood and literally dragged Paddy out of theroom and into the stacks nearby. He came back about a minute later, right hand shaking. “Ice,” he told us. “I’m going to find some ice.”
They were good from then on, and Paddy had since joked about officiating Luke and Charlie’s wedding someday.
Reese called for a flock group photo before everyone scattered to locate their parents and migrate over to The Meadow for the graduation luncheon (allegedly when Bexley brought out the good food). “Squad picture,” Nick declared later, after we’d tracked down our own families. Because within the flock, there was nowthe squad, the four of us. Charlie and Luke and Nick and Sage.
“I’m going to seriously miss you,” I whispered to Luke once we had our arms around one another. “July’s so far away.”
“I already have a countdown going,” he whispered back, and I smiled. This summer we were going to spend three weeks on the Vineyard with the Carmichaels. “It’s going to be epic,” Nick kept telling Luke. “You haven’t lived until you’ve gone night kayaking.”
At the thought, I quickly turned and kissed Nick’s cheek before the flash went off. “Nicky, over here!” Mrs. Carmichael called out after a few clicks. “Look at the camera!”
Everyone laughed, but my heart rippled.
Because I could feel him looking at me.
