Chapter Six
“So what did he do now?” Yulia had managed to snag their usual spot in the student union coffee shop, even though they were meeting up way earlier than they usually did. She was sitting there, staring at her phone, scarcely bothering to glance up as Marsh approached.
“Nice to see you, too,” he mumbled as he tossed his bag down on the table and sank into the chair across from her.
She looked at him, entirely unimpressed, then lifted her phone and shook it side to side. “You texted me at eight in the morning. Eight. I didn’t know you even knew that hour existed.”
“Of course I do. I hear about it all the time.” Forget that he had to be up well before it during baseball season, as often as not.
She had a point, regardless. He didn’t see it all that often during the fall semester. This morning, though… Something inside him squeezed down hard. He’d spent the whole night watching the clock tick over, had seen every hour pass as he’d sat there in the dark with Greg asleep in his lap. Running his fingers through soft brown hair and trying to remember to breathe past the swell of affection and dread in his chest.
Greg had asked him to stay. Greg had invited him in and let him sit beside him, had told him about his family, and drawn words out of him he hardly shared with anyone, and it had felt so good and so fragile. Even now, he felt like that moment—like he might shatter as easily as so much glass.
And he was even shakier because he’d pressed his advantage and taken what was offered. Greg had only asked him to stay for a little while, but Marsh had remained well past that invitation. He’d finally dragged himself away when the sky started to lighten. He’d gotten an hour or two of sleep in his own cold bed, and then he’d been up, catching the early bus to campus and texting Yulia just for something to do before he went out of his skull.
God, he was tired.
“Is that for me?” he asked, pointing at the second cup of coffee beside her elbow.
She pushed it toward him, and he accepted it gratefully. He’d barely kept his eyes open through his Mideast seminar that morning, and he still had two more classes to make it through before he could head back to the house and crash for a couple of hours before heading to the gym. It didn’t strike him often, but damn he missed living in the dorms sometimes. The food sucked and the public showers weren’t awesome, but the ten-minute walk to a bed came in handy sometimes.
As did all the alternate exits you could use to avoid running into any brilliant, gorgeous, confusing men you happened to be sleeping with.
Pulling his coffee closer, he popped the lid and blew across the surface of the liquid. With his first slow, leisurely sip, he started counting seconds in his head, suppressing his smirk as he gazed at a point just over Yulia’s shoulder.
Apparently she was feeling generous today. She gave him a whole minute to enjoy his caffeine in peace before she was drumming her fingers on the table. Setting her elbows on the edge, she leaned forward, eyebrows raised with impatience. “You never answered my question.”
Marsh sighed. “What makes you think he did something?”
Her cutting gaze told him all he needed to know about what she thought of his attempts to put her off.
“Ugh.” He put his coffee down with a sharp sound and leaned back in his chair, reaching up to tug his hair before dropping his hand in his lap. “Nothing. Just—I went to go see him last night, because…”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t need to know about your sex drive.”
Right. “But he was, um. He…shit, this sounds so cliché. He had a headache.” Only not just a headache. Even in the dimness Greg had been so pale, so obviously hurting and vulnerable, and Marsh had been sure Greg’d tell him to fuck off.
“Wait, he didn’t want to have sex? That’s what’s got your panties all in a twist?”
“No. Well, yeah, but. He wanted to hang out anyway.”
And Yulia’s face got just this little bit of softness to it, and wasn’t that the thing about having a friend you’d known that long, one who knew you that well?
“He just wanted to talk,” Marsh said. He’d wanted to talk, and for Marsh to sit close and run his fingers through his hair. He’d relaxed into that touch, and all the tender parts in Marsh had just about cracked open.
Yulia waited a beat, and then another. Then she was shifting forward, and her hand was small and soft when it rested over his. “Marsh. People enjoy your company for more than just sex.” At his scoff, her expression hardened again. “I enjoy your company for more than just sex.”
“You didn’t used to.”
“I always did, you asshole.” She rubbed her thumb across his knuckles, her gaze gentle. “And I’m not the only one.”
There was something about the way she said it that made him ache, made all the twisted-up feelings he was still holding on to from last night more impossible to breathe around.
He had to look away, down at the curl of her fingers against his wrist. “He’s so smart. And so hot, and he just wanted to talk.”
“And I’ll never understand why that kind of thing surprises you so much.”
He closed his eyes. “I told him about what happened, this summer.”
It was subtle, the way her breath stuttered. “And?”
And he’d put his hand over Marsh’s and just
held
it. “He was really nice about it.” Marsh could have choked on the memory. “And then he fell asleep with his head in my lap.”
Yulia squeezed his fingers even harder, and Marsh jerked his gaze from that middle distance he’d been staring into. God, what his face must look like. He felt warm and soft, and Yulia was never going to let him live this down.
“I mean,” he started, but she shook her head.
“I know what you mean.” She held his gaze for a long, long minute. Because she did know. She knew exactly what that kind of trust would mean to him, how it would rock him.
He cleared his throat, and she pulled her hand away. They each took a sip of coffee.
“So.” Her tone was all different, the moment broken. Marsh could have kissed her for letting it drop so easily. “You have my notes for Muller’s class?”
Marsh let out a shaky breath, edged with just a shadow of a laugh, and he nodded. He shoved his bag around so she could reach the zipper. “Green binder.”
While she scooted over to sit in the chair beside his and started rifling through his things, he dug his phone out of his pocket and skimmed through Facebook. “Hey, did you see Ben posted—”
But Yulia had gone unnaturally still next to him. He glanced up, his smile sliding off his face when he saw what she was holding. Because. Fuck.
“What the hell is this?” she asked.
“Nothing.” He reached over to swipe the yellow piece of paper from her hand. She yanked it away before he could reach, but he had the longer arms, damn it, and with another lunge he had it in his fist. He folded the thing up and jammed it in his pocket.
“No. No,” she said, “you do not get to ‘nothing’ me about this.” She jabbed her finger into his chest. He swatted her away, but she just grabbed his wrist and twisted, and
ow
. “Marshall Sulkowski.”
Prying her fingers off, he tore his arm free, and sat back, annoyed. “It’s none of your business, and I’m handling it.”
“That’s what you said last time.”
“I’ll call tomorrow. It’s just a misunderstanding or something. Crossed wires.” Even he didn’t believe that lie.
“That bill was due a month ago.”
“You think I don’t know that?” he snapped, and crap, that was too loud. He cast a look over his shoulder to see eyes darting away from him, then lowered his voice as he faced her again. “Look, I just have to call home sometime when Dad isn’t there, and I’m sure…”
“Marsh…” There was a different note to her voice this time. She didn’t believe it either.
“I said I’m handling it.”
“And what if handling it doesn’t work?”
He stopped cold, because he’d been asking himself that every day for a month now. The fight went out of him, and he buried his face in his hands. “I’ll figure something out.”
Or he wouldn’t. How many times had his old man told him he wasn’t college material, anyway? He was struggling in all his classes. Maybe this was just the sign he needed to prove he’d been fooling himself all along.
Out of nowhere, Yulia leaned up out of her seat and flicked his temple with her finger. He jerked back, grabbing for her hand. “What was that for?”
“What was that stupid self-defeating look on your face for?” she asked, all fire, and she was darting in to flick him or pinch him again.
And he was laughing. “What?”
“You heard me—” She stopped on an inhalation, and he got around her defenses to tweak her side in retaliation, but she didn’t react except to brush him away. She was looking up, past his shoulder at…Greg.
For a second, Marsh just about lit up, because Greg was standing there, and Marsh hadn’t expected to get to see him until tonight. It didn’t matter how confused he was. He was getting to see Greg early, and this was Greg coming up to Marsh instead of the other way around, and that had to be good, right? Marsh’s lips twitched up toward a grin, and he was going to ask if Greg was feeling better, if he had slept all right after the meds had kicked in.
Only, Greg’s jaw was stiff, his lips thin. Marsh followed his gaze, flipping things around to see them from Greg’s point of view, and the back of his neck went cold. Crap. It struck him all at once, just how compromising this had to look, him and Yulia sitting so close, grabbing at each other and practically wrestling. The happy little ball of excitement at getting to see Greg turned to ice, and he scooted his chair back, but from the way Greg was looking between the two of them, it was too late.
The ice melted and burned its way to rage, because, really? How unfair was that? How completely, totally, fucking ridiculously not okay was it for Greg to be
looking
at Marsh like that, like he’d…violated some trust or something? How could he, when he’d been the one to say they should keep this casual?
Marsh steeled himself and flicked his hair off his brow, tilting his chin up. “Greg. Hi.”
“Hello, Marsh.” Greg’s expression didn’t flicker, didn’t change in the least, everything about it a mask.
“What are you—”
Greg gestured toward the counter, his hand wrapped around a cup of coffee, and Marsh felt like a dumbass for even starting to ask. Greg pretty much lived on coffee. Of course he’d show up at the only place on campus that knew how to make a halfway decent cup.
Marsh’s stomach sank a little further. Greg had already gotten through the line, so who knew how long he’d been standing there. Marsh hadn’t noticed him, but he hadn’t been noticing much.
What he did notice was the way Greg flicked his gaze toward Yulia again—Yulia, who for once was keeping quiet. Yulia who was sizing Greg up like she was envisioning performing an autopsy on him.
Right. Because she was already convinced that Greg was taking advantage of Marsh, and now this stony performance. Marsh wanted to thump his head against the tabletop. How did he get himself into situations like this?
Saying
fuck it
in his own head, Marsh pointed from one of them to the other. “Greg, Yulia. Yulia, Greg.” He didn’t bother prefacing either name with an explanation—it was too complicated and he’d only get himself in more trouble if he tried.
Greg nodded perfunctorily, and Yulia’s eye twitched. “Nice to meet you,” Greg offered, and wow. He wasn’t even trying to lie well.
“And you.”
Well, at least Greg had tried a little harder than Yulia had.
Marsh somehow managed to resist the urge to kick Yulia or to reach out toward Greg, to touch the bone of his wrist and stroke the tender spot between forefinger and thumb. To knead a little of that tension out so maybe the lines around Greg’s eyes would ease.
Greg’s gaze was really on Yulia, but he angled himself toward Marsh. “Well. I’m heading back.” His eyes shifted to the side, and he met Marsh’s gaze. “Will you be at the house tonight? Or do you have…other plans?”
“I’ll—” Marsh faltered for a second. Of course he’d be going home. He wanted to go home right now, but he had classes he had to get through. And apparently when he did get home, he was going to have a whole different kind of headache to deal with, versus the one he’d nursed Greg through the previous night. Just the thought of that made his fingers twitch and his heart clench. “Yeah. I’ll be home.”
“I’ll see you then, I suppose.”
“I suppose so.” And it hardly mattered that Greg looked like he wanted to crush the cup in his hand or that Marsh was as turned around as he could remember being, because beneath the annoyance, there was heat in Greg’s gaze.
Marsh sat up straighter as his body registered the promise behind the threat. If the way Greg’s eyes darted down, toward Marsh’s mouth, was any sign, he heard the promise just as clearly.
Greg’s hand lifted just an inch, but then he was curling it up and dropping it back to his side. He shook his head, then turned to Yulia. “Yulia,” Greg said, nodding toward her.
“Greg.”
One more nod at Marsh and a look that lingered, practically crackling with heat, and then Greg was pivoting neatly and walking away. All the air left Marsh’s chest in a rush. As soon as Greg passed through the doors, Marsh gave in to the impulse and let his head fall forward until his brow made a satisfying
thunk
against the tabletop.