Page 114 of Ancient History

“I’m not sure what I did to help besides picking off your top player, but I’ll take praise where I can get it.”

Amos rested his forehead against mine, and for a second, everything around us turned to glorious white noise.

“You know, I suspected there was a connection between you two.” Aguilar poured himself a drink while Clint did us all a favor and loosened his tie. “I remember when I brought Hutch around that first day. There was this feeling in the air.”

From what I remembered, Aguilar was one hundred percent oblivious.

“This tension,” he continued.

“It was a mix of shock, awkwardness, anger, and a splash of sexual tension,” Amos said.

Aguilar turned to Clint. “You know, it was my idea to put them together on caf duty.”

“Where would we be without you?” I asked with a healthy hint of sarcasm.

“I was returning the favor. Did you know Amos helped me and Clint get together?” Aguilar clinked his glass against Amos’s, who blushed.

“I didn’t know you were a matchmaker, Famous Amos.”

“I wasn’t a matchmaker. Clint and Rafael were anonymous pen pals debating whether or not to meet in person, and I gave a very crucial pep talk.”

Aguilar cocked his head. “Which you ended by talking about sticking one of my cacti up your–”

“That was a misunderstanding!” Amos turned a bright red. “I was making a joke. An observation. An observation that was meant as a joke.”

“About fucking a cactus?” I asked.

“The point is, I was happy to help two old men find love.”

Clint brushed a loving hand through his boyfriend’s hair. I hoped Amos and I were that into each other when we hit our forties.

“How’s Terence doing?” Amos asked.

“Fantastic. He’s kicking ass in community college. Ended his first year with all A’s and one B. He’s planning on applying to four-year colleges next year, may even try for Cornell.” Clint and Aguilar beamed like proud surrogate papas. “He’s out with friends tonight. He didn’t want to party with his old teachers, which I get.”

Aguilar turned to his boyfriend, a curious thought forming on his face. “Babe, do you ever notice that Terence makes himself scarce whenever I take out the karaoke machine?”

“What? Really? That’s just a coincidence.” Clint raised his eyebrows as he downed his drink.

Amos and I took our drinks and meandered outside. “Do you want to play cornhole?” he asked.

“You got it.” Cornhole, or bags as I’d heard others call it, was a bean bag tossing game. Players had to toss bean bags onto the opposing team’s board, a slanted wooden slab with a hole, the titular cornhole, in the middle. Extra points were awarded to those who got the bean in the hole. Raleigh and I had been eyeing it since we walked in.

Amos waved me over to the cornhole setup. I curled my arm around his waist like it was a natural reaction.

“It’s you and me versus Raleigh and Everett,” he said while sipping his beer.

“Not by choice.” Everett glared at Raleigh then looked away. “I wanted to do a nerds versus jocks game, but Amos overruled me. Said it was too on the nose.”

“And I wanted to team with Hutch because I wanted to win, but oh well. I guess second place is good enough,” Raleigh said, cocking an eyebrow at Everett.

“Do you ever listen to yourself?” Everett asked his teammate.

“There are clips of me on YouTube, so in theory I could.” Raleigh cheers’d his pint glass at his teammate.

“Can we pause the Civil War for one game?” I asked.

Everett and Raleigh shared one final acrimonious glare, then a begrudging nod.

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