Chapter 79
“Day’s not over, babe,” Scooter pointed out. “Fuck, this is stupid. We could legally be married, and if people say shit, they’re gonna say it. I’d rather piss off a whole bus full of people than upset you. I don’t need to be scared anymore. Who the fuck’s gonna say shit around Jason these days, anyway? I guarantee, he’s no less likely to pick a fight than he was then.” Scooter put his arm around Andy’s shoulders and drew him up against Scooter’s side.
Andy hesitated for a moment, then let himself lean into it. If he felt a twinge of guilt for pushing Scooter, it was all but swallowed by the sense of relief. Stupid, he chided himself, but his emotional state continued to remain largely unaffected by his logical arguments. “Hell, it would probably make Jason’s day to get to tell someone off for being a jackass.”
“Well, when that happens, we can claim it’s a birthday present,” Scooter said. The show ended a few minutes later, and when they got up to dump their trays, Scooter took hold of Andy’s hand, stiffening defiantly for a moment, then relaxing as no one said anything. Kat came up on Andy’s other side and pressed something into Andy’s other hand. When he looked down, he found Kat had put the cherry-stem chain into a ziplock bag. She winked at him before skipping ahead to catch up with Jason. 30
Lolly’s house was an enormous, sprawling Colonial, a fixer-upper that he was perpetually fixing up. He’d knocked out everything that wasn’t a supporting wall on the ground floor to create a huge party space. Three sofas, two televisions (one exclusively for gaming consoles, of which he apparently had them all) and he’d set up several card tables for the party.
Back when Lolly was still sharing a tiny apartment with Lemarr and Justin, they’d kept a barrel of lollipops by the door and Lolly would watch everyone with theirs, selecting the one with the best technique, that Lolly wanted to face-fuck. That had ended the first time Lemarr had taken him in hand, but the lollipop jar was still in place. Scooter dug through them, searching for butterscotch.
Finally! Jeez, who was eating all his favorites? Scooter offered a handful of them to Andy. Kat reached around Andy’s shoulder and grabbed a lemon one, which she proceeded to do obscene things to until Jason was pink in the face.
Andy took a blueberry one and looked from Kat to Scooter with a mischievous smirk, like he was considering following her example. But instead of forcing Scooter to go through the entire evening with a painful and very noticeable stiffie, he decided to behave. Well, mostly. The way the candy turned his tongue bright blue made it even more obvious than usual when he flicked it out to lick his lip. Which he did whenever he caught Scooter staring.
They’d closed the restaurant early Tuesday night and from the way the tension went right out of his shoulders, Scooter was starting to think that was a thing they should do more often. Money was great, but sanity was pretty highly rated, too.
Two games of Settlers of Catan were already in full swing, and Justin Tanaka was laying out curses on Lemarr’s mother for having birthed such a cheating bastard from the armpit of New Jersey. Scooter grinned and took Andy on a turn through the room to introduce him around.
“You’ve already met Lolly, but say hi again, he might have forgotten,” Scooter said. “And this is his boyfriend, Lemarr. Justin, Dizzy, Mike, Bubba, Junior, and Martin. This is my Andy.”
Kat elbowed him in the back. Ow. What the…ow.
Lemarr glanced up from his textiles. “Hello, Andy. There will be a test at the end of the night.”
Andy grinned. “Lemarr. Justin, Dizzy, Bubba, Junior, Mike, and Martin,” he recited, pointing as he went around the room. “Give me a harder one.” Oh, he was in full smartass mode. This was going to be fun.
“Oho, smart guy,” Lemarr said. Then he pointed at everyone again, giving astrological signs. And then did it again in French, because Lemarr was an asshole, like most of Scooter’s friends.
Andy considered Lemarr for a moment, then recited back the signs—offering his own in the mix—and then ended with a brief tirade about how astrological signs were bullshit mumbo-jumbo and no reasonable person would find them remotely useful…also in French. God, that was sexy. Scooter might end up spending the evening with a boner after all.
By the time it was done, Lemarr and not a few of the others had paused in their game to listen, and Dizzy was actually on his feet and applauding. “Oh, well done, very well done, indeed. I tip my hat to you, sir.” Being Dizzy, he actually had a hat, a battered trilby. As soon as he put it on, Scooter was tempted to knock it off; it made him look like a Neckbeard McDudebro.