I get up to use the washroom and, just as I’m about to open up the stall door to come out, I hear a voice that sends shivers up my spine.
“She’s so ridiculously naïve. It’s like she actually thinks Luke can treat her well.”
Jennifer’s voice.
I hear a cackle of a girl next to her. “It’s just a shame. I was hoping to get some tonight. And no one gives it like Luke.”
“So Big Tuna’s not getting any?”
She laughs. “Oh my you crack me up. No. I would never with him.”
“Sasha, you’re a bit of a savage. That’s why I can hang with you.”
So that’s Sasha.
One of the names Jennifer ‘accidentally’ called me at dinner a while back.
“Luke’s date is not hot, and she barely knows how to put makeup on. Not athletic…not tall…just not his usual type. She’s just kind of there. I honestly don’t see what Luke sees in her.”
“I don’t even like Luke and I admit he’s hot. Honestly, it was one of my goals to…”
I can’t help it, I let out a quiet sneeze. It’s enough to let them on that someone else is in the stall.
“Oh…shit, I thought we were alone,” Sasha says, then louder, “Who’s there?”
I make my voice as deep as I’m capable. “It’s Olga.”
“Olga…who?”
I let out a grunt, and I think it scares them off, because next thing I hear is heels on the floor.
I whip out my phone and text Luke.
Skylar: No time to explain. Can you just make sure Jennifer and Sasha are not watching the girls’ bathroom door for the next five minutes?
Luke: Yes
A pang of feeling shifts near my heart as I twist up with emotions.
It’s a little thing, but it’s actually a big thing. I love that Luke doesn’t even need an explanation for what I need, he just says ‘yes’ in two seconds.
I take a deep breath and get out of the stall to wash my hands. I really wish I knew another girl here.
“Well hello there!” Roger says as he opens the door.
“Um…what are you doing in here?”
“What do you mean?” He gives me a strange look, followed by an expression of recognition. “Ohhh. Honey, these are gender neutral bathrooms. Get with the times.”
My eyes are glazed over right now, and I don’t know how to explain what just happened and what it means to me. It’s too small and silly and yet it’s nothing, but it’s everything.
So instead, I just wrap Roger up in a tight hug without saying a word.
“Oh. Oh, it’s hug time,” he says.
He’s silly at first and then he realizes that something just happened.
What’s happening is, my mind is flashing to when I was a little kid and would need rides home from high school. Both my mom and stepdad worked, and cheerleading practice would get out at odd times due to a coach who didn’t plan well.
On a number of occasions, I’d text my stepdad that I needed a ride now, and his inevitable reply would be something like, ‘I thought you said you were getting picked up?’ an hour later.
So I’d be that girl, waiting at practice while everyone else got rides. Of course I turned it into productive time by reading or doing homework.
But my heart spins with a mix of emotions right now as I think about Luke, his apparent reputation with most people, and his willingness to help me with what I need.
You know how they say you can tell so much about a person you can trust with the little things? Well, this is one of those.
I continue holding Roger, who gives the best fucking hugs.
It hits me that Luke is here to help me in whatever I need.
He is, truly, my best friend.
Who I also want to screw.
That, is what’s known as a real relationship.
Not a fake one.
“Thanks, Roger,” I say when I let go.
“Any time.”
I head outside the bathroom, and sure enough, I see Luke telling some story to Jennifer and Sasha, who are facing away from the bathroom. Luke uses big, grand gestures, almost like a magician.
His eyes catch mine momentarily, and goosebumps run over the back of my neck, then he goes back to his story. He really took my text to heart.
I make a beeline for him, my heart thumping like crazy.
I cut in between the two girls when I reach them, and in the middle of his story, I throw my arms around him and kiss him on the lips.
We kiss a few moments, and when he lets me go I say, “Sorry. It seemed like you were in the middle of a story.”
“He was,” Jennifer says.
“I forget what about, though,” Luke says.
The girls stare at me awkwardly now.
Luke slips his hand onto my ass, and slides it down until his big hand is palming my right butt cheek.
My body flushes with heat from tip to toe.
Then someone at a podium cuts in with an announcement that dessert will now be served, and we’ll have a couple of the yearly speeches and variety acts from the fraternity members at this time, an annual tradition.
Everyone goes to sit down, but Luke holds me around the waist for a moment when I try. Leaning down, he brushes his lips against my ear and whispers, “You look hot as fuck tonight. Very bend-over-a-table-able.”
I have to run that word over again in my mind to get it straight.
“Well thank you. You don’t look so bad yourself, handsome.”
“What was going on in the bathroom that you needed me to distract them?”
“I’ll tell you about it later.”
We sit back down at the table, and our servers bring us red wine and chocolate from the fountain as the show starts up. The first is a speech from someone thanking us for being here and reminding us all about the volunteer reading buddies the fraternity has been doing to connect fatherless local girls and boys with positive male role models.
“This is making me reconsider my thoughts about frats,” I say quietly to Luke, who has his hand on my bare thigh.
“Oh? Why’s that? Did you think we were just a bunch of guys who liked to get together and smash beer bongs?”
“Well I still think that. But turns out you guys do some decent stuff too.”
Luke’s gaze is steely. “There’s good and bad frat guys and frats. Just like there’s good and bad men everywhere in the world, and young men who like to drink beer. We’re just a little more organized about it.”
I wrap my hands around his arms and smile.
If you had asked me at the beginning of my college career—hell, even at the beginning of my senior year—if I would have found myself at a fraternity formal? I would have said you’re crazy.
But here I am. And for all the goals I have to join the Peace Corps and help people in the world out there who have problems, I can’t help but get a little choked up when I see a picture of most of the frat guys standing behind their little seven-year-old reading buddies in Santa hats and beards, each kid proudly holding a book out in front of them to go along with giant, toothy grins.
“That’s really cool. Have you guys always had this program?” I ask the table at large.
Ian grins. “No. Luke here started it.”
“You started it?! When?”
His grip on my thigh tightens. He starts to stroke my inner thigh lightly, with just a single finger.